The Cat's Out of the Bag...

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while...we have had many ups and downs and I will catch everyone up soon on the last 2.5 weeks of our lives but here is our biggest news:

William O Brien State Park

This was our home for St. Patrick's Day afternoon/night this year!

We went to celebrate the girl in pink's (DeAnna) birthday!

We stopped at the Bikery in Marine on the St. Croix for an afternoon snack on our way to William O Brien State Park.

The first thing we did after getting into our cabin was go for a nice hike in the wonderful weather! After that we made pizzas over the fire, apples and cinnamon, smores and ate popcorn. We also played Trivial Pursuit before bed in the cute lil cabin. Turns out we would have been fine tenting it but who knew it would be in the high 70s in the middle of March in MN. Weird. We were completely expecting snow!

We ate DeAnna's birthday bars for breakfast with hot cocoa before one more hike before it was time to head home.

We had a wonderful time and cant wait for our larger group camping trip in June. We will have Linnea for that one. We left her with grandma and papa for this trip and they had a great time too.

We stopped for ice cream at our local ice cream shop on the way home. Chris and I then quickly tidied up the house in preparation for our baseball draft. Pretty sure I drafted the winning team this year :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Oh those silly sneaky leprechauns!

The leprechauns were very busy over here during Linnea's nap after playing at Lake Elmo. They were so busy decorating the house with many green items, making pistachio pudding, making the toilet water green and Linnea's favorite, hiding gold coins (chocolate). We also did some St.Patricks Day crafts.

I had pictures of all these fun events but sadly they are on my phone I no longer have...good news is we have one from my parents house. I dropped Linnea off over there Saturday afternoon after her dance class and visiting GG. The leprechauns also visited my parents house and made their toilet water green!

Spring Break!

It's hard to believe my spring break has come and gone already! I decided to spend Monday and Friday with Linnea and keep Tues, Wed., Thurs to myself to get some runs in, some random things done around the house and a little bit of relaxing and shopping done.

Monday Linnea and I found a new nature center to check out. We did some floor puzzles, looked at the animals and then attempted a walk but it began to rain and we saw about 5 deer which I may or may not be slightly afraid of. There is a nature play area that Linnea enjoyed and a large frog made out of litter found in the Mississippi River. It was a fun day!

Friday we spent at Lake Elmo with Megan and her kiddoes. What a beautiful day to be at the park! I sadly couldn't find the camera so I have no pictures :( Linnea was so much more independent at the playground this year than last year! She had no fear climbing up the net ladders and going down the big huge tube slide! She just followed her big cousin Dylan around like it was nothing! It was very fun to see but I was of course nervous as well.

Spring Break ended with some St. Paddy's Day fun and a camping trip to William O Brien State Park which will each have their own post.

Visiting friends!

We finally made it out to Glenwood, MN (near Alexandria) to visit our friendsthe Wallin's who moved there this past fall. It was so great to get together with them for a whole weekend! Especially after the hard week we had previous (which is for another post). It was also a nice way to kick off my spring break!

Linnea, Chris and I headed out on Friday night and stayed until Sunday mid-morning. Chuck and DeAnna came on Saturday morning. We packed a lot of fun into our few days away. We let the little girls play the morning away after breakfast and before heading to the local bakery for a mid morning snack. From the bakery we headed out on a hike at the nearby Glacial Lakes State Park.

There was still quite a bit of snow (and an owl!) but it was so warm and sunny and just perfect for a hike! The 3 year olds, adults ( 1 preggo) included and the Wallins' dog Beck all enjoyed our adventure! We packed a picnic lunch that tasted great when were done.

Best Friends.

Playing hair salon.

Sliding with baby Isabelle!

We headed back to their house for naps (even I took one!) and video game playing. When we were all up we played at on swingset for a bit while waiting for our pizza to arrive. The girls played some more before bed and then us adults got a game of Balderdash in.

We had a big breakfast before packing up and heading home Sunday. We stopped at the Albertville Outlets for a quick hour on the way home and decided we really need to head there again for longer than hour!

Thank you so much for your hospitality Wallins! Cant wait to see you again soon!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

March 2nd would have been Dr. Seuss's 108th or maybe 106th birthday! So we of course had to have a birthday party! We did green eggs and ham last year which didn't go over so well since someone doesn't like eggs. Well she still doesn't, so we ordered pizza instead and made Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes. It was a Friday night after a full and long week at work and I didn't have a whole lot of energy so we just used what we had to make these cupcakes. We watched Cat in the Hat episodes while enjoying our cupcakes! Thank you for all your fun books Dr. Seuss!

Birkie 2012!

Two weekends ago we headed to the good old Heartwood again for the Birkie weekend. My dad did it for the 4th time I believe and I had a college friend fly in from Wyoming to do it for her first time. We also had a friend with us who was doing the Korte and an international student worker from my dads work come up to cheer. Friday night

we had a delicious pasta dinner and went to bed somewhat early since the skiers had to get up before the sun to get to the race on time. Us non racers slept in a little and had a low key morning before heading to the finish line. I went for a run/walk since there was not quite enough snow to ski.

We debated bringing Linnea to the finish but in the end decided she would have more fun playing on the playground, sledding with daddy, having lunch and hopefully getting a nap. So mom, Aric (dad's student worker) and I went to the end and cheered for dad. It was a beautiful day full of sunny skies and great snow on the Birkie trails! We didnt see Colleen come in but she had a wonderful first Birkie! My dad was also happy with his 50k.

We all had a late lunch back at the cabin and then while dad took a nap, my mom, Linnea, Chris, and Aric and I did some tubing. I also got to ski at the bottom of the hill which was very fun. Linnea was so curious about the skis too! She was also a trooper walking up the hill and LOVED going down. She made sure to take turns going down with everyone out there. So after our busy day we had a burrito bake for supper with a smores bake for dessert and then tried to wind the 3 year old down with Winnie the Pooh and quiet playing.

Finally got her down and some people played scrabble and then we hit the hay.

We enjoyed a big breakfast and then some more tubing before heading home. Linnea surprised us all and slept for about an hour and a half on the way home! This girl never sleeps in the car so she must have have totally wiped out! We had another great weekend!

MN Zoo Date

The weekend of Feb 17-20th was a great one! It was a 4 day weekend for me! I decided to take Linnea to preschool Friday morning and have an Amy day, which doesn't happen too often. I ventured over to Theodore Wirth Park and skied a few times around on their 3K loop. It was fun fun fun! Then I stopped home for a shower and quick lunch before I got my haircut. Then I had some shopping to do...Linnea is outgrowing some of her shirts and we have still been on the hunt for tap and ballet shoes for her dance class. Well Once Upon a Child was on my side! I was able to find her tap shoes, a second leotard with a tutu attached and a few cheap new looking long sleeved tops. I headed to Old Navy next to return some clothes I had got from Christmas and ended up with a gift card with a fair amount to spend! So I got some new jammies, jeans and a shirt for me a dress for Linnea. I can't remember what we did Sat and Sunday but I am sure it involved Linnea's dance class, grocery shopping, watching shows, reading, doing puzzles, walking or running and just having fun.

Monday I kept Linnea out of preschool so we could head to the zoo for a mommy and Linnea day of fun. It was super busy in the Tropics area since it was a beach party with a HUGE sandbox and bucket giveaway. It was so busy that L had no interest trying to squeeze in the sandbox to play and they had run out of buckets by the time we got there. We didn't even get there that late so that was a little frustrating but we still had a blast! We maneuvered our way through the Tropics trail and then did the MN trail which was much less crowded. Linnea enjoyed finding the "stamps" for each animal and seeing what the active animals were up to. We had a little indoor picnic and then headed to the new "bee" playroom. It was cute but someone was getting super tired so we didn't stay in there very long before heading to Discovery Bay to check out the sharks and other sealife quick and then out to the car. Again I wish I had more days and time to do things like this with our lil girl!

She loved the lynx! It was running back and forth and before I knew it Linnea had joined in the fun of pacing right along with it.

The Tropics Party may have run out of buckets and space in the sandbox but there were still coloring sheets and sandart to be done so we spent some time doing that.

My little bee.

our picnic!

Walking through a wolf "den" on the MN Trail.

Foshay Tower

We had a little family date last Monday night. I had a LivingSocial Deal to Keys Cafe at the Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis so I went to the Library and checked out a free pass to the Tower so it was a pretty cheap night! Linnea did okay at the restaurant but said next time we wanted to go out to eat she would stay with grandma and grandpa. She enjoyed coming up to the tower with me though. Daddy didnt make the trip up in case it were to trigger vertigo again. I took some pictures from the top with my phone but havent got them on the computer yet. These pictures are from Chris's camera and we got one good one from the bottom of the Foshay which is seen below. I was inspired to make sure we went to Foshay by Timo, Mack's husband. He went while he was here visiting from Germany! So thanks Timo! We loved it! it was beautiful at night! And it started snowing a little which I loved...but with the snow came lots of wind! soooo brrrrrr!!!!

Mardi Gras!

Ever since I lived in New Orleans I have had a special place in my heart for Mardi Gras and have celebrated it one way or another up here. The first few years I was home I went to Dixie's for Cajun Cuisine, drinks and music and then when I lived with Chris we had a party and the past two or maybe three years my parents have hosted a party full of fun New Orleans foods, music and of course our family and friends! My mom makes some amazing Jambalaya, Gumbo and King Cake. I have provided the Red Beans and Rice and beads. My mom made some muffaletta wraps, bread pudding, Mardi Gras Punch this year too. She was so busy! Friends and family have brought things such as beignets, Hurricances, wine, Abita Beer, shrimp, salads, purple and green grapes representing two of the Mardi Gras colors and pecan pie. Maybe I will try to make some pralines next year! We got only a few pictures and they are of me holding my friends baby and Linnea looking at her. The other one is of Linnea and my friends other daughter Isabelle playing...my dad has more that I will try to post on here soon!

Finally a "co-man"!

A few weeks ago after my sign language class I have been taking every Wednesday evening I was greeted by this sweet snowman or "co-man" as Linnea says.

Linnea and Daddy worked hard on it after preschool before their dinner together.

They were very creative with what they used to make her complete, using just what was in our yard. A clothespin for a nose, a bucket for a hat and rocks for her eyes. Linnea shared her scarf with co-man and gave her sticks for arms and a line for her mouth.

I am calling the co-man "her" because Linnea said the snowman was her little sister, just a little bit smaller than her. We have been waiting a LONG time for the right kind of snow to make a snowman. We have read so many books about snowmen and seen so many shows with snowmen in it and Linnea asked daily if we could make one, so we were thrilled when there was enough of the right kind of snow to build her little sis.