The Adventures of Dylan (...and the rest of us!): Winding Up Summer!!

I can't believe the summer is over already. Dylan turns 5 months old on Monday and starts daycare as well. (pics and video from that soon!) Here's a recap (along with a ton of pics as always) of the last few weeks!

Nicki officially wrapped up her baby internship. She passed with flying colors!! Grandma Toni came to visit in Nicki's second to last week. Everybody had a great time! Toni of course got Dylan some adorable new outfits. She's going to single handedly keep Dylan one of the best dressed babies around! We all had a great time hanging out (although unfortunately it's not as fun for me since I still have to work). They even went to the park with Andrea and Ella for an extra adventure!

Nothing but smiles in Grandma Toni's arms :)

Grandpa Richard also came to see Dylan for a day. I had to work all day, but got to join them for lunch. Dylan enjoyed getting to hang out and going on a walk.

Nicki's birthday was during the last week of her internship. Luckily for her, she quickly learned that we do birthday weeks in my family so the birthday/farewell celebration lasted all week long! We had a great birthday dinner with all of my family on Monday. As you can see, Nicki isn't only a pro with Dylan but Ella as well. In fact, one of Ella's favorite words to say is Nicki :) Dylan liked helping Nicki open her present and blow out the candle on her cake (no cake for Dylan quite yet...)

What could be a better present than a digital picture frame full of pictures of Dylan??

Nicki's so good, she can easily handle two kiddos!

Nicki's final week / birthday celebration culminated with a trip to the Iowa State Fair. My dad had driven Nicki's car up to DSM earlier in the week so she could ride with Dylan and me. I took Friday off of work and Nicki, Dylan, Ella, Andrea, Vito and I (along with a lot of stuff) piled into the minivan. It was quite a sight to see! The kiddos were great, although we did have a bit of an adventure at the Bethany exit (about 1/2 way in between KC and DSM). We stopped to let Vito out, feed Dylan and get some food for ourselves. Dylan had managed to leak out of his diaper all over himself so we got him cleaned up and into a new outfit. We made his bottle and Nicki fed him. He did a great job eating and burping and we were just about ready to go when he started spitting up. Once again it wasn't a little drooling spit up, it was a fountain of spit up all over Dylan, Nicki and the van. Well, I had only packed one back up outfit in the diaper bag, so we had to get into my bag to get another outfit for Dylan. We also pulled some clothes out for Nicki and cleaned her and the van off the best we could. So after about an hour at the exit, we were off again. The rest of the drive went smoothly and we had a great weekend!

Friday night, JoAnne, Jeremy, Amy and her daughter Aubrey came over to visit us. Dylan loved seeing everybody again and meeting Jeremy for the first time! It was very nice for everybody to come over and see us and we had a great time hanging out!

Saturday morning we got up and headed to the fair. We had an absolute blast! Ella LOVED the cows. In fact, we took a video of Nicki, Ella and I milking a cow and Ella wants to watch it non-stop still. She walks over to my dad's computer, points at it and says Nick and Cow please. It's SO cute! We enjoyed all of the highlights of the fair (a few of the pics are on Nicki's camera, so I'll post more later). We saw the butter cow, the big pig, the big cow and many more animals. As I mentioned above, Nicki and I both milked a cow which was quite amusing for all of us! Dylan and Ella had their first experience with spin art (and made some masterpieces, I might add). We also had a great time in the baby barn which is a barn they have built that houses baby animals that are born during the 2 weeks of the fair. We saw baby cows, goats, chicks, ducks, pigs etc. As you can see, we took a picture of Dylan in front of the pigs wearing what else but overalls and a shirt with a pig on it :) We ate some yummy fair food and headed home for Ella's nap. Saturday afternoon, Sarah came over to visit us. Dylan loved getting to see her again and make funny faces at her.

Saturday night, my dad, Billy, Nicki and I headed back to the fair. Andrea and my mom stayed home with Dylan and Ella so we were kiddo free. We went and saw the main attractions of the fair again and this time went on the big yellow slide (Nicki won the race) and played the squirt gun water game a few times (apparently Nicki is a HUGE carnival game lover!). The final time Billy won and we brought home a purple ape for Ella. We had a great time at the fair. Zach and I always went every year, so I think Nicki enjoyed getting to see what it was all about. And for any of you out there intrigued, you're more than welcome anytime! I think we'll continue to make it a tradition :)

Hanging with Jeremy!

Welcome to the Iowa State Fair!

Little ham in front of the baby pigs!

Spin art masterpieces! I did the paint, Dylan spun it with his foot!

This calf decided Nicki's jeans looked good for lunch!

City girl milking a cow!

Nicki and Dylan in front of the world famous Butter Cow. This is a picture from my cell phone, but I'll post more when I get Nicki's camera.

Enjoying hanging out with Sarah

One last nap on Aunt Nicole's chest!

Sunday morning, we got up and went for a walk/run at Gray's Lake. Nicki successfully ran every day of her internship and got to over 70 days in a row before the streak finally ended this past week in Greece. She decided that I should run with her at least once a week, so on Sunday we ran around the lake while my mom, Dylan, Andrea, Ella and our friend Andi and her son Jack walked. Billy came as well to run but ran way more quickly than I could handle. It was great getting to see Andi and Jack who is as cute as ever! After we got home, JoAnne and Jeremy came back over with Sherri (JoAnne's mom). Dylan, sensing she was a grandma who knew what she was doing, was full of big smiles for her! We packed up the van and got everything ready to go and said a tearful goodbye to Nicki who was driving back to Chicago. Nicki and I have always been close, but we became even closer this summer. She and Dylan have such an incredible bond and it was the best possible summer we could have had (more on this later, of course she gets her own dedicated post). The drive back was fairly uneventful.

Thanks for visiting me Sherri!

****************************************************************************

Check out this picture of Andrea holding not one, not two but three babies...

That's right for those of you who haven't heard Andrea and Morris are expecting another little one! We are SO excited and feel incredibly blessed to be expanding our family once again. Andrea hasn't been feeling very well, so we've all tried to pitch in and help as much as possible. We even had Ella stay over this past weekend so Andrea could get some much needed rest. We had such a good time that we're thinking of making the slumber parties a weekly event! She is due in late February (and promises to try to keep this one in longer this time). We'll find out the sex of the baby in October although most of the money is on another girl. Dylan is excited that he's not going to be the littlest one around anymore!

We all managed to survive this past week without Nicki although it certainly hasn't been as fun! My dad took care of Dylan this past week and they had a great time together. Dad even taught him how to make a roux for all you chefs out there :) Here are some fun pics from this week.