Ode to Uncle Kevin, the firefighter

Whenever we hear sirens, we tell Lena to listen for Uncle Kevin, since he drives ambulances and firetrucks for a living. She randomly started calling him "Cracker" which is what some of Kevin's coworkers have nicknamed him. Then, unprompted, she started to make the noise of a siren and pointing at firetrucks in her books saying "Cracker." We hope that Uncle Kevin gets a kick out of his niece!

More of "Micro" Cerkas

Kinda looks like a smile here. Also kinda looks creepy!

Bubble Bath

The Adventures of Bruce & Alena

Auntie Avery got a little orange kitten and named him Bruce. Alena met him and thought he was a pretty cool new toy. Bruce did not completely agree with this assumption. He found out very quickly that Alena = kitty torture. They were very cute together, though!

Random Shots

Bubble bath time!

Sitting on her potty reading the Northern Tool catalogue, certainly looking for "dadoos" (aka tractors), excavators, garbage trucks, cranes, dump trucks, etc :)

Random shot from our now broken camera. Point Beach State Park in early August. She LOVES the beach and the sea gulls.

Welcoming Auntie Avery back from her trip to Europe. She took the SS Badger car ferry from the camp in Michigan. We were happy to greet her!

After bathtime at Grandma's house, wandering around in her towel and getting in to her rocking chair.

Avery's Shower

Now that we've got a new camera, I'm hoping we can continue to take more pics and keep everyone that reads it updated. I'll have a few random shots and videos that are out of chronological order, but who cares, right? I couldn't figure out how to get the videos off of the video camera we've been borrowing, so I couldn't add those, yet.

Avery is getting married on January 1st, so we had a bridal shower for her with the DeNamur women and a few of Avery's friends. It is always so nice to get together with the family!

Alena loved playing with Auntie Avery's kitten, Bruce. She also tried to strangle him. Several times.

.

Avery got some help opening her shower gifts from her flower girl.

.

The girls in the family :)

.

We went out to the cabin after Avery's shower and Daddy treated Alena to a ride on Grandpa Hawkins' excavator. Both daddy and daughter were in heaven.

Quarry Quest

A few weeks ago, I surprised Eric with a trip to Michels Quarry in Neenah for their annual event "Quarry Quest." They had a lot of machinery that both Alena and Eric love. We used Eric's parent's camera and their video camera to capture a few moments. They had a photo spot by these skid steer loaders. We had a tough time getting a good shot because my daughter wanted to oogle over the machines.

Playing around in one of the huge sand piles called Tot Spots. She loved it. All of the kids got orange vests as they entered, so Alena is wearing hers.

I hate seeing the nuk, or as she calls it, "noona," but she was really not a happy camper at all! We were sooo disappointed in her mood. On a normal day, she would have been extremely happy to help operate an excavator (in a video to come) or see all of the cranes, dump trucks, and loaders. But not that day! :(

Her daddy helped her to ride on an excavator and we all rode around the quarry on a huge dump truck (forgot the exact name). We agreed that it is a cool event and that we would have to return in the future when Alena is a little bigger and in a more compliant mood.