Happy Halloween!

Madeline's first trip trick or treating was a success. She did it! Excitedly approached each doorway, rang the bell or knocked on the door and eagerly waited for an answer so she could say, in the most angelic voice..."Trick or Treat" while she held out, with pride, her hot pink pumpkin candy bucket....and when the candy dropped, she looked up and said with a smile, "thank you!". And ran down the driveway and to the next house....over and over again. And each home we visited complimented on how sweet our little girl was. :-)
When we went to bed last night, Madeline asked me, "Can we go trick or treating tomorrow after my nap?" Sure, Madeline, right after you take your nap.

Pumpkin Carving

Sunday afternoon we carved our pumpkins... Madeline throughly enjoyed picking out the designs for each pumpkin and doing her best to help carve them too. We didn't get a photo of them lit yet- saving that event for tonight, along with Madeline's first trick-or-treating adventure. Check back later this week and I'll hopefully have costume photos and of course, these lit pumpkins!

Happy Halloween!

Minnie Maslow...at dance class

This morning was a fun morning for Madeline- all week we have been prepping her for her dance class as she got to wear her beloved Minnie Mouse costume! She was so excited that at 7am this morning she woke up and stripped her jammies off and woke us up asking to put on her Minnie. She was in her undies for a little while until finally it was time! And when she had it on she looked at her daddy and said, "Do you love it?" as she twirled around and around. Oh my Gosh. So cute.
Off to dance class we went, we couldn't get out the door fast enough today. She finally had her tap shoes. See, the first few weeks of class weren't the smoothest and so I decided to wait on making the tap shoe purchase until I knew she actually enjoyed dance class and today proved that she LOVES it. She loves tap. She loves dance. I just hope it stays this way!
Upon our arrival, there was another Minnie Mouse friend. Carly. The two of them have become instant dance buddies. Fortunately for them, her mommy and me also seem to be getting along fabulously and actually live within walking distance of one another :-) I see playdates in our future.
Miss Jennifer, her teacher, was a modified version of Tinkerbelle, we had a Dorothy and her little dog, too....and Princess Tiana from the Princess and the Frog. The girls had a great time today and finished off their class with a trick or treat, too!

Madeline meets....

....Jared Allen (from the Vikings). Her dad is clearly very excited about this photo. Madeline, hmmmmm, she's not sure what to think.

A date with daddy last week included dinner and a viewing of the Jared Allen show which is live at the MOA each week, hosted by our neighbor and friend Mike Mussman from K102.

Am I spelling his name right?

Lucy's First Haircut

A very spontaneous decision on my part today- after lunch we went to Kids Hair to have Lucy's hair trimmed up. She has thick hair that after a bath is adorably full of curls, something she no doubt received from her daddy, and sadly after it dries, the curls go bye-bye but the unruly wavy locks remain. She did really well, a fake cry for a few seconds and that was it! We left with just a small trim, a cleaned up hair-do. Now if I could just shake the urge I have to bring Madeline in to have her hair cut into a little bob.....much like my own hair, it's long and fine and straight. She is going through a phase where the only thing I can do to her hair is pin her bangs back in a barette....what to do, oh what to do.

Hold Me Closer Tiny Dancer.........

Madeline finally started dance class yesterday. She was SO happy, evident by her face in these photos. She is in a class with one of her school friends, Delie. I can't wait to see how this progresses over the next several months!

It's getting chilly outside

My blogging has taken the backseat, yet again. I frankly don't make the time to sit at the computer like I once did. I hope with the colder days that are inevitably ahead, that will make me sit down and share stories and photos with our readers.
Our life isn't anything out of the ordinary, but we have fun. Our two babes keep us on the go from the first chirp of them in the morning to that last cry in the night.....

Lucy is 11 months and will be 1 year old on October 1st. She is crawling, standing, walking around the furniture and walking with her walker and she really likes to climb the stairs...some times she disappears without us knowing and where is she? Upstairs in our room. :)

She eats just about anything you give her, but her favorites include anything with cheese...and anything dipped in ketchup. Much like her older sister.

Lucy is a snuggler, she likes to be in constant contact with either mom or dad or sister Madeline.....she has a bit of a seperation problem which quickly goes away....until she sees mom again. Then it's tears! She's quickly learning to "fight back" when Madeline takes away her toy. Not necessarily a good quality to be learning so young, but, she has a voice and she's learning how to use it! She loves loves to dance. The girl hears a beat and her butt starts to wiggle! It's hilarious! And she loves to play with all the toys and all the toys her sister would rather her not play with!

Lucy is just one of those easy going, happy-go-lucky kids and we're very blessed.

Madeline is 3. Just turned. She's officially in preschool and loving it. She's certainly a smarty pants. And speaking of pants, she's officially potty trained. In fact, she just learned to put her poopy in the potty yesterday! She dresses herself, she buckles herself into the carseat (with minimal assistance of course), She goes potty and wipes and washes hands without help (most of the time) She is perfectly content reading book after book snuggled on the couch with her pillow and blankie most of the time. but she also loves to play pretend....pretend baby, pretend cookies, pretend bugs.....you name it, we've played it. And speaking of playing, she's mastering the game of Candy Land. She cheats good. Even cheated so well she made her dad quit 'cause she beat him! :-) Very funny.

I don't know what else to say, she's a happy kid. That's all I care about!

Ahhh, the boat ride.

Going on a pontoon boat with two kids under 3 can be tricky. Luckily ours were very well behaved and seemed to really like it! As evident by the photos below. What was the occasion? What else do people do on a Monday in the summer ;-)
Nanny and Bubba treated us to a pontoon ride for my birthday. The best part of the day was watching Madeline get excited about driving the boat, seeing the ducks and of course, eating snacks and coloring under her "towel blanket".

Madeline's 3rd Birthday

We have so many photos, too many to post in one sitting. But here's a few photos to share anyway. Madeline had a visitor on her birthday, Ariel, The Little Mermaid. She had one little prince among all the princesses, her cousin, Brendan.
Pizza, Cupcakes, Storytime, Face Painting and of course, presents! Happy Birthday my little sweetheart.

Summer Fun.

What do you do to stay cool in this heat? The girls like Popsicles. Yes, even Lucy does. And Madeline, she wants them for breakfast, lunch, dinner and each snack in between. And of course, there's the mini pool. Now that Lucy is crawling, she very much enjoyed sitting and moving around in the pool. Madeline likes to pretend she's having a shower, and so, we got out the soap and made a real bathtub/shower experience out of it. Come winter, I'll miss these days, so we take advantage as much as we can!

Updates on the girls- Lucy is 10 months now. Crawling. Eating some table food. She had her first grilled cheese with ketchup the other day and seemed to really like it! Her personality is developing more and more- for example, she knows how to let her sister know when she's making her mad! She shreaks. Or screams. She really is a well tempered, easy going, happy baby. Except, at night. She doesn't much care to sleep. A problem we've had since she was born. It's exhausting, but we manage to find our way through the night up and down and up and down. Someday, right? She is a snuggle bug, so at least she's sweet to hold onto.

Madeline is spoiled. She's nurturing, she's happy, she's bossy, she's sweet, she's everything a 2, almost 3, year old should be. She's quite smart, we think. Maybe smarter than us at times. The best thing she says to us, is without prompting her, she will reach for a hug and say, "I love you Mommy (or Daddy)". Melt. Your. Heart.

In the house, we've, rather Lowe's, has been building our lower level man cave/bar/kitchen. Everything a man cave needs will be in this section of the house. It should be completed this week and just in time for all things party coming up later this month! We also leveled our backyard space, ridding ourselves of all weed trees so that soon we can have a backyard for our kids to run around in. For now, it's a mud pit with holes :-( Maybe by fall, maybe not til next spring, whenver..... it will be a lovely space for the kiddies.

Summer is winding down! Enjoy it! And enjoy the recent pics!