Clover Turns 3

Happy Birthday my sweet Clover! I can't believe how much you have grown this year, your baby fat turning to long lean muscle, your body stretching and your proportions changing from toddler to little girl.

But it's not just physically that you've grown. Mentally you have taken major leaps this year! You have come into your own so much in the past 12 months, people have gotten to know you for yourself and have gotten past just seeing you as the baby of our family.

You are sweet, silly and smart as a whip. You also have a teasing, playful sense of humor and you never cease to make our entire family laugh.

You love your big sister and delight in your games together. You've learned to hold your own against her strong personality and be yourself though.

You love to be the center of attention, you love to get a laugh, you love playing with all kinds of people.

You have focus and determination. You have an incredible attention span for art, puzzles, music and animals.

I have a feeling 3 will be a very exciting age for you, who knows what kind of mischief you will get up to? You are my risk taker where Echo is my cautious one. You're always the first in line, the daredevil, the boisterous, spirited one of the family.

I can't believe our baby is turning 3, I'm so incredible proud of the girl you are becoming and I can't wait to see what the next year brings for you.

Happy Birthday Clover, you are so loved by so many!

July Photos

Here are a few photos from July 4th (which have already been posted on facebook) followed by photos from our big road trip out West for Eric's sister's wedding!

We started our trip in Saint Louis and honestly it was my favorite part! We loved Saint Louis and stopped there again on our way back.

The City Museum was a highlight, it's like nothing I've ever seen before!

Forest Park was pretty incredible too.

Next stop was Sioux Falls, SD. It was soooo hot! Pretty though, we enjoyed it.

 We made a stop at The Badlands on our way. It was really interesting and alien looking.

A pretty sunset in Sturgis, SD.

We made an unexpected stop in Spear Fish to get a flat tire fixed. Luckily we were able to check out a beautiful park and fish hatchery while we waited.

Sadly I have almost no photos in Bozeman where the wedding took place. I was busy with wedding activities :-) I'll have to wait for the professional pictures of that.

We had long hours in the car and some fun gas stations to stop at.

We had some great food on the trip. These photos are from a diner in Wyoming

I don't remember where this was, it was by some gas station on our drive home.

We had so much fun seeing a whole new section of the country and the girls did amazingly well in the car. It has definitely encouraged us to take more road trips in the future!