Baby Boy Ulmer

I had my 20-week ultrasound last week and Dave and I decided that we wanted to know the gender of the new baby and ... It's a Boy! Here's a sneak peak at our little man.

The proof is in the pudding in this picture (some day I'm sure he will not be happy with me for putting a picture of his winkie on the Internet).

This one is a nice profile of the little guy.

Here's a foot.

And a close-up of his face.

Everything checked out really well overall and all indications are that we are still on target for mid-February. I am feeling pretty good, despite a seasonal cold right now, and the boy has been very active recently.

In other news, Krysten and I went to the Morton Arboretum last weekend with our friends Karyn, Taylor and Sami.

Krysten found a bridge that she loved running across. I think we were there for at least 15 minutes with her just going back-and-forth across this bridge. She did really well holding on to the chains for support and even enjoyed it when bigger kids came by and and bounced on the bridge.

Karyn was the photographer for the day and tried really hard to get decent pictures of the girls, unfortunately she wound up with Krysten's "cheese" face most of the time.

The Arboretum was actually a lot of fun and had a lot of interesting things for the kids to explore, like this set of jingle bells coming out of a giant flower.

And there was plenty of climbing and running in the wooden fort.

Sami and Krysten had fun exploring this dog house at the entrance to the Children's area (other people kept calling it a bird house, but I think it looks like a dog house).

The arboretum was decorated very festively for fall. We (well, actually Karen) were able to get a good picture of the 3 girls together by this particular display of pumpkins, mums and hay.

Summer Wrap-up

We are certainly bummed that summer is now officially over, but we did have a few occasions to really have some fun this summer ...



In early August we took what has become our annual trip to Batavia to see the Kane County Cougars play. We found out that Krysten does not like crowds that make a lot of noise. She became very agitated and cranky soon after the game began and would cry every time the crowd cheered. She did find some solace in eating nachos though.





And when the game was over, the night ended with a fireworks display ... she didn't like that either.

The next weekend was the Roge family reunion on my Dad's side. The reunion was held on a very nice private camp ground that one of my Dad's cousins belongs to about an hour south of where we live.

Krysten and Jeffrey enjoyed some time on the swings before we ate lunch.

Then after lunch it was time to go swimming in the lake. Of course, Krysten had a blast in the water with her Daddy ...

... and Jeffrey even took the opportunity to cool off.

Sometime in August, Krysten went on her first date with the little boy that lives next to Brian and Liz, his name is George. George had gotten a battery operated car for his birthday and Krysten was more than happy to sit in the passenger while they tooled around the neighborhood. There were lots of jokes from Daddy and Krysten's uncles to make sure George kept his hands where we could see them :-)

Then, towards the end of the month, my cousin Becky and her family (husband, Harv, and kids Marla, Adam and Tyler) came to Illinois for a visit. Becky's boys are only 2 days younger than Krysten and this was our first time meeting them. We drove down to my Uncle Dave's place near Peoria and spent some time with them.

Krysten and Marla became fast friends ... hanging out in Uncle Dave's re-build Camaro ...

... enjoying lunch together ...

... and playing on the tractor.

Krysten and Dave had fun on the 4-wheeler ...

... and we found out that Krysten loves to play inside tents.

Uncle Brad even brought a surprise for Krysten and gave her her very first Jeep Wrangler (just like Daddy's). It's taken a while, but she is getting much better at "driving" it. At first, she would sit back, no hands on the steering wheel, and push the pedal to the floor. Now she holds on to the wheel, but really hasn't grasped the concept steering yet.

My other cousin, Betsy, was also in the Midwest from North Carolina visiting her family in Indiana with her new son, Cayden, so they came over to Uncle Dave's too so the whole family could be together. I think this is the first time in quite a few years that we had all been together for an occasion other than a wedding or a funeral.

There are now 6 kids in the great-grandchild generation on my Dad's side of the family ... we did our best to get a decent picture of all of them with their respective Mommies.