labor day weekend

September has arrived! We have enjoyed fall-like temperatures over the weekend and today, but it's supposed to turn muggy and hot in a few days. Boo. In the meantime, I will enjoy the 70-degree day we're having. Labor Day weekend was so nice. Brett didn't work on a bunch of projects, and we instead just kind of took it easy. Brett did prime and paint one of the doors, and I think he still wants to do a second coat.

Friday night we ate dinner at Snuffy's, which is a local burger/fries/malt establishment. Afterward, we popped over to Libbs Lake. We had brought Stella's pail and shovel, so she went to work with that, then waded into the water with Brett, and proceeded to squat in the water and get her shorts and shirt wet, so we just took those off and let her play in her diaper. They made a few sandcastles, and then we went home. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Stella didn't fall asleep until 10:30 p.m. Both Saturday and Sunday she refused to nap, but she napped on Labor Day. Whew. Just a flukey anti-nap phase that came and went.

I honestly can't remember what we did Saturday, and Sunday after church she didn't nap like she usually does, so she played outside while Brett did some weed-whacking and I ran to the grocery store. In the evening, friends of ours, Ben and Amy, came over for dinner. Stella had so much fun with their one-year-old. She ensured Jane was in possession of either her water cup or her pacifier at all times, whether she wanted them or not! Catching up with them was so fun!

Monday we slept in because Stella was up several times during the night. Brett got up with her on both occasions, for which I was very grateful. Since I'm up at least 2-3 times a night or wide awake for hours (I chalk it up to pregnancy weirdness), and I've been really sore and stiff and uncomfortable when it comes to finding sleeping positions, I so appreciated Brett's having gotten out of bed and holding Stella and calming her down. We think she may have had a bad dream because her crying sounded so fearful and she was worked up in quite the lather. She woke up at 9:45 Monday morning. Brett made French press coffee to go along with my Greek yogurt pancakes. I suggested Stella pretend the couch was a car because while we were drinking our coffee, she was pretending to take her doll to the store on errands. She told us she was going to the store to buy a popsicle shirt and shirts for Daddy. Recently she had a bad nosebleed and ruined her Target "popsicle party" shirt. Fortunately I found it on clearance at Target, and I was able to buy her a replacement. We also recently bought new undershirts for Brett, so I think that's where she got the "buying Daddy shirts" idea. Well, pretending the couch was a car quickly became a bus, which then reminded her of going to the state fair in a bus. She ran to her room to gather up all her stuffed animals, and they represented the passengers. Brett was responsible for making the bus sound effects. She soon brought each one of the stuffed animals or dolls to Brett so that he could wipe their noses with a tissue. The reason? They were getting bloody noses. Can you tell this girl gets her fair share of nosebleeds?

Ever so often, she'd run over to me and say, "Mommy, I'm having fun!"

Stella and Jane

He kept chastising me for being near the paint fumes (pregnancy no-no), so I had to take this shot lightning fast

Amy brought me her old copies of Everyday Food magazine, which is no longer in publication. I started looking through these yesterday. It was like Christmas in September for me! 

She discovered a speaker at Arbor Lakes shopping area and treated it like a drum

Monarch butterfly sighting!

Taken this morning - some of my Lorence cousins are in town from VA and are staying at my parents' house. 9-year-old Josiah let Stella borrow his Redskins hat. :)

Rewind a week. We went to the Minnesota state fair and met up with Jared and Corinne, who had been there a few hours before we got there. Friend of the family, Hector, met up with J and C, too, so it was a fun time. The highlight of the outing for Stella was the bus ride. She had an absolute blast. The three of us shared pork chop-on-a-stick, french fries, ice cream, a corn dog, and lemonade, and Corinne shared mini donuts with us.

Hair all ready to go for the fair! It was pretty hot, but one of the more mild evenings before the 90s heat wave last week

Checking everyone out on the bus

She kept Corinne in her sights, who was holding the mini donuts at this point

Rainbow playground

Brett always makes sure to get the delicious roasted corn

Stella was more interested in drinking lemonade than looking at the adorable little farm animals

So cute!

Family picture before heading home

These little guys were my favorite

I just have to tack on some other pictures for the purpose of documenting our Johnson summer.

Helping assemble the new kitchen table...this was right before Brett discovered the corner was badly damaged; that was a fiasco getting a replacement as the other two in stock were damaged as well. They finally got a new shipment in, and we had a replacement by the weekend. 

Post-nap snuggles

Helping Grandpa water his lawn on one of the scorcher days we had last week

Making "sauce" at the library

Imitating Brett

Assembling a desk with the help of Stella's xylophone hammer

She really likes getting close to the action; good thing Brett is so patient with her :)

More library fun

Sliding a baby doll down the dollhouse roof. Oh boy.

Stella has enjoyed climbing up into her new bed, although we still don't have the bed safety railing and better window treatments, so we haven't transferred her over there yet. At least she is gradually warming up to the idea of changing rooms and beds.

I'll close out with this video of Stella singing at Byerly's. She was having so much fun driving the "car" cart, that when we were buying our food, she asked if we could buy the cart, too.