Catching up...

Holy cow...I am behind again!!! and soooo much has happened...Harper turned 6 months old and what a big day that was...she rolled from tummy to back for the first time and got some rice cereal! We will try more foods this week cuz she sure seems to love it! (I will try to get the video up of her rolling soon) Linnea and I went on a special mommy daughter date with some friends to the American Girl Bistro. We celebrated Saint Patrick's Day at my parents with almost the whole fam...we were just missing Megan, who was helping her lil sis find her perfect wedding dress. We did crafts, played outside and inside and ate Irish Stew and Soda bread and had rainbow muffins Linnea I made the night before. Erik also brought a yummy dump cake. We let Linnea eat Lucky Charms all week and on St Pats Day the silly leprechaun left her and her friends we went to lunch with a rainbow in a jar. To finish our day of celebrating for our Irish friends we went to the Conservatory where Irish Music was being played throughout and it was beautiful and so nice to feel the warmth of the conservatory and be among all the plants. Harper also enjoys the exersaucer these days! We made a new kind of "slime" that Linnea actually liked :) It was just dish soap and corn starch!

Here are the pictures from all the above events! (there's a LOT) 

 

The ridiculously huge sundaes at American Girl Bistro!

  

I'm on spring break now and so is Linnea so we are pumped for this week and have lots of fun family plans! stay tuned!

Weekend Fun!

Another 36 hours of Chris working and me having lots of daughter time is coming to an end...12 more hours tomorrow. The first 24 have been great...Friday was very springlike so after storytime and a visit to Peapods Natural Toy store to use a gift card for Harper (we bought Sophie the Giraffe teether) we headed outside for a walk to the Choo Choo park to sled again. We also made a snowman there!

We checked out My Fair Madeline is hopes to have a movie night. So we quick took baths and got ready for bed right after coming in from outside.  The movie was cut short since sometimes the dvds skip from being checked out by so many people. After trying numerous times to make the dvd work, we took it out and watched a Reading Rainbow Classic about a dessert with our "picnic" in the dining room. I was happy to find a Reading Rainbow since I sang Linnea the song one night before bed and she LOVED it. So I thought we'd give it a try...and she liked it!

Today (Saturday) we met Brian and Megan and their kids at Saturday Live at the Central Library again for a magician. Afterwards the girls and I picked up some chicken tenders, potato wedges, blueberries and mini chips Ahoy (Linnea's pick) to bring over to visit GG. Linnea picked out some pretty cool Highlights High Five magazines to check out too. Those were something new to us and she really likes them.

We then spent an hour just hanging out at my parents house before going over to Sheri and Ray's for homemade pizza. Sheri and Ray have two boys and they were all at the Birkie weekend and live about 2 blocks from us. We had a great time playing and eating and hope to do it again! It makes the evening go quicker having dinner with friends when Chris is working.

Tomorrow hopefully will be a fun day of crafts, playing, grocery shopping, decorating and maybe baking.

More Snow!

I thought I'd have a snow day Tuesday...someone else was peering out the window wishing for the same thing...

at least we both like where we go...she loves preschool and I like my job and especially this week since it was Rodeo week and I am back in Christin's room. I'm not sure how much of the work situation I had put on here...but in short, I went back and had to float from room to room but finally the week of Valentines Day I was place back in my old room. It is wonderful and I love knowing where I will be going every day and I love being able to really get to know the students.

I took Linnea out for a night walk and sledding adventure in all the snow! It was snow much fun!

Adventures with Harper!

Chris put together this "who's who?" collage since we are hearing more and more how much Linnea and Harper look alike...I sometimes see it but mostly I think Harper looks like Harper!

Harper continues to struggle sleeping on her own, but at least when she is awake "waiting" for us to go to bed together she is pleasant like in the above and below pictures :)

Daddy put her in skinny jeans the other day with her "my uncle rocks" shirt. Her uncles certainly do rock!

She also had a major giggle fest which I will post as soon as I can!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!!!

The girls and I had some of our cousins/niece and nephews over last Friday for some fun Dr. Seuss crafts and lunch. Dylan and Ian got into the crafts while the gals played. Megan also showed us how to make tortilla pizzas and they were definitely a hit!

The above pictures are Ooblek!a crazy kind of slime made with corn starch and water and green food coloring! the below is red fish blue fish, one fish two fish.

This is our version of green eggs and ham which I made for Linnea while she was sleeping on Sat, r. Seuss actual birthday.

We went to Lakeshore Learning to do their Saturday craft. They had three...2 for Dr. Seuss and this clown. They also had Dr. Seuss storytime. We met some friends there too so that was great!

 Sat evening we went to a Thirty-One party at a friends house...L got to play with her friends and i got to "shop". Didnt buy anything this time but will some day...I loved the products...bags, purses, etc. The food was also delicious that my friend made! Harper enjoyed giggling with another mom and me while "shopping":)

birkie weekend!!

One of our favorite weekends of winter has come and gone...The BIRKIE Weekend! We packed up Friday morning and headed to our usual lodging place, The Heartwood. We were a little nervous since we got quite a bit of snow Thursday night and it was still snowing...but we made it safe and sound.

our lil rockstar!

 Chris came home early around 1 and we left around 3 I think. It takes a while to get on the road as a family of four...the snow didn't affect us at all and we made it in good time with only two potty breaks. My parents were already there so they helped us unload and then we got the spaghetti going and waited for the rest of our crew. We were staying with two other families who also LOVE to ski! They also are families of four so we had a busy weekend with 6 kids...2 5-6 month olds, a 2 year old, a 3 year old and a 4 and 5 year old!

So after our pasta feed we got the kiddoes to bed and us skiers made sure we had everything we needed ready for our big day and off to bed we went...6am was going to come early! Some of the kids...okay all the kids except ours were up "helping" us get ready to ski...and by us I mean, myself, my dad, Sheri and Kari. So that left the dads in charge plus my mom, but she left to pick up my dad mid morning. We made it to the parking lot and on the bus and eventually to the start of the race.

on the bus to the start line!

My dad was doing the full 53k Birkie and us ladies were doing the 24k Korteloppet. I signed up for the full but knew I wouldn't make it so I planned to cutoff at the Korte and I am so happy I did. I think I must have signed up on a very good feeling day of pregnancy, thinking that 5 months would be long enough to train. And it may be for some people, but it took a bit longer for me to recover from  the birth than I was expecting and it sure is hard to figure out how to balance being the mom and wife I want to be and working and working out! We will get there though :) Anyways, my dad has done the full Birkie the last 3 years (I think) and always finished feeling great and saying how fun it was, this time he said it was the hardest thing he had ever done. And he probably skied more before this one than before others, so I definitely made the right choice doing the Korte. It was so fun to be on the trails with all the other skiers and of course the snow covered trees! Here are the Korte finishers:

I was excited to get back to the girls, Chris and the cabin though too. They had a fun morning of eating, sledding, playing and watching a few shows. I went outside with Linnea again and played at the playground and walked around a bit before our evening of homemade mac n cheese, part of Rio and bedtime for the kids and games for the adults!

Rio Movie Night! for about a half hour...everyone was so tired!

We had a great pancake breakfast and then more sledding and packing before heading home.

walking/riding to the sledding hill!

sisters.

all bundled up!

Linnea and her papa.

Mama and her girls!

Once home, we actually went sledding again at the choo choo park since Linnea didn't nap in the car, wasn't gonna nap at home and had some energy to spare from being in the car for 2 hours. Chris and I relaxed with the Oscar's once Linnea was in bed. What a wonderful weekend!!! I am so glad Chris was able to get it off :)

Winter swinging!

first time swinging!

so much fun in the snow!