Lutsen Weekend

Our neighbors and new friends, Luke and Sarah invited us up to their family cabin outside of Lutsen this past weekend. It was our first long drive and our first vacation with both kiddos. It was sort of a trial run, but we were very excited for our trip. Luke and Sarah have two boys, Caleb, who is almost 3 and Dawson, who is 9 months old. The kids had a blast together and the adults did too, if I do say so myself!

This is Cailin and Dawson. Cailin and Andrew were very taken by him. Although Andrew did get very, very jealous if mom paid any attention to Dawson.

The cabin was beautiful and Caleb was kind enough to share his toys with Cailin and Andrew. The kids had a lot of fun playing. We went to Lutsen Resort and went swimming in the pool and hot tub and then back there for dinner. We also hung out at the cabin quite a bit and enjoyed the wildlife. It seemed that there were constant deer visitors the entire time we were there.

Here, one deer was hopping on it's back legs to eat the bird food. There were times when we had six or so deer right outside the dining room window!!

We had great food and great company!! The trip back was also uneventful. Made Mike and I feel almost like 'regular' people again. Getting out, traveling - we haven't done that in a few years.

One of the kids' favorite games was a foosball table - that they called the 'soccer ball game'. All three of the bigger kids (Dawson would have played, but he was busy doing other things....) really enjoyed playing that pretty much non-stop.

Caleb and Cailin were busy with lots of games. Caleb introducted Cailin to Veggietales and Cailin suggested she and Caleb build a Duplo tower bigger than both of them together.

Thanks again to our neighbors for a wonderful weekend!!!

Playing with the Laundry Basket

With the cold winter days, we still are creating some fun games. The kids found the laundry basket and we took 'rides' in the basket all around the house. Big fun!!

Boy, are we excited for warmer weather!!!!

Goofball

Andrew has been sick lately and was certainly feeling better this past weekend. He was back to himself and up to his old tricks.

The first thing he did was find Dad's old coffee pot. Dad got a new one and Drew found the old one waiting by the door. So he helped himself to the coffee pot and started to lick it. He's never had coffee before, but apparently, he likes it.

Next, he found one of mom's t-shirts and insisted on wearing it. He brought it to mom and said "shirt on" over and over again. So on it went. It was a little big.Then he found a pair of dress shoes in Cailin's closet. Cailin and Drew are the same shoe size now, so he decided to try them on. They matched his outfit very well. He liked wearing them though....
He's got quite the sense of humor!

Cailin is 3!

Cailin is three years old. Hard to believe. We had a few parties, as usual, to celebrate.

We had a party with the Friary side of the family at Uncle Gary and Aunt Rhonda's place. We had a cupcake-cake and played with the family all day. We didn't want to go sliding when everyone went outside, so we just watched from the window.

Then Cailin had a party at daycare and a party on her birthday night. She wanted to go to Culver's for dinner on her birthday because she liked the idea of the ice cream they have there. We also went shopping and Cailin picked out a new chair for her bedroom.

Then a few days later, she celebrated with mommy's family. We had cake, candles and presents once again. Bear even got a present. Big fun!! Andrew liked to 'help' with the presents.

I think she likes her birthday pretty good and she LOVES to celebrate the 'birthday season'!

Winter fun...again

Ok, so we have been a little bored in the house. Between the bitterly cold weather and constant illness traveling through our family, we've been somewhat stir-crazy inside.

Cailin had been rumaging through the cupboards and found a box of wine glass charms in one of the drawers. She decided that they must be jewelry and took each one out. Then put them on all of her fingers and toes and viola! This is what you get.

She got a little frustrated when she tried to walk around with them on. Goofball.

Yes, we do really feed him....

A week or so ago, Andrew decided he needed to eat more. We had just finished breakfast and he was playing, then all of a sudden, he headed over to his high chair and was saying "hop up" repeatedly. I reminded him that we had just (and I mean just as in within the last 1/2 hour) finished breakfast and trying to joke with him about it. He did not think I was super funny and resorted to hanging from the tray of the high chair and complaining continually about it.

We really do feed him. A lot.
:)

Sunglasses

The kids found a few old pairs of mom's sunglasses. "In the day"... they were pretty fancy schmancy sunglasses costing mom a good chunk of her paycheck (probably date back to high school or college) - so Mom would have cringed to have seen the kids do this years ago. But times have changed and kids rule the house, so they enjoyed this...

Andrew would not keep his hands off of the glasses, so he walked around the house with the glasses on and then would either tip his head way back or hold onto the glasses the whole time. Cailin was more free about it.
Hey, when it's 15 below zero, you try to find exciting new games!

Mama's birthday

We had sort of a spread out birthday celebration for mom this year. We were out of town for the big day, so had a pretty mellow celebration.Uncle John, Auntie Melissa and cousin Michael sent this cool fruit bouquet - the kids LOVED it!! It was super yummy - Thanks!!

New Year's Day Fun - Before AND After

We had a pretty quiet New Year's Eve, after the kids went to bed the 'adults' (scary to say that) kept up the family tradition of Fondue. Otherwise, no clubbing or watching balls drop or anything crazy like that.


Then on New Year's Day, it was pretty casual as well. The kiddos of course love to be home. And what we're finding these days is that if the two of them are together, and it's quiet - there is probably some type of trouble brewing. Well, this was one of those days.





The other important fact in this story is that when we moved into this house, we didn't have any towel bars, toilet paper holders, shelves, anything really in the bathrooms. So that was one of our first tasks, only to realize that toilet paper ON the roll is BIG fun for toddlers. So we've been storing items up on the sink vanity - trying to keep it out of reach. Well, our kids are resourcesful, and this is what happened.

Notice how Andrew is just watching from a distance and WHO the real instigator was on this?? Yes, that is how it is most of the time....

Then soon after, we headed to Lowe's to pick out a cabinet that could be hung high up on the wall. It won't stop them, but hopefully it will slow them down at least. for now.

Christmas

We had several Christmas celebrations this year. The first was on Sunday the 23rd with a trip to Pine Island. We were at Grandma and Grandpa's place with Katrine and Tony, Wanda and Sean, Grandma Bea and Grandpa Norm as well. It was a ton of fun! The kids slowly got into the spirit by ripping the paper, but wanted to play for extended periods of time with each item they received, so they didn't want to move on to the next item. But overall, they had a blast! The drive home wasn't as much fun as we had gotten a few inches of new snow during the day and it was blowing and drifting quite a bit. But, with taking our time, we eventually made it back home for #2.

We hosted Christmas Eve at our house with Oma, Uncle and Uncle Chris over. The kids loved running around the house and Cailin kept looking at the tree with all the 'loot' under it and wanting to open presents. She played "santa" this year by delivering presents to everyone throughout the night.

Then of course Santa came Christmas Eve at our house. So when the kids got up, Cailin was very curious to see what this meant. She had been somewhat scared of Santa before, so this was interesting now. When she got into the living room she said "mom, Santa really did come AND he left presents!" She was so excited. So we spent most of the rest of the day opening presents and stockings and then Mike was putting toys together and then playing with them. Mike said his favorite toy was one of Andrew's car track presents. Funny!

We are truly blessed and had a wonderful Christmas, healthy and happy!

Nick and Vanessa's Wedding

We were invited to Daddy's cousin's wedding, which was held on December 22nd. It was a very nice affair. The kids had a blast and it was nice to see the whole family. Usually the family gets together at Nick's dad's place - Gary and Lee's for the annual Christmas gathering. But since Nick and Vanessa were getting married that day, the annual Christmas gathering changed a bit to a wedding with all the family there!! Uncle Sean and Aunt Wanda even made the 12 hour journey to attend it!! (thanks to an overturned papaya truck, yes papaya on the highway, it made for a very, very long journey for them).
Anyway, the wedding was beautiful and Cailin was so excited to see everyone, especially her buddy Jessie (the groom's little sister). They had fun playing and Cailin liked looking at everyone's pretty dresses.

At the reception, we sat with Uncle Dan, Auntie Buzzy, Kayla, Joey and Christopher as well as Wanda and Sean. It was a very fun time. Cailin's favorite part was the cake and insisted that we not leave until cake was had. She also liked the dancing, although we didn't get to do too much of that since the dancing started just as we were leaving. But it certainly was a lot of fun!!

Congratuations Nick and Vanessa!!

Setting Up the Christmas Tree

We had a night out (thanks to our daycare person, she watched the kiddos for us as a Christmas present for the evening) and went for a nice dinner and then got our Christmas tree. We even had time to set up at home in the stand before picking up the kids.

The next morning, we got the tree all decorated with the help of the kids. Cailin did her annual duty by putting the angel on top of the tree when it was all done.
Andrew LOVES having the lights up. He wants to have them on all the time, he'll just keep saying 'light, on' over and over and over.

No nap day

There are several days at day care when the kids don't sleep for whatever reason. This day was one of those days. Usually when I pick them up and they haven't slept, it's been a long day for everyone. We were eating dinner and I noticed that Andrew was nodding off in his high chair, which I don't think I've ever seen him do at home. So I pointed it out to daddy and we tried briefly to keep him awake, but no luck.

He fell asleep mid-dessert with a cookie still in his hand. He had a nice, short power nap and woke up pretty cheery and upbeat!!!

Must have been a long day at the office!

Cailin and the Glasses

Cailin likes to do pretend stuff a lot. She loves to put on mommy's work ID badge and pretend like she is going to work with her briefcase. She also has recently found mom's glasses and put those on as well. She looks kind of cute, although they are a bit large on her.

A few weekends ago, Daddy was hanging some items in Cailin and Drew's rooms, so he had his cordless electric drill out. In the kit, there were a pair of eye protection glasses and Cailin had to try and put those on too. She loved those because everything looked red when she had those babies on.

Read, Read, Read..

As many of you know, Cailin has been an avid reader for some time. Drew however, has not until recently wanted to sit still long enough to enjoy a complete book. This has changed recently though and now the boy wants to read all the time!! Usually, he will want you to read the SAME book over and over and over and over.

Halloween

We went trick-or-treating with both monsters this year. Last year, Drew stayed home with mom to hand out candy, but this year, everyone was interested. Drew was a fireman and Cailin was a Lion - shocker. So, we were invited to trick-or-treat with Christopher and Uncle Dan, so we had dinner, loaded up and headed over to their place to visit and trick or treat. It was a bit chilly, but only when the wind was blowing, (which was kind of strong when it did) but otherwise kiddos stayed fairly warm. No snowsuits needed this year!

Cailin wasn't so sure at first, but then would say "on to the next house right mommy?" So she got the hang of it. We brought the stroller, but that was only good to carry 'stuff', no kiddos. So mommy carried one kiddo between houses and daddy carried the other one. Drew was sort of overwhelmed by it all - he was quiet and still, watching everything!

They both made quite a haul and had fun too!! Then when we came home, Cailin wanted to go across the street and see her friends, Caleb and Dawson for a quick 'hello' and a trick-or-treat there. Busy night!

Carving the Pumpkins

We made our pre-Halloween trip to Chanhassen to carve up some pumpkins with the Lechelts. The kids had a blast, although I don't know if either of them actually touched a pumpkin or not. Drew likes to look at the pumpkin and say "ball", then we say "no, it's a pumpkin". This goes on several times, then he laughs and then says 'pumpkin'. Or some version of it. Cailin was happy to play with Milo, play the piano and everything else in the house, but would come over to check in every once in a while. The Lechelts have a bunch of fun toys in the basement, so Cailin and Drew LOVE to go down there to play as well.

Daddy even made a Lion Bear pumpkin for Cailin - not that she's spoiled at all. Well, needless to say, that was her favorite.

Multi-tasking

Drew likes to multi-task. He will do many, many different things at once. Like this photo for example where Drew was holding his most favorite puppy (he carries it everywhere, kinda like his big sister carries a lion), carrying his cup of milk, carrying a toy in one hand (which is obstructed) and a small snack in another (also obstructed). He's quite the character. Usually one of the tasks in the multi-tasking is food-related.

Computer Time

Cailin loves to do what mommy and/or daddy do. She thought it would be nice to spend a little time on the computer. And we definately were monitoring her time while on the computer. She also likes to spin around in circles on the office chair.

Brusha, Brusha, Brusha

For some reason, brushing your teeth is BIG fun in our house. We have accumulated a toothbrush for everyone in each of our three bathrooms. So, whenever we go in the bathroom, that usually inspires us to brush our teeth. In this photo, Cailin and Drew took a seat on the edge of the shower to do their business.What you don't see is that in about 5 minutes after the photo was taken, the two kids decided it would be fun to yank on the curtain - and then you can guess what happened after that. Kind of funny, no one got hurt when the curtain fell, but then they thought it was great to play in the curtain that was on the floor.

We really do own toys, we don't just force them to play with shower curtains and such.....

Funny boy

Drew found the old baby bouncer that we had and decided he had to try it out - of course he figured this out after watching big sis do it - what fun!

Seems every time I try and put the 'baby' toys away, Cailin digs them out, because then she plays 'mom' with her bears and the baby toys. I guess I just have to hide them deeper in the storage closet - at least it may take her a little longer to find.

Andrew likes to play ball

He LOVES to play ball. We'll be in a store and he'll see a ball up on the highest, top shelf and he'll want it. So needless to say, since we are such push-overs, we have about 20 balls rolling around the house. One night, we had gone to the store and found a Nerf Football and he loved it, we got it and then the next morning, he insisted on having it with him in the highchair for breakfast.

Cailin and daddy were hanging out - Daddy was out of town on business for a few days, so when he got home Cailin reported that she needed 'extra snuggles' from Daddy. Please forgive the cheesy grin from her on this one...

:)

Pig Tails

Lately, Cailin has wanted to have us put pigtails in her hair. Not sure why now she's decided to do so, but who knows right? The only bummer is that daddy has a hard time putting them in. Her hair is still pretty fine, so it's a little tricky. Although, she does look pretty cute.

The funny thing is that lately, she's been the ham bone every time the camera comes out - She gives you this really cheesy smile. Kind of a goof ball. Of course when the camera comes out, Drew needs to join in the action too! Maybe we have a couple of ham bones....