Family Re-Onion

It was another weekend of travel for my family. This time we loaded up the family truckster to head to my Great Grandpa Swede's house. He lives down on the Iowa/Minnesota border where people do things a little different. But that's a whole other post. About the re-onion...

Mom and Dad decided the best plan of attack was to leave at nap time. I was having a little trouble falling asleep what with being all excited about the re-onion (NOTE: this will be explained later when I tell you a bout Wuke). I thought putting a blanket over my head would help. Turns out it did and Mom and Dad will never again chastise me for putting myself in such a state of oxygen deprivation.

We got to the re-onion to find all kinds of fun activities taking place. The best activity on Friday was when Great Uncle David got out this HUGE bubble wand. It made bubbles the size of giant pumpkins. Us little kids had all kinds of fun trying to pop them.

This is Wuke. His name is really Luke but as Mom and the other SLPs would say, "He doesn't have his Ls yet." He was big enough to get to try the bubble wand all by himself. He's also the one that coined the phrase re-onion when he told his Grandma Sherry that he didn't want to go to it. I'm glad he changed his mind and I think he was too cuz we all had so much fun. The morning of the re-onion, in fact, he was so excited he couldn't even eat breakfast! (I myself have never been so excited that I would consider missing a meal.)

I also had lots of fun riding around on this toy fire engine. I wonder if that's what it's like for Uncle John? Probably not.

This is my cousin Anders. He lives way far away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He really liked my red car that I brought with.

We did a good job taking turns with it. Anders has a twin brother named Erik, but he must be a bit camera shy because I can't seem to find any pictures of him on my camera.


The big people played lots of bean bag toss. They actually had a whole tournament with double elimination. I don't exactly what that means except that by some twist of fate, the team that Mom and Dad beat in their first game ended up the champions. Does that mean Mom and Dad are even better than the champs?!?!

Here's Grandpa Swede all ready to go riding with Cousin Tony and his biker gang the Dung Rollers from Wyoming.

Here's my Grandma Jan with her siblings and dad (Grandpa Swede if you didn't figure that out.) Front row, left to right: Judy, Marolyn, Grandpa, Carolyn. Back row: Grandma, Harold, Bert, Jolene.

Grandpa's friend Elaine came up from Evansdale to join the festivities. She's a very sweet lady and brought a gift for me. It's a beautiful flannel blanket. I've already used it at bedtime and it's deliciously comfortable! Thanks Elaine!

Nate and I had lots of fun running around playing with Uncle John. We played softball and ran around with squirt guns. What a great time!

It was an exhausting weekend but a superdeduper fun weekend as well. I'll be excited to do it again next year.

I'm off to rest now.

Toodles,

Tater Bug

He Delivered!

My Grandpa Steve's birthday was on June 18th. He said we would have cupcakes to celebrate when he visited back in June. Well, as is usually the case with our family, we got a little busy and the cupcake thing didn't happen. But Grandpa was back last week for a business trip and stopped by my house Thursday morning with CUPCAKES! Nate and I were just finishing breakfast so we got to have a cupcake for dessert. Breakfast dessert! What could be better than that? I think breakfast should always come with dessert, don't you?

Let's just move there.

Well I'm back from the lake vacation and I'm all rested up and I'm ready to make a proposition. Let's just move there. It was so much fun!

Here I am on Day 1, already in my swimsuit and life jacket ready to take on the lake. After getting over the initial trepidation that is.

Mommy and Grandma played in the water with us kids. We played on our various jet ski-like toys, floated on floaty toys, splashed around, and built things in the sand.

I got bored with everyone else so I wandered off to check out the neighbors' dock.

There were two beautiful loons at the lake. They sure sing a pretty song.

Here's Meggie giving me a ride on her and Nate's jet ski. It was kinda fun but kinda not.

Siren has BEAUTIFUL sunsets that we can see from the screened-in front porch.

Things got really interesting on Day 3 when the big jet ski came and Daddy gave me a ride. Whoa. That's a little much for a baby like me.

What I really liked was "The Islander". It was a huge floaty that had a mesh net in the bottom where I could splash around. Very fun stuff.

Megan did some sunbathing on "The Islander".

Vacation's not all fun and games. Sometimes you have to do work like walk Tati, Grandma and Grandpa's dog.

Sometimes when the other kids and adults get busy, I have to find fun by myself. I found a bat and some croquet balls in the garage. I made do entertaining myself.

Every day there was more fun to be had on the beach. We never got tired of digging.

Pause for a (partial) family picture.

And another.

Ah, the good life. Me and my mommy, relaxing on a tube. It's on dry land cuz it got too chilly on Saturday for me to go in the water.

I just wanted to throw this on in because face it, I look very pretty here.

I topped off my weekend with some whip cream. Yep, you're seeing that right-straight out of the can. Hehe!

My weekend in Siren, Wisconsin was great and there are more pictures to see at my flickr site.

I would like to send a shout out to Jim and Lois and thank them for letting our family use their cabin.

Till next time-

Taylor McKenna

New Arrival!!!

I have a huge announcement to make people! Remember back in April when I talked about a new baby coming to our family so we had a baby shower for Aunt Katie? Well, she came into the world yesterday. She was supposed to come in two weeks, when it's August, but I guess she got a bit antsy. Her name is Sibley Mae Oster and she is so beautiful! See for yourself:

Here she is with Neil and Katie, her daddy and mommy. (My uncle and aunt if you didn't figure that out.)

Here she is with her mommy.

Here she is sleeping. I remember those days...so relaxing...

And here she is already making funny faces. Someday I'll teach her the face that I think is really funny. It involves sticking both fingers up my nose. Mom and Dad don't think it's funny but I think it's a hoot.

Well I had a busy weekend in Wisconsin and I'm excited to tell you all about it, but right now I'm a little tired from said weekend and the exciting news about Sibley. So I'll try to post about my vacation tomorrow.

Nighty Night,

TMO

What's your vegetable personality?

I'm a sweet potato, happy, easy-going, fun-loving and sweet. My mom is a cucumber, patient and shy. Find out your vegetable personality here.

Sincerely,
The Sweet Potato

Farewell for a few days.

I'm going on vacation with my family for the rest of the week. Mom, Grandma Jan, Megan, Nate, and I are going to load up Grandma's truck when Meg is done with summer school and head to Siren, Wisconsin where we'll stay at our friends' cabin. Daddy and Grandpa will come join us on Thursday. Aunt Jenni and Uncle John will come on Friday.

I'm really excited and so is Mommy but she's a little concerned about being sans Internet for 96 hours. For those that know her, you know she's a bit of an Internet junkie. But I'm sure she'll do so much relaxing, reading, playing and riding the jet ski that she won't even notice.

I'll catch you up on our adventures on Sunday.

Bon voyage to me!
Taylor

A Howling Good Time

It was another busy summer week at my house. Grandma Jan stopped by on Monday and us grand kids piled on her for some cuddle time. That sentimental moment lasted just that-a moment. Then Mom took this picture:
Sometimes I like to express myself by doing silly things with my clothes. Like turning my bib around backwards which renders it completely useless, but makes me look like a superhero. Sweet. I'll take that trade-off.

This week included five trips to the Splash Pool. Four of them were for swim lessons, one was just for fun. I had SOOOO much fun on the play structure. I could stay up there all day, but Mom and the cousins kept dragging me down to sit in the water. They claimed they were getting cold. I was fine so I'm not sure why there was any kind of problem. Mommy says that's called "egocentrism" and it's alright at my age.

I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine. His name is Birdman. I know I know, he's a bear, so why do I call him Birdman?!?! Well you see, he was a Christmas gift from my Greatuncle Birdman and Greataunt Bonnie so I thought it was only fitting to call him Birdman. Get it? I let him sleep in my bed at night and in exchange, he lets me cuddle him when I'm having a tough time sleeping.

This weekend was Angela and Ray's Daycare camping trip. It was a "howling good time" for all. What I mean by that is that it was WINDY! We were on a group site in a big open field on top of a hill that was like a vortex of swirling wind. But we made the best of it and had a great time with friends. I went to bed a little late-9:00 to be exact. I crashed right away and slept good until 1:00. Then I started crying so Mom and Dad let me get in bed with them. I tried and tried and tried but the wind kept making our tent walls swoosh all over and I just could not sleep. So at 2:00 in the morning, Mom and Dad put on their shoes, wrapped me in a blanket and drove home. Thank goodness the campground is only 15 minutes from our house! I was very flustered on the drive home and didn't even fall asleep despite it being the MIDDLE of the night. I was back to sleep at about 2:45 and slept until almost 10:00 this morning. Mommy and Daddy had to go back to the campground to get our stuff so Grandma Jan flew to the rescue and came to our house to watch me. I helped her and Grandpa Bob do some chores at their house and helped them go grocery shopping. Then I came home and I napped from noon to 3:45. I was back in bed for the night at 6:30. I bet Mommy is worried about what time I'll wake up in the morning. I'm just trying to get back on track is all.

Mommy is pretty disappointed in herself that she didn't raise a better camper, but I'm going to try to get the hang of it.

We got to play at a really cool park at the campground. Here is a picture of Daddy helping me cross the monkey bars.

And here is a picture of Mommy and I coming down a huge tube slide.

We also got to go swimming at the man made swimming pond. What with the wind, none of us kids really lasted that long swimming. Here is a picture of us all lined up on the sidewalk during a safety break.

And here is a picture of me with my buddy Clayton. Note the wind and sunburn on our faces. The entire group was afflicted, parents and kids. An epidemic you could say.

Well, that's all I got for now. Hope you're having as much fun with summer as I am!!!

Peace out!

TaterBug