Pumpkin Train!!!

It was our first year attending the pumpkin train at the Osceola Train Depot in Wisconsin!  After forgetting that the Stillwater bridge was closed and making a detour through Hudson, we thought we'd miss it!!

Alas!  We did not and we caught up with our good friend Toby (and his parents)!!  We only missed the classic 1950's bus ride from the high school to the depot, but we were ready to roll out!

The ride from Osceola to Dresser was fun.  Bo decided his favorite seat in the train was Momma's lap!

We ran across a kitty painting station.  Hailey became one and Bo just grunted and shook his head at the thought.   :)

Here is where the pumpkin part of the train came in.  All the kids with tickets also got to lug a monster pumpkin home.  Momma and I got a good workout with these suckers!  We can't wait to carve them up!

The hay bale maze was quite interesting.  Hailey decided the point of least resistance for entry was this little window.  The other kids used the culvert door, but I believe Hailey's was most creative.

They had hand carts, motorized carts (see Momma and Bo), tractor rides, bounce houses, music, camp fire with marshmallows and other kid games...  This was quite a fun day!  Thank you Joe, Meghan and Toby for going with us and we just might have to do this again next year!!!

Bo's First Computer

Darlene, Hailey and Bo hit up a huge consignment sale last week and the kids brought some of their own money.  Bo landed on this computer and normally, we wouldn't have let it fly, but we figured with all the car rides in our future, that it would be good for him to have something he can do!  He just loves playing it and it is pretty educational.  He loves to find his seat and take care of business.  He looks oh so serious while he's on there!  Definitely don't know how he picked that up!  :|

Little Dogs, Little Chairs

That's officially what we have here anyways...  Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!  We were in Wisconsin, and hopefully I can get some pictures sent this way from Uncle Will and Grandma!  There were some good ones celebrating Great Gramps' Birthday!!

Saturday Fun

Saturday morning I made a fresh batch of pancakes.  The count for the day?  Hailey 1, Daddy 2, Bo 4!  Man that kid can put down pancakes when he's in the mood!

Then it was off to Toby's house for his birthday party!  It was a super cool construction themed party.  However, the kids found some toy guitars, so I think that we might have had a little village people action going on.  :)

Daddy Weekend!

Mom's gone, Daddy, Hailey and Bo get to play!!!  YaY!!!  :-)

4 Years Ago

What were you doing I might ask?  It's hard to believe that we got Hailey's NEW BED exactly 4 years ago.  Holy stinking bananas batman.  :)  How time flies!!!

Awwwwwwww.  :)

Calhoun Park and Harriet Trains

A couple weekends ago we took the kids out for a trolly ride. Since the trolly started up at an odd time, we decided to spend our waiting time at a super fun park by Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis.  Here are some pictures from the day!

Darlene and Hailey on a mini-rocking-teeter-totter thing.  :)

Hailey and Bo hopped on a spring loaded rocking motorcycle with a side car.  I believe I see a little scared-ness mixed in with the excitement, don't you?

TIRE SWING!!!  (And a pretty nice view) 

Bo chilling out while Hailey's in the background trying to catch up to do some chilling out of her own.  Ready, GO!

Ahhhh...  We love this lake!  We used to spend so many evenings walking or running or roller blading around it!  Hailey sure seems to appreciate it!

Then it was the old street car ride.  They have some cool rides around town and we sure had fun learning about the old street cars!  You can check out their site here!

A Full Moon and the Gourds

We spent the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa with the Pony this weekend and boy did we have fun! I was playing in an alumni golf tournament during the day, but thankfully while I was away, the kids took a nap and we were able to get out Grandpa's telescope! 

Hailey was excited to have her turn and surprised everyone that she didn't need a step stool to see!

Bo needed one, but he thought it was pretty cool too!  After the kids went in, Grandpa and I tinkered with the scope and added a couple magnifiers and we were able to zoom in close enough to see the terrain's ridges on the outer edges!  Soooo cool, thanks Grandpa!

Sunday morning brought a gourd hunt!  Bo was having a great time on the hunt!

Hailey was definitely into it!  Her eye spotted the most gourds!  She found 12 of the 20 that were out there, and there were so many neat ones in there!

Thanks again Grandma and Grandpa for the hospitality over the weekend!  We hope to see you again soon!

Summer Days Gone By

We are enjoying our outside time as much as possible.  Pretty soon we'll have to be wearing jackets and hats and gloves and...  Thinking about Pippi, it'll be interesting to see what she does with those 2 foot snow banks!  :)

Things We Love

On a list of things we love to do...  Going to the Children's Museum is definitely near the top of the list.  It helps that it's a blast to be there as well as the opportunity to get our face painted!!

NEWS FLASH!!!

We've had a big foot sighting...  Please contact your local sheriff's department if you see these feet!!  :)

All Smiles

Ok, so every school day isn't really all smiles...  But there are definitely many happy days!  One of my favorite things is getting home and hearing all about their day and what was learned.  Today's surprise was listening to Hailey count by 5's to 100!!  :)

Happy..........

FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bubbles!!!!

From the month or so ago machine comes this sunny day fun when Grandma and Grandpa with the Pony were in town!

 Hailey has a great one going here with an old coat hanger!

Bo's working hard while double-fisting the wands.

Bo hands!!!  (I think)  :)

Geography Day

Today was puzzle day and then a trip across the United States.  It's a good thing we have a boy in the house who likes his cars and trucks and tractor trailers and diggers and fire trucks and dump trucks and garbage trucks and...  Well, any kind of truck for any kind of situation!  :)

Free Babysitter!

We have FINALLY received NEW trees for our front yard!  After waiting 6 or 7 years to have the association replace trees that were never made to be planted in Minnesota...  We had some diggers out front planting 8 new trees.  7 of the 8 were monitored closely by Bo and Pippi.  Thank goodness they all went in straight!  I think there would have been much hollering and yapping had they not done so!

School Experiments

Since the kids have a jar full of straws, we've been trying to talk to them about appropriate times to blow bubbles.  Not during dinner, not during snack.  Most definitely not with milk.  However, now that school has started, one of the first experiments that we did was blowing bubbles with straws!  I'm not going to promise that they learned the appropriate time to blow bubbles, but at least they had some pretty awesome bubble mountains!!  :)

First Day of School

Well, September has crept up on us and we have officially started the school year.  She busted out her favorite clothes and even had little Miss Pippi join in the picture!!  I can't believe how big our girl is getting!!!

The Trifecta

Now with our newest member of the family...  It's now a GREAT day when all three of them are snoozing away!!  :)

Little Tolkien Fan

 I was happy to find out that Bo likes Tolkien!  He's spent some good time flipping through the books.  Now, when can I start to read him the Hobbit?  Can I possibly get it done before the movie comes out in December??  :)

Find the Weasel!

Well, can you?

State Fair Adventures

Well, it was time! Bo finally got to come along on our Minnesota State Fair adventure!  With Darlene running the Women Rock 1/2 Marathon, and this being the last weekend of the fair...  I decided to pack up a lunch and take them both!

Bo got to have his first bus ride too!  This was one of Hailey's favorite things last year when we went too!  What a couple of happy clams!

We ventured through the DNR zone and ran across Smokey the Bear!!

Of course we did rides!  They each got to choose their rides and the airplane one was their favorite!  CHEEESE!

Lastly, with Bo's allergies, I think we hit the only stand that had something Bo COULD have.  Lemonade!!!!  Jumbo sized with two straws on a hot day hit...  the... spot!

Here's my little corn dog and state fair goer!!!  We had such a fun day.  I know things can't always be perfect (Hailey would point out we didn't get to see a horse show) but it was pretty close especially being Bo's first time!

Hired Hand

Bo is quite the little helper.  He's always asking for jobs to do.  We have to take advantage while it lasts!  One of his favorite jobs is to vacuum up the stairs!  He makes it up to the landing and then requests some assistance in switching the cord to be moved to the upstairs outlet.  Then he finishes the top half!  We may have to start renting out his services...  :)

Big Swinger

Here is our big swinger!  We have been working with Hailey on pumping her legs to get herself going on the swing for quite some time.  Now in the last few weeks she's finally got it!  Starting with some good training at Grandma with the Pony's house, she has definitely got it now!  We were at the park for a little over an hour and I bet she was swinging for a little UNDER an hour! :)

Now we might give an occasional under duck, but one more accomplishment for Miss Independent!!

The Muddy Weekend!

We have been quite the busy family. As you can tell, with every passing day work, fun and travels seem to keep the blog quiet. Every time I get some momentum getting back to a true "daily" post, something else comes along! So much appreciation to those checking back and I will continue to post pictures!! :) 

 On August 11th, Mr. Joe and I participated in the MuckRuckus TC Mud Run. It was a 10 kilometer run with quite a few obstacles. This year, Momma, Hailey, Bo and Pippi were all there to watch!! 

After running up and down and all around the mountain, I finally got back to where the spectators were!  Bo was there to greet me going across this mud hole on a rope!

Then up and over this spider/cargo netting one.  It was fun to hear them saying "GO DAD!!!"  It made the last 1/2 mile of the course go so much better hearing their cheering!

The best part about this year was there was a kids mud area to play in too!  Hailey got muddy!!!  She had fun, but at this point, the coldness of being wet and muddy was starting to take over.

This part with the hoses didn't help her coldness, but it sure helped the muddiness!  After the rinsing, we got a change of clothes and headed home.

All in all a great weekend to be outside helping to raise money for a great cause!  The event this year had a few less people, but we still raised over 500 thousand dollars for supporting MS families get access to the care and programs they need as well as MS Research!

Breakfast Chef

Someone sweet made breakfast this morning!!  Hailey wrote out a menu, took everyone's order, and made breakfast this morning. 

You can tell she was very proud!!  We were every bit as proud, and thoroughly enjoyed our breakfast. 

Ice Cream Queen

We opened up a tub of ice cream so it has become the new inspiration to finish our dinner.  Hailey gave her dinner to Momma and took her plate inside.  She then came storming back out talking about how she really wanted to eat her dinner.  We asked her what changed her mind and she said, "Well, I was just thinking I didn't want to be hungry."

After a few more questions, she finally said, "Because I wanted some ice cream and I can't have any unless I finish my dinner!"

Darlene and I both said, "There it is!"  :)

Pippi Power

Pippi has definitely been growing in leaps and bounds.  She's doing more and more all the time.  She is forgetting she needs to go potty outside, which we thought we had it made when she did so well that first week!  Either way, she's still a cutie!  :)

Pippi!!!