Outdoor Zoo Pictures

Outdoor Zoo Weather in November...I'll take it.

This last week for MN has oddly been much, much nicer than any day in October. So, I took the girls to the Minnesota Zoo. Once again, an incredible investment, getting the membership. As Charlotte gets older it's really fun to see her appreciating the exhibits much more and also recognizing the animals. Most of all though, she enjoyed their new park outside. There's a spider web and a wall to climb, a fishing boat with poles a light house and a large rope climb that Charlotte insisted she could take on.....and she did of course, with much anxiety from her mother. I think if the nice weather lasts we shall go to Moir Park and enjoy the creek.

Maggie's Play Date

Claire on Left, Maggie on Right

Claire on Left, Maggie on Right

Shortly after Maggie was born she had her 1st play date with a little baby named Claire. Claire is just a week and a half older than Maggie. I work with Claire's Mother at Oak City. We took pitctures of them next to eachother then and decided to try to take similar pictures this time. It is so much fun to see the difference. While they enjoyed themselves they of course barely noticed eachother apart from when they thought eachother were toys to grab. It's fun though having a play mate for Maggie and what's even better they live about 2 minutes away.

AT LEAST I HAVE PICTURES!!!!!!!!

Has it already been a month...I need to work on this!

Well, in lieu of writing a huge story about what's transpired in the past month I'll do it bullet point style....I'm sure it will get long either way.

• Maggie officially moved into her room and sleeps in the crib just dandy...not all night but that's o.k. with me....I don't mind the kisses and hugs in the middle of the night.
• Maggie's new room (Charlotte's old room) has brand new carpet courtesy of Hennen's Furniture and my awesome dad for putting it in.
• Charlotte is officially a big girl and now has her own room down stairs. We also carpeted that room too and when it's all put together is will look like one big play house in her room. I am going to paint the walls blue and paint a neighborhood on her wall with trees and birds and houses and then she will have her very own life size play house. This will be her 3rd birthday present. I can't believe her 3rd birthday is already coming up on October 12th. Well, for her room we, and by that I mean my incredibly handy and talented dad, is going to turn her huge closet down there into a playhouse with two windows a door and even a roof. It's hard to explain but when it's all finished it will look perfect! I just wanted her room to be so fun that she wouldn't be worried about being down stairs.
• Oh, we do have a video monitor on Charlotte (more for me) and her door stays open so she can just come upstairs in the middle of the night if she needs to.
• The Garage is all cleaned out, thanks again, to my father who helped me chip away at it one day.
• My dad also installed a new door from our garage to the backyard.....so convenient and now the hairy dogs do NOT have to go through the house again! Hallelujah!
  
• And yes again, my dad has just finished tiling the kitchen and is finishing the entry way and the french door entry way too.
  
• We went to the state fair this year and Charlotte loved it. She had been talking about it for weeks and had so much fun, particularly at the kids farm. If you haven't had a chance to go out there with your young children you should....it is a lot of fun and a great experience for your kids to see how farming works. The girls lasted for nearly 10 hours at the fair....thank goodness for the double stroller because it was a LIFE SAVER.....We also met up with the girls' Bellmont Grandparents and they were so nice to treat Charlotte to some rides, many of which she rode on her own and others I rode with and I must say, I am no longer a ride person. It felt like a 1st trimester of pregnancy on every ride!
• Kevin is feeling much better...which is great although some days aren't hot it's much better than it was 3 months ago!
• Kevin is also enjoying investigations and has been very successful with the criminal interviews and getting lots of confessions, not to mention, he really likes being able to use his Crime Tech skills on calls too.
• Maggie is doing just perfect. I swear, God gave us Maggie just to remind us how wonderful babies are and that we should have more....now if I can just convince Kevin! She is just so happy and rarely fusses, except when she's tired and hungry and maybe not even then. She's very close to crawling. She loves to make funny noises and most of all puts everything in her mouth....I swear she has been teething since she was born and yet no teeth yet.
  
• Maggie also looks exactly like Charlotte did and is in fact is beginning to get lighter auburn hair, not quite as light as Charlotte's but we'll see in due time and I can even see some curls forming,.....but maybe that's just wishful thinking.
• Kevin and I have our 4 year anniversary coming up and I won't even be with him on it. That's alright though, we're planning a big 5th anniversary trip for next fall...any suggestions? But this year though, he'll be home while the girls and I are going to take a mini vacation with my side of the family up to the North Shore. My brother is home on leave from Kuwait for two weeks and we are going to spend time with him, my mom and dad, my sister Lizzy and Sarah and her kids and Me and My girls. It's too bad Kevin, Ben, Katie and Mary can't make it but at least most of us will be able to spend some quality time with my brother before he has to be sent off back to war. I must say though, we are all so proud of him. He truly is brave and I know our girls, especially Charlotte look up to him for the sacrifices he's making. She even play with her toy soldiers and talks about Uncle Mike.
  
• I have my 10 year High School Reunion on Saturday. I can't believe it! While I'm very proud of where I am in my life right now I still can't believe I'm already 28! I am looking forward to seeing the girls from Visitation, although I have to say our class keeps in great touch and we see eacho ther at least every other month.
• I think that about sums up our life right now....I'll post pictures soon, I promise!
  

She did it!

I realize she has her middle finger up but honestly it
is innocent and we don't have many pictures together
so I decided to post it anyways.


So, I don't know if it's persistence on our part or determination on Charlotte's but she finally earned her princess water bottle and no ordinary princess water bottle that is. I mean the shape alone rivals any boring water bottle (it's in the shape of a chalice) and of course there is a floating Belle princess at the bottom that dances when you shake the bottle. Of course in order to earn this she had to go....what is even the right word to use without sounding like a dorky suburban house wife or so comfortable talking about my children's bodily functions that I have no shame...but she pooped! I never believed in my life I would be so thrilled that my child was going to poop in the "potty," another word to make me feel like, "wait, I have a college degree right?." And it's almost as if you have earned the victory as much as they have. We all jumped up and down and showered Charlotte with praise. In fact we even reduced ourselves to chanting potty songs to popular tunes sung on the radio. As silly and embarrassing as it is to be a fly on the wall watching this all happen it truly is awesome and amazing. Well, much to our excitement Charlotte has done this 3 times in the past 24 hours and has now earned a Construction set complete with a tool belt, hammer, wrench, pliers, nuts, bolts, screws and boards to work with. Oh, and of course we can't forget the goggles and the construction hat. She has been talking about that prize for a while now but until now has refused to compete the task to earn it. So, I have to find some more goodies to entice her until this is a daily routine. I think I may need to do some garage saling tomorrow and get some ideas. Any suggestions are welcome.

A picture is worth 1000 words

Well, a picture is worth a thousand words and when you have no camera ...well, there's no picture! So, I decided we needed to just get a new camera and be done with it. Poor Maggie's going to feel so shafted when she gets older and wonder why so many of her infant pictures were taken in only 4 outfits. Although, being the youngest of 5 I've seen like 3 infant pictures of myself. Our next one may not even be mentioned on the blog.....the nerve of me!
Suffice it to say, we will be getting this new camera within a week and then I will be able to take many more pictures of the girls and not have to look back at the pictures and wonder where we were and what we were doing in them. So, look for some new pictures coming soon.

So, it's been 4 months......I know!

I realize it's been months since I've blogged. I can chalk that up to having not much time to spare and a lot going on. Well, Maggie is now 4 and 1/2 months. She is smiley as ever, just like Charlotte was at her age. She is chattering A LOT!....I wonder who she gets that from?! She is also chubby as ever. I'm a little late on getting her to her 4 month check-up so we will be doing that at the end of the month. I'm looking forward to seeing her stats. Let's just say she fits comfortably in a size 3 diaper, which is for baby's 16-21lbs. Charlotte was 20 lbs. at 6 months and I'm sure Maggie will be right on course for that.
As for Charlotte, she is going through the wonderful phase of being a 2 year old. She's talking more than ever, again don't know where she got that. She is very independent and of course stubborn. She's learning her ABCs, brushing her teeth on her own and is going through the wonderful trial of potty training. She's got peeing down great, now if she could only master the other. I do have some fun prizes to entice her so hopefully that will work. I did tell her though if she can do everything on the potty she can go to Ballerina School. (Charlotte wants to go to school sooooooo bad but she doesn't meet the cut off so she has to wait for pre-school until next year. So, in order to get her motivated to use the bathroom ALL of the time I told her she could go to Ballerina School and she is very excited about that and yet still has no desire to complete the entire potty training task). Well, maybe things will change by the time she is 3, which by the way, I can't believe is coming up so darn soon. When I look at Maggie I see so much of Charlotte and I swear it was only months ago she was that age and now she's turning 3. It's such a bitter sweet experience as a parent. You want them to get older so they can become more independent and you can do more things with them but when they get there you just want them to be little again. I'm just banking on Maggie staying little forever!
As summer is winding down (yeah I know, what summer?) we are gearing up for fall, my absolute favorite time of the year. But before that is the state fair and I swear I mentioned it once to Charlotte like a week ago and every day she asks when we are going to the fair.

Kevin is still working in investigations. He is really liking it. I enjoy the schedule but sometimes miss his old schedule. I know! How ridiculous of me but it was so nice to have the middle of the week off together. We've tried many times looking for places up North to visit on Lake Superior but those darn weekend rates are over twice as much. Honestly though, thank goodness we are so fortunate to have a cabin to retreat to in the summer. It's so beautiful there but it has still just been too chilly to swim in it. I'm hoping next year will be different.
As for me, I'm still serving at the restaurant. I actually enjoy it a lot and while it's not my end all be all with my career (Thank God!) it suits us just fine now. Besides, it's just nice to have a break from mommy land and be with adults, and it's even more nice to not have to bring work home with me. In fact, the restaurant will have been open a year the end of next week. It's funny how time flies.
So, I'm going to do my best not to wait 4 more months to post something. I think I will try to make a realistic goal of once a week...so if you see only two entries a month don't be surprised!
Above are some recent pictures of the girls. Our camera has been broken for a while to I have to use the old one which runs on batteries and lasts like 30 minutes so most of these photos were taken the same day. Enjoy!