Jack-isms

Me- Come here and let me fix your hair.
Jack- Is my hair broken, Mama?

Me-Do you have to go potty?
Jack- Ummmmmm, no Mama, I went last year.

Jack was wondering why we were dropping off my car and riding in Daddy's car.
Me- Because Mama's car needed an oil change.
Jack-Mama's car went poopy?
(Jack is used to me saying that Lucy needs to be changed when I am referring to her diaper.)

This kid is constantly cracking us up. He takes everything so literally, we really need to watch what we say!

South Dakota Children's Museum

November 2010 (yes, still trying to catch up!)

In November, the kids and I headed to my parent's house for a few days. While we were there, we took the kids to the new South Dakota Children's Museum. The museum is located in my old elementary school and it was so neat to see what was left exactly the same as it had always been.

The kids had so much fun! I really was amazed at how wonderful it was. We have been to several Children's Museums that we have loved, but to be honest, I didn't think that this would be able to compete in our hearts with some that are located in bigger markets. I was waaay wrong, the museum was absolutely fantastic! (I also loved that there were at least three volunteers while we were there that were sanitizing all of the toys! That is something I have never seen in any other museum!)






















Lucy loved the large Lite Bright best!
Jack's favorite part was the full size dinosaur T-Rex outside. He talked about the dinosaur for weeks!
One thing I found great was that they left the front entryway the same as it had always been with trophy cases on the walls. In the cases, they have placed memorabilia from the school. They have several class pictures up and I was super surprised to see mine was one of them!











The water room was super cool. Jack had a lot of fun making a mess! We can't wait to go back again! I am so excited that we will have this great place to go every time we visit my family, even better is that our family membership to the St. Paul Children's Museum has reciprocity with this museum, so we get in for free!

Halloween!

October 2010

Halloween was a three day event for this family this year.  It started on Friday when I dressed the kids up in their costumes, filled up Jack's trick-or-treat pumpkin with candy and I took them to Jay's office.  Jack had a blast going from office to office, handing out candy and wishing people "Happy Hallowee-een!".  Lucy had fun being passed from person to person and cuddling each one.  Our kids were on perfect behavior and it was fun to show them off when they were acting so stinkin' adorable!

On Saturday, we went trick-or treating at the Chanhassen Market Square, followed by decorating pumpkins that night.

The next day we went trick-or-treating at the mall followed by trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

(Lucy is a strawberry and Jack is a monkey)

Jack enjoyed holding Lucy in the wagon as Daddy pulled them to each house.  Jack always made sure that Lucy got candy in her bucket too, it was so sweet to watch him look out for her!

Jack enjoyed playing with his "loot" at the end of the night, but we talked him into letting the Halloween Witch come and trade the candy in for a toy.

Big Girl

November 2010

The other day, I looked over in the corner of the living room and saw the the baby bouncer was still there.  I looked at my little girl and realized that I hadn't put her in it in months, so that it probably was time to put it away.  As much as I like less clutter, I also despise putting away baby stuff; I hate to acknowledge my kids get older every day.

I decided to take one last picture of Lucy in it.

Jack then decided he needed to try it out one last time.Which then Lucy decided to tackle him.

At that point, Jack needed to get into his jammies, when I came back, this is what I discovered:

If she can flip it over and stand on it, then she is definately too big for it!

Riding in Cars with Boys

October 2010

I am a true (transplanted) Minnesotan, so Target is king with me. However, every once in a while I do need to go to a regular grocery store, which my kids are then thrilled to ride in the much cooler carts.

I had to post these pictures in honor of my sister Holly, because about two years ago, we saw a similar scene of a little Jack wanting to ride with a then 2 year old Ellie.  Ellie was about as thrilled with sharing that adventure as what Jack was to share with Lucy on this day.  Little Ellie had hung half of her body out of the cart in protest just as Jack is doing here.  Something tells me that our little ones are not the only ones to not want to share the cart.

The other part that is hilarious to me is that Lucy is absolutely oblivious to Jack's dismay of her presence, just as Jack had been to Ellie's!

Seriously....

October 2010

Seriously, HOW does this kid manage to get cuter every day?

I don't know how she does it, but we are totally smitten with her!

On the Road Again!

 October 2010

The kids liked traveling with Jay so much, we decided to do it again!

Our kids really love hotels.

I mean they REALLY love hotels! 

Jack's favorite part is the continental breakfast.  If there are other people eating at the same time as us, he will go to the mini fridge and pass out yogurt to everyone there.  He also loves the make your own waffles. 

I have a feeling that the kid is going to expect waffles for breakfast all the time now.

This trip was to Coralville, Iowa, which is very close to where we will probably move to if we ever get our house sold.  It was nice to check out the area a bit so I could see where we would be living.

One thing we found was the Iowa Children's Museum.  Jay was able to schedule some time with us between appointments and go with us to check it out.

Lucy loved being in the airplane!

There was even a real Cessna plane for the kids to play in!

At the end, Jay and Jack went for a Carousel ride.

The kids has so much fun that the next day while Jay had meetings, the kids and I went back again!

Jack loved going back to the Lego room (Daddy had been hogging the Lego's the day before!) and building trucks and tractors.

Standing Girl!

October 2010

She can stand!  Well, kind of...she can pull her self up and lean against stuff!

At 7 1/2 months, Lucy can also crawl, feed herself puffs and cheerios and delight us all with her infectious smile!

She continues to be amazingly happy and calm, the only time we see her unhappy is if someone is eating ice cream and is not sharing with her.  Yeah, ice cream.  Lucy is number 2.  Yes, I freaked when Jay gave Jack Dippin' Dots when Jack was 4 months old and didn't allow him to have it again until his first birthday, but when Lucy was 6 months, I started giving her pudding pops and ice cream.  At this rate, I hate to think of how relaxed I will be if we have a third!

Fall Harvest

October 2010

After Jay was done working in Nebraska, our road trip continued on to Jay's parent's farm in South Dakota.  Jack was thrilled to help with the harvest.  He loved pulling carrots, digging for potatoes, but most of all, he liked the tractor.

Uncle LeRoy stopped by and gave Jack and Lucy pumpkins from his garden.  Thanks Uncle LeRoy!  We loved decorating them for Halloween!

Trip With Daddy

September 2010

Daddy travels for his job...a lot...and we miss him...a lot...so we decided to start traveling with him occasionally.  The kids' first "buisiness" trip included Ankeny, Iowa, for one night and Lincoln, Nebraska, for three nights.  The kids traveled great and loved playing in the hotels' pools'.  Jay loved being able to see us every night and we loved that too!

While in Nebraska, the kids and I checked out the Lincoln Children's Zoo, which was wonderful.  It was a small zoo, perfect for spending a half day at and seeing everything up close!  Jack's favorite part was feeding the goats.

The zoo was unbelievably kid friendly, there was places to stop and play including this sand pit with plenty of sand toys just waiting to be fought over!

 The climbing structure that the goats had was amazing!

All that fun left these two little monkeys exhausted!

Big Brothers Rock!

September 2010

Watching your children show affection for each other is absolutely heart melting each and every time!

First Family Vacation!

September 2010

In September, our little family headed out for our FIRST family vacation (that is if you don't count all of the trips to South Dakota!)! We spent three days up in Duluth and had a fabulous time!  Our timing for traveling North was perfect, the colors on the trees were spectacular.

Lucy required MANY pit stops.  On the trip we discovered that Lucy no longer tolerates her car seat.  She did love playing in the front seat during all of the stops she demanded!

We stayed at Edgewater Resort and Waterpark.  We loved it!  The weather was pretty nasty part of the time that we were there so it was wonderful to have such wonderful activities indoors!

The kids loved the hotel!  Every part of it, they loved the big beds, the view, the waterpark and having Mommy and Daddy's complete attention!  And, Lucy mastered her crawling while we were there.

The view from our room was fantastic.

We went to the Great Lakes Aquarium which had tons of stuff for Jack to get his hands on. 

We took a boat tour of the port on the Vista Fleet and Jack loved it, he especially loved the boats' horns, which everytime he heard one, he would mimic at the top of his lungs.

We also toured the William S. Irvin ship.  It was hard keeping Jack entertained for the entire tour, so he started trying to entertain the tour group with somersaults and bird calls.  Luckily, Lucy was good as gold to make up for his behavior!

On our last day, we walked along the pier and watched the ships come in.  We had a wonderful time and we are looking forward to coming back.