Vegas!!!

Well we leave for our big trip to Vegas tomorrow! Our flight takes off at 2:40 p.m. from Des Moines and then it's non-stop to Sin City! We are meeting my mom in Stuart tomorrow to drop B-boy off to them...we will miss him but know that he will have so much fun and get so spoiled while we're gone. He will go to Nana and Papa's on Saturday and they will then have him until we get home on Monday! We've had him stay over at each grandparent's house for 1-2 nights but this time we'll be away from him for 4 nights...and he's on the verge of crawling, I just know he'll crawl for them and we'll miss it. :-(
Andy and I are glad to get away for a little vacation and we know that in the long run this is good for us and for Brady.
Well, we'll see you when we get back from Vegas...that is unless we win big and then I'll pay someone to update this blog! ha ha!

Birthday Weekend!

We had a great weekend! On Saturday I met my friend Mollie for an 18 mile run for our Chicago Marathon training. We had a great run and the weather was perfect...hopefully we get that lucky on race day! Then that afternoon our friends Sunita, Aaron and Caden stopped by to visit as they were on their way up to Ogden for a wedding reception. It was good to catch up with them and we're so anxious for Caden to be a big brother to their new little boy that will be arriving in October! Then Andy, Brady and I met our great friends the Waters (Jon, Jenn, Jackson & Joel), the Dillingers (Travis, Ashley and Tessa) and the Fuhrmans (Bryce, Meggie and Luke) at Legends in Pleasant Hill for a little pre-birthday dinner celebration to mark me turning the big 3-0...yikes! Andy (with some help from Ashley) decorated our reserved tables with 2 beautiful bouquets of yellow and red roses and some balloons! It was a great dinner but I also think the restaurant was ready for our brood to leave! It just gets to crazy with our 5 kids! Ha ha! After dinner everyone came back to our place for some socializing and some great ice cream cake from DQ. Then on Sunday we did some much needed errands to get ready for our Vegas trip! We then headed to West Des Moines to celebrate our nephew Jaxson's 3rd birthday. It's so hard to believe he's 3 already! Time flies! He's getting to be such a big boy and it's been so fun to watch him grow up. Happy Birthday Jaxson!!!

My DQ B-day cake

The girls chatting it up (with a little wine of course!!) And yes, that IS Blues Clues on in the background... Oh how our Saturday nights have changed!!

Nana Kris and Brady at Jaxson's Bday party

The Birthday boy with his cool new Bears Bike!


And the grand finale...his new power wheels Jeep! I can just see Jaxson and Brady riding around in this...trouble!!!

Update time...

I have been a little delinquent updating our blog. Not sure why...oh well! We have been busy with work and getting ready for our trip to Vegas! We leave on Thursday and will get back on Monday. Brady is looking forward to spending time with Grandma and Grandpa Petersen and Nana and Papa Cathcart. We appreciate them watching him too!

Brady is getting his top front two teeth! They have both broken through and it's soo cute to see his toothy smile. He is sooooo close to crawling too. He gets up on all 4's and rocks back and forth. It is hilarious! We were able to capture it on video and I'll try to post to our blog.

Here are some pics!

I can get on my hands and knees...

and rock back and forth

and back and forth...

Playing...he's our Little Panther

Bath Time Fun!

We finally got out Brady's inflatable ducky for his bath time...He loved it! He could really splash around both his legs and arms...although I don't know how long he'll be able to use it, he's getting so big!

'This is fun mommy!!!'

I can really splash around now!

8 Months Old!!!

On August 6th Brady turned 8 months old! Wow! He's getting to be such a big boy! It was hard to get a good picture of him with his card...so we have to settle for 5 so-so pics!

I'd rather eat the card mommy...

Fun with my Grandparents

Brady got to see both sets of grandparents this weekend! On Saturday he got to see Grandma and Grandpa Petersen and got to have lots of fun with Grandpa as they hung out together Saturday night while mommy and daddy went to a wedding. I hear he had lots of fun...something about trying chocolate ice cream?? :-)
Then today we headed back to Ankeny and Papa and Nana came to our house for a barbecue. They were going to bring down the boat but the weather wasn't going to cooperate. Brad and Jaxson came up too and Brady loved watching Jaxson!

I'm a big boy!

With Grandma and Grandpa Petersen

Playing

With Nana and Papa

Wedding Fun!

On Saturday we all headed to my parents as we were going to a wedding in Nebraska and we dropped Brady off at my parents so my dad could watch him while we went to the wedding. We had a great time at the wedding of my friend Mindy and her now hubbie Ryan. I was able to see lots of girlfriends from college. It was great catching up with them!
We drove back to my parents that night as we were going to head up to Ankeny in the morning on Sunday.

Here are some pics from the wedding

The bride and groom making their entrance to the reception

Sunita making her entrance!!!

Abby and me

Girls from my sorority

Abby, Sunita and me

Andy, me, Su and Aaron

Rest of our weekend...

After the Dragon Boat races, we hurried home so we could attend my Farrells completion party. It was a party to celebrate completing the 10-week program. I loved the program which is why I signed on for their maintenance program. This means I'll still be doing my workouts at 4:20 a.m.! Oh well, it's definitely worth it! I had great results but I'm not done yet! My final testing went really well and I was very happy with my results, I just wished I was able to get my mile time under 6 minutes but I ended up at 6:08...I'm close! We had Jen and Jon watch Brady while we went to the party and then hung out with them afterwards. On Sunday we did some cleaning around the house and then went to Mike and Kristen's new home in Norwalk for dinner. It was great seeing them and catching up!

We thought this was too cute...Brady sleeping with his bear and in the corner, butt up! This is how he sleeps most of the time! :-)

Dragon Boat Races

On Saturday I participated in the Dragon Boat Races at Gray's Lake in DSM. I had a team primarily from Wells Fargo (Jack's Gym, that I manage) and also some spouses and friends joined the fun as well. We all had an awesome time! It was the 1st time we had done these races and we ended up with 2nd place...not bad! We also got some news time, they showed the races on Fox 17 and Channel 13. Basically you race other teams in a huge canoe-type dragon boat. We all had such a great time that we all plan to do it again next year!

Our Team 'The Guppy Gang'

The boats

Teams tailgate and taunt each other before/after races...lots of fun!

Our team heading out to the start

The championship round...it was a close race!