Zoos, Bears, and Gyms

I have a lot to post about so I'll probably put them into several posts. I'm currently posting from Racine, Wisconsin. We're here to attend Andrew's cousin Dyan's wedding tomorrow. There will be more on that and our time here in the future.

We had a lot of fun with B-pa at Como Zoo in St. Paul. The zoo is a free zoo and therefore, fairly small compared to the MN Zoo. Ella and Lily ran through it pretty quickly the first time, but we went around and looked at all the animals again and took more time. The highlights were watching the polar bear swim underwater and the seals/sea lions. The polar bear was doing laps in his pool and they had a glass window to watch him. He would swim right up to the glass and then flip around and go back. Ella's face was about 2 inches from the bear. She and Lily both thought that was the neatest thing. My dad used to take me to Como when I was little, the zoo seemed a lot bigger to me then. ;-) We used to go see Sparky the sea lion (I think they are probably on Sparky XXV by now). Ella wanted her picture taken by the statue. It was fun to take Ella and Lily to a place that I really enjoyed as a kid.

We had a friend come home from preschool with Ella two weeks ago. His name is P.B. Bear and he spends time with a different family each week and then the kids record what they do with P. B. in a journal by drawing pictures of their adventures. Ella LOVED playing with him. He helped us decorate our front window for Halloween, went to Barnes and Noble story time (where another little boy--not in Ella's class--recognized P. B.) and visited My Gym for open playtime. Ella attends a class at My Gym on Friday mornings and then both she and Lily can play at open gym on Wednesday afternoons. They both have a great time there. Ella amazes me with her athletic ability and her determination. One day, she was very focused on the monkey bars, she was determined she was going to go all the way across by herself. She tried over and over again, but didn't quite make it. Then on Friday, during her class she tried again and this time she did it! She was so excited. She also swings on the high bar and walks on the balance beam among other fun things. I think the gym is really good for Lily too because she attempts to do things she usually is afraid of and it helps her with her coordination and balance. We don't have her in a class right now, but maybe in the future. :-)

Lily's Special Day

Two years ago today, Miss Lily was born! I can't believe our sweet little baby is 2 years old already! She is the funniest, goofiest, sweetest, most adorable little kid! She just bops through her day shuffling from here to there leaving her Bear, Babies, and cup in her wake. She just goes with the flow and almost always has a smile on her face. She loves Ella like crazy, following her to the end of the earth and back. (I just got her a t-shirt that says, "Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey get in trouble too :-). ) I love the way she gets so excited when any of us are gone and come home, she calls out your name like she hasn't seen you in weeks and runs to you and gives you a big hug.

2005

I told the girls this morning that it was Lily's Special Day! We tried to have 2 birthdays for Ella: her party and then her actual birthday. But it just ended up confusing her. So we're adopting a new birthday policy. If the birthday party doesn't fall on their actual birthday, then they get to have a special day on their actual birthday. I feel like we can't just pretend its like any other day. (At least I can't since I have very specific memories of her birth day!) So we don't say "birthday" at all, but rather "special day". And that seemed to work great today!

2006

Ella understood it was Lily's Special Day today and Lily got to pick out a little extra something at Target today. We had Pilsbury Orange Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast and they got to go to the McDonald's Playplace for dinner. Tomorrow, the fun continues with a trip to Como Zoo with B-pa and Gramma Clare.

Lily's party is on Sunday, October 7th, so look for more pictures and fun then!

Sept. 28, 2007
Isn't she the most adorable thing ever?
I got this dress for her to wear to a
wedding in a couple weeks.

Over the Rainbow

I'm sure there are multiple songs that come to mind when you see a rainbow. My personal favorite would be The Rainbow Connection from the end of The Muppet Movie. Ah, still a classic (at least to my generation). Can anyone think of any others?

We've had scattered thunderstorms for the past couple weeks. Just here and there a downpour for a few moments and then it tends to clear up. Yesterday, we had some rain and then the sun came out leading to a truly spectacular double rainbow right out our front door.

As always, we took pictures. :-)

The double rainbow

A close-up of the vibrant colors

Ella wanted her picture with daddy and the rainbow.
But the lighting wasn't right. Sorry it turned out dark. :-)

Sunday is "8-ball" day!

We had a great weekend last week with Andrew finally home!! Yay!! We started off by visiting with cousins Cindy, Shawn, Emilee and Braeden Roseland on Friday night. We went out to dinner and then stayed at their house for awhile. It was really nice to hang out with them again, it'd been awhile! And Lily is finally old enough to play with Emilee and Ella too. It was really nice for me and Andrew because we didn't really have to entertain any of the kids most of the night.
Then on Saturday morning, we met up with the Roselands again at the Target Center downtown to see the My Little Pony Live! Show. Cindy's dad works various theater and concert productions doing lighting and whatnot and receives free tickets from time to time. The 8 of us enjoyed the "Pony Show" as Ella refers to it. I wasn't sure if I could bring my camera in so our pictures are from Andrew's cell phone. We got each of the girls a light up star wand which was a big hit! We've never really taken the girls to any kind of show before other than a movie. We weren't sure what they would make of it, especially Lily. It was a 90-minute show and we weren't sure she would sit through it all. But they were both mesmerized and loved the singing, lights, sparkle effects, everything.

Saturday night we ventured to my dad and Clare's house for the evening to celebrate Clare's birthday. We enjoyed Papa Murphy's pizza and ice cream cake and well as fun conversation with Sam and Rachael (who recently got engaged! Congrats!) and some of Clare's friends.

THEN, as if we didn't have enough fun for the weekend already, we finally got to Sunday! Which Ella refers to as "8-ball Day!" or Football Day! All week she talked about Football Day with Andrew and told us she needed a shirt and a "hat" meaning a helmet. So we started with breakfast at the Pancake House and then stopped at the mall and picked up a couple jerseys (Vikings of course! or "Purple!" as Lily announced) and then headed home. On the way home, we passed Flying Cloud Fields where many peewee sports are played, including football. As we got past the field, Ella started crying and yelling, "8-ball day!!" We figured out she thought she was going to get a shirt, a helmet, and get to play at the field! We, unfortunately, informed her that football day would take place at home in the front yard and on the couch in front of the television. She finally accepted this and she and Andrew threw the ball around the yard for a bit and retired to the family room for some good ol' couch potato-ing.

The girls and I have had another fun week full of the usual: a playdate with Arie at Edinborough Park, preschool, storytime, Ella's gym class and open play at the gym, and well, of course, our weekly trip Target. Next up, we're celebrating Lily's 2nd birthday!!

And we want to send out a congratulations to our friends, Jon and Jessica, who welcomed a bouncing baby boy, Hayden Killeas Slusser, yesterday morning. We are so excited for you and can't wait to meet the cutie pie! :-)

An outdoorsy kind of weekend

Last weekend, while Andrew was enjoying his golf weekend in northern Wisconsin, the girls and I enjoyed the great outdoors. We traveled to Lindstrom, MN to my Aunt Diane's house for a BBQ and a relaxing day next to South Center Lake. The girls had a great time playing with cousin Emilee, making friends with my cousins' dogs, riding on the pontoon boat around the lake and fishing off the end of the dock. Ella caught a couple fish. Luckily cousin Shawn was around to take the fish off the hook for her, since I think I've stated before, I don't do fish. ;-)

And even more lucky for me that we had such a great time and stayed so long that by the time I got home, it was bath and bedtime! Gotta love that!

Then on Sunday we had a very pleasant day and decided to venture over to the Arboretum again. They unveiled their scarecrows in anticipation of fall and Halloween. We walked though the path looking at each scarecrow made by private individuals and community groups. I think it was a great experience for the girls to see something made up of materials they are used to seeing in a different context. For example, one had a skirt made out of pop cans. Ella thought that was the silliest thing she had ever seen. They also liked a mermaid scarecrow and a sparkly fall fairy. Little kids are so literal in their view of the world sometimes, I think it was really good for especially Ella to see that you can use your imagination to make something out of something else. And for her to visualize the whole scarecrow made of up these individual found things.

We also discovered part of the Arboretum we hadn't seen before. There were waterfalls and a little creek, rocks, and bridges. The girls liked putting their hands in the water and then putting their hand prints on the rocks. We, of course, stopped by the little houses to play. There was another family playing too. They had a 2 year old little boy who tried really hard to play with Lily, saying hi to her. She turned and ran the other direction crying. And then he started crying. Nice, huh? Hmm....maybe I need to get her out socializing more. :-)

We were excited to finally see Andrew home on Sunday night and have been enjoying his company all week. He is around for another week before heading off to Arizona for his big Super Bowl meeting.

Ella's First Day of Preschool--The Full Report

Ella started preschool this week. She was soooo excited! A couple weeks ago she told me she wanted to go to school. I told her I was so happy she was excited for school but that she would have to wait a few weeks. Now it's here and she couldn't be more excited. She hates that she has to wait to go to class until after lunch! :-)

On her first day, Lily and I brought her to class where her teacher, Miss Laurie had a scavenger hunt to find her locker, name tag, find the bathroom, say hi to the teacher, and find a spot on the blue carpet. Then we did the typical Ella good-bye of high five, kiss on the head, and a nose rub. She said, "Bye Mom." And that was my cue to leave. :-)

Then when I got there to pick her up, she was so excited to tell me all about her day. We got her Tinkerbell backpack out of her locker and said bye to the teacher. As we walked out, she said, "Bye my class." I thought that was the cutest thing ever! On the way home she told me about her bear drawing and how she wanted to finish coloring it at home. She went to the "Motor Room" aka the gym (motor for gross motor skills) and kicked balls and played catch. Then she helped clean up all the balls. Miss Laurie also told me that Ella worked with Chris, the speech therapist for about a half hour. She will be getting speech help both afternoons during the week.

And that was about it! Andrew is back from Los Angeles. We all took her to school this afternoon so Daddy could see where her class was and the routine of signing her in and out, etc. We'll see what she has to say about today! I'm sure she'll give us a full report!

Catching Up

A couple weekends ago, Andrew's parents and grandparents came to visit. We had a nice relaxing weekend with them. The kids swam at the hotel pool. We visited the Mall of America and ate at the Rainforest Cafe. Great-Grandma Iz and Great-Grandpa Nick really had a great time. They loved walking around the big mall and seeing all the interesting people. They got such a kick out of the girls too. We really enjoyed their visit.

We got to see them again Labor Day weekend, but in Wisconsin where we dropped Ella & Lily off at Tom and Pat's house. Andrew and I then drove down to Joliet, IL so we could see our friend Josh get married! We had a really nice visit to Joliet. Andrew got some golf in on Friday and I had a little retail therapy at the mall nearby. What a treat to go to the mall by myself where I could actually take time to try on some clothes. And I got a pedicure!

We spent the morning of the wedding having breakfast with Josh, getting a tour of the house they are building, and helping him run last-minute errands. Their wedding was really spectacular. They had it in a historic theater (very reminiscent to the Paramount Theater in downtown Cedar Rapids for any of our readers who are familiar with CR). When you walked in the tables were all lavishly decorated. The ceremony was speedy but very nice. The groom was very sweet and emotional. We enjoyed seeing some of the Knox golfers again and Andrew is looking forward to hanging out with them this weekend in Northern Wisconsin for the annual Carnival of Golf. Below are some pictures from the wedding.

The Kiss

Presenting Josh & Tawny Quinn

The happy couple with the Knox golf crew.

Blast from the Past

I took this picture the other day of Ella sleeping. It reminded me of how she used to sleep as a baby. I got to thinking, we must have a picture of her in that pose. Here she is then and now.....


In case you've been wondering, I don't think I've mentioned on the blog about Ella's obsession with wearing her nightgowns. Perhaps in many MANY of the pictures I take, you noticed Ella is wearing a nightgown. Whenever we go anywhere she gets dressed and then immediately puts her nightgown on again when we get home. Oh, my Ella, she always keeps things interesting. :-)

August Photos

There's new photos up in the August album from the last couple weekends of the month. There are a few more fun pictures of our trip to the North Woods in Wisconsin on Ben's website. Just click here. :-)

NFL Kickoff

Tonight the NFL season kickoffs with the Colts/Saints game. About 30 minutes before the game, John Mellencamp, Faith Hill, and Kelly Clarkson will perform. Andrew's company produced the graphics you will see in the background. Check it out on NBC at 7pm Central Time.

Here's some stills:

Into the woods to Grand's Tom's Cottage we go....

Two weekends ago we traveled into northern Wisconsin to visit Andrew's family's "Cottage". It's a red cabin in the woods on Little Muskie Lake near Minocqua & Woodruff, Wisconsin. It has a bedroom and loft that can sleep four each and a porch with a pull-out bed, as well as a living room, kitchen and bath. There's a path to steps that go down to the lakefront and pier where you can fish or take the fishing boat out on the lake. The Cottage, as the family calls it, was built by Grandpa Milt when Andrew's dad was young and was originally intended to be the garage. A house a little closer to the lake was in the original plan. They made the "garage" liveable for the time before the house was built, however the Cottage became so well-equipped the house was never actually built. And the family has been going up there ever since in the summer. Now that Tom and his siblings are older they alternate picking weeks to be up there. And now that the grandkids are getting married and some starting their own families, they are making treks there as well.
Andrew and I made our first trip there together back in the fall of 1998. This trip two weekends ago was our first trip back since then and Ella and Lily's first trip there. Tom and Pat and Ben and Jenelle all joined us for a fun family weekend. We walked along the streets of Minocqua checking out the shops and activities such as mini golf and a family fun center with some Chuck E Cheese-type token games. We took Ella fishing which she LOVED! She was beyond excited when she actually got her first fish with her own little pole. And every fish that was caught she wanted to touch. She would hold her index finger out to it and say to the fish, "I want to touch you okay?" Jenelle and I went out too and caught a couple blue gill, crappies, and a northern. We were very girlie girls though and would not touch the fish or take them off the hooks. :-) Lily fished a little from the pier as well and went for one boat ride, which was more than enough for her.



We ate as some good restaurants (Minocqua Brewery, Auggie's, and Monical's) and enjoyed time hanging out around the Cottage. We made S'mores around a campfire one night, which I learned Andrew has never really done before! (Can you believe that?!)

All in all, it was a fun weekend. Oh, and Andrew and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on Saturday (the 18th). Although it was nice weekend, I think I might want to celebrate just the two of us next year. Maybe we can go up with the whole family again, but on a different weekend. :-) I made the photos in this post small so I could include more. You can click on the picture to make it a little bigger if you like. New photos to the August album coming soon!

Summer Fun

We had a rare weekend home with no visitors last weekend. But that doesn't mean we sat around twirling our thumbs. :-) The girls spent Saturday night at my dad and Clare's house and Andrew and I actually got out to dinner and a movie (Harry Potter 5, finally!). The girls had a great time at B-pa and Mee-ma's. And really enjoyed going to the Minnesota Children's Museum with them on Sunday. While they were at the Museum, Andrew and I went to a Knox College Twin Cities Alumni Event. We met with about 30 alums at a St. Paul Saints (farm team) baseball game. It was a lot of fun and we saw a couple people we hadn't seen for years. One couple lives just a couple miles from us! We're hoping to get together with them sometime soon for a BBQ or something. They have a little boy just a couple months older than Lily.

The girls and I have had some fun outings lately. A couple weeks ago, we visited the MN Zoo with our nanny friend, Jody and little Ari along with Ari's two older sisters, Gaby and Maddy. We ventured to the outside part of the zoo for the first time and visited the "farm" they have there. We saw baby goats, pigs, cows, and chicks. Lily was pretty much afraid of everything except the baby chicks. And Ella had a great time petting the goats. They also have a butterfly garden (very reminiscent of the one we saw outside the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles) that Ella just loved! Lily was also afraid of the butterflies. BUTTERFLIES! Who is afraid of butterflies?! Aww, that's our Lily.

Last week, we visited the Arboretum in Chanhassen. We visited the Japanese Garden and then walked to the sensory garden. The sensory garden has buttons to push throughout to learn how flowers, scents and other "garden-type" things affect you through your senses. We walked on a path through the woods and a wildflower garden to the area with the little houses we played in on a previous visit. And then made our way back to the car. The girls really enjoyed themselves and it was really nice to not be rushed and just enjoy being outdoors. Of course, it might have been even more enjoyable if it hadn't been 85-90 degrees and sunny. But it was a fun outing, none-the-less. And of course the arboretum provided a nice back drop for multiple pictures for my camera-happy self. Please see the August photo album for fun pictures.

We have more fun things coming up that I will report on in the future. In the meantime, we are getting prepared for Ella to go to preschool this fall. We're getting her schedule organized (between school, playdates, speech, her feeding program, gym class, etc) and buying school supplies. She has a new Tinkerbell backpack (and lunch box even though she isn't going for lunch, but I suppose we could start using it for our snacks on outings).

Since I don't seem to mention him much, thought I would throw an Andrew report out there too. :-) He's been working hard lately. The Famous Group worked with 8 NFL teams this year doing various graphics packages, including the Vikings!! He also will be working on the Super Bowl again this year. Now that the teams have officially started pre-season, its slowed down just a little bit. He's also been able to get some golf in, playing in a couple Golf Galaxy Tour events. He won low net score for the tournament he played in last weekend and actually won a little money! He's looking forward to the Fourth Annual Knox Carnival of Golf taking place in northern Wisconsin this year, hosted by one Mr. Arthur "Garth" Gilster.

Dare I say, I'm looking forward to the calm of winter? Hmm....wondering if it will actually calm down or be just as crazy busy as our summer? We shall see. But I'm getting ahead of myself now.... Although, we've had some very crazy storms in the last week so weather-wise maybe winter would be nice (remind I said that in six months when I'm complaining about winter!). Lightning EVERYWHERE, constant flashes all over the place, huge winds, rain, hail. Just really incredible, and scary. I haven't seen storms like this ever that I can remember. In fact, I'll sign off now and add pictures later because we're having one right now!

Happy Birthday to Ella!

Ella turned four years old last Sunday! Hard to believe that she is four already!! I still remember the day she was born like it was yesterday and she was so little. Or how she used to sleep in her swing all the time. Or crawled faster than any baby alive and once she was walking there was no stopping her. She can be so goofy and silly and happy and cute. All the teachers and people she's met think she's so "delightful". They seem genuinely surprised and excited by how delightful and happy she is.

I've said before she has talked about her birthday pretty much since January. Every time we were at the grocery store, she would look at the birthday cake display and pick out which cake she wanted. About a month ago, I had her pick a cake and told her that was going to be her birthday cake and we started the countdown to her Tinkerbell party!

July 28th, we had about 20 family members over from my mom's, my dad's and Andrew's side of the family. Ella had been so excited, too excited I think. When the party started she, Lily, and her cousin Emilee went on a treasure hunt for little treasure chests each filled with a gold dollar. After that, they decorated crowns and picture frames with princess stickers. And then it was time to eat. About this time, Ella realized she was tired and a bit overwhelmed by all the attention. She felt it would be best to go up to her room and conk out for a bit. So we ate and waited. and waited. Then we tried to wake her up after about an hour and a half. It took 15-20 minutes to get her to wake up. I've never seen her so hard to wake up. But she got up and opened all her gifts and then had cake, so she was the belle of the ball after all. Thank you to everyone who came to wish her Happy Birthday and those of you who sent along birthday wishes!!

On her actual birthday August 5th, Andrew and I took the girls to Mall of America and Ella was Princess for a Day. Our friend Molly, who is also Ella's godmother, was in town and met us at the Mall. We watched Ella ride the rides for a bit including the merry-go-round! This is a huge feat because she has not been on a carousel for two years. The last time was a disaster turn with me and my dad at Valleyfair (an amusement park here in MN). She screamed the entire ride. But this time she WANTED to go on it. So we said okay. And she really enjoyed it. No screaming. She was smiling and said, "that was fun!" when it was over. After that we moved on to the Libby Lu experience where Ella received the Princess treatment. She loved every minute of it. The funny thing is that afterwards we went to lunch and while we were waiting for our food, Ella gave Lily the Libby Lu experience. Please see pictures at the end of Ella's birthday photo album to see what I'm talking about. It was so hilarious how Lily knew just what to do and listened to Ella tell her, "Okay close your eyes."

After that, we visited the Disney store and stocked up on Tinkerbell t-shirts and some purple sparkly mary janes that Ella just LOVES! That night my dad came over for pizza and Ella opened a couple more gifts including her "big" gift of a new bicycle. She and Lily took turns trying it out in the house before we took it out on the path by our house. She's still a little leery of it, but likes to try it out. :-)

Now she's onto telling what we need to do for Lily's "Nemo" birthday. She's decided all by herself that Lily will be having a Nemo birthday and there needs to be a Nemo cake and Nemo balloons. We'll see, I haven't asked Lily what kind of birthday party she wants yet. :-)