We are having a birthday party for Meadow at the cottage with our family, but I thought we should celebrate her real birthday as well. I sent out an informal invite on Facebook letting people know we were going to go to Como Park if anyone wanted to join.  We decided on a potluck, which meant we had some cooking to do.

The day of Meadow's birth seems so far away, yet I can't believe she's a one year old. I had been waiting for this day for awhile. When she was just 12 days old I remember thinking I couldn't wait until she was older. I hated the newborn stage.  Meadow weighs 17 pounds and 10 ounces. She is 28" long.  She loves drinking water, playing in the sand, swinging, climbing up things, bike rides, going to storytime, taking things out or off shelves, pointing, climbing in and out of things, Her favorite foods are bananas, toast with avocado, berries,  She still hasn't taken any steps and refuses help with walking. She will pull the hand towels off of our oven while standing and loves to stand in the bathtub. She has eight teeth now. Four on top and four on the bottom. She's gotten a lot better about putting things in her mouth. We've discovered she bites a lot when she's tired. She understands what book, milk ...

My brother has free passes to all the tourist attractions in Duluth for the month of June. We planned to come up and help him use those passes. We finally found a few days where we both had off in a row and he tells us he's moving to Madeline Island. We figured we would still go up and visit him. I kind of think this was a better reason to visit him. The last time we were there was during our honeymoon. We quickly realized there wasn't much to do if you didn't have a kayak. I was determined to get both kayaks there. During a recent trip to Costco I saw that they had giant pool noodles. I thought they could work for the kayaks to rest on on top of the car.

Father's and Mother's Day weren't a big deal in the Tuska household. The Romenesko's on the other hand love every holiday. So happy Father's Day to me. Since I didn't get a gift for Mother's Day Scott doesn't get one for Father's Day.

Meadow likes to wake up early from time to time. Those days Brooke brings her back to our bed in hopes that she'll fall back asleep. It doesn't always work. She's too much of a bed hog.

Meadow bug woke up this Sunday while Brooke made us breakfast. Brooke's been making us breakfast more and more on Sundays. I guess I needed a break. I thought I would make our version of potatoes O'Brein with brussel sprouts. This was probably the highlight of the day. Avocado toast has been our new breakfast favorite. She still prefers feeding herself. Meadow's new favorite game is climbing in and out of her Bumbo seat. We've had quite a bit of rain this spring. A night earlier nature washed out our gutters. We sat around most of morning not wanting to do anything. It was rainy outside, so not much we could do outside. I thought we could really use a rain barrel with all the rain. We looked up how to make your own on Pinterest and then headed to Menards. We ditched the idea of making a rain barrel since we didn't like any of the garbage cans Menards had. I also needed to pick out some paint for a birthday present I'm wor...