Family Reunion

My mom's cousin Georgia and her husband Bruce had a wonderful family reunion the day after we celebrated Harper's birthday. It was so great to see relatives we hadn't seen for so long. And Georgia's house and yard looks great. They worked so hard to get ready for it. We got some new clothes for Harper and Linnea too from Jeff and Ivy and their girls. Linnea LOVES playing their girls Nikki and Victoria who are 6 and 8 I think? Or maybe 9? Anyways, they colored and colored and even played dog and cat and with her. 

coloring on a fun swing with great girls.

yum! we made a quinoa salad which turned out delicious and GF for Chris!

Wish they lived closer :)

Harper's 1st Birthday Party!

We had an absolute blast celebrating this special lil lady's 1st birthday! 

FIRST birthday?? What? Where did that year go?? We have LOVED watching Harper grow and feel so lucky to have her in our lives crawling all over and making cute sounds. She is an eating champ even with her one and only tooth. We celebrated with A Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party. It was so much fun and we thank everyone for inching their way to the park we rented for it. The weather could have cooperated a little bit more but the rain didn't stop all the kids from playing at the playground and on the volleyball court. And we were kept dry in the shelter.

The girls and I shopped at Costco on Friday for the supplies/food Daddy couldn't get when he went earlier in the week. I had never been to Costco but really liked it. All of girls loved the big ice cream treat we got ourselves at the end of the trip. We got to see my best friend Mack along with her mom, her mother in law, her husband and my parents that evening for our fav neighborhood pizza and one last visit before they headed back to Germany. They were so nice to help frost Harper's caterpillar cupcakes and read the book to Linnea. 

@Mack...I have some very cute pics of your visit that I will post soon!!!! I promise! Hope you are home safe and sound. Miss you already.

 

  

Saturday morning while daddy and L were at soccer I cut up all the fruit that the caterpillar ate throughout the book and I made Harper's cake. If you havent read this childrens book you really should! It's very cute!

We ended up having about 35 guests I think! 

This girl is LOVED!!

Wreck it Ralph, Corn, Bedtime Fun and a LONG run for mama and other odds and ends!

Soooo I'm waaay behind again! This working and trying to keep up with life and this blog is tough! So here is a modge podge of events again for you!

We went to one last outdoor movie at the beginning of September...Wreck it Ralph was playing at Ojibway Park in Woodbury and daddy got to join us this time! It was a great night for it and a fun way to end the girls' and I's first week back to work/preschool/daycare. Harper did not make it through this one which was fine because as you can see she was VERY tired! We liked it though and Chris wants to own it. I think Linnea will like it more a second time around when she can hear it a bit better.

Linnea helped my dad and I pick a TON of sweet corn for us and friends. I think this was the only time we had it this summer from dads work and it was delicious! It was also fun to see Linnea in the corn fields. It was pretty hot again though so we picked quickly and headed home for icees!

Daddy and the girls have so much fun with stories at bedtime!

pic to come...

I ran the City of Lakes 25K which is about 15.5 miles for a training run for the Mankato Marathon which is coming up October 20th. It was great to run so long with other people and around Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun in Mpls.  I also did about 15.5 the weekend before and it was terribly hard alone and in the heat so I am happy I decided to sign up for this. The weather was perfect too and daddy and Harper came to watch me finish. Linnea headed to Sunday School with my parents since it was the first day back and she has really been looking forward to it.

After the run, lunch and a shower I headed to Woodbury to pick up Linnea and see GG. I watched some of the Vikings game with Chris and pizza before heading out too.

pics to come!

Here is Harper and Susana, our sweet neighbor friend and caregiver/nanny.

pic to come...

Here is our almost one year old sampling some pumpkin cake or maybe mostly frosting at the last Groovin in the Garden. She was so proud of herself for crawling over to the cake pan and pretty much diving in. I was proud of myself for biking the girls to the concert in the Burley by myself! I love that thing!

so proud of getting that cake!

ready to ride!

We have a soccer player! I signed Linnea up last minute for soccer and she got on a team!  It's a total of 6 Saturday mornings for an hour and it was only $30. It's a little chaotic and I don't really think she totally gets it especially considering she touched the ball with her hands quite a bit the first week to get the ball in just the right spot for kicking but she does have fun and looks so cute in her little shin pads and huge red t-shirt uniform. We know a few other kids doing it but unfortunately they aren't on the same team. But we do play some friends this Saturday :)

Number 7 on a water break :)

Morning and bedtime snuggles and smiles :)

(morning pic coming soon!)

Linnea is also in ballet on Friday afternoons. I thought since I had it off and she has been into ballet again I figured we may as well :) This class seems like it may be a bit more serious than the other ones she was in but I think we will like it. It is still just through parks and rec and a nice park by our house. We will go after our favorite storytime and puppet show at the library which is also fairly close :)

Ballet pic soon too:)

Sorry this post is missing pics but now you some of what we have been up to :)

Back to School 2013!!!

Linnea is back at Central Lutheran School and LOVING it!!!

I can't believe next year will be kindergarten and probably at a new school...that will be a different kind of day than this one was. This time she knew where she was going and she knew her teachers and some classmates. So we will just enjoy this year and the easyness that came with this dropoff :)

Well we have all been back to work and school for a week now and it is going to take some time to get back into this routine. We get up and out the door fine which is what I was worried about but boy are we tired by the end of the day.  Somehow we still have to muster the energy and find the time to make dinner, go for a run/walk or bike ride, play a little and then do bedtime ad clean a little, make lunches, wash my pump and other dishes, etc...it stinks right now but I know it will get better and it helps that we all do like our jobs and school and "nanny".  I even made frozen meals thinking that would help and it has but it is still tough. I have definitely skipped some runs/workouts. It is so hard to do them after work...but it would also be hard to do them at 5am. We'll figure it out! I am just sooo happy Linnea is still loving preschool and Harper loves her time with our neighbor Susana. Yes, Susana, not daddy anymore. I may not have made this super clear earlier in the blog but Chris went back to work 630-230 Mon through Friday in the middle of August. So it is just me getting the three of us out the door everyday, that is why I was so worried! But we have our weekends as a family back so that is nice :) Eventually Susana will come to our house right away in the morning and then I just need to get Linnea dropped off but the past week I dropped Harper off two blocks away at Susana's and then they walked Susana's son to 1st grade and then come back to our house to play, eat, nap :) Her husband will normally bring their son to school but he has been out of town. Anyways...here are more first day/week pictures!

We went to Kids Hair and chopped her hair for school. I LOVED doing her hair long but it was getting so hard and time consuming to brush through the rats nest. This is much easier and she LOVES it! 

We celebrated Linnea's first day and my second day of work at Groovin in the Garden with Mack and her mom. We had a yummy picnic and lots of fun listening to the tunes and catching up. Linnea would like them to babysit her sometime she had so much fun. Unfortunately Mack lives in Germany so she wouldn't be able to help babysit but maybe Lynn could??!!

11 Months

I should probably post this before Harper turns the big ONE in like 2.5 weeks!

We absolutely cannot believe that this lil babe is 11 months old! I dont know where the time goes! The next post about her will say ONE! yikes! She has been a pure joy to raise these past 11 months.

She enjoys swinging and riding in the wagon or any stroller.

She is sleeping for longer stretches in the crib but is in our bed at some point still. 

  

She loves clapping and being clapped for. She loves eating even though she has no teeth...well one has almost popped through.

 She is crawling all over..be it slow...but she is moving! And she learning to pull herself up on to anything and once she gets there she pretty much shakes with excitement.

She usually has a gummy smile for anyone paying attention to her.

 She points for things she wants or points to the room she wants to go to. She will lean towards people she wants. She laughs and laughs with her sister and follows her around on all fours.  

And she sadly doesnt get daddy when I go back to work anymore. We were truly lucky to not need anyone else to care for her until now though. We have a neighbor who can watch her at our house until the end of Feb when she moves back to Spain. She is great with Harper so we arent too worried but I of course wish it could be me, daddy or a grandparent :(

This is the face I got when I took a sticker away that she was trying to eat.

And this is the look at 10:30pm...I'm not sure why she was still awake but she was in no hurry to be sleeping.

And these gals are going to have a hard time waking up for school and daycare. And who am I kidding..it will be very hard for me to get up for work too. How the three of us are going to get out the door on time beats me...

MOA and Sea Life Day!

Last Tuesday I realized one of our fav singers one playing at Mall of America for the last Toddler Tuesday I could go to before work/school starts so we quick got ready and scrambled out the door. I managed to get Harper in the carrier and Linnea got to ride in the stroller so we would get to the concert somewhat on time...well we got there 15 minutes late so we only heard 2-3 songs. Linnea was bummed BUT turns out he was performing again in a half hour! So we used up our ride pass on one ride at Nickelodeon Universe, saw some fun characters, took a bathroom break and then watched the whole concert :) It worked out perfectly anyways.

In the scramble I did manage to grab a coupon for Sea Life which is ridiculously expensive without one but with a free kid admission its a little better.  I had never been there and it was so hot outside still I decided we would just have a full girls day at the Mall. As for the price of Sea Life, I looked at it like I was getting three of us into an REALLY cool thing for 23 bucks instead of just me. We hope to go back!

   

We were definitely hungry after our busy morning so we took advantage of the kids eat free deal of Toddler Tuesday and went to one of my favorite restaurants there...Kokomos Island Cafe. Such a colorful fun place! I had a delicious fruity coconut chicken salad and Linnea tried the kids fish and chips. I was so proud of her for not getting her usual nuggets or pizza but she didnt like the fish and I didnt think it was so great either. So we shared my salad. She did like her fries though and so did Harper. She also had some of my fruit and we had some food from home for her. What a wonderful day with my gals! 

sorry for the poor quality of this picture. It had such potential to be cute but I think I moved it so quick so Harper wouldn't fall off the little chair!