The Circus

We have some friends who get us tickets to the circus most years. I remember the circus being so cool when i was young....some of the acts are still cool, others however, are pretty cheesy ;)
The kids seem to love it, although intermission gets pretty long. They offer elephant, pony rides and have other money making things during intermission so it tends to drag on for what feels like forever. It probably goes pretty fast if you decide to do those, but they typically cost more than we're willing to pay :) There does always seem to be one thing that amazes me. The elephant in this circus was incredible!

My Youngest is 5!!

I didn't think I'm that old, but when I realize that my youngest is five, I realize I must be getting older too. My little princess turned 5 on October 18th. I think she has got to be one of the lovingest girls I've met. She is very giving and is very concerned with people's feelings and how they are doing. She is incredibly friendly and loves to include people. At Sunday School when there is a new kid, as soon as Sydney gets there, they tell her and introduce her because they know she'll play with them and include them in her playing. It's been such a blessing watching her and how she just loves with all she is. She's a little darling and we are so thankful to have her in our lives.

This year we actually had her birthday party on her birthday. Typically that doesn't end up happening...but it was fun to be able to do that. We went to the Shoreview Community Center and had a swimming party. Sydney loved it and I think her friends did too! After her party, she had her friend/cousin Elizabeth spend the night with her. We went to Chuck E Cheese's...my kids are big fans and ate supper and played games. When we got back home the kids wanted to do some crafts that Sydney got as presents for her birthday. Going to bed was a little tricky as it is always with sleepovers. I think they were sleeping by 10 (we put them in bed about 8:30 :) ). It was a great day and Sydney loved it!

Kickball

Arlie and I were in a kickball league this fall. We finished the season 12-0. It was a ton of fun (of course...we were winning ;) ). GO GREEN!

Amazing Color!

Ice Cream Girl

My mom watch the kids for me last weekend while Arlie hunted and I shot two weddings. She left me this note.

After I made ice cream with little chocolate chips, Jordan said, "Grandma, you need to get out of the business you're in right now.

Me, "Why?"

Jordan, So you can be an ice cream girl.

Guess he liked it!


I thought it was a cute note so i thought i'd post it! ;)

It's Party Time!

Jordan decided this year he wanted to have a party at Chuck E Cheese's. I figured we could do that. He had 8 of his "big kid" friends at the party. They all seemed to have a blast. The scariest part for me was we gave them all tokens and sent them to do whatever they wanted. I just kept walking back and forth making sure we didn't lose anyone. Every now and then, I wouldn't be able to find one of them (they would just be playing a game, but I couldn't see them) and I'd panic that I'd have to tell their parents that I lost their child at Chuck E Cheese's. Well, I'm happy to report, all 8 got home safe to their families and all had fun! I was ready for a nap when it was over!

Eveland Family Farm

Sydney's class took a field trip to Eveland Family Farm. It's located right next to the Andover High School. You don't think that a farm should be where it is, but it's great. When you're there it doesn't feel like it's in the middle of the city. The animals there were so friendly. The donkeys would just follow everyone around. The kids got to go on a Hay ride (which Sydney said she would rather not ride on a hay bale, just a wagon ride with real benches), pet and feed animals and pick out a pumpkin. It was short and sweet, but a pretty fun place to go! Sydney said she didn't have any fun because she was hungry and had to sit on Hay. I think she secretly had fun. I saw plenty of smiles on her face.

My baby is 7!

October 1, my little 2lb baby turned 7! Oh has the time flew bye. He is such a delight to us. He makes us smile and laugh...sometimes shake our heads and laugh, but he is such a joy to our family. He is imaginative and creative and keeps us on our toes. We are so proud of him and how he is as he is growing up.

We decided, as I think I wrote in an earlier blog, to let him stay home from school. We brought Sydney to school and in my opinion, had the most fun while she was gone. Jordan decided to invent a game for us to play. A transformer game. It was pretty cleaver. He made a game board and then you had dice that you shook and depending on the number you went to a certain square. All squares did something different, some gave you more energon, some drained you of energon (a transformer word) and if you landed on a certain square you died. We worked on and played that game for probably 1 to 1 1/2 hours.


When Sydney got home we let Jordan open presents and then brought them out to eat at Space Aliens and then went bowling. While we were at Space Aliens, I asked Jordan what his favorite part of his birthday was. He said, "Spending time with my family and seeing all the love that I have." That's my boy! ;)

NINE DOWN!

After that we drove down to Build a bear. The weekend before Arlen and Debbie had brought them there to get a bear, so they wanted to get clothes for their bears. Then it was back home for cake and ice cream! Time flies when you're having fun and having Jordan as part of our family is definately fun!

The Autobot and Decepticon signs (the two sides of the transformers...good and bad)

Our weekend away

The last weekend of September, Arlen and Debbie took the kids for us. Arlie and I drove up to Hinckley on Friday night. We stayed at Arlen and Debbie's house there. We decided to go to the Casino after we cleaned up puke (Rio ate a bunch of veggies out of the garden before we left and got sick in the car...it was delightful :( ). We enjoyed the noise and slots for about an hour, then went back to the house. Saturday we drove up to Duluth. The leaves were perfect. It was so fabulous. We went on walks through the woods, shot the 22, played games, read books, watch a movie, and kayaked at sunset. We slept late every day and relaxed like crazy. When we went on our walks we'd play silly games like, if you had to choose this or that, what would it be and why. We also played the, if you could be any animal...what would it be and why...or any vehicle..etc. Arlie seemed to have a recurring theme with his answers. His animal was a bear, because it got to live in the woods and not much threatened it. His vehicle was a broken down truck, because it would get parked by the woods. Do you think my husband might like the woods? Also on our walks, he seemed to find every deer stand, but not only find them, he'd have to climb up into them and tell me if they were a good stand or not. I honestly thought it was super cute and loved it! Sunday we had to leave earlier than we would've liked to because we had two kickball games, but on the way home we decided that we would like at least one weekend a month like that :) Something we'll just have to dream about!






I took these while thinking of you, dad!