our first photo booth

At church on Mother's Day they had a few photobooths set up for mom's to get a picture with their kids. I loved this idea so much... Just that week I had received an email that the church was looking for pictures of mom's and our kids for a slideshow they were putting together for worship and I didn't send one in because it has been so long since Ivar and I have taken a picture together...just the two of us. So this was a gift!

A photobooth with a one year old is hysterical. As you can see, he never took his concerned eyes off of the camera. He wasn't really into making specific faces (silly, serious, tongues out, smiling) with me for each frame. Which made me laugh. 

I love these shots. We'll be utilizing more photobooths in our future! 

babymoon

I wrote last week about how it dawned on me that if we are going to go anywhere before baby #2 arrives, we had better hit the road. And looking at our calendar for the weeks ahead, it became quite obvious that we needed to sneak in this trip as soon as possible.

Within 12 hours I had booked our favorite place on the North Shore and pulled some pretty mighty last minute favors for Ivar-care with grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles. It was amazing that it all worked out and made the whole getaway that much more charged with excitement.

I've written about our love of Lake Superior before...if you're looking for a fantastic vacation destination check out the posts I've written...this one on my personal north shore favorites here, why this place is so restful for me here and a lovely picture slide show from our trip a few years ago, here.

The new highlight for us this trip was our discovery of The Rustic Inn (or Rustic Cafe?) in Castle Danger. Looks like a ma and pa restaurant right on hwy 61, and blows you away with gourmet. It was one of those meals that we ate while talking about the food we were eating, unable to stop raving over each thing on our plate.

And as every getaway always proves to be, our time together was restorative, necessary and so good.

could I love him any more?

Nope. My heart is overflowing for this kid. This is his smile when we ask him to say, "cheese!"

Bapa!

On Sunday Shepherd of the Valley had the annual petting zoo raising money for Heifer International. During the service my dad was leading the liturgy in the sanctuary that seats 900. We were in the third to last row and every single time my dad stood up to speak, Ivar would swivel his neck, get to standing position on my lap, point excitedly and yell at the top of his lungs, "Bapa! Bapa!"  It was hysterical. And loud. And it meant we had to keep leaving the service. But Ivar was thrilled to see his Bapa and wanted to make certain that none of us missed the fact that it was his Bapa up in front.

summer is on its way

I don't know what it was about Monday morning, but the sky seemed more blue, the sun seemed brighter and even though it was still sweatshirt weather, I felt my first taste of summer bliss. We took a family walk to Lake Harriet and it dawned on me that if we are going to go anywhere this summer, we had better squeeze in our trips before the doctors say I can't go anywhere before delivering baby #2.

So I've been in summer road trip planning mode this week. They have to be short trips, they have to be fairly close to the cities and they have to be relatively inexpensive. Any suggestions? Favorite small towns? Favorite state parks? Favorite one or two night destinations?