matching game

we've been trying out the various matching games that the kids have received as gifts and this one is the winner!

The cards come in 6 sets of 12 cards, so for little ones, it's nice to have a smaller game to play.

Louie is very much into playing an organized game. Just the past week, he's figured out that each person gets a turn and that we go around in a circle.

This is one of the cards. Dan, isn't that cute???

Autumn is in the air!

and the petunia's were dying. it was time to change the flowers in the window boxes. I like to change the window boxes as the seasons change. I love autumn! The leaves, the colors, college football and the weather!

Nativity County Fair

The annual Nativity County Fair was last weekend. Louie saw all of the rides being set up when he was at preschool last Thursday and since we didn't go to the State Fair, we decided to treat the kids to an afternoon over there. It was so much fun! and small, perfect for kids that are overwhelmed by huge crowds.




This was the Dinosaur Scrambler. Emily and Louie loved going on the different rides. I'm not a rides sort of girl. Unfortunately!


The giant Dinosaur bouncer. Louie must have spent 6 of his tickets in there. He loved it. They had blow up dinosaur egge and a giant slide inside of it.



Then he spotted the Pirate Ship. He loved that too. Emily loved all of the rides, she loved the movement. It really surprised me.



Then, Emily and I went on the ferris wheel, while Louie was in the bouncer again (3 more times).


It was pretty cool up at the top of the ferris wheel. The main runway at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport is under construction, so planes are being routed to the runway that comes and goes over Highland Park in St. Paul. When we were sitting at the top, a plane came in for a landing right over us.

Then, we hit the (mini) Giant Slide. So much fun.


Back to the ferris wheel for Emily and Daddy. Louie and I headed to the Dinosaur bouncer (again).





We grabbed a malt on the way out. Food was so inexpensive. Pronto Pups were $1.50; cheeseburger, $2.00; beers, $3; Bloody Mary's, $4. All the food was delicious and the Bloody Mary on a Sunday morning was fantastic!

Patience and Consistency

The other day, I saw this post on Karen Russell's blog. I felt like I had written it.
My top three weeknesses as a parent are:
1. Lack of patience
2. Lack of patience
3. Lack of patience

As parents, we all try to do the absolute best that we can for our kids....but sometimes that is a really difficult thing to accomplish.
My lack of patience has definitely been my biggest downfall as a parent (I'm sure Emily and Louie will tell you that). The area that I don't feel that I lack in is consistency. When I tell them something, I will (almost) always follow through with it.
The thing that made me laugh, is that the day before Karen posted this, I had told Louie that if he didn't help put his toys away, I was going to throw them away. That meant that his pirate ship would have gotten thrown in the garbage.
I haven't seen him pick up his toys so fast, ever! It worked and thankfully, I didn't have to resort to throwing anything away!
As for consistency, Dan and I have really done our best to remain consistent. The biggest hurdle is the dinner table. I feel like we're constantly riding them about table manners and eating their food. Sometimes, dinner is just one time-out after another. Anyhow, these days Louie rarely will eat his dinner and then is hungry 45 minutes later. It's so hard to put him to bed hungry, but we have stuck to our plan and not given in. Maybe someday he'll eat his dinner!
(no pictures this time, broken camera...I have a loaner but haven't gotten it out of the bag yet.)

Emily had her first birthday party last Saturday. We headed down to Burnsville, to the Little Gym. It was really nice. I was very impressed with how they ran the party. I wish they weren't so far away. I would love to sign Emily up for a gymnastics session, she did great and was really good about following directions.
The girls started out doing some summersaults. Emily is a pro at those.
Then, they all ran around in a big circle pretending to be different animals.

Here's the monkey:

Then they were all pretending to be airplanes.

After while, they all layed down on this huge mat and the leader turned on the blower. It filled up to be a little bouncer and then the running began...

More running.....

Towards the end of the tumbling time, Cinderella showed up for a surprise visit to read a story about herself and then do some face painting. Emily went right after the birthday girl. She loves to get her face painted.

I (heart) Etsy!

Last week, another blog that I read occasionally asked what the different readers favorite Etsy stores were....Ironically, in July and August, I had been busy shopping on Etsy for various things. Etsy is such a cool place. There is a a kagillion things for sale out there.
I wanted to get my kids some cute, knit hats. I have a thing for hats. I've always been on the look out for something other than the regular old Target winter hat; when Emily gets on the bus there's always a couple kids with the same hat on.

so, I found these and they LOVE them:


and you know, we always practice good dental hygene and brush our teeth in the front yard....

I've got other Etsy stuff to share, but don't have time right now. I'll post them later. But, leave a comment and tell me what your favorite etsy stores are????

Emily's First Day of School

Emily had her first day of school today. She was very excited to ride the school bus again. She told Mary, the bus aide that she missed her every day.




We got a great report back, she had a very good first day today!

Gone Fishing

Louie got to go fishing with Grandpa Don last week. It was his first time fishing in a boat on the lake. Usually, we go fishing on the dock over at Lake Nokomis or Lake Hiawatha..

Louie caught his first fish!

Emily caught her first fish too!

Of course, Louie didn't want to touch it.

So excited!

Louie had his first day of preschool at Nativity today. As you can see from his smile, he was a little bit excited!



He was also really excited to finally get to use his pirate backpack. He and I found it on a random stop at Menards this past summer and he had to have it because of the skull and crossbones. Score! it was only $4!!! like every kid starting school, his backpack was wayyy too big; why do they make them so big???

When he got to his classroom, he had to move his apple to the tree to let the teachers know was there today.

And then, he played with playdough while waiting for school to start.

When it was time for us to go, I was saying goodbye to him; he grabbed my finger to ask if I could stay, "don't leave mommy!" Dan walked him over to the rug with the other 3 boys in the class and they started playing. He never looked back.
I got the report that he had a great day! He got to be the "special helper" today because they were making a line to go outside to the playground and he said, "it's just like Peter Pan, 'we're following the leader!' " So, he got to be the line leader and pick out the last story.
He's really going to love preschool....oh and while he was gone, Emily kept saying "I miss my Louie." She starts on Thursday, stay tuned!

the last day of summer....

We went over to the Wabun Wading Pool one last time on Monday, since it was such a beautiful day! I don't remember the last time that we had such a beautiful Labor Day Weekend.

We brought our friend Peter with us to the pool. Peter is going to be a big brother to a baby brother and sister in about a month...he's very excited.

I forgot to bring the bag with the snacks and drinks in it, so we had to resort to the ice cream truck...they loved it!
The pool was PACKED, but it was fun!

Louie's School

We went to Louie's preschool on Tuesday night, we met the teachers, the kids and the parents. It was so nice! Dan and I didn't know any of the other parents, so it was nice to meet them before the school year starts.
The teachers went through the daily schedule of events. The first thing the kids do is put their name on the apple tree when they arrive, so the teachers know who is there that day. Louie picked out his name right away.

This is the name board over by their rug area. As you can see, it's a pretty small class. Only 12 kids in the afternoon session, which is great! 2 teachers, 12 kids, perfect ratio! One of the teachers has been there for 29 years!

Of course, Louie found the one toy in the whole class room that has to do with pirates...


We went and saw the gym area and then the newly renovated playground out back. Louie had so much fun! He didn't want to leave; when it was time to go, he had the biggest tantrum he ever thrown in his short little life!
He screamed all the way home and then continued in the front yard. It finally ended when we made a countdown calendar to his first day of school.
He is so excited to start school and we are all excited for him!