Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. (www.mycharmingkids.net)

It was not me who thought it was a good idea to send the kids into Cailin’s bedroom to play with her new makeup set that she got for Christmas. Because it wasn’t me who thought it would be nice to enjoy the few minutes of peace and harmony all the while the makeup was being painted on the carpet “by accident”. I would most definitely have known that I might find a bigger mess to clean up and carpet to scrub if I had thought about it fully.

And it wasn’t me who enjoyed a piece of Cheesecake when my girlfriends and I went out for lunch knowing that it would take lots and lots of extra miles on the treadmill to work it off. I would most certainly have passed on the indulgence knowing that I’d have to ‘pay for it’ later on the treadmill.

And it wasn’t me that was working in the kitchen and smashed my thumb somehow on a knife, causing a severely bruised thumbnail. That would not be very smart of me, considering I stabbed myself at Halloween cutting a tendon, nerve and vein. I would have been much smarter and much more careful in the kitchen after such an incident.

And finally, I’m sure it could not have been me that heard my dear sweet child say in perfect context “dam it!” when we were baking last weekend. Because that is something that we don’t say in our house. And I’m most certainly NOT blaming my mom for saying that (we actually don’t really say that in our house….we say other things by accident but not that), that wouldn’t be very nice.

Happy No Me-ing!

And Happy Monday!

And drumroll please.......

The answer to all of your questions is YES, she did get back into the pool last night at swim lessons.

As many of you know, we had some struggles with our last swim class last year. We registered and paid for Cailin to attend a 10 week session and she went the first time and refused to go back a second time. And when I say refused, that's totally what I mean. It was the kicking and screaming kind of refused.

Not this time though! Yeah!! She did complain that she didn't want to go, but when we got there, she saw her teacher and ran right over. She was the first one in the pool too! This might not seem like a huge deal to others, but it was a big deal to us. We were holding our breath to see if she'd do it. And we're hopeful that she'll keep it up!

They do such a nice job at Foss I must say! The teacher is absolutely perfect for her group. He's funny but still getting the lesson done.

She was very proud of herself, she spent most of the class dunking her head underwater with her 'monkey cheeks' as they call it.

Awesome! I couldn't be more proud...
aw shucks, right??
;)

Minnesota Zoo - Take 2

And for another Take 2 - we did the Minnesota Zoo again. We have a family membership so it only seemed right to take FULL advantage of our membership and go two weeks in a row.

The kids definitely needed to get out of the house and so did mom and dad.

My absolute favorite (and the kids enjoy it a lot too) is the big tropical fish tank they have in the Tropics section.

And check out the big Zebra Shark sitting on the bottom of the tank. Cool!


We tried riding on the Monorail, but it was experiencing some "technical difficulties" so we opted out for the day.

Maybe we'll go next weekend too - we'll have to see how many weeks in a row we can go....but it is wonderful entertainment!

Swim lessons.....Take 2.

Cailin took swim lessons previously through a local community education program last year. She went the first time and seemed to have a great time, but then would NOT get back into the pool. Not really sure what was up. The only thing we could deduce from the experience is that the lessons were in the regular lap pool at the high school in that area. So it was cool and also they had these clear Plexiglas risers that the kids would stand on (since the water was 5ft deep there and the kids are obviously not 5ft tall...) And that seemed to spook her a bit.

So this time we went for the big guns. We registered with Foss Swim School. They have a great reputation and everyone I have ever talked to that attended there loved it. Plus, they offered a guarantee, so we figured we'd give it a try. Nice warm pool, small class sizes, lots of class options. Seems like a good idea.


Cailin was a little nervous to get into the pool with her two new friends in her class. Her teacher's name is Eric and he seems like a really nice guy. He was all about the comedy on the first night which worked like a charm with the kiddos. All while having them practice kicking, floating on their backs and general water familiarity. I was amazed. How come it never is that easy when I have her in the pool??? Well, that's why their job is right?

Now the big test is whether or not she'll get into the pool tomorrow night for class #2. We'll see???

Did I really say that???

Top 10 sentences (or partial sentences) that came out of my mouth in the last week:

You ARE a cute puppy, but you may not chew on my Coach purse.

Andrew, stop tackling your sister.

Cailin, why don’t you just MOVE out of your brother’s way so he doesn’t pummel you?

Honey, didn’t I SAY it wasn’t a good idea to take the kids to the grocery store after dinner??? Go ahead….Tell me I’m right….

Cailin, you are not going to drown in the swimming pool during your swim lessons, your swim teacher won’t let that happen….

Can someone tell me why the dog is chewing on the door?? He has like a thousand dog chews and toys....

Honey, I’m sorry I ruined your life, but that’s what moms have to do sometimes, it’s our job….

You have to wear socks, it’s –18 degrees outside, I’m sorry, you can’t go barefoot.

It’s not ok to try to ride on the puppy like he’s a horse. I know it seems like he likes it, but it’s not nice…..

Andrew, stop ramming your cart into other carts, no this is not Wii Super Mario Brothers, this is Cub Foods.

Slight resemblence?? Maybe??

Andrew looks a TON like his daddy. It's kind of freaky if you look at pictures of Andrew as a babe and Mike as a babe, it's no question who Andrew's daddy is. Wow.
See?
Mike as a child:

(Sorry, this picture is not a very good quality photo, it was one of those school-sized wallet photos that was scanned and cropped. It didn't do very well in the conversion, but you get the picture - ok no pun intended...)

Andrew as a child, well he is still a child - duh! this was from a few months ago:


But, we do think he has a slight resemblence to my father, Robert. My dad died when I was 13 years old. So the pictures we have of my dad are very old (not that I'm very old, just the pictures of my dad that is...).

We have this one in a frame in our living room and Mike and I were talking this past weekend that altough Andrew is quite a spitting image of his own dad, that he does have some similarities with my dad. He even got my dad's dimple. The dimple is hard to see in the picture, but is awesome in person. So if nothing else, he does resemble my father with that dimple. The dimple I wanted so very much - lucky boy!

I remember wanting dimples so very much when I was a child just like my dad and would push with my pinkies deeply into my cheeks to try and make dimples of my very own. No such luck. I guess it was like that episode of the Brady Bunch where Peter wanted to be taller (wasn't it Peter) and so he would hang from the monkey bars in his back yard hoping to make himself taller. Well, I was under the same belief that I could make my own dimples. Well, I still don't have any dimples.

So I thought I'd ask you - what do you think? Can you see it too? Maybe just a little bit??
:)

Just a little fun for the day....

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. (www.mycharmingkids.net)

It was not me that when at the store yesterday, the -19 degree day, it wasn't me that was picking out the cutest little summer shirts and shorts for the kiddos. No, that wasn't me. It's really freaking cold here and there is no reason to be out shopping for summer tidbits, that would be certainly odd. And when I was at the checkout it wasn't me that actually pondered a response when asked "are you going somewhere warm?". It certainly was NOT me that was thinking about coming up with some fantastic story in about 3 seconds that sounded better than 'no, I just like to plan ahead and thought these were really cute'.....That would never have been me.

And it wasn't me that let Andrew take his nap today in his new MN Vikings coat. (hey - he's a fan ok?? no big deal...)

Ok, well it really wasn't me that told him it was ok, it was most surely my husband who did that. But when he told me about it, the first thing I didn't think of was to grab the camera and take a couple pictures as he slept soundly in his warm winter coat in his warm cozy bed. That would have been extrememly irresponsible and kind of silly of me to do.

Happy Monday-ing to you all!

Changing Musical Tastes??

One of the changes I've experienced since becoming a mom is how much my style in music has changed. Of course there are many other, more obvious things that have changed since we've been blessed with these two incredibly wonderful, healthy kiddos that we have, but this particular area was one that was somewhat unexpected I should say. I still love my oldies (can't believe I'm even saying that...) Clapton is my #1 favorite of all time. Loaded everything I had on my iPod when I got it and even have my very own Clapton Playlist.

But I did add other playlists to that very same iPod. Seems like it's pretty handy to have a playlist labeled "kiddo music" on there too for long or boring car rides or for that long wait wherever we may be, I hand one or both of them the earbuds and they just love the music.

But what I didn't expect is that there would be times that I'd 'sneak' some songs from that 'kiddo music' list myself. When no kids were around. What? Preposterous... Ok, but true.

Usually in times when I just wanted to smile for no particular reason or when I was missing my mashers. So one of the catchier toons is from the Tv show, "The Wonder Pets". It's on NickJr for anyone who hasn't heard of it. It's a cute show, something about a baby chicken, baby hamster and baby turtle that have some sort of magical powers and they can fly out of their cages and work together (learning cooperation) to help others (sharing). Anyway, it's a cute show, but they sing this song that the kids also sing a lot. During bath time, at the dinner table, whenever, I'll catch the kids singing it. Here's an example of how it goes from Andrew
And now Cailin's version (sung with her typical 'enthusiasm' - ok, just loud!

I won't bore you with my version, but it's quite a catchy tune, wouldn't you say?

Go Wonder Pets!

A Pine Island Christmas

The weekend before Christmas, we headed down to Pine Island for the Friary side Christmas. We first went to the Kruse farm (Mike's maternal grandmother's side) to celebrate. We saw a bunch of folks and ate and ate and opened presents.


Cailin and Andrew helped with passing out the presents to everyone. I was amazed at how well Cailin was reading names this year.

And the kids had fun seeing everyone.
Wanda and the ham-bone Choppy(Christopher).


The we scooted up to Grandma and Grandpa's place (Mike's parents), which thankfully is only a few short miles away from the Kruse farm for dinner. Great Grandma Bea was already there and the kids were so excited to see everyone.

Andrew really liked opening the presents. He didn't care if it was for him or not, he just liked the process of opening the presents. He kept asking "Does that one say 'happy birthday Andrew' on it mommy?".


The dogs had a blast of course. At one point it seemed to be complete bedlam. There was paper everywhere and the dogs were taking turns ripping it to shreds (Jake's favorite thing about Christmas). Then poor Buster (the older dog at Grandma and Grandpas) was wiped out and took a quick nap.

Some of the presents were wrapped in bubble wrap and that kept Andrew entertained for a while.

He also was content sitting on Grandpa's lap 'helping' him unwrap his presents. He's a very good unwrapper by the way....


Here Great Grandma Bea and Wanda are busy examining gifts.


We had some pretty tired kiddos that got all ready for bed in a hurry and were happy to go to bed. No naps had been a lot that day, so everyone was very ready to pack her up for the night. We stayed at Grandma's overnight and continued the festivities the next morning.

The next morning, we opened up stockings and Andrew was once again content 'helping' everyone open up their presents.


The girls posed for a picture, Wanda, Grandma and Katrine (all in matching sweatshirts of course - the holiday tradition).


The we packed up the truck and headed back to the cities. It had snowed overnight and was still snowing Sunday morning as we packed up. It sure was pretty with a fresh coat of snow on the ground and not too bad for driving either.