Daily Picture #29

What do you think is beyond the stars?

Jordan, "Heaven and God."
Sydney, "God."

Daily Picture #28

What is the nicest thing a friend has ever done for you?

Sydney, "If I get hurt, they help me."
Jordan, "Probably when then gave me things that used to be theirs."

Daily Picture #27

On the day we were celebrating our family Christmas, we told the kids after EVERYONE woke up we'd open presents. At 7:45 there just "happened" to be breakfast on the table for us. Very sweet..although I think there may have been an ulterior motive.

If I could arrange it that I could have more time with you, what would be do together?
Sydney, "Play together, card games like WAR."
Jordan, "Go to Brunswick Zone or an arcade and play laser tag."

Daily Picture #26

I asked the kids, "If you could decorate our place, what would it look like?"

Jordan, "It would be a Mansion, but smaller. I'd put a lot of house pieces on top of the house, with a stairs and elevator."

Sydney, "It would be a big Princess Dress, pink with butterflies, hearts, flowers and a crown roof."

Daily Picture #25

This is the note that Sydney left Santa..in case you can't read it, it says, "Dear Santa, we are in Hills so ples jest lev the presints undr the tree. thanks!
When we got home and there were presents under the tree she came running to me, "Mom, he knew it was me that left the cookies, he's so nice."

Daily Picture #24 - Merry Christmas

I asked Jordan and Sydney what their favorite toy was when they were little.

Jordan, "That wooden rolling toy". He had a little wooden push toy that made noise when you'd roll it and he did love to play with it.

Sydney, "My purple unicorn". She got the unicorn from build a bear and it giggled when you pressed the foot.

Merry Christmas!

Daily Picture #23

What are the qualities that make a good friend?

Sydney, "Playful, nice and friendly."

Jordan, "They don't lie, they are nice, they don's say I'm not their friend."

Daily Picture #22

If you could keep your room any way you wanted, how would it look?

Sydney, "Clean! Lots of hearts and stars. Red hearts on the walls and white stars on a blue painting ceiling."

Jordan, "Clean! I want to draw a forest that has sweet bats in it...oh and wolves too because they are my second favorite animal."

Daily Picture #21

Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews and my kids.

Because the holidays get so crazy, I thought this next question would be great to actually learn and know about my kiddos.

How much privacy would you like? What time of day would you like to be alone and why?

Jordan: "At least 30 mins 2x a day, at 5:15 and 10:15." I informed him that it would be impossible at least for the 10:15 since he was in school. Then I asked if he really did like to be alone and he said, "well, not really, maybe just for very short periods or once during the day."

Sydney: " When I'm sad I like to be alone, but that's all." She is very much a social bug and it makes me sad that when she's sad she'd rather be alone, but she does get that from me.

Daily picture #20

I love Nativities. I have at least 17 different ones around my house. It's my very favorite Christmas decoration! :)

I asked Jordan and Sydney what would the ideal teacher be like?

Sydney, "Someone who is nice to me and smiles at me."

Jordan, "If you did super good all day, your teacher would give you $28.00. If you were listening good and didn't goof off, they would give you $68.00. If you do all of that and help people a lot, they would give you $6,000,000. I do think teachers that make me laugh and smile are the best and both my teacher do that...so there you go."

Daily Picture #19

If I were a Genie and would give you only one wish, which would you pick and why?
1. Being world-class attractive
2. Being a genius
3. Being famous for doing something great.

Jordan: "Being famous for doing something great - I would make an invention and it could change the world."

Sydney, "Can I pick something else, because all I really want is for mommy and daddy to have a break so they can play with us more."

How sad is that? Talk about heartbreaking. Needless to say, we played together today....

Enjoying the Hollidazzle Parade with hundreds of other crazy Minnesotans. 4 degrees and FREEZING out. We were bundled up like crazy and still frozen...but nothing puts me in the Christmas mood quite like Christmas lights :)

Daily Picture #18

What does the word "success" mean to you?

Jordan, " That they did something really good and that's pretty much all."
Sydney, "Happy!"

Daily Picture #17

Sydney was NOT a fan of this next question, in fact, she asked if she could not answer it :) She was completely repulsed by it so I figured she could skip this one!

"If you HAD to have one of these, which would you pick - and why? Really long nose hairs, hair in your ears, hair above your lip, massively hairy armpits!

First Jordan answered Armpits - because he can always just shave it off if he wanted to. Then he thought really hard and said, "Hair above my lip because that's a MOOSEstach." (yes, he said MOOSE! and then proceeded to laugh and tell me to make sure I wrote down MOOSE for all my friends to read).

A sweet gift I got from a dear friend! Such a huge compliment!

Daily Picture #16

I love this...I asked my kids this question: Who do you think I'd rather you be: an NBA ballplayer, the mayor, a famous explorer, or a movie star?

Sydney looked at me really strange and said, "None of those, you'd rather have just plain me."
Jordan smiled and said, "Just me!"

That made me very, very happy!

Daily Picture #15

I love sitting in the living room with the lights from the tree and the garland glowing around me. It makes me so happy!


I asked the kids on a scale of one to nine - one being not at all and nine being totally - how strict do you think that i am?

Jordan, "9! or maybe just a 3. Dad is an 8, no wait, 5". (apparently he couldn't make up his mind on this one)
Sydney, "A 2. Dad is a 4."

Daily picture #14

I asked the kids what they think makes a person good looking.

Sydney: "Make-up and getting their hair done...and I guess boys can get their hair cut."
Jordan: " Earrings, watch, dress, sweet shirt and sweet pants."

It's always interesting to hear how they view things :)


My two favorite gifts of all time!

Daily picture #13

We haven't had this much snow since we were kids....I LOVE IT! :) The cold weather...not so much.


I asked the kids if you were feeling sad, what meal that I could make or order would be the one that would cheer you up.

Sydney: "Pancakes, then I could make them with you."
Jordan: "Pancakes with extra whipped cream, syrup and sprinkles, OJ, strawberries and blackberries."

Daily Picture #12

I asked the kids if they could pick how much allowance they could get, how much would it be and what would they spend it on.

**Both of their eyes got really big when I asked them this and they both got extremely excited.**

Jordan: $80.00 a week. He said he'd get things, you know things, for himself and for me :)

Sydney: $5.00 a week. She wanted that much so she could buy presents for people.

We got to welcome a new little niece into the world yesterday 12/11/10. Sage Annmarie Campbell...our new little gift.

Daily Picture #11

I asked the kids to tell me 5 things that they really liked about themselves.

Jordan:
1. I'm loved and cared for
2. I'm cool
3. I'm super smart
4. I'm strong
5. I'm skilled at everything

(I noticed he didn't say anything about modest :) )

Sydney:
1. I'm cute
2. I can swim really fast on my back
3. I can read really good
4. I'm really a sweet sweet girl
5. "Mom, can I say something nice about you instead?" "No honey, I need one more thing you like about yourself" "I like to play with Kaliah".

Arlie playing cleanup during snow storm 12/11

Daily Picture #10

I asked the kids if they could NOT eat any two foods what would they be.
Jordan: Tomatoes and Pizza
Sydney: Broccoli and Pizza Rolls

Daily Picture #9

Jordan came up to me today and said, "Hey mom, do you want to know how to achieve the ultimate relaxation?" Of course I told him "Yes!". Here are his rules:

#1 - get a glass of water (AKA: coffee for me)
#2 - get a good book
#3 - find a comfy chair
#4 - find a stool, bench or someplace to by the chair for your glass
#5 - get a cat (to lay on your lap and keep you warm)

I think he's absolutely right!

Daily Picture #8

I found the only part in my whole front yard that still had smooth snow. Looking at my yard you'd think that my kids have been having a blast outside...while that may be true, all the little holes and "footprints" are from all of our lovely squirrels. I think we are running a squirrel resort here. If you have any extra squirrels running around your yard send them over :) Better yet, takes our squirrels to your house to play there :)

Daily Picture #7

Singing in the car today....
Me,"Well, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I'm telling you why...."
Jordan, "I have a big bazooka for Christmas."

Daily Picture #6

The kids have completely been trying to convince us that we need to buy presents for the animals this year. THE ANIMALS? Seriously? Now I understand that they do enjoy celebrating the holidays in their own way, like climbing, or trying to climb the Christmas tree, or sitting in boxes filled with garland or batting off decorations. These are things that I think animals should do during the holidays. Presents for the animals? Not high on my priority list I must say!

Daily Picture #5

My internet went down all last night so I wasn't able to get this up yesterday...so here it is this morning.

We are thankful for technology. We got to see my grandparents during our family Christmas Carol Sing. It was such a great blessing :) So in honor of that...is this picture....


I asked my kids what there very favorite thing to do in the snow. They both agreed down hill skiing was the very best thing to do in the snow... followed closely by sledding, snow forts and snowball fights.

Daily Picture #4

Today was our annual Christmas Carol Sing...so the picture today is in honor of that.

I asked Sydney and Jordan what their favorite Christmas Carol was.

Jordan, "Rudolph"
Sydney, "Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, Silver Bells and Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer."

Daily Picture #3

Today I asked the kids what their favorite Christmas cookie was.

Sydney said, without even having to think, "sugar cookie...oh and my favorite fudge is Chocolate Mint".

Jordan thought for a minute and said, "Sugar, Peanut butter, Oatmeal". Funny thing about that is...I don't think we've ever made one like that before, so either he's had it elsewhere (which of course is very likely) or he just made up one that he thought he'd like :)

Daily Picture #2

So today I asked my kids if they could decorate anything with Christmas lights what would they decorate.

Sydney said, "the house" (meaning outside) because then it would look as pretty as all the other houses decorated.

Jordan said, "Rio's kennel". His reason was that it's silver with a black mat so pretty boring and needing something to make it brighter and happier :)

December Daily Picture #1

I have a lot of blogging catch up to do at some point, but I really wanted to do a daily picture every day in December....or as many as I can. Here is today's picture.


I asked my kids what they like best about Christmas time. Both of them said the exact same thing. They like decorating the tree and giving and receiving presents. Gifts is both of their love languages so I guess I can see that!

Shot Gun Weekend

For the last couple of years, Arlie's cousin invites everyone over to their place for their "shot gun" weekend. All the guys bring their guns. We camp in their yard, play yard games, golf, go catfish fishing, play shooting games and sit around the fire. The kids cool off by swimming in the pool and us ladies, well....we cook :) Next year we decided that we'd do something other than just cook for the guys. They have a great yard for this type of thing and to top it off... a fort in the trees for the kids. Corey and Roberta have two boys that are 6 and 11. Our kids have so much fun playing with them, in fact, they have a blast the whole weekend and never want to leave!

Sydney and Payton
All the guys ready to shoot
What they shoot at....how they hit it, i'll never know :)


So I had to get in on the action, only in a smaller form. I think I may have hit the target....once :)


The four cousins: Sydney, Payton, Mason and Jordan


How the kids stayed cool in the hot heat! They were in and out of the pool literally all weekend. About every hour you could count on them jumping in. It was great having it. We even cooled Pete off a couple of times in it....he wasn't quite as excited by that though...

Sydney's dance performance

Sydney has been taking hip hop and ballet, tap, and jazz class this summer. At the end of the session they do a really fun outdoor performance. Angie and Dayton came and watched her this year. She had two songs she had to dance to and they happened to be back to back (of course). She had different outfits so she had to figure out how to change really fast since everyone would be waiting for her. Her first song was Raining Sunshine. She loves ballet/jazz/tap. Her favorite was doing jazz squares. They only get 6 weeks (1 night a week) to practice this routine, so they don't get much time to learn the moves and it does show a bit, although they are still cute :) They all watch each other and the teacher.


Sydney's Hip Hop class was really small...only 6 kids. They had this really cute routine where they broke into three groups to do some of the moves. The problem? 3 of the kids didn't show up to the performance, so for the performance there was only 3 kids TOTAL. It totally threw them off. They did good considering, but there practices were so much better when they had all the kids. Sydney loves to perform though and we have fun watching her personality come out. She is that kid that always waves at her parents. Love it :)

Small group camping - not roughing it....

Our small group from church decided to all go camping together. We have 5 families...everyone has at least 2 kids :) It's crazy with kids all over, but it's so much fun. We went camping at Kamp Dells. It is most defiantly not a camping trip that is roughing it....they had a small water park, horse stables with pony rides, several playgrounds, a petting zoo, mini golf course, swimming pool, ball field, volleyball courts, basketball courts and much more. It was right across from a lake too. It was actually the perfect place for our small group as the kids never got bored. Our campsites were pretty close to a playground so we could let the kids run and play while we prepped meals.

Picutres and more to follow :)

Maija's Birthday

I had to work on my birthday, but we got to celebrate the next day...on Sunday. Guess what we did after church and lunch to start out the celebration?? That's right, we found a spot to go hiking :) Yeah me! We went to Springbrook Nature Center and hiked some of the paths there. It was beautiful and turned out to be nice and hot! :) I love it hot :) I try to ignore the complaints of the heat by the kids.

I do try to distract them by giving them the camera and letting them take pictures, or by playing games like "I packed my momma's bag"...sometimes we even sing :)

After hiking, we went home and changed to even cooler clothes and headed out to the Running Aces Harnes Park. I think this race course has been in Lino Lakes for at least a couple of years, but we've never been to it before. I love doing new things and on Sundays the admission is free! Can't beat that :) They also had cool things like unique animals to show the kids and free pony rides for the kids. Again...you can't beat that. The best part of the track is the kids can walk around and they don't get in anyone's way. It takes awhile between races and the kids would've gotten pretty bored if they had to sit in their seats the whole time.
We placed two bets...lost them both and decided the best thing to do was to bet with each other without using money :) After that we figured out how the odds worked and actually got pretty good at predicting the horses that would win. It was close to 50/50 for Arlie versus my wins. It was a great experience and a cheap way to spend an enjoyable evening! All I was missing was a large hat :)