8 Weeks

8 weeks and counting... Ani is smiling and cooing a lot now! And she seems to be crying a little less. She's getting on a good schedule of feed/wake time/sleep. She's slept between 6-7 hours each night for the past 5 nights! That makes us very happy.

Monte successfully completed RAGBRAI last week and had a great time! He'll probably blog about that himself - he's got some nice pictures from the ride too. Ani and I dropped him off at the starting city, Missouri Valley, which is close to Omaha, so we were able to spend some time with his parents. Then we drove across the state to Muscatine to spend the week with my parents. It was so wonderful seeing family and friends! Most of them had not met the baby yet.

Our Girl

Ani is growing up so fast! You can especially see the changes in her face. Going on 7 weeks old...! She miraculously slept 6-1/2 hours the other night - heaven!

Also, Uncle Tim visited last week. We took him to the Sculpture Garden, where the highlight of course was the Spoon Bridge and Cherry, and also dropped by a couple of our favorite spots - Longfellow Grill, Sebastian Joe's ice cream, and Pizza Luce.  

Monte Gras

The 7th Annual Monte Gras was held in our noisy (gotta love the airplanes!), windy backyard yesterday. We had good food, friends, and weather except for that huge gust of wind that nearly blew the tent away. 

Top 5 questions asked this year:

5. Can I have a hot dog?

4. Where's Newman?

3. Can I use your changing table?

2. Hagen, when are you putting on your Speedo?

1. Are you a doctor?

I didn't break out the camera until the end of the night when Monte and Hagen decided to use some leftover sparklers we had from the 4th. 

And looks like someone was very tuckered out after her 1st Monte Gras!

Congrats

Exciting news for a couple of our friends.... 

Congrats to Harstie & Anna Banana on getting engaged and also to Jesse & Holly on finding out they are having a boy! The baby is due in September. Might be another "boyfriend" for Ani.

Happy Fourth of July

Be safe and have fun. Bring our men and women home. Resume your BBQ!

1 Month

Ani is 1 month old. Her personality is already starting to come out! She's smiling a lot more often and really seems to recognize Monte's and my face and voice. Some days it seems as though it has flown by and other days it seems like it has gone by slowly. Can't believe it's the 4th of July already this weekend! It's so nice to be off work for now.

Grandma and Grandpa Dirks visited this past weekend. They enjoyed meeting their first grandchild. Here are some pictures.

Lightning Strikes

You can't make this stuff up...... click on link below to view video.

Mora Man struck by lightning lives to talk about it