Christmas Day in Pine Island

We spent the day in Pine Island with Mike's family. His sisters were both there (even Wanda and Sean from Wisconsin were here - YEAH!). The kids were crazy yet again, although you can't blame them. The kids opened stockings first, then went to the big stuff.

Everyone had fun and it was great to be together with everyone, including Great Grandma Bea!

Andrew was excited to get an orange in his stocking. He wanted to eat it right away...he also wanted to eat the candy that was in his stocking as well right away.

Buster and Bullitt (the two goldens) had fun too - they were busy unwrapping presents and eating the paper inbetween stealing things from people (mainly the puppy, Bullitt)

Next....

We celebrated with my (Karen's) side of the family on Christmas Eve. The kids were WOUND UP that's for sure. Mom brought the two exchange students that are staying with her this year and they enjoyed seeing the kids running mad. The kids each got a piano keyboard, so they were giving us a show before the night was over.

The kids were actually excited to go to bed, knowing Santa was coming after they went to sleep.

Andrew with one of his new Thomas the Tank Engine movies.

Cailin, holding the new kitten, Smokey.

Santa arrived and the kids opened up their presents from Santa which included GeoTrax trains and sets. The kids loved that. Cailin was amazed when looking at the empty plate of cookies and empty glass of milk. It's really cool to see the wonder in their eyes. Cailin got a Dora Bike and Andrew got a big wheel, which he calls his Diego Bike. So the house is destroyed and there is stuff everywhere. But everyone is finally healthy, happy and content. The house will clean itself soon I'm sure....

In this shot, Andrew is playing on Cailin's keyboard. Not sure what he's doing with the thing on his head, but I'm sure he had a plan in mind....

Then, after changing and cleaning up just a little bit, we packed up to head to Pine Island to spend the day with Mike's family.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas - round 1

We are very blessed to have a larger family. Not huge, but a pretty good sized group. So this year, as with other years, we attend a few Christmas gatherings. The first one was with Mike's side of the family on Saturday the 20th. For those of you who live here, you will remember that day as the day of snow, ice and blowing snow. For those of you who live elsewhere....feel grateful you did not have to drive that day here. (the drive was a bit tough, but with 4wheel drive, it helped that's for sure).
Andrew in his new Wild hat - he loves that hat!

Andrew was excited to get a new Lacrosse stick from his cousin Joey. Joey was showing Andrew how to use it. Thankfully, the ball is very soft and we didn't break anything.

We had a great time seeing everyone and the kids were excited to pass out presents and open them. Cailin has been unofficially appointed (or self-appointed) as the present hander outter person. (ok, so that's not gramatically correct, but it works)

Christopher (Choppy), being a ham-bone.

Joey and Choppy showing off their new ornaments.

Andrew's big thing that we heard at each Christmas was "look mom, it's a box!" when he got the paper off. He soon realized that each present was more than just a 'box'.

Andrew enjoyed reading the new books he got from Auntie Rhonda and Uncle Gary. He wanted to read every one as soon as he opened them.

Inside Days

We have had a fair amount of ilness in our house in the recent few weeks. And you can always tell when kids are getting better, because they want to run around and be crazy for a few minutes or the get into mischief. Since both kids have been under the weather (and parent too) we've spent a lot of time in the house trying to keep busy.

Here, we were just finishing up dinner and Andrew had disappeared down the hall to do 'something' as he said, which usually means he doesn't know why he's going but will figure it out when he gets there. He ended up in the bathroom and made quite a mess with the soap. (Incidentally, he loves to put his hood up if he has a sweatshirt on, not quite sure why, but he loves doing that, which is shown in this shot as well).

Cailin has been practicing her sign language, she's spelling her name in this one ('l').

The kids also were trying on their glasses they made at daycare a few months back.

And finally, in this video clip, Cailin was busy cooking things for us and Andrew was mowing the lawn with his lawnmower.

Painting

I had started some painting last winter and never quite got around to finishing things with the busy summer and fall. So it was time to finish up. Mike had lugged in a foldable ladder to help with the high spots and Andrew found it very interesting to 'help' me paint.

In these pictures, he had just woken up from a long winter's nap and still had his "fire" in his mouth. Silly guy! He would paint the windows and I'd steer him clear of the wet paint.

New Family Member

We did get a new family member over Thanksgiving weekend. We left the house with the intention of 'visiting' the humane society on the way to pick up our Christmas tree. We came home with a 14 week old kitten and no tree. Oh well.

The kids named him 'Smokey' and he's really nice.

Now, we have to work on the kids not to pick him up all the time. He's so easy going and friendly that he doesn't seem to care, but we don't want him getting hurt with over zealous hands.

Day on the Farm

Cailin had a Preschool cooking class Saturday morning, then it was off to Pine Island for the day. We spent the first part of the day at Grandpa Norm's farm to celebrate his birthday. We found some old toys in one of the barns and the kids played and played. Andrew liked the trike and Cailin found an old tractor/trike. She loved it, but it was a bit heavy for her little legs, so she got 'rides' from Uncle Dan and others.

Andrew also liked playing with his football and his Uncle Dan and cousin Christopher showed him how to 'strip' the ball from people. Then he spent the rest of the day practicing.
We had a bbq lunch and played and played. It was a beautiful fall day, hard to believe it was actually November. It was beautiful and we took full advantage of being outside almost all day.
We met up with Grandma and Grandpa, Auntie Katrine and Tony and Auntie Wanda at Katrine's house. We had a bbq supper and played more. We finally rolled out of town at 8pm and the kids were so pooped out, they slept the whole way home.

It was a fun day!

Halloween

Cailin was waivering between wanting to be a Lion or a Care Bear for Halloween. She decided to be a Care Bear. The kids wore their costumes to daycare on Wednesday (for a trial run) for a Halloween party. Andrew was insistent on being Clifford the Big Red Dog. Got the cute, furry Clifford costume and everything.

Well, Andrew wore his costume for a total of about 5 minutes, then insisted it come off. After that, he assured us he did NOT want to put it on again. Which he did not. He stayed at home with Mom to hand out candy to the trick or treaters.

Caillin was very, very excited to go trick-or-treating. Daddy and Cailin went over to Auntie Buzzy (Rayna) and Uncle Dan's house in Chanhassen to trick or treat. They had a blast. They trick or treated with Uncle Dan, Joey, his girlfriend, Tiffany and Christopher. Cailin chattered the entire time, soaking it all up (and coming home with a large loot of candy).Andrew LOVED handing out candy. We were playing with playdoh inbetween trick or treaters, but then it became so often that he'd camp himself in the doorway (door open) kneeling and saying "mama, more kids coming?". I'd tell him "yes, we have lots more kids coming!". He was very happy.

Maybe he'll try the other side of trick-or-treating next year!

Another camping weekend

We have had a crazy few weeks. Work has been tremendously challenging for me (karen) with lots of big issues. Mike decided that since the weather was supposed to be nice, we'd try a last minute get-away close to home.
Cailin found some Halloween cupcakes and decided it was her lion's (her most treasured stuffed animal for those of you who don't know...)birthday, so we needed to have a birthday party for him. The polished their cupcakes in no time and have evidence remaining on their faces to prove it.So we packed up the camper and headed to Norwood Young America to Baylor Regional Park (part of the Carver County Park System). It was beautiful! They had several playgrounds (important to our family), and lots of room to run around. We also played by the lake and our campsite backed up to a stream. It was chilly at night (very thankful for heat in our camper) and early in the mornings and then rained as we awoke Sunday morning (thankful for NOT being in a tent and possibly getting wet...).

All in all, we had a blast and it was a nice, relaxing weekend. Perfect!

Baker Park

We made another trip to Baker with our friends, the Frasers in September. It was a beautiful weekend, with warm weather and sunny days, so it made for a great weekend of camping. Caleb, Dawson (the fraser boys), Andrew and Cailin all had a blast playing with toys and at the playground.

We brought lots of toys with to play with. Andrew had his lawnmower, he was making sure it was ready to mow the lawn.

Here he is in action....although I didn't see any grass there, he wanted to be sure.

Cailin and Andrew brought their trikes with and CRUISED full steam ahead on the paths. We did forget our helmets, which we'll need to remember next time considering how many times I said "guys, slow down please...."

We spent time at the lake, but didn't bring swimsuits figuring it would be too cold. It was around 80 degrees most of the time, so Cailin decided to swim anyway in her clothes. She had a blast and reported that swimming was her favorite part. Who would have thought it?

Trip to Milwaukee

We did a HUGE roadtrip this past weekend. We drove from Shakopee to Milwaukee to visit Auntie Wanda and Uncle Sean. We had prepared for a long time for the car trip, not knowing how it would be handled. Cailin does fine in the car. Pop a movie in the DVD player and she's set for days. She only needs to stop and use the restroom and would happily snack in the car while watching movies - she's the easy one.
Masher (Andrew) on the other hand, gets his fill at about 1 1/2 -2 hours of driving, then he's DONE! He'll grab at the straps on his car seat and yell (at the top of his lungs) "GET OUT MAMA!" when he's done. So I had done massive research on 'car trips with toddlers', asking friend, strangers - etc for ideas. But the good news is everything went great on the car ride. We had gotten an idea to get several small toys/presents and wrap them, so that every 20-30 minutes you can give the kids something new to open. They absolutely loved it. Some of the items were very small, candy bar, juice box - some were bigger - a Leap Pad or new movie. Either way, the monsters loved it and the car ride there and back )(362 miles each way) was very uneventful!

We had a blast hanging with Auntie Wanda and Uncle Sean. We played at their house, took walks, went to the playground (we even spent time on the volleyball court teaching the kidlins a thing or two about blocking and hitting), visited the Milwaukee Zoo and just hung out by the campfire, roasted s'mores - etc. We had fun. It was nice to spend so much time with Wanda and Sean.
We are looking forward to another trip out to see them.
As soon as we arrived home, we were unpacking and Cailin asked if we could go back to stay today.....maybe not today, but soon I said.
:)

The arrival of his 'Highness..."

His Highness, the Royal Michael Matthew Tichy (Karen's brother's son) arrived with his mom and dad for a week-long visit at the end of August. It's funny, but that's what his parents call him, 'his Highness'. And he tries to live up to the name.

All kidding aside, John, Melissa and Michael came for a visit. It was great to see them all, as it had been a year since we saw them last.

They stayed up in the cities for the first part of the trip, then they traveled down to Nelson to stay near Oma for a few days. We visited the Tichlins at their hotel in Edina and visited the indoor play area - Edinborough. It wasn't very busy (very nice) and we got to play all morning. We also played a little in their hotel room as well, then had lunch. We also spent time at our house, showing Michael our collection of toys that we have accumulated over the years. Cailin and Andrew were happy to share their toys and 'show' him how to use everything.

So we took to the camper down for the latter part of the week and were able to spend additional time with them down there at oma's place. We took our camper and hooked up to Mom's red barn for electricity. John, Melissa and Michael stayed at a condo in Wabasha for the week (since mom has two foreign exchange students staying with her for the school year).

We all had fun playing together. The kids got a long great. We were thrilled (probably less thrilled than Michael's parents) to show Michael a few 'new' things that hopefully will remind him of his Minnesota cousins, such as fruit loops cereal, hot dogs and toys out the ying yang.
Michael has grown so much and the kids played well together.

Andrew had big fun driving Oma's tractor around the yard. We also played in the pool quite a bit and managed to splash almost every bit of water OUT of the pool by playing a jumping game called 'chop, chop, timber', where they would stand for the chop, chop part and jump up in the air and kersplash into the pool for the timber part (from swim lessons...). Oh, what fun!
Cailin was excited to float in the pool. Masher enjoyed, well mashing in the pool.

Kamp Dels

We've done a few more camping trips as we had hoped with our new camper. One such trip was to Kamp Dels in Waterville, MN. This wasn't quite the type of camping experience I remember from when I was a kid. This place was huge! It had a petting zoo, mini-golf, lake, boat rides, pony rides, a large pool with diving board and a water park as well as several playgrounds, big and small. We decided to try and hit it when there were fewer people - Monday through Thursday. It was a nice deal, we'd do that again for sure! As we arrived on Sunday, it was craaaazy nuts. But then it quieted down, it was still busy, but much less crazy. Cailin loved the water park. Andrew not so sure about the water park, but loved jumping into mom or dad's arms into the pool. Then poor Andrew, as if on command, got double ear infections (including a trip to the Waseca Medical Center - Urgent Care), then a trip to THE Walmart in the area (everyone knew WE were from outta town...) to get our prescription filled. He was pretty crabby for the last few days, poor guy. He and mom hung out a lot in the camper, while daddy and Cailin hung out with the friends we went with, Luke, Sarah, Caleb and Dawson (our friends from across the street). All in all, it was a great trip, we had a ton of fun, and are already planning our trip for next year.

Cailin and Caleb hung out in the in hammock, and wanted to play in the campers (theirs as well as ours). They wanted to watch movies, so we had to remind them of all the fun stuff to do.

Plus, the best thing it was only about 40 minutes from our house! That was sweet!