Fall

I have gotten so far behind in my blogging (that's what a crazy busy life does to you) that I have to start blogging by seasons... My New Years resolution will be to blog at least once a month.

Now that school is almost half over, here is a picture of Janie and Aaron on

their first day of school.

We love the fall here. This year the weather was great, fairly warm, and the kids had so much fun playing in the PILES of leaves our trees shed. Everyday after school they wanted to jump in the leaves.

The pile of leaves below was one of two that we had. Filled up 37 bags this year!! Still love the fall it's just a lot of work!


At the Pumpkin Patch getting our three pumpkins, that we ACTUALLY carved this year! I am so lame, but my memories of cleaning and carving out pumpkins was that it was WAY time consuming, so I've never done it with the kids. They have so many great tools now, it was so easy and actually a lot of fun.

HALLOWEEN!! A kitty cat and a bat!

Once Aaron puts his mind to something he wants he doesn't change it. He wanted to be a vampire bat, and there was no persuading him otherwise. It was actually a easy costume to make. The wings were a pain for the parties we were at, but isn't he the cutest bat!

Kids, where are you sleeping?

The other night I got home from a meeting around 10:00. I came in the house to find Jay asleep in the family room watching TV, with his death grip on the remote. I have to note for this story we have been sleeping in the basement for a couple of days because of how warm it's been. Plus there has been a lot of tornado watches so we figured we'll be cooler in the basement and safer! So I stroll down the stairs to check on my sleeping kids... No kids in the guest room where their bed was set up.

So I hike up the stairs to their bedroom to tuck them into their own beds.... No kids.

I start turning on lights everywhere, checking under their bed (where I have found them before), I check in our bed-(where they turn up too many times) No Kids.

I check in the "comfy white chair" (which is where they to sneak to when they don't want to fall asleep in their beds)...No KIDS!

At this point my crazy mind starts thinking, while Jay's been sleeping someone came in our house and stole our kids!! I run around turning on and off lights in search of them. Seriously where could they be??

I go in the basement for one last look before I call the police about my stolen children and as I look all around the couch in the basement, I notice movement. The kids have set up a small fort, which I didn't think could fit two kids, but they had managed to not only set up the fort but set up their beds inside it too. There they were fast asleep.

The next morning I encourage them to make a bigger fort, because I had to do some moving around the night before so Janie's feet weren't in Aaron's face ALL night. I helped a little but the kids came up with some VERY creative things, like how to hang their flashlights, thanks to our oversized MIckey Mouse and Janie's tennis shoes.



After we "added on" to the first fort, much more roomie!



See how the shoe is tied to Mickey? The rest of the lace is in the tent with a flashlight tied to it, like a hanging light bulb, kids did it on their own!! Smarties!!

Travel Log = Wisconsin/Chicago

Okay, so this really is a travel log of a blog... say that 5 times fast. I have to blog about it so when I go to do a scrapbook I have some memories written down and I'm not relying on my brain to keep these things for months until I get around to scrapbooking.

Off to Wisconsin we go...

Jay had a work function in East Wisconsin at Lake Genova. It's about 6 hours from our house, so we decided that we would all pile in the car and make a mini vacation out of it. Jay went to the conferences while the kids and I hung out at the pool, went to the indoor waterpark, I mean what's wrong with that?? : ) That's a vacation for me! Plus Jay was very generous and gave me his $100 hotel credit he got for attending the conference so I could use it at the spa, yippie!!!

The kids and I relaxing in the hammock.


Janie going down the slide and remembering to pose for a picture!


I was proud of Janie for doing this, I thought for sure she would think it was too hard! Go Girl!

After 3 days in Wisconsin we figured we should go to Chicago since we were only an hour and a half away. Chicago has a lot to do, but EVERYTHING cost money, especially parking, parking parking!! It was nice though, because our museum membership here has reciprocal memberships to most of the museums in Chicago so we didn't have to pay for any of those. One of the best museums I have ever been to for kids, is the Children's Museum on Navy Pier in Chicago. We didn't get there until late afternoon and boy do we regret that. We only went to three exhibits in 2 hours and both the kids and us adults were thoroughly entertained. I know it may say something about Jay and I's simple minds, but seriously it was really cool!

Great trip again we hope Jay does well, so next year we can all go again!!


Jay, Janie, Aaron and Sue (the T-Rex!)


Janie and Aaron with their "jet packs" on.


Firefighter Aaron and his dog, daddy

Laura Ingalls Wilder Tour Nerd Fest 2010

Not far from our house is the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pepin, WI as well as the town she grew up in, Walnut Grove, MN. Janie has read a couple of the books and so has my niece Quincy, so my sister Jill and my niece decided to come out for a visit/ tour.

We first drove to Walnut Grove, which is about 3 hours away, in the middle of the prairie that's for SURE! We passed miles and miles of corn fields. We toured the museum, which was cool because it was hands on so the kids could do things like try washing the clothes with a wash basin and washboard, they played checkers, drew with the slate pencils and talked on the old fashion phone. We also went to the Wilder festival, which was small but cool because they had demonstrations of things like a blacksmith and some women spinning wool into thread. I can't even begin to fathom what it was like to spend a whole day doing things just to survive! It gave me a greater appreciation for modern technology!

Aaron, Janie and Quincy in a covered wagon,

I guess the 3 hour car ride wasn't so bad after all.

Jaine going for a pony ride at the festival.

We also went on a little hike by Plum Creek. It was stunning the amount of wild flowers spread across the prairie. We also saw half of a pageant about Laura's life (only half because the pageant was outdoor and due to the severe thunderstorms heading that way it ended early). Janie and her cousin Quincy wore bonnets the whole time, and we referred to them as Mary (Janie) and Laura (Quincy). Aaron was with us as well and he seemed to have a really good time to.

The girls on the banks of Plum Creek.

Wildflowers that were everywhere!

We also visited Pepin, WI, her birthplace. The kids loved just running around the prairie, climbing trees, playing with sticks, and throwing and collecting pebbles.

Little House in the Big Woods, Janie was Mary,

Quincy was Laura and Aaron wanted to be Jack the bull dog.

Girls climbing a tree.

We had so much fun, I loved having my sister here. We chatted so much, which I am sure Jay appreciates because he has been out of town for over a week and he was in for an earful of chattiness but I got a lot of it out having my sister here!

Me and my sister Jill.

Disneyland!

Disney! We went to Southern California beginning of June. We had such a GREAT time! We stopped in and visited Jay's aunts and uncles in Palm Springs for a day, then headed to Newport. I am saving most stories for scrapbooking, that is if I get around to doing it, but a couple of fun things that we did while we were there:

ROLLER COASTERS! The kids are now tall enough to go on more rides. It took a little convincing but they went on Matterhorn, Splash Mountain, Thunder Railroads and Soar'in. They loved them all, in fact their top three rides include those! Aaron went on Soar'in six times and each time was excited about it!

OCEAN! We love the beach, playing in the sand, the kids chasing after the waves. Jay and I actually went into the water and played in the waves. I did have some anxiety about it the whole time, but after was proud of myself for doing it. It was fun, except for every time a big wave came I thought, I hope I don't drown!

FAMILY! We saw Penny, Kristine, Tony and Darlene! We loved seeing them, talking with them, laughing and enjoying their company.

The cute kids together on Small World.

Great vacation, getting back has taken me about a week to recover (aka getting my butt back in reality) but it was so worth it.

I love the look on Janie's face, this captures our experience!

Twins Game

Okay, so I had to download pictures from my camera to remember what we have been doing the last couple of weeks.

On May 29th we went to a Twins Game at the new baseball field here in Minneapolis. It was such a nice day and the big thing about this field is that is is an outdoor field (previous one was in a dome). It was BEAUTIFUL and we had a lot of fun. Although it was too bad we could never find the guy selling Kettle Corn! We did however enjoy a foot long hot dog, a lot of smuggled in swedish fish and licorice and the kids got their favorite, Dippin Dots.

It was so cute because Aaron and Jay were reviewing the game of baseball and Aaron asked after ever hit if that was a home run. Then finally when the Twins did hit a home run Aaron asks, "was that a single?"

Janie holding up her "Go Twins" sign she made all by herself.

Aaron and Jay reviewing the game of Baseball.

Evidence that I do attend events with the family!

Aaron's Preschool graduation

Aaron graduated from preschool yesterday. His school was so great and did a great program. The kids sang a couple songs, then received their diplomas. It was adorable! Aaron is so excited for kindergarten, in fact he told me:

Aaron: "I'm in kindergarten now.

Me: "well you will be in September".

Aaron: "no mom I'm done with preschool, now I'm in kindergarten."

He is so excited that's for sure! Me, I'm a little sad that he will be gone everyday. Glad we are only doing half day though. I'm not ready for him to be gone all day!

PUCK video- I love you Ms. Sarah and miss you terribly!

Quality Time

So I have been really feeling the need to have one on one quality time with Janie. For her birthday she got a cute cupcake making kit and I thought this would be perfect to do together, just the girls. We had a fabulous time, bonding, laughing, talking giggling the whole time. She couldn't get enough and it just confirmed to me that I am the best mom ever!

Okay.... so for the real story. We got everything out, I put a movie on for Aaron, so Janie and I wouldn't be bothered by him. The whole time all she wanted to do was watch the movie. I was mostly irritated because she wasn't paying any attention and I basically did everything myself. I am trying, do a I get points for that???

I will keep trying. I think there are times in our lives that we are prompted to do things for a reason. I don't know the reason but I really feel like she needs this bonding with me. It could be because I am realizing that I have a lot of memories from being 7 and I've been hearing/ reading a lot about the role mothers play in their child's life. Duh Right?! I know that but for some reason I am feeling like I need to do more and most importantly be more present for my sweet little children!

Something I am going to do to have some fun with the kids is, I am going to start a Journal Jar with the kids. I have a bunch of questions and I am going to buy a nice notebook. Each week for family night I am going to pull a question from the jar and we can talk to the kids about it and record their answers. Not only will it be cool to have in the future but I think it will be a really fun activity for us all! Hopefully it will run more smoothly then our cupcake bonding! : ) Despite our cupcake "bonding"I was able to get Janie to take her eyes off the TV for a few cute pictures! These pictures aren't worth a thousand words, especially since they really aren't accurate for what was really happening!

Mother's Day/ Birthday

I had a nice weekend with both my birthday and Mother's Day (although the hot dog dinner on Mother's Day wasn't the most impressive thing, especially since we didn't have buns AND we had company!) I call it the white trash Mother's Day dinner! :) Maybe I should of taken over, especially since the company said, "wow I haven't had hot dogs in 30 years!" (haha) but it was Mother's Day and dang it I wanted a true day off. Looking back I think I should have postponed Mother's Day for a week! Oh well, I didn't have to cook dinner! I feel like I can't complain really because I have felt really blessed to have Jay. Not to get sappy here, BUT we had company on Sunday and they are staying all week. Talking with them has made me appreciate Jay and ALL that he does for our family, even the bunless hot dogs on Mother's Day!

I don't love my birthday or Mother's Day anymore, I feel a lot of loss on those days and I can't explain why. I know Sarah wants me to be happy, but for some reason I really struggle with being happy on those days. I was just talking to Jay the morning of my birthday and saying that I can't believe it's been so long since I've cried....well the facets were turned on all day! In a way I feel sorry for myself, I haven't worked it all out in my head on why (well besides the obvious), but why I pick my special days to feel that way. Maybe because it is more focused on me and that's were my mind goes??? I must say though there is nothing like a good cry! It actually made me feel better getting it all out!

Here are just cute pictures of the kids! Aren't they sweet!!

Cuddly Sarah! I miss you baby doll!!

Aaron taking PB Bear out to ice-cream. PB Bear is the preschool class bear that got to come home with Aaron for a couple of days.

Sweet Janie! This is actually a couple months old, Janie now doesn't have any front teeth!

My little Janie is growing up!

Janie celebrated her birthday last Saturday with a fun all girl TEA PARTY. She had such a good time, her favorite part was when they all did their own make-up and hair. So cute! I can't believe Janie is 7. Jay and I have been married for 12.5 years. I think to myself, what did we do those first 5.5 years of marriage?? We've had so much go on these last 7 years!

Here are some cute pictures of her party.

Janie before her party. Like her dress? She put it together herself. It's a princess dress with a separate skirt pulled up to her chest. Pretty cute, huh?

So excited waiting for her friends!

Janie and her friends having "tea" (really Mango Peach juice, yummmm) and small tea sandwiches!

Janie and her friends with their hair done and make-up on!

Janie is still a sweet heart with a little dash of sass! I love it. She is so concerned about others and making sure Aaron is included in things (except her all girl party!), but she also is really good about not forgetting about herself. I think there is a fine line between selfishness and losing who you are. I hope at this young age she continues to see how important she really is!