Saturday in the city...

I've been missing the city.

So, last weekend we decided to spend a day in Minneapolis going to the farmers market, and hanging out in Uptown (while the rain held off).

We spent most of our morning in one of my favorite uptown tea shops...

...smelling canisters of loose tea for what seemed like an hour (they had too many to choose from) before finding the perfect blend.

When the rain came in the afternoon we headed to Bloomington for sushi at Crave.

Yum!

Since we were already there we couldn't resist a few rides at Nickelodeon Universe...

...and face painting



(he sat so still the whole time).

We even got to hang out with some of our favorites:

Check out Spiderman's sweet skills.

He was pretty busy webbing random people he passed all day (including sound effects).  Ha!

I love my little super hero!

Busy...

I can sum up our life right now in one word:

Busy.

Blair is working like crazy lately. He has been putting in 10-14 hour days every day at work.  This would make most people unhappy, but not Blair.  He loves to work!  He also loves what he does.  The only problem with the construction industry is the slow time in the winter.  I guess hes making up for it now.

With Blair working so much it means that my life is a little more crazy too.  With working a full time job, hauling Blaise to swimming lessons, t-ball, and soccer, taking care of two dogs, a cat, 8 ducklings, and keeping up with the house and yard work you could say that my hands have been pretty full too.

The swimming lessons didn't go so well.  For some reason Blaise just did not want to get in that pool.  He did get in for a little while during his first and second lesson, but jumped out quickly saying that it was too cold.  I felt the water, and I don't blame him, it was freezing.  But you'd think with all of the other kids enduring the cold temperatures he would get in and get used to it.  Not my boy (he's always a challenge).  So I kept taking him for the next few days, but he still wouldn't get in the pool.  At one point they had warmed up the pool, but he still refused to get in.   I can't figure out what the problem was.  He wasn't acting scared.  He was probably just being stubborn.  I wonder who he gets that from... probably both of us.  Needless to say we are no longer going to swimming lessons (its frustrating, but I don't want to push it).  Blaise is going to spend a week with Auntie Marissa and Uncle Doug in July. Since Marissa is a trained life guard and swimming lesson instructor she is going to try some one-on-one lessons (per some great advice from friends). Hopefully he'll ready by then.  I think its important for him to know how to swim and be confident in the water.

Among everything else, Blair and Blaise both had birthdays in the beginning of June (the 8th and 10th).

This year we decided to keep Blaise's birthday pretty low key.  My mom and sister took him to the zoo.

And on the day of his actual birthday I picked Blaise up from daycare a little early so we could go home and get the animal chores done and the plants watered before Blair came home so we  could head to St. Cloud and have dinner and play games at Space Aliens before picking up his new birthday bike.

We found some time for cupcakes too.

I can't believe my baby is 4!

Somehow I managed to make sure that Blair had a special birthday too (its always hard because their birthdays are only 2 days apart).

I threw a BBQ party

and

He got this...

So now we spend our evenings like this...

And we are loving it.

Just getting started...

We have already been so busy and summer is just getting started.

Sadly, Blair's grandfather passed away the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, so we got to spend some time in Minot, N.D..  Even though it was a sad occasion it was great to spend time with all of Blair's family.

Rest In Peace Roger.

 We got to hang out with our favorite little girls:

Ryen...

...and Samari

Blaise loves spending time with his cousins, and talks about them all the time.  They are the most special, smart, and beautiful girls I know!  We love them very much! 

We are so excited they will be coming to spend some time with us in Minnesota this summer.

The day after we got back from Minot my sister came for a visit.  I love spending time with her, and don't get to do it often enough. 

She made this cute cookie cake for Blaise so we could have an early birthday party on Friday!

It was so good, he couldn't even wait for her to cut it before he had to dig in!

His favorite part was the gummy worms and frogs (imagine that).

On Saturday we spent the morning at the swappers market in Annandale with my mom.

I bought so many plants for new landscaping around our home.

After that the two of us got to spend some time together in St. Cloud dining and picking out lighting for her house and more plants for mine.  We love going out to eat when its just us...  It means we get to have sushi!

We spent almost the whole day Sunday gardening at my house.

Marissa deserves most of the credit.

Thank you for sharing all of your knowledge and creativity with me!

Blaise had a busy weekend too.

Playing with sparklers.

Collecting toads...

...tree frogs...

...and making auntie uncomfortable with them.