Easter

Happy Easter! We had a great weekend...very busy, but wonderful!

Friday night we finally got our eggs colored. That was an interesting task with a two year old! Landon had a blast!

On Saturday morning we went to the Annandale Easter Egg Hunt. Landon did a great job of picking up lots of candy! We got our balloons and bags of candy and then headed off to Eden Prairie Center to get Addison's 9 month pictures taken. We also visited with the Easter Bunny and got the kids picture taken.

The Easter Bunny stopped by our house on Sunday morning and dropped off these treasures:

Our Easter Bunny brought a "Band In a Box" and the kids are having a great time making lots of noise playing all their new instruments. Landon loves the maracas and Addison was having a great time playing the triangle on Easter morning.

After church, we hosted Easter lunch at our house...BBQ style. We had a lunch of brats and burgers and everyone brought pot luck to share. It was a great day with beautiful weather and lots of fun. The kids enjoyed the egg hunt in the back yard.

This is the best we could do getting a picture of all five grandkids! It might be a few years yet before we have any success getting them all to smile at the camera! L to R: Landon, Addison, Blake, Lilly, Jackson

I hope everyone had a blessed Easter...we sure did!

Tunnel

The kids have a new toy...imagine that!

Grandpa Eddie and Grandma Deanna brought over a TUNNEL!

Landon and Addison love it!

Even Texas, Landon's stuffed T.C. Bear, (don't ask us how he came up with the name Texas!) gets to play in the tunnel.

Must be hard work to army crawl your way through the tunnel...at least Addison thinks so! She was so tired that she fell asleep halfway out of the tunnel. How cute is that?

Spring Break Top Ten

As I wrap up my Spring Break from school tonight, I have come up with my "Spring Break Top Ten" list. These are in no particular order:

1. Going to the Mall of America with Darren, Landon, and Addison last Saturday. We went to the newly-renovated "Sea Life" exhibit. Aside from the crowds of people and the abnoxious children having meltdowns (oh wait, that was our child Landon!) it was a great time. Landon loved touching the starfish the most and seeing the sharks in the underwater tunnels. Addison just liked people watching all day!

We also hit up the Nickelodeon Universe for awhile. Highlights: Landon and Darren riding "Diego's Rescue Rider" and meeting Dora! Oh man, Landon has been talking about meeting Dora all week! He walked right up to her and said "Oh Hi Dora!" So stinkin' cute.

2. Getting the entry way bathroom/powder room painted!

3. Lots of time spent with my mom! She was my savior on a few occasions this week. Getting me out of the house to run to the outlet mall...stopping over to help out with the kids...you name it, she'll do it!

4. Making apple cake with Landon. On an episode of Dora that we watched, Dora makes a birthday cake. He looked at me and said "Mommy, let's go make a cake too!" He grabbed me by the hand and brought me to the kitchen. So, we found some ingredients and there you have it...apple cake a half hour later!

5. Heading down to Eagan on Thursday with my team-teaching partner Carissa to the "Just Between Friends" consignment sale. I dropped the kids off in the morning at Jenny's and had a great (much needed) day off. We found some great deals and had a yummy lunch at the MOA. We never run out of things to talk about!

6. Getting all the windows and screens clean! That was my Tuesday project. I pulled all the screens out and scrubbed then all down in the tub. What a difference clean windows make!

7. Reconnecting with old friends! It was so fun to get to catch up with my old friends Liz and Jessica over Facebook this week.

8. Getting the downstairs living room painted. Well, two walls anyway. This room was too brown for me...brown furniture, oak woodwork, oak entertainment center, tan carpet, and tan walls. I needed some color, so I went with blue. Now I just need to get stuff hung up on the wall and my pillows made and we'll be golden!

9. BBQ supper at my mom and dad's. So fun to see Landon and Jackson play together and get to have help with the kids for the evening! Not to mention the yummy food off the grill. Oh, how I love grilling season. Yippee...I think it's finally safe to say that it's here!

10. And last but not least, Darren gets home from California tonight. His flight gets to MSP at 11:30 so I won't see him tonight, but man it's been a LONG week without him. Having the kids 24 hours a day by myself has been a lot of work and I have a lot more respect for single parents now. (He was out in San Jose reffing a national hockey tournament since Tuesday morning.) We will enjoy waking up tomorrow morning to see him!

Back to work tomorrow! Now that April is here, the rest of the school year will fly by and before we know it, it will be summer break! I cannot wait!

Heard at our House...

While taking a quick before-bed shower with Landon tonight I hear him say, "Mommy...I'm peeing." I look down to see him holding his little "junk" and indeed he is peeing...right on my feet! (Is it weird that I take a shower with my just-turned-two year old son?)

Diary of a Snow Day

This is a diary of our day at home on Wednesday, March 23rd.

For all my fellow Minnesota readers, you can all relate!

For my California blog readers, this one is for you!

This is what I woke up to Wednesday morning:

I know, right...I should be cheering and happy. Not so much. A snow day in March? The week before Spring Break? Nothing to cheer about. Now we have to make up this day in June. Ughhh!

This is the view from our front door. Keep in mind that this snow was virtually all gone when we went to bed on Tuesday night! We were getting so close to NO SNOW!

Bring on the day home with my kiddos! First, we had cranberry orange muffins for breakfast. No lie...Landon ate 9 of them. Yes, I said NINE! Oinker, as we say around this household.

It just so happens that Wednesday was also Addison's 8 month old birthday! It's getting harder and harder to take her monthly pictures these days. This is the best we could do!

While I was downstairs with Addison doing her photo shoot here's what I was hearing come out of Landon's smart little man mouth as he was laying under the kitchen table...

"I want to go to the park...we can't today...there's too much snow." Ohhhh heartbreaking!

So instead of going to the park, we:

played with trucks...

played with Sammie (our lone surviving shih tzu),

played multiple games of Candy Land,

made Easter cookies,

bounced in the jumper castle,

and practiced hitting the basebal in the basement with Landon's new batting tees,

I'm fairly certain that my kids were saving up all week for this day because I changed more poopy diapers in that one day than I do all week. This picture was taken mid-way through the day. Add two more to this pile by bedtime! Yes, I'm too lazy to walk them ALL the way to the garbage can so I just throw them in the garage and Darren picks them up when he gets home. I know.

I decided to be brave and take the kids outside. After all...this might be our last storm of the season. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be true! It was a disaster from the get-go! This is how little Addison felt about getting all bundled up to go outside:

We made one loop around the house in the sleds before I decided that enough was enough. It was too windy and Addison's nose was running like a faucet. So, after getting Addison inside...try getting a two year old to come inside that's having a ball shoveling the driveway. Meltdown city! (Not sure how our daycare mom Jenny manages to take multiple kiddos outside when I can't even handle two! I give her major credit.)

After meltdown recovery, we enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies:

This little gal was so tuckered out from our long day that even Cheerios couldn't keep her awake!

After a nice dinner of chicken tortilla soup and bread, we enjoyed some play time with Daddy, baths, and early bedtime! What a fun day! We can't wait for next week when we get to be home together all week.

A Future Goalie?

Not if this Mama has anything to say about it!!!

A Sad Sad Day

Carter

November 26, 2000 - March 16, 2011

Yesterday we had to make the very difficult choice to say goodbye to our beloved Carter. He was our 10 year old, 30 lb., cuddly shih tzu. We discovered yesterday after many tests at the Emergency Vet Hospital in Eden Prairie that Carter had high blood pressure, diabetes, as well as either kidney failure or Cushings Disease. We were told that the combination of all of these problems would be a long road for our poor guy and that even though he looked okay on the outside, he was a very sick boy. Darren and I knew what we needed to do, it was just a matter of ultimately making that decision and going through with it. During our final moments with him we told him that we would take him to the cabin one more time and take one more boat ride. (We intend to bring his ashes there this spring.) His ears perked up and we knew that he was happy to hear those words "the cabin." I am at peace with knowing that those were his last thoughts before he peacefully laid his head down and left us. I am happy that I got to be there with him as he left this world, just as I was with him as he entered it over 10 years ago.

I am confident that our big boy is enjoying his time in heaven. I'm sure he's having a great time

~playing in the water at the lake

~catching sunfish off the dock

~sitting in the front of the pontoon feeling the breeze on his face

~running up and down the dog beach in Huntington Beach, CA

~chasing chipmunks at the lake

~riding in the car with his nose sticking out the window

~getting his belly rubbed

~lounging spread eagle on the couch

~wrestling with the other puppies in heaven

~eating lots of doggy treats, especially Pigs in a Blanket

~sneaking table scraps and ice cubes to eat

~going for lots and lots of walks

We love you big guy and will miss you always!