Welcome Maelee!!!

I suppose we are far overdue for some updates and new pictures. First - the big news, Andrew and Annabelle have a new cousin. Miss Maelee Marie Raisanen was born on June 17th - 7.0 lbs and 19.5 inches and lots of red hair like her proud, big brother, Nikolas. We are heading down to meet her in a little over a week. Yay!
It has been a hot summer here in Minnesota. Upper 90's for the past week and for the week ahead. Hot we can handle, it's the humidity we don't like. We resort to hanging out in the pool all weekend.
And.... here's the pool. 3 out of the 4 of us fit in it.
Haha just kidding. We have a bigger pool. Andrew is sporting a pretty nice tan, thanks to endless weekends in the pool.
Annabelle has been broadening her diet with fruits, veggies and cereal. So far she loves bananas and applesauce. Not much else. She sure loves making a mess while eating. Daddy's in charge of feeding her.
Here's Andrew and our neighbor, Milena, in the pool. Not sure what they are doing...
At the end of June we went to see Thomas the Train in Green Bay. Andrew had a blast. He's still talking about it. We got to ride on a passenger train and see Thomas up close. He also got to meet Sir Topham Hatt. While we were in Green Bay Andrew went to his first movie at the theater - Cars 2. We even saw it in 3D - pretty cool. Of course Andrew only wore the 3D glasses during the previews and proceeded to watch the rest of the movie without them. Not sure how well that worked out. Mommy and Andrew ended up going to see the movie again in 2D when we got back to Chaska.
Here's Miss Annabelle at the 4th of July parade. Just hanging out waiting for something exciting to happen. Annabelle stayed up to watch the fireworks that night. She was rather unimpressed by them. No giggles or cries. We normally go to see a big display at the local race track, but due to our government shutdown those fireworks were postponed. Hopefully we'll get to see those fireworks soon. Maybe even this weekend!
Mommy has a hard time walking past an outfit like this and not buying it. So cute!!
Apparently it's a genetic problem. This outfit is from Grandma Raisanen.
Lock 'em up and throw away the key!
Annabelle is still quite petite for her age. She's just over 7 months old, but weighs less than Andrew did at 3 months. Her height is good, so the doctor says she's just itty bitty. No worries. She's sitting up well and lately she's been getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. Almost ready to crawl. She still sleeps great (thank you Annabelle)!
Andrew is Mister Busy Body, just go go go all the time. At preschool he is learning to spell and write his name. He loves playing with his best friend Lucas at preschool every day. Last weekend he went to Lucas' birthday party at the fire station. The boys had a blast. They got to see a fire truck and meet real fire fighters.
We are planning a trip to the Minnesota Zoo this weekend with our friends, the Debbouts. If it gets too hot again, we may end up at the Mall of America. Either way, I'm sure we'll find some fun times.
Enjoy the summer, stay cool!

Summer's Here... Finally!

Let's see... what's happening the wonderful World of Wilsons.
David and I just got back from a trip to Captiva Florida. It was great to spend a few days relaxing under the sun. We didn't do much except eat, sleep and lay by the pool. Here's Dave doing his sexy walk down the beach.
We baptized (or "bath"tized as Andrew calls it) Annabelle in late May. We had a houseful of people come out to celebrate with us. It was a great time, but passed much too quickly. Andrew has been mesmerized by the Last Supper ever since Deacon Jim pointed it out to him at church a few months ago. We went to mass last weekend, which was one of Fr. Paul's last masses at our church :( and we sang the Oscar Mayer wiener song. Andrew thought that was pretty funny. I'm pretty sure I've never sang that song at church. I think Fr. Paul was just making sure we were all awake!
The nightly ritual of watching Thomas or Dora on the ipad. Even Annabelle is interested in it. Of course she's interested in just about anything that Andrew's doing. She's so fascinated by him.
Here's Annabelle on baptism day in her pretty pink dress. So cute!
Andrew has been a big help around the house and outside too. He loves washing Mommy's car. He's been really good with the hose. Surprise, Surprise. He also helps water plants and the garden.
Andrew finished up swim lessons in May. His swimming has improved significantly with help from lessons. He went from going down the caterpillar slide with Mommy to going down the slide by himself. Here he is practicing his breath-holding.
We finally found a use for Mocha..... headrest!
We are planning a trip back to Green Bay in late June to see Thomas the Train at the Railroad Museum. Andrew is VERY excited. He's also going to go to his first movie while we're there, Cars 2. I'm sure we'll have more pictures again soon.
Enjoy the summer!

April Showers!

Well, it has been entirely too long. We have been super busy the past few weeks. Mommy is back at work and Annabelle is enjoying spending the day at Linda's day care. Here's a picture of our first day.
We spent Easter weekend in Green Bay visiting our families. Andrew made a trip to the National Railroad Museum (and here you thought Green Bay was only on the map because of the Packers!). He had a blast at the train museum.
Nikolas and Andrew at the train museum. So Cute!
Easter egg coloring.
Daddy finally has a girl in his life that loves to watch baseball with him. No complaints from Miss Annabelle!

Andrew and Mommy have been enrolled in swim lessons for the past 6 weeks that run through mid-May. Andrew didn't have much fun the first time out, but now loves his time in the water. He even goes down the Caterpillar slide all by himself. We'll post some pictures as soon as we get Daddy and Annabelle to come watch us.
It looks like May is going to keep us busy as well. We have Annabelle's baptism the weekend of May 22nd. We are looking forward to our visitors that weekend. Enjoy the pictures!

Time Flys WAY too fast!

It is hard to believe that Miss Annabelle is 13 weeks old. It is already time for her to start day care and for me to go back to work. (tear). Although we've been cooped up in the house for the last 3 months (4 months for me - thanks to bedrest) we have had a good time. We got to miss out on the endless snowy commutes, negative 20 degree days and instead just sit at home, watch TV and snuggle.
I am looking forward to interacting with adults, but I will definitely miss my time home with Annabelle. She will be attending the same in-home infant day care Andrew did - Linda's!! yay! We know she will be well taken care of and will learn so much.
We recently made a trip to Green Bay. Here's Mr. Andrew hangin out in the car with his ipad. What started out as Mom & Dad's ipad has quickly turned into Andrew's ipad. He maneuvers around it better than we do.
Here we have Andrew, Grandpa and Nikolas. We discovered it is impossible to get all 3 boys to look at the camera at the same time, so this is the best picture I got. No one is sticking their tongue out, flashing the camera or making a crabby face.
If you don't already know, we are planning to baptize Annabelle on Sunday May 22nd after the 6:15pm mass. You are all welcome to join us!

Koko Cave

For the past couple months I would come downstairs and find all of the rugs in our house scrunched up into balls and it was driving me nuts fixing all of them. At first I thought it was Andrew messing with me, but then I noticed it was happening during the day when he was at preschool. I snapped this picture of the guilty party. Since you can't train a cat I guess I'll have to learn to live with it or live without rugs. Silly Koko!