Summer Days at the Lake

Anyone else already singing the winter blues? Don't get me wrong, I love this time of year and all the holiday gatherings with family and friends...I even enjoy the occasional snow, but I'll never be a fan of the bitter cold weather. I get cabin fever way too quickly, and dream of summer days spent in the great outdoors.

As I was looking back through some pictures from this past summer, I realized that I never posted some of my favorites spent at Dave's parents cabin. We always have such a great time on the lake, and make wonderful memories.

Hurry back, summer...hurry back!

Will loves helping Grammy by watering her flowers. When I took him out to do so on this particular day, he said he wanted to pick Grammy a flower, so I had to capture that cute moment:)

I love this shot...looks like he's wheeling and dealing with me from across the table.

He's also very serious about his corn-on-the-cob ;-)

Going for a ride around the lake in the golf cart...this is one of the boys favorite activities while at the cabin.

Happy Birthday, Monkey!

I had so much fun planning Will's party this year. Currently he has been on a Curious George kick, so that fun & friendly little monkey was the inspiration. We kept things pretty low-key again this year, and thought we could get away with not having an official "friends" party for one more year.

We did, however, invite his friend Landon , as they seem to be best buddies at the moment. My mom was planning to be here, but she's been experiencing a lot of back pain, so she had to post-pone her trip for a few weeks...we missed you, Gigi (and of course Papaw, too)!!!

Will was excited about his party from the moment he woke up. He kept saying throughout the day, "I want my birthday right now." As in, "I want to party right now." He used to not like being the center of attention, but that seemed to have changed this year - in fact, he enjoyed it thoroughly! Aunt Kristin and Dan got Will a super cool tent...Dave set it up in his room while Will was eating breakfast. When he went up to his room and saw the tent, he was talking a mile a minute.

Thank you to everyone (including those of you who couldn't attend physically, but were here in spirit) for all of your thoughtful and extremely generous gifts. Will is one spoiled 3 year old! He is having so much fun playing with all of his new toys, and appreciated the fact that he didn't get any clothes - ha! Don't we all remember being that age and being disappointed with clothes instead of toys?! Oh how things have changed...well, for me, anyway ;-)

Without getting overly dramatic, words cannot express how grateful we are to have been able to celebrate Will's life of 3 years. What a blessing that God has given us not only 1, but 2 healthy and happy little boys...we don't want to take that for granted. To think how close we could have been to losing him just 8 months ago, we are praising the Lord for his protection, and that we had the privilege of throwing him a 3rd birthday party...thank you, Lord!

We are so proud of you, Will. We love your sweet spirit, your compassionate heart, your amazing ability to love, your serious side, your sensitive side, your silly side, your curious side, your analytical side, and everything in between. We pray for you everyday, and firmly believe that God has a plan (His PERFECT plan) for your life. Just as Grammy always prayed for your daddy, we also pray the same prayer for you...first of all, that you would come to know Jesus at a young age, and secondly that He would grow you "...in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man," and thirdly that you would "...love Jesus with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and that you would love others as yourself."

We love watching you grow - not only in years, but also in Jesus!

Guessing Occupations

Recently Dave and I were talking about how it would be fun to make guesses every year what we think Will and Graham will do occupationally someday, based on their personalities and giftings. I still haven't exactly decided what I think Will will be, but generally-speaking, I'm thinking it will be something administrative...or perhaps accounting. All I know is that he is a very orderly individual. Likes to have everything in its place, and gets a little bent out of shape if things are not.

A couple recent examples...one night last week while I was getting him ready for bed, I moved a picture frame from his dresser to his bedside table. In it was a photo of he and my mom, and in my mind I thought he'd like having it close by. He kept asking me to put it back on the dresser, so I tried explaining to him why I thought it was a good idea to keep it next to his bed. Mistake. Apparently that didn't make sense to him since it was clearly out of place. He seriously would not go to bed until I moved it. Sorry, Will, I was really out of line, there ;-) In the words of my friend, Wendy (her 1st born is very similar), "Bend a little!"

Will has always hated being messy. If he even has a speck of food on his face, paint on his hands, or heaven-forbid a piece of hair anywhere other than on his head, he asks us to "help." For those of you who have followed this blog for a while, you might recall his 1st birthday party. When he put his hands in the cake, he hated that the frosting got all over and couldn't get it off...he started crying and shaking his arms and cake flung all over our walls. I laugh just thinking about it!

Several months ago, Dave's parents brought over all of Dave's old Matchbox cars & trucks for Will. Ever since then, those have been his favorite things to play with. He has been lining them up like a train, and sometimes they're 20+ cars long. He then puts them all through his car wash.

And Graham, well, currently I think he's going to be an engineer. He's studies the inner-workings of everything...always trying to figure out how they work.

Marked by Minnesota

While up North in Park Rapids, MN last month, Dave made the comment that he has always "marked" his years by his time spent up there. Ever since he was a baby, his family has spent 2 consecutive weeks in Park Rapids - even his dad grew up vacationing there has a child. So needless to say, a lot of memories have been made in the Perkins family in those parts. I remember while being there last year 5+ months pregnant having a hard time believing that Graham would be almost 9 months already for this year's trip. It really is amazing how time flies, as every time we pull into the resort we think, "it feels like we were just here."

It's a good 9-hour haul, so we didn't get our hopes up that Graham would do very well, but he actually did much better than we anticipated. The first time we took Will up there, he was already in a front-facing car seat, and he did great. Poor Graham, however, is still rear-facing, so he was stuck staring at the back of a seat for 9 hours - ugh. I sat in the back for a good chunk of the drive to help keep him occupied, but you can only play peek-a-boo for so long ;-)

I loved having so much family time with Dave and the boys, Dave's parents, and his sister, Kristin, as well as her soon-to-be-hubby, Dan. It was so much fun having Dan around...he fits in great with the fam, and we hope that he and Kristin can join us again next year!

As always, we had a wonderful trip full of some much-needed R&R. Grammy & Grandpa even offered to watch the boys one evening so me and Dave and Dan & Kris could go out to dinner, which was really fun. We spend most of our days outside while there, between boating, riding the wave runner, fishing, hanging out at the pool, campfires (okay, so maybe not...we tried it this year and got eaten alive by mosquitoes!!), and just walking around the grounds. During my high school and college years I worked at a camp in Michigan, and one of my favorite activities during my time there was going kayaking. I was able to venture out onto the lake a couple times this year, and I it was so relaxing - I loved every minute of it. We see bald eagles up there pretty frequently, and one morning while I was kayaking, I saw one perched high in a tree, and then minutes later it took off with one of it's babies following closely behind. Pretty cool to see them in the wild - they're just beautiful.

The resort hosts a kids fishing contest every week, and one of Will's highlights of the trip was that he caught his first fish...a sunny. He was pretty proud of the little sucker ;-)

And the always-sad car ride home...'til next year, Park Rapids!

mmmm...smell that fresh farmland!