3 Day Weekend, Lots of Grandparents!

Memorial Day weekend brought Grandpa and GG from NY and Grammy from VA.  Lucky us!

Dagny is beginning to love books - less for eating these days and more for interesting plots and pictures.

We sure were spoiled that weekend, now absence makes our hearts grow fonder!

Memorial Day in Colonial New England

Acton has a wonderful Memorial Day parade each year and we were pleased to find out that it came right near our street! My mom walked with Finley and me down to watch it go by.

 We waited for what seemed like an eternity, but luckily we could hear them coming for a while and Finley was more than willing to be patient since he LOVES parades (as he told us over and over). Then, it finally came into view with a firetruck leading the way. Can you sense the excitement (from Grammy and Finley)??

 Some colonial types...

War veterans in a neat jeep...

 The middle school band was next and I must say, they were amazing!

 High schoolers after that...

 Finley loved seeing all the instruments go by!

 The final vehicle was the mobile command center and then we asked Finley if he wanted to roll with the parade and follow it down the block.

 He couldn't hop back into the stroller fast enough and off we went.

 We followed it down to the cemetery and listened to some more music from the high school band and speeches from local vets before walking home.  What a patriotic experience!

Dagny at 11 months

Today is Dagny's 11 month birthday, which is most notable since that means her actual first birthday is a month away! Here are some assorted shots from the past couple of weeks of Ms. D.

Before bed antics have become a regular evening routine for us.  She gets this second wind once we are in her room with PJs on...it's hysterical despite being kind of annoying...

 We try to dress her like a girl,

 but sometimes whatever's clean goes on!

 Dagny's got the musical gene like her brother.

 Even when I dress her in a picnic tablecloth :)

More jamming...

She's not much closer to walking than she was a month ago, but she can cruise around quite quickly and is attempting more free standing.  She can walk behind an assortment of push vehicles we have, though.

It's amazing to think that this time last year, we'd just made an accepted offer on our house and told Finley that he was going to be a big brother in a month! We love you, Dagny, and none of us (especially Finley) can imagine our lives without you!

Trampoline Fun

I rushed out of the house on Sunday morning to check out the temple's yard sale and came home with a major score!

Dagny Quacks Back

Dagny has learned how to use the duck quacker and can quack herself up now.  This video doesn't capture her doing this as hysterically as she did over the weekend, but you get the idea!

Touch a Truck 2013

The title says it all :) The four of us drove to Woburn a few weekends back to touch as many trucks as possible.  Dagny wasn't as enthused as her brother, but this time next year maybe she'll be more excited!

The view from the front loader gave Finley a sense of just how many trucks were there!

 Not surprisingly, one of our first trucks was a garbage truck.  Finley loved driving the wheel...

 and riding on "the step" to go pick the trash.  Thankfully, this seemed like a brand new garbage truck :)

 We've been to a few of these events, but we'd never been to one with such a huge crane so while Finley wasn't as enthusiastic to get in this one, we pushed!

 And he steered it like a champ!

 A backhoe was up next.

 All along, he's narrating what kind of work he's doing. So cute.

 The moving van didn't have as many boxes/crates as our worker bee would have liked,

 but he made it work.

 Hi there, Dagny, you're a champ!

 Then it was onto my favorite, a mixer truck.

 This is actually a fire truck, though from this photo you can't really tell!

 In the row behind the driver's seat, Finley found all sorts of cool fire gear.

 As Dagny needed to get into the car for a nap, Finley and Dan lingered to watch the firemen smash an old car's window and cut into it with the Jaws of Life.

We saw some friends at the event and laughed to ourselves that this is our life these days! Could be worse (Dagny...please don't make us go to Disney Princesses on Ice).

Finley Quacks Up His Baby Sister

For a while now, Finley has realized that he can make Dagny happy and, more recently, that he can make her laugh. Here he is with his Duck Tours souvenir quacking up his favorite audience member: