I LOVE LOVE LOVE taking fall photos of the girls. There's just something about the autumn colors, the layers of clothes, the light. I don't know, I just love it.
So here's a slide show of this year's photos:
Andrew and I also decided (though this is subject to us changing our minds) that we probably won't do the girls annual portrait photos in June like we have for the last two years, we're going to just wait and do all of our annual photos in the fall next year!
If there are any photos that anyone would like prints of from these, just let me know and I'll get them for you!
11/04/2009
11/03/2009
Mid-Autumn Vacation!
Every year, every school in the entire state is off the third Thursday and Friday of the month for the MEA (Minnesota Educators Association) conference. All the teachers attend and the kids have a few days off. We decided this would be a perfect time for a little family getaway. Andrew usually travels a lot in September and October because The Famous Group is working on NFL, NHL and NBA packages simultaneously. We thought it would be great to spend some time away from home and away from work so we headed over to the Great Wolf Lodge in the Dells. We went there last December and had a great time and the kids were very excited about going back again!
Believe it or not, Andrew and Ella are both under that deluge of water!! A bell clangs every few minutes to warn you and then that big bucket at the top dumps water on all those below. Ella did it once or twice, but the girls got a big kick out of Andrew standing under there and getting soaked.
We were so proud of Lily. She branched out quite a bit from the last visit and had so much fun! She did two other waterslides, crawled across these log stumps and played in a splash pad area. Ella of course did any and all slides she was tall enough to go down. Sidenote: I was at the waterpark and in the water despite the lack of photos of me. Andrew just never grabbed the camera to shoot one of me. :-)
Great Wolf had a new feature on this visit to the hotel. A virtual scavenger hunt game called MagiQuest. Basically, you purchase a wand and game and then go through the forest area collecting treasure, gems, objects and other things just by flicking your wand toward various objects. A laser reads your wand and stores information in the game piece attached. You go to multiple video screens throughout to find out your status in the quest based on what your wand has collected. The girls really enjoyed this!
Before we left for our trip, we received an email from the hotel letting us know they were doing a trick or treat trail through the hotel and also a family storytime. So we threw the girls' costumes into our bag. They were excited to get to wear their costumes a full two weeks before Halloween.
After trick or treating, we headed back to the room to get pajamas on and then ventured out in the hotel for a special quest in the Magiquest game. They had one that went through the hotel.
And then we settled in for storytime. Can you spot me and the girls? ;-) We don't have any other photos but we went to the waterpark again the next morning before heading back to MN in time for Lily to go to a friend's birthday party. We had such a fun time and it was great for us to get away with just the four (well, 4.5) of us. We don't often get away from the house or Eden Prairie with just us to do something fun like that. It was such a nice change of pace!
Believe it or not, Andrew and Ella are both under that deluge of water!! A bell clangs every few minutes to warn you and then that big bucket at the top dumps water on all those below. Ella did it once or twice, but the girls got a big kick out of Andrew standing under there and getting soaked.
We were so proud of Lily. She branched out quite a bit from the last visit and had so much fun! She did two other waterslides, crawled across these log stumps and played in a splash pad area. Ella of course did any and all slides she was tall enough to go down. Sidenote: I was at the waterpark and in the water despite the lack of photos of me. Andrew just never grabbed the camera to shoot one of me. :-)
Great Wolf had a new feature on this visit to the hotel. A virtual scavenger hunt game called MagiQuest. Basically, you purchase a wand and game and then go through the forest area collecting treasure, gems, objects and other things just by flicking your wand toward various objects. A laser reads your wand and stores information in the game piece attached. You go to multiple video screens throughout to find out your status in the quest based on what your wand has collected. The girls really enjoyed this!
Before we left for our trip, we received an email from the hotel letting us know they were doing a trick or treat trail through the hotel and also a family storytime. So we threw the girls' costumes into our bag. They were excited to get to wear their costumes a full two weeks before Halloween.
After trick or treating, we headed back to the room to get pajamas on and then ventured out in the hotel for a special quest in the Magiquest game. They had one that went through the hotel.
And then we settled in for storytime. Can you spot me and the girls? ;-) We don't have any other photos but we went to the waterpark again the next morning before heading back to MN in time for Lily to go to a friend's birthday party. We had such a fun time and it was great for us to get away with just the four (well, 4.5) of us. We don't often get away from the house or Eden Prairie with just us to do something fun like that. It was such a nice change of pace!
11/02/2009
Holly's Arts and Crafts Corner: Bats and Spiders
I realize this post is coming a bit late for this year, but it'll be here for you next year, in case you want to try it. ;-)
Above is my example for the girls to follow.
The girls and I made bats and spiders to add to our tree on the wall. These were very easy and made out of construction paper, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes. We also added glitter, but that part would be purely optional. ;-)
SPIDERS:
Start by cutting out two circles, one larger than the other. And two long pipe cleaners in half so you have four pieces. Tape the pipe cleaners along the back of the larger circle so that there is an even amount of pipe cleaner on each side of circle.
Next, have child bend the legs to look like spider legs:
Then glue googly eyes onto smaller circle and draw a face with white crayon.
After you have the face doen, glue the head on at the end of the body. You can also add glue/glitter designs to the body if you like. :-)
BATS:
Start off by drawing a bat body shape for your child to cut out.
Then cut two little triangles for them to glue on the head for ears:
Then they can draw designs and a face with white crayon:
Also, add googly eyes and glitter/glue designs to your bats if you like.
Here are the girls finished projects:
Ella's bat and spider
And Lily's. :-)
And here they are added to our tree wall!
I hung the spiders from some yarn to make it look like their web.
I'm just tacking this on here at the end. Ella is wearing a spider hat in these photos that she made in her kindergarten class. Super easy, just make eight crinkle legs and attach to paper the size of the child's head. Add white circle stickers for eyes, Voila! Spider hat!
She and Lily are working on these halloween "ornaments" that I got from Michael's. There were four in a package and it came with markers and glitter glues sticks. All for like $2 I think.
We hung these from our dining room light. Okay enough Halloween crafts. We'll be moving on to turkey/thanksgiving stuff soon!
Above is my example for the girls to follow.
The girls and I made bats and spiders to add to our tree on the wall. These were very easy and made out of construction paper, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes. We also added glitter, but that part would be purely optional. ;-)
SPIDERS:
Start by cutting out two circles, one larger than the other. And two long pipe cleaners in half so you have four pieces. Tape the pipe cleaners along the back of the larger circle so that there is an even amount of pipe cleaner on each side of circle.
Next, have child bend the legs to look like spider legs:
Then glue googly eyes onto smaller circle and draw a face with white crayon.
After you have the face doen, glue the head on at the end of the body. You can also add glue/glitter designs to the body if you like. :-)
BATS:
Start off by drawing a bat body shape for your child to cut out.
Then cut two little triangles for them to glue on the head for ears:
Then they can draw designs and a face with white crayon:
Also, add googly eyes and glitter/glue designs to your bats if you like.
Here are the girls finished projects:
Ella's bat and spider
And Lily's. :-)
And here they are added to our tree wall!
I hung the spiders from some yarn to make it look like their web.
I'm just tacking this on here at the end. Ella is wearing a spider hat in these photos that she made in her kindergarten class. Super easy, just make eight crinkle legs and attach to paper the size of the child's head. Add white circle stickers for eyes, Voila! Spider hat!
She and Lily are working on these halloween "ornaments" that I got from Michael's. There were four in a package and it came with markers and glitter glues sticks. All for like $2 I think.
We hung these from our dining room light. Okay enough Halloween crafts. We'll be moving on to turkey/thanksgiving stuff soon!
11/01/2009
Mark this day on the calendar!!
Just a quick note to our faithful readers! I, now, as of this moment, have the blog completely and totally updated! Anything and everything I need to post about is up there! You may be asking yourself "What about Halloween?" or "Didn't Holly and Andrew go to Knox for their reunion?" or 'What about those fall photos Holly was telling me about?" or maybe even something else...
Well, even though I have the posts completely updated, I'm being mean and I have them scheduled to publish about every two days or so. So right now, the last one is scheduled to post on Nov. 13th. But you see, I'm a genius. This means I now have until November 13th to post anything new that comes up in the next couple weeks. So I've built in procrastination time. Do I know myself or what?! ;-) (Right now, my mother is reading that and snickering to herself thinking, "Yep, that sounds just like Holly.")
Anyway, hope you continue to enjoy our updates and I will try to keep them coming regularly!
Well, even though I have the posts completely updated, I'm being mean and I have them scheduled to publish about every two days or so. So right now, the last one is scheduled to post on Nov. 13th. But you see, I'm a genius. This means I now have until November 13th to post anything new that comes up in the next couple weeks. So I've built in procrastination time. Do I know myself or what?! ;-) (Right now, my mother is reading that and snickering to herself thinking, "Yep, that sounds just like Holly.")
Anyway, hope you continue to enjoy our updates and I will try to keep them coming regularly!
Fall Soccer
Ella completed her third season of soccer this fall. She was on the yellow team again and just so happen to receive the same jersey number. Very coincidental! And how nice that we had two of the exact same shirts (less laundry for Mom).
They had another learning season and didn't win a single game, but thankfully, that never bothers Ella. She just enjoys playing and goes out there and has a great time while trying her hardest. We discovered this season that she just might have the makings of a great goalie! She was terrific on defense and seemed to really enjoy defending the goal. We'll see how things go in the spring season next year.
Ella did score a very exciting goal that had ALL the team parents jumping up and down cheering because we'd gone at least 4 or 5 games without scoring a single goal (but coming so close many times) and we were just excited for the girls that someone actually got the ball in the goal. And of course, I was extra excited that it just happened to be Ella who scored! They also had a couple close games, but ended up losing them all.
Here are some photos from the season:
Lily actually really enjoys going to Ella's games. She cheers for the team and gets excited when they get close to scoring a goal.
Ella as center striker.
Andrew played the role of asst. coach for one game. He had a lot of fun with it!
The last game of the year was absolutely miserable weather-wise! We had snow on the ground, it was probably only 30 degrees with a horribly cold wind. That's Lily and our friends' daughter Claire all bundled up to watch the game. They were real troopers and probably warmer than the girls who were playing.
Our friends Molly and Derek were visiting from Cedar Rapids and came to watch the ENTIRE game! Lily didn't seem to mind them being there as she cuddled to keep warm for over half the game. Ella really enjoyed having her godmother there to watch her play.
The team huddled up to keep warm after the game (Ella actually had on about five layers so she wasn't too cold). She also received a trophy this year for her participation. She is quite proud of it. We told her we'll have to put a shelf up in her room for all her sports memorabilia. :-)
They had another learning season and didn't win a single game, but thankfully, that never bothers Ella. She just enjoys playing and goes out there and has a great time while trying her hardest. We discovered this season that she just might have the makings of a great goalie! She was terrific on defense and seemed to really enjoy defending the goal. We'll see how things go in the spring season next year.
Ella did score a very exciting goal that had ALL the team parents jumping up and down cheering because we'd gone at least 4 or 5 games without scoring a single goal (but coming so close many times) and we were just excited for the girls that someone actually got the ball in the goal. And of course, I was extra excited that it just happened to be Ella who scored! They also had a couple close games, but ended up losing them all.
Here are some photos from the season:
Lily actually really enjoys going to Ella's games. She cheers for the team and gets excited when they get close to scoring a goal.
Ella as center striker.
Andrew played the role of asst. coach for one game. He had a lot of fun with it!
The last game of the year was absolutely miserable weather-wise! We had snow on the ground, it was probably only 30 degrees with a horribly cold wind. That's Lily and our friends' daughter Claire all bundled up to watch the game. They were real troopers and probably warmer than the girls who were playing.
Our friends Molly and Derek were visiting from Cedar Rapids and came to watch the ENTIRE game! Lily didn't seem to mind them being there as she cuddled to keep warm for over half the game. Ella really enjoyed having her godmother there to watch her play.
The team huddled up to keep warm after the game (Ella actually had on about five layers so she wasn't too cold). She also received a trophy this year for her participation. She is quite proud of it. We told her we'll have to put a shelf up in her room for all her sports memorabilia. :-)
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