Changes

Wednesday night will be Will's first night in his big-boy, twin bed. It's about time, right? :) He hadn't ever tried climbing out of his crib so we never saw a need to move on. I felt like painting this week and Home Depot was having a sale on it...so....there you go.

Tuesday I painted Will's room "Caribbean Blue". Wednesday we hung up sports stickers and switched beds around. Last summer we got a twin bed and headboard from a guy John works with. His girls were upgrading to full size beds. We thought that bed, since it is longer and taller, would work better for Katie, and when the time comes, we'd give her old one to Will.

So after a lot of moving mattresses, box springs and crib pieces, we finally have an end result that seems to be working - so far. Will's been in his bed for 30 minutes now and he hasn't wandered downstairs.

Father's Day football

Every since John found his football in the garage last week, it's been Will's favorite thing to play with outside. He loves to play catch. Actually, the little guy has got a pretty good spiral already. He isn't afraid to catch the ball either!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Today I want to wish my mom a Happy Birthday! I found some pictures that aren't TOO embarrassing. :)

Mom dressed up for Crazy Days in Waukon, IA. This is when she was working for Kwik Trip, I believe. "Crazy Days" used to be a lot bigger when I was little - at least it seemed that way. Everyone dressed up, there was a kiddie parade, etc.

Also - my mother-in-law celebrated a birthday about a week and a half ago - Happy Birthday Mary! We went with her to a LaCrosse Logger's baseball game in WI. No pictures of Mary dressed as a clown....although I'm gonna keep my eyes open for one. :)

Katie's party

We had our family birthday party for Katie Thursday night. She opened her presents and we had cupcakes. Let's see Katie got some new computer games, a Zhu Zhu pet (electric hamster), books, games a water bottle, and clothes. Your basic birthday loot, I suppose.

Will gave his seal of approval for the cupcakes.

Katie liked her computer games. (Shhhh...don't tell her they were .25-1.00!)

To keep Will entertained, he also got some gifts. He got a truck, some books, a water bottle, and a computer game of his own.

Then on Saturday, Katie had three friends over that live in the neighborhood and rode the school bus with her this past year. We asked them not to bring gifts, so we just played games, tossed some water balloons, did a pinata, and ate more cupcakes. It was a very fun party with a great group of kids. They will all be going to the same elementary school next year too so we look forward to connecting with them again this summer.

Katie and her buds....and of course, Will. :)

Katie and her pinata.

It was a pull-string pinata. (No big stick to swing around.) Everyone took turns pulling ribbons at the bottom and towards the end the bottom pulls out and all the goodies go flying.

Katie said she had a great party - and has already asked how many days until her next one.

Happy Birthday Katie!

6 years.

For six years we've been able to call you our own. I remember the first time I touched you...the first time you cried....the first time you looked at me.....your first picture....the first time John held you.

Some people say the first years are a blur, but I remember every moment we've spent together. I can't wait to remember the future.

What would you do...

I wanted to post this yesterday, but the Blogger site was down so it had to wait til today.

What do you do when there's a squirrel in your toilet?

I wish I had a punchline for you. As my friend Sarah says - there's a nut joke in there somewhere.

Remember that scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation where the squirrel jumps out of the Christmas tree in their living room? Well, yesterday one jumped out of our toilet. We are thinking that the stupid guy came up through air trap thing, couldn't turn around and just kept going. He surprised John the next morning.

I was downstairs fixing breakfast and I saw him heading back upstairs with a big box and a laundry basket. I gave him a funny look and all he said was "You don 't want to know."

A couple minutes later he comes running down the stairs with a blanket yelling "Open the door! Open the door!" We go out on the back porch, he shakes out the blanket and we hear a THUD, followed by a little squirrel running for his life.

Reason #7681 I love John - he will wrestle live squirrels so I don't have to.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Today my niece turns 17. Holy crap.

It's pretty easy to find funny pictures of her.....

FORE!

Weeks ago, John took all of us to the driving range. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon...well before the humidity kicked in. The kids enjoyed golfing, and no one came away with an iron to the head. That equals a good day.

It's funny - I mowed lawn, pulled weeds, planted the garden - no sore muscles. I swung the golf club probably 12 times and I SOOO felt it the next day.

This past weekend, the 4 of us golfed 9 holes. More from that to come!

Tuckered out

Uncle Jim paid us a visit last Thursday. He and John went to the Yankees/Twins game that night. Will was so excited that he skipped his nap and played with Uncle Jim. About 15 minutes after John and Jim left, this is what I found on the living room floor.

Will's Gym class

Last Thursday Will and I went to his "last" class at My Gym. It's his last scheduled class. Throughout the summer he and Katie will do 2 camps there together and we'll do about 2 random classes for each of them whenever it works out.

I remembered my camera this time!

After circle time, they go over "the rules". One friend on the trampoline, take turns, etc.

Here's Will on the balance beam. He got really good at walking across with no help....of course the wall helps.

Today's gymnastics skill was the hanging rings. Obviously, Will likes them.


Will doing a forward roll.

Puppet show time!

Gone Fishing

On Sunday, after we got home from church, we all packed up and went fishing at a local lake. It was a bit chilly, but we did have some peeks of sun that warmed us up. The kids did great and I'm sure we'll be going again soon.

First, you pick out a nice, juicy worm. Katie and Will both took turns picking out worms.

( Note to my Dad: Yes, I even put worms on. It's funny, if it's something that's important to your kids, you just suck it up and do it.) :)

Here, Katie is using her Scooby Doo kid's fishing rod that we picked up at a neighbor's garage sale about a month ago. Paid 25 cents cuz the reel wasn't working. Five minutes with John = working fishing rod.

Will was up for fishing...for a while. Then he'd rather just sit and eat grapes....using the same hands he dug in the worms with. I'm sure those are the "good" germs. :)

Katie and Will were entertained by a caterpillar for a while. Miss Nature girl, herself even let it crawl onto her hands. (That'd be Katie, not me. Worms today - caterpillars later.)


And yes, the first fish of the day was a sunfish caught by ME, using Katie's Scooby Doo rod. John caught one shortly after, and then Katie caught one all by herself.

Great day for a picnic

Today is just about the perfect day to have a picnic. Good thing we have one scheduled. Some friends are getting together at a nearby park for lunch and play. We couldn't have ordered a more perfect day.

Tomorrow John's brother, Jim, is coming up to go to a Twins game - sounds like it'll be a good evening for outdoor baseball as well. Better than last night anyway - we had thunder and rain, which was very welcome because it cooled off the air enough so we could all sleep.

Got a lot of summer activities scheduled yesterday. Katie and Will are doing some morning camps at My Gym. They will both go from 9:30 to about noon, giving me a couple mornings completely free to just twiddle my thumbs, if I so choose.

They are each doing a week long camp at church as well. Katie's is a music camp, and Will's is vacation bible school. We'll see how he does in an organized group setting...I probably won't stray too far for the first few days.

And then I'm hoping to get them each into some swimming lessons, just haven't nailed down the days yet. Between all that and the free activities offered through the library and rec center, I think we have something every week. It will really help us keep a schedule through out the summer and not 'break the bank.'

It's odd how you have to schedule 3 months worth of actives all at once - no wonder the summer goes by so fast, right? However, if I don't - things fill up too fast and then we'll be stuck just going to the park every day. That may sound great, but around day 42....it gets old.

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday - Happy HOT Monday. I'll take it though. It's hot and sticky here in Minnesota - gonna get up to 90 today, and I refuse to turn the air on. It's only May for pete's sake. It'll be ok. :) Makes me think that as soon as it drops back down to 70-ish, I'll start painting the living room. I don't want to have to do it this summer when it's 90+.

So far we've had a productive start to the the week. I went to the chiropractor - got all adjusted and feel much better. Will and I also picked up a tomato plant and a green pepper plant for the garden. You may remember me telling you that we had our garden pretty much planted - 8 pepper plants, tomato plants, cucumbers, etc. Well that last cold week that we had about a month ago did our pepper plants and cucumber plants in. (My wonderful mother-in-law, the master gardener, just said "I told you so." :) We were fooled into thinking that our early spring would last.) That's the good thing about plants. You can always start over, as long as you learned something.

So now I'm finishing up the laundry - watching Will eat his yogurt and waiting for Katie to get home from school. She has 12 days left. We are trying to work out our summer camp plans and creating a 'schedule' to make our summer days more enjoyable.

Any suggestions?

No worries, here I am.

Yes, we are still around. But it's over 70 in MN this week, and you can't expect me to sit on the computer. :) We need to stock up on our Vitamin D. (Which I've stopped taking supplements of in honor of our wonderful sunshine!)

This past weekend was pretty busy - I think....I just can't seem to remember too much about it. Saturday night we went out to eat. We had some free kid's meal coupons for a Mexican restaurant. It's been SOOO hard getting Will to eat anything lately. Katie, on the otherhand is eating well at every meal. Seems Will only eats blueberries, graham crackers and yogurt these days.

On Sunday Katie was in the children's musical at church. This was her first year in the show and she was a fish. Her and about 5 other 1st and 2nd graders stood in the back singing and doing actions - it was really cute and she loved it. Our church has a musical camp that they offer for a week this summer that she wants to do too - so I see more shows in our future.

A couple weeks ago we stayed in Rochester because John had early morning meetings down there. Gave the kids an opportunity to swim and have a hotel adventure - which they LOVE!

At Grandma Lyla's house, Katie was obsessed with building towers. She posed for a picture with her creation.


At Grandma Mary's house Katie built chairs for her animals out of encyclopedias.

I think her father's engineering gene got passed on to her. :)

Took 2; Left with 2

Tuesday we went to The Children's Museum in St. Paul. We try to go once a year. Last year we I'm sure we went, but can't really remember...I think the special exhibit was Clifford, and the year before that was Sesame Street. This time they showcased dinosaurs!

Can you see Katie and Will in there? They had an area where you could take a picture and

e-mail it to yourself.

Usually we go in the morning as soon as it opens. This year, because Katie has kindergarten in the morning we were forced to wait until after lunch. I wasn't sure what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised. All the school groups left by 1:30 -2:00 and for the next 2 hours we had the place pretty much to ourselves...give or take 20 kids.

This is the first visit to the museum where I didn't have to constantly help someone. I could really just step back and let them go explore. Needless to say that made for a very stress-free visit. Neither of them can decide which part was their favorite....so here is a taste of our afternoon.

The grocery store - always a favorite. A picture of them together - rare.

Will creating a collage.

I wanted to take a picture of Will with T-Rex, but there was no way in hell Will was gonna take his eyes off that guy. (He moved...and I'm sure Will thought he was gonna take a bite while his back was turned.)

Again, one of Katie's favorite areas is the block work place. Filled with conveyor belts, pulleys, and foam blocks - she likes to play in the warehouse.

Happy May!

It's May! This is the time of year we start expecting nice weather. Hmmm...here in Minnesota we've had nice weather for the past 2 months, really. Now I'm spoiled and getting sick of ONLY 60 degree days. I want some 75-80 degree days. Considering it's snowed in May before, I should probably shut up.

This past weekend my sister, Denise and niece Sarah stayed with us for a night. Sarah is college shopping and considering the University of MN. If any of you remember Sarah, you're probably thinking "What is she doing looking at colleges? She's only 10!" Sorry, she's almost 17.

Saturday night John and I and the kids went to our friends' Wade and Donna's house. It was Wade's birthday party and they had invited people over for food and drinks. I find it funny that out of about 15-20 people in their 30's, we are the only one with kids. Guess they didn't drink the Kool-Aid. Katie and Will charmed everyone, played Wii and had a good night.

On a much less exciting point, I updated our computer to Windows 7. Not sure why, other than I got the update for free. The only thing I know it does differently is that thing they show on TV where you can have 2 windows open and snap them into place on the side of the screen so you can see both of them at the same time. Seemed like a lot of work just for that....there MUST be something else too.

I wish I had a picture for today. I had the PERFECT opportunity yesterday and forgot. The four of us went for our first bike ride as a family of 4. John pulled Katie on her tandem bike that hooks to the back of his and I pulled Will behind me in his "cart". I made it up all the hills, except for one. UGH! I was so close! :) My excuse was that the wind was blowing the wrong way.

Friday Funny

I don't think I can explian this one....so why bother.

Farm theme

In keeping with the farm theme that seems to be in a lot of pictures this week...



The kids and I had a fun time last week at a fundraiser put on by our church. During the week they run a small preschool for about 25-30 3-5 year-olds. Every spring they put on a "Family County Fair" to raise money for some of their yearly expenses. It's an evening of kiddie games, raffles, silent auctions, face painting, hot dogs, etc. And while we didn't win any of the raffles or auctions, we did have fun at the games.

Gosh darn it....that's another 'lady' hat on Will, isn't it.

Do you ever wonder....

Do you ever wonder how many pictures I have of Will dressed as a girl? I should sit and count them up someday. Honestly, he enjoyed himself as much as I did, snapping away.

Trip to the zoo....

Last Friday the four of us took some time and went to the zoo together. The kids and I try to go every year, but John hasn't gone with us since Katie was a baby.

If you remember, I said I wasn't going to take the stroller. Ok, that MAY have been a bit premature. In any case, it was a lot easier thanks to John....and his shoulders.

Will liked petting the baby goats. I'm pretty sure he just thought they were

strange looking dogs.

Katie in the chicken coop.

Not a real pig, by the way...