Really Long Post with LOTS of Pictures!

We just got back from a fun visit up at my sister and brother-in-law's place up in Minnesota.  We got to meet my new nephew Anders, who is a little cutie, and I don't think I'm biased at all!  I was a little nervous about the 3.5-4 hour drive up there with both Zach and Drew by myself, but thankfully it went quite well.  We arrived on Wednesday evening as Sandy and Anders were picking Becky and Cam up from the airport.  Zach got started in right away with playing with Uncle Will and asking about the fish.  We were all excited to see Aunt Sandy, Aunt Becky, Cam, and especially Anders.  Zach and Cam got to playing and Will started making the noodles for our spaghetti, which turned out delicious.  I think Zach and Cam thought it was pretty cool to see noodles being made, too.  Sandy was also treated to a nice rendition of  "Happy Birthday" by Zach and Cam to celebrate her big day.

Here is Anders asleep on his daddy that first night.

Nobody was around the first time I held my new nephew, so here's a picture I took of myself holding him.  

Then Becky and Sandy were busy, so Zach took this picture of me with my 2 nephews, Cam and Anders.  He actually took a pretty good picture!

Here are Zach and Cam doing some early morning dancing, I think.

Thursday after Drew's morning nap we headed out to the Mall of America.  Sandy had to go to a couple of stores for exchanges/returns.  Then we went down to the amusement park area, and Zach and Cam met SpongeBob SquarePants and his friend, whose name I can never remember.  I took a couple of pictures with my phone, so we'll see if I can figure out how to put those on here.  The boys enjoyed riding a couple of rides, though not many were open.  Drew even got his first ride on the carousel, which he seemed to like well enough.  We then headed upstairs for some lunch, and I found out that Zach likes Arby's roast beef sandwiches, which is great news, because I'm not much of a fast-food eater, but I do love those roast beef sandwiches, and they're actually pretty healthy.  I'm happy to have a place other than McDonald's that I know Zach likes.  Anyway, by this point Drew was getting pretty tired.  We stopped by the Nestle place on our way out of the mall for some delicious cookies and then headed home.  Drew fell asleep in the car, and I think I did very good not being stressed about him falling asleep there instead of in a crib.  He of course woke up shortly after we got home, and that kind of screwed up his naps that afternoon, but whatever.  It wasn't a big deal, and I didn't get stressed about it, which was a nice change from my norm.

I think this is a funny picture, because it looks a little like SpongeBob is chasing Zach, but really, Zach had just given him a high five or something and is just turning away.

After Becky and I got Zach and Cam down for their naps, we took Drew to the grocery store so Sandy and Anders could get a little nap in.  We came home to find Zach and Sandy sitting on the couch with Anders reading books.  It was pretty cute.

Friday Becky and I took Zach and Cam on a run to the park, where the sprinklers were on and spraying on some of the equipment.  However, they turned off after a bit.  It was really fun to see how Zach and Cam play differently at the playground.  Cam went down a very wet slide and didn't care at all that his pants got wet.  Had that been Zach, he would have probably gotten upset about having wet pants.  Then Cam tried out the monkey bars, with his mom's help, and almost took a big spill to the ground, but thankfully Becky was there to catch him.  I held my breath waiting for him to cry because it scared him, but instead, in true Cam-fashion, he laughed and said, "I go again!"  I immediately asked Zach if he wanted to try the monkey bars, and he didn't hesitate when he said, "No thanks!"  The next day at the park he was a little more adventurous and gave the monkey bars a try, with Aunt Becky's help, of course.

Here's Cam loving on "Baby Drew," as he always says.

And here are Zach and Cam holding their new cousin for the first time each.

Friday night we met my dad's brother Bill and his friend Gloria at the Spaghetti Factory for dinner.  It was really great to see them again, and they had a fun time seeing the boys, I think.  Zach said he remembered meeting Uncle Bill for breakfast in July of '07 when he and I stopped in Omaha on our way to Denver.  So, Zach tried lots of times to talk to Uncle Bill about random things, but it was hard to hear in the restaurant.  Uncle Bill and Gloria were really sweet and gave each of the boys a gift before we left, which the boys enjoyed very much.

Saturday started with Zach and Cam being excited to see Mike, who had arrived late Friday night.  Mike and Will were anxious to have a kid-free house during the Hawkeye game, so we moms took the boys up to another park for a picnic and some play time.  We got back just in time to see the bummer ending of a close game.  Once the game was over and the kids were in bed, we got to work getting some stuff done around the house.  After everybody was awake again, we attempted (and I stress that word- attempted) to get a picture of all 4 boys.  Here's a funny one where they're all looking at Mike, who was trying to move Lucy.

That night we had some delicious homemade pizza.  Zach and Cam each got to make their own pizza, which they found to be a lot of fun.  I think the both made smiley faces with black olives.

Here's Mike holding Anders for the first time.

Mom and son were exhausted from the day's activities!

Sadly, Sunday rolled around and we had to head home.  Zach and Cam got to feed the fish again, which Zach said was the best part of the whole weekend.  He really loves feeding those fish.  Zach also really loved playing pinball, and I was quite amazed at the luck he has with that.  He just hits the buttons over and over again and saves the ball surprisingly often.  We tried to take a picture of the sisters and their boys.  It's tough to get 4 boys under 4 and 3 moms over 30 to look at the same camera and smile AND keep all our eyes open, but we gave it our best shot, which, sadly, didn't turn out all that well.

Anyway, we stopped in Northfield on the way home so we could see all the aunts in one weekend- we saw Aunt Katherine at St. Olaf, or, as Zach calls it, "St. Nolaf".  It was neat to see her dorm room, which is small- poor Katherine!  Zach was really happy to see his artwork up on Katherine's dorm room wall.  We also got to see her boyfriend Sam, who was nice enough to work for Katherine so that we could take her out to lunch.  The campus up there is beautiful, especially at this time of year with all the trees changing.  It was a lot of fun to stop and see Katherine and to see her enjoying college so much.

We left Katherine in time for the boys to take their naps in the car.  Drew was struggling to fall asleep, so I leaned back to give him his pacifier and thought that maybe he'd pooped.  Zach had just fallen asleep, and Drew's poops had been pretty solid lately, so we decided that we'd just wait to change Drew for a while.  After getting his pacifier, Drew fell asleep for about an hour and a half, so that was good.  Once Zach woke up, he realized he needed to potty, so we stopped about 45 minutes from home at a McDonald's.  I decided I'd change Drew's diaper, too.  It was then that I realized we'd made the wrong decision earlier about not changing him right away. 

Here's what I found when I took his pants off.  Yuck.  Luckily we had some extra clothes along.

Drew is 7 months old now- crazy!  Here is another picture Zach took to commemorate Drew's 7 month birthday.  I didn't help Zach at all with this- I wasn't even in the room.  He's getting a lot better at this whole picture-taking thing!