Random

Here are just a couple of random, flying through the air pictures I took at Tae Kwon Do :)

Arlie's test

Arlie had his Tae Kwon Do test and passed. He looks amazing doing Tae Kwon Do. There are people who can do the moves and there are people who make the moves look great. He is the later. He makes it look really smooth and athletic and strong. He's really fun to watch. He works super hard at it and it sure is paying off!

Sydney's test

Sydney had her Tae Kwon Do Test on Monday. She is little, but passed (they give them a partial test at her age) and got an orange stripe on her white belt. She actual broke the board this time with a power front kick. She was so excited she broke it she was kicking and laughing! The last test, she hurt her foot trying to brake it so she was pretty scared going into it. Jordan didn't test this time because he had a lot of hard things to learn, so he's waiting to test in a couple of months.

Party Girl

Sydney loves throwing parties. If I let her, she'd throw one every day! She loves throwing them for her friends. Wednesday, she wanted to throw one for her brother as a surprise. Now, when she does a party, she wants to decorate, have plates, cups (party ones of course, not just the ones we have in our cupboards), napkins, party bags with prizes, cake, food (she typically has a huge menu) and games. It tends to be a big deal. Typically, I try and curb the extravagance of it. I decided she could throw Jordan a party if she wanted, but she could only use stuff we had already and we weren't doing a big menu. We could make a cake and have ice cream, but that was all. She thought it was still a great idea. We didn't have party hats, but we had four extra cups, so she put string through the cups to use as party hats. We didn't have streamers, so she cut up paper to use. We didn't have decorations so she taped up his old birthday cards for decoration. We baked a cake and left half of it unfrosted because Jordan doesn't like frosting. She did a great job and had fun doing it. Jordan loved it!

Photo shoot

I was editing a photo shoot I had just taken of a three month old baby. We did the traditional naked baby pictures and there was a picture I was working on where the mom was holding the baby and you saw the babies little wrinkly bottom. Sydney walked into the office and said, "Mom, that baby is naked." "Yes he is," I replied, "isn't he cute?" With out missing a beat, "NO that's GROSS!" Apparently only something a mother can love :)

The picture ;)

Family Ski Day

Arlie hadn't gotten a chance to ski with the kids this year, so we decided on the very beautiful Saturday (where the weather was 57 degrees) to try out the end of the year skiing. It's a strange feeling to be driving with your skis in the car getting excited to ski and seeing NO SNOW! ;)


Fortunately at the ski hill there was still probably 2 feet plus of snow. However....the snow was SOOOOO slow! It worked pretty good for Sydney because she gets a little scared going fast down the hills. She was able to down a lot more runs because it was so slow. In fact, you had to push your way down some of the hills. Not quite so fun for the rest of us who actually enjoy the speed in skiing. We actually saw GREEN grass on the hills (it is a golf course in the summer)

"Where'd the snow go?"

and laughed at the lack of snow all around the hills. All in all we had a great day. We left earlier than we had planned because we were so tired trying to push our way down the hills. We ended up skiing without gloves and in long sleved shirts. The kids had a blast and got to show off for Daddy and that's what they were most looking forward to!

On the chair lift!

My little skiiers

Jordan being "cool" and going down the hill backwards :)

Hot stuff!


Sydney loving life as she "catches some air!"

If you can't beat them....

Jordan was having a sleepover at a friends house on Saturday night. I wanted to talk to him a little since the friend whose house it was sometimes makes Jordan mad (because they both want to be the one deciding everything and the one in control). I asked him if he was excited. I asked what he thought they could do. I asked him how he would handle it if his friend wanted to be bossy. Jordan looked at me and said, "Mom (in a very grown up voice), I realized at school the other day that the other kids listened and did what my friend wanted, so I decided something If you can't beat them, join them. So, now I play what he wants and we have a great time." I told him how proud I was of him and then had to ask where he learned that expression. "It's on practically every movie I watch!" He informed me :)

Hunting

Arlie and Sydney were talking together and Sydney informed Arlie that when she got older she'd like to go hunting with him. He told her that would be fun and he would like that. She said she'd go Duck hunting with him and call the ducks. He again said that would be great. She then told him that she had a "HORN" to call them with! He's thinking twice now ;)

She told me the other day that she knew how to eat a duck. "You just pull the skin off of them. Then you put them in the oven." True....however, very gross!

PJ Day!

Sydney's school got to have pajama day. Her teacher asked me to come in a take a picture for them. This is Sydney's class!

Irish Dance Festival

For the last couple of years we have celebrated St. Patrick's day in St. Paul with their parade and big celebration. This year it landed on a Tuesday, but the weekend before they were have an Irish Dance and Music Festival. We decided to try it! Sydney thought it was great. She and I loved the dancers and music. We watched and listened to music for a couple of hours. Sydney tried her hand at her own made-up Irish dance.


She was pretty cute. We then ventured over to Cosetta's where they make fabulous pizzas! If you sit in the second level you can watch them make them.


The kids loved watching them throw the pizza crust in the air. Sydney ate a piece of pizza (without the toppings of course) bigger than her head.


I couldn't even finish my piece. All-in-all a great way to spend a nice Sunday. We did decide we enjoyed the actual St. Patrick's Day celebration better because they have kids stories and crafts and a lot more options of things to do!

A better cake

Here is the last cake/cupcakes I baked and frosted...It took about as long as the last one, but I think it turned out cuter. It didn't require as much free hand (which as you saw...isn't my thing) ...only the balls.

My skiiers

We've been trying to get the kids out skiing all year, but just haven't gotten out. I finally was able to bring them this week during their spring break. I was so proud of them. They did so good and tried so hard. Jordan is completely on his own. He goes up the chair lifts by himself and skis down by himself. Sydney needed help skiing most of the day. About the last 2 hours, she finally got brave enough to figure out how to do it on her own. She would go down most of the bunny hill by herself. She figured out how to stop (snowplow) and was starting to turn really good. It was a ton of fun and very exhausting for me, who doesn't use those muscles every day anymore. It's not just skiing, but holding and bending over for a five year old to help her all day. Yep...I'm definately getting old! Today my legs, arms, back...pretty much everything aches :)

AHHH GROSS

In the car....

Jordan: "Mom, did you know that in the olden days they used to take old teeth and throw them in the fire?"

Me: "That sounds kinda gross, Jordan"

Jordan: "Not as gross as putting them in a bag under your pillow!"


You got me there :)

Fun in the Sun

The kids were on spring break this week. We wanted to do something that wasn't expensive, but still fun for them and we didn't have a lot of time to do it. Arlie was able to take one day off, so we rented a room at the Roger/Elk River Holiday Inn and Water park. If you get a room there, the water park is free. It was great because we were able to swim for a couple hours on Wednesday night and a couple hours on Thursday and the kids thought it was great. Sydney absolutely LOVES hotels. She would move to one and live there if we let her. The whole way, she laughed and said "This is the best night of my life...I sure do love hotels". Unfortunately then, she was up late and up early because she was so excited...but it was worth it! It honestly felt like a mini vacation and it was 30 minutes from our house. It was perfect, the kids got to do something special. We got to do some family bonding and spend some great quality time with them. They had three large water slides. One of which is like a bowl at the bottom. You come shooting out into this bowl and go around a couple of times and then it drops you out the bottom. You could go on that as many times as you wanted and it was the same rush every time. They had a lazy river, whirlpool tub (that made you swim in circles), log walk, basketball hoop and open pool to play in, zero depth pool with lots of fun things for younger kids, slides, watershooting things..etc. The kids favorite is a hot tub that they are allowed to go in :) I highly recommend it.

The Works

Last weekend for our playgroup we went to a place called The Works. One or two weekends a year they have a big day where everything is free. The Works is a place for kids to show them how things work. They had robots, hovercrafts, blocks showing how to build things like arches and other shapes, places to make little cars and race them, light experiments, air density experiments, planetarium and so much more. The U of M sponsors it and puts on a great little show of how air density works and what it is. The kids loved it.


They made straw rockets and hovercrafts. They went to the planetarium show, watched robots doing their different things, tried almost all the experiments and hands on displays within The Works museum and to top if off, they had free snacks! You can't get much better than that. It was a ton of fun and we can't wait for next year!