The Waiting Game.....

Andrew is a little bit excited for Christmas.....

He loves to open presents.

He is VERY excited to open any kind of presents, whether they are for him or for others.

Mike put several presents for the kids under the tree yesterday and Andrew has not left the side of the tree since (other than to go to sleep, eat, bathroom or daycare) - he is firmly parked next to the tree to 'watch' the presents.

Last night, before bed he asked if he could kiss the presents goodnight....

and so he did.

yes, we will be staging an intervention (as we discussed in an earlier post) soon.

(Incidentally, the cat was 'helping' him do this as you can see his long tail in the shot....)

It Snowed....a lot. A LOT

A week ago, we got maybe 22" of snow in about 2 days. It was quite the storm.

Mike was able to get his money's worth out of the monster snow blower he purchased last year, that's for sure. It was a little bit of a nervous minute when he made one pass through and the snow blower broke. Then he found the bag (the one that came with the owner's manual) with all the extra parts in it. Then he replaced a few sheared pins and it was back in business. Whew, sigh of relief there.

You can see the depth of the snow on this one.

Cailin was interested in playing outside.

and getting goofy when she saw the camera.....



Andrew not so much.

He was more interested in hanging inside and watching the commotion outside from the comfort of his pajamas and the living room window.

Good news is we have more snow on the way this week!

A New Puppy.....At Grandma & Grandpas

Grandma and Grandpa recently got a new puppy.

His name is Bode.

He's a 7 week-old Golden Labrador Retriever.

He's really cute.


He's really nice.

The kids love him.

And....

We get to see him when we come and visit Grandma and Grandpa!

Yeah! :)

Let It Snow

We had our first big snowstorm not too long ago. Thankfully, the bulk of it came on a Saturday, so it was really nice to be home and have no need to commute about.

Last year, Andrew was a bit weary of the snow. Not so this year! He was ready to fly out the door as soon as we'd let him. Cailin was off playing at a friend's house (thankfully that was just a few houses away, so we didn't have to drive anywhere, I just put her in a sled and pulled her there).

Andrew was busy shoveling,

Making snow angels,

And building snowmen.




He was also happy to go inside and have "warm chocolate", since 'hot' chocolate would hurt his tongue.

Andrew's Announcement

Andrew would like to share that he is going to be a big brother in May.

He is very excited (as you can see by his face...)

Cailin is even more excited. Well, actually, we are all very excited.

Halloween

The kids had a great time on Halloween.

Andrew was planning to be this for Halloween:

Iron Man.

But then on Halloween morning, he decided that he wasn't fond of wearing the mask. I told him he could wear the costume and not the mask and he still passed. Thankfully, he chose to wear the same costume as last year - Superman. And thankfully, it still fit.

Cailin wanted to be a cowgirl.


The kids trick-or-treated with neighbors and friends, the Frasers. The dads took the kids and the moms hunkered down by a bonfire and handed out candy to the other neighborhood trick-or-treaters.

Poor Andrew got a little spooked at one house. One house was all decked out scary-style. They had scary, spooky stuff and that was too much for him. After that he decided he wanted to walk along, but didn't want to go to any more doors for candy. Later he told me his favorite part was at home, handing out 'candy to the customers' that came to the door.

No snow this year too, which in Minnesota - you never know.

End of the Season

Since I haven't updated in a very, very, VERY long time. I spent some time looking through the pile of photos on the computer and realized we just finished up our camping season not too long ago.

We had three trips over the past month or so, so I do a quick summary all here in one post. I'm sure camping gets old and boring to most of you, but that's how we spent a lot of our summer vacation time. It was a pretty nice time I must say.

We started out with a trip to Baker Park in September with our neighbors and friends, the Frasers. The kids have a blast and the adults kind of like one another too, so it's a good time had by all. The weather was perfect!


We rode bikes a lot, took walks, but generally just hung out at our campsites and played with all the loot we dragged with us.

The next trip was to Wisconsin again and the weather was a little cooler. It was nice during the day but at night got quite chilly, so that made for chilly, frosty mornings.




We hiked down to the waterfalls, went biking, played at the campsite and just had a great time.



We saw this HUGE harvest moon. My camera did not do it justice. I was not prepared, I didn't have the right lens or tripod. But you get the idea.


Mike and Andrew hiked up to the top lookout vista at the falls. The water was really, REALLY high when we were there due to the recent (at that time) rains. So the water was just loud and crashing down the falls. I have been there many times, but never seen it with this much water.




Our final trip was to the local park to us, Baylor Regional Park. We usually start and finish our 'season' there. It's a great little park. The leaves were in full color and the weather was absolutely perfect!

A Visit to the Apple Orchard

We recently visited our favorite apple orchard that is close to our home.

It was a cool morning a few weeks back, probably the coolest one we had this fall (at that time). So we packed up our rain boots (the grass was very wet), coats, blankets, socks, extra clothes and snacks.

We were so busy packing all of that stuff, that we forgot the camera. And about halfway there - Me: "Honey, did you grab the camera?", his response "ah no, it's sitting on the bench next to the door safe and sound" - Classic. We both forgot. Oh well.

It was a beautiful day, it was cool, but beautiful. This apple orchard has a winery attached as well, so got to walk through rolling hills of grape vines and apple trees. Then got a wagon ride and got to play with the animals.

We got a few pictures on our cell phones. Not quite like the regular camera but you get the picture (no pun intended, well kind of intended I guess...).

Andy (andrew) got to pull his own wagon.

And the kids got to hop and jump on the haybales.

We had a blast and left with LOTS of apples for munching. Sorry for the lack of photos. We'll try and remember the camera next time...
:)

The tides of a 4 1/2 year old

Our son Andrew (aka Masher)is 4 1/2. He is currently experiencing all of his emotions and testing them out on us (his parents), his sister and I'm sure at daycare with his friends. He's normally a very even-keeled kind of fellow, but lately, he's been a bit more shall we say 'emotional'?

Last week, Andrew woke up on the wrong side of the bed. He was a bit out of sorts (to put it nicely) and he was getting ready to go to daycare in the morning with Mike. He was walking around the house and found this ball that he had gotten from Auntie Buzzy (in her classroom when we visited recently).

He was crabbing about something. Picked up the ball, showed it to Mike and yelled: "And this smiley face ball doesn't even make me happy right now!!"

So that pretty much sums up our world right now. I'm sure it will pass soon just like every other phase he has gone through and will go through.

Hard not to laugh when he springs that one on you.

Hoarding

Our dear, sweet Andrew loves "STUFF". We call him "loot boy" because whenever he sees something, be it a toy at the store, a stick at the park or some cool rock in the backyard, that boy keeps it. Some type of treasure to him I'm sure.

His room is regularly cleaned out by the loot fairy that sneaks in when someone is not looking to remove some of the stuff he's accumulated.

I'm thinking we'll have to stage an intervention at some point in his future.

On this particular day, he decided he wanted to wear his swimsuit and then his brand new flip flops. And he wanted to wear them to bed for naps.

Silly boy.

Now, off to his room for some loot removal.........

A beautiful evening

We were lucky enough to be invited to a party on the St. Croix this past weekend. Some family friends were hosting a party on a paddleboat out of Stillwater for an evening cruise.

The weather was spectacular. Warm and sunny, then clear and cool after the sun went down.

We were able to enjoy the scenery.

Visit with old friends and new.

And enjoy an evening with the kids throughly enjoying their babystitting time with Aunt Rayna (thank you, THANK YOU!!)

It was beautiful and very relaxing!

School Daze

I can't believe it. I'm in a daze shall we say??? My teeny tiny baby girl is in school.

Cailin started Kindergarten on Monday of this week.

Cailin will be taking the bus from daycare four days (then from home one day) a week, so we packed up and headed to daycare to see her off for the first day.

Cailin waited for her bus patiently.
But alas, the bus forgot to pick her up. We watched it drive by us. So Mom took Cailin to school for her first day.

She took it in stride and was all smiles.

So since I was at school (I really had intended to watch her board the bus, and NOT go to school, but plans change sometimes) we watched from a distance as she was in line with her class and lead into the school.
The nice thing for mom (me) was that all the commotion of the bus missing her, gave me a much needed distraction. I was maybe a little emotional as you see that flash go before your eyes. You remember her being born and now this. I joked with a friend of mine that we were soon to be 'empty-nesters'.

So we'll have to soak these days up. In between filling out her paperwork, school picture forms, school activities, sports and fundraiser info. Whew - I'm tired already. And it's day 2.

:)