Birthday!

Anika turned 1 on October 6th which was a Tuesday. We were all set to have her birthday party that Saturday, but Mary came down with the flu, the Dr.'s thought it was H1N1. Luckily neither Anika nor I caught it from her. We had to re-schedule the party for a later date, it was a good thing that on her actual birthday we did a small little celebration with just the three of us.


We re-scheduled the party for the 25th. The cake was re-ordered and they sent along a special little cake just for Anika.


Anika loved her cake, she devoured it and wanted my piece as well.
Surprisingly she stayed pretty clean. (I will post the video when I can, for some reason it won't upload it, it might be too large)


Here she is looking at Elmo and not sure what to make of him.


This is what a sugar hang over looks like. She was heard muttering to her self "I will never do that again".

Some recent pictures

Trying to get ready for chili fest left me little to no time to put towards organizing any photos. I have uploaded a bunch from September through the first week of October to a web gallery.

Here are a few of my favorites:

For some reason when she sleeps she likes to sleep with her behind up in the air
Loving bath time
Playing with her toys
Looking cute in her hat
She loves her Grandpa

I'm one year old!

Anika turned one today. They had a party at day care where apparently she devoured her piece of cake. We are having a birthday party for her this Saturday, but of course we needed to celebrate today as well.

Here is a photo of her wearing her party hat
Of course there needs to be a birthday cake, or cup cake in this case.
There is no picture with lamb this month. Anika is on the move and she just wouldn't sit still for the photo.

Lately she has been trying to climb the stairs. She would get up to the 2nd stair, look back at you and dive into your arms. Today, she decided that she is a big girl and just kept motoring up the stairs until she made it to the top. She is a crazy little girl.

State Fair

Mary had workshop this past week from Mon-Thur. I took a vacation day on Friday, we dropped Anika off at daycare and headed to the Fair.

Everyone has their favorite foods of the fair, Mary and I are no different. Mary goes for the Tom Thumb mini-doughnuts, for me it is a Pronto-pup. We also had walleye on a stick, a cone of Sweet Martha's cookies, pot stickers and also a couple of new foods. Caprese on a Stick which consisted of cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella balls and basil leafs, topped with oil and balsamic vinegar. My new favorite food at the fair beer on a stick. Yes, beer on a stick. Leave it to Summit to find a way to put beer on a stick. You don't believe me, just check out the photo below.

The three beers they put on the stick were the Extra Pale Al, Oktoberfest, and a new one Red Horizon. I walked around with them while we looked at other fantastic fair offerings. I had about half a dozen people ask me about the beer on a stick, not one of them asked me how tall I was. Usually I get that many people commenting on my height during a trip to the fair. I guess I need to start carrying beer on a stick around.

Mary found it interesting that people are always trying to find a way to put food on a stick, yet at the fair the caramel covered apples come in a bowl.

Anika at 11 months

There has been plenty of crying in the Zilge household lately. No, it isn't Mary crying because school started up again. That would be Anika, she is on the move. She has started to crawl and pull her self up on furniture. Which also means she is falling and bumping her head.

We are trying to get Anika ready for the upcoming football season, so far the two-a-days have been going well.

A weekend up north

Mary, Anika and I headed up north on Friday to spend a weekend with the Trzynkas, Strattons, and Olsons. We rented a cabin on Kimball Lake, just north of the Brainerd area. The cabin was more like a mansion (the pictures tell it all http://www.northlandcabincare.com/rental/kimball_lake/index.htm). The 15 of us had a great time.

Anika was the youngest one up there and she was just starting to crawl, so she had a tough time keeping up with the rest of them, but she still had a great time.

There was plenty of fishing off of the dock and the kids caught quite a few small sunnies and a couple of bass. Lexi is quite serious about her fishing

They were told they couldn't eat supper until they caught it...these three went to bed hungry.

Anika wasn't quite sure about the lake water, it was actually quite nice.


I wonder if kayaks come in an XL?

Now this looks a little more comfortable.

Some views from the beach

There was an attempt to all 7 of the kids to sit still for a kids group shot...as you can see it went well.
We finally did manage to get a group shot together.

10 Months

Here is Anika's 10 month photo.

Every month I post the photo and she always looks so darn cute and cuddly. But, these photo shoots don't always go as planned.

Here she is bored with the process
She also wasn't happy when her dressing room didn't have the right brand of sparkling water