Kate's Husband

So over the past week or so Kate has been talking a lot about getting married and having a husband. I am not quite sure she knows what that means because she continues to ask Annie to marry her and has even asked Brian a few times. We have had the joy of listening in on two of her phone calls with her husband, Jacob over the past week. The conversations went as follows:

Call #1: Hi husband! It is me. We have 25 birthdays to go to and you are coming to the ball with me. OK? I have to go now. I will talk to you in an hour and a half.

Call #2: Yes, we are going to go on a date. A date is where two people go to dinner and talk about themselves. OK, so come and pick me up and we will go on a date.

I wondered where she got her information on the concept of a date. The next morning we were watching Enchanted and I had to laugh when I heard Patrick Dempsey explaining to Amy Adams about what a date is! Man, are they sponges at this age or what!

Oh what fun it is to hear the imaginations of little ones! :)

Busy Season!

It has been a busy week at the Clemens' household this past week! Katelin got tubes put back into her ears on Monday. She was a STAR patient! The doctors and nurses kept telling me how mature she was for her age! Kate never cried or complained once, even when she threw up after the procedure from having the drugs in her system. No worries though, by that night she was chasing Annie around the house like her usual self! We are praying this will help her stay off the antibiotics every month now.

Then I had the pleasure of taking the girls to the dentist this week. It was a complete flip flop from our last experience there. Annie was amazing last time and this time she was scared stiff! Lots of screaming took place. By the time they were done with her exam, her pig tails had fallen out from moving around so much! Kate on the other hand was again, a star patient! She even got x-rays! She was very proud of herself and so were we! Good news is that the dentist said we are doing a good job brushing!

Last night the girls had their Holiday Show (Kate told me it is NOT a Christmas show) at school. Annie's class all decided they were too shy to actually sing their songs so they just stood there, ringing bells and smiling while their teacher sung. The minute we got home after the show, Annie was singing her songs like crazy! Kate's class did an amazing job with their songs. Kate smiled and sang all four songs like a pro! Below are some pics and a video of the evening. Fun times.

Oh, and I can't forgot to mention that we are considering Annie officially potty-trained! She has successfully been going potty on the toilet now for a few weeks. She just goes into the bathroom when she has to go and does her thing! The only downside though is now she has discovered that if she says she has to go potty while she is in bed at night, it allows her to get out of her bed. The past few nights we had to drag her off the potty and back into bed. Little stinker! I must say that I am very excited about not having to clean dirty diapers or pants anymore. YAY ANNIE! :)

Well, I am off to wrap some presents. Brian is at Avatar 3D and I am trying to get some stuff done around the house to get ready for Christmas next week...crazy!

First official snow of the season!

The girls were beyond ecstatic when I picked them up from school yesterday and told them they got to wear their boots home because it was snowing. Annie was jumping up and down telling everyone that passed to look at her boots! When we walked outside, they ran and screamed all the way to the car. Of course when we got home they had to walk around in the snow for a few minutes. Kate was pretty disappointed when I told her we couldn't make a snowman. Can't wait for sledding season to begin!

Kate's 1st Kid Birthday Party!

This past Saturday was a big event for Katelin...her first kid's birthday party! We had 14 kids come which was a very good turn-out and made Katelin sooo happy (and us)! There is nothing like seeing pure joy and excitement on your child's face! Her party was held at The Little Gym. A great place where kids can run around on gymnastics-type equipment, jump on a jumper, play with a parachute, and so much more! It was great for us because all we had to do was show up with Katelin and a cake :) She had a fabulous time and all the kids were so well behaved and I am pretty sure had a lot of fun! She also got a ton of great gifts! I asked her if this meant that I did not need to buy her any Christmas presents and she said "yes"! Aahhh, she has been a pretty good girl this year so I think Santa will still make a visit ;) Here are a few pics of the great day!

Happy Birthday Katelin!

Ho Ho Ho!

Well we went to see Santa this past weekend and for the first time in 4 years there was NO LINE!! Whoohoo! The girls wore their new dresses for the occasion and were on their best behavior - it couldn't have went any better. Annie told Santa she wanted 'a Tinker Bell first' (later that day we found out she didn't like any of the Tinker Bell shows or movies we had at home! go figure!) and Katelin told Santa that the wanted 'a horse'.......and then 'a horn'....which was interpreted as 'a horse with a horn' - aka a Unicorn! News to us!! But it was short lived once we learned that she wanted 'a horn for her bike' so she made sure we told Santa that she didn't really want a Unicorn.....though it would be kinda cool to have the only Unicorn on the block! We also took our Christmas photos that day and man it feels good to have them out of the way. The girls were great and as a result I think we ended up with some great photos. Here are a couple of the girls being silly.....well, actually normal. :)

Thanksgiving '09

We have a lot to be thankful for this year - both big and small things but we're especially thankful to be proud parents, healthy, employed, and to have great family and friends. To those of you we see on a regular basis; we love you! To those of you we're not able to see as often as we like; we love you, miss you, and hope to see you soon! To all of you - we hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Here are some pics from our day that started with brunch for Grandma Myrt and Grandma Sharon and ended at Corie's house with round two of delicious turkey, dressing, and all the trimmings....including Toni's first ever pie!

Kate Turns 4!

Wow...it is hard to believe that 4 years ago today I gave birth to Katelin Lily! After over 3 hours of straight pushing without a working epidural, she finally decided to meet her parents. She weighed in at 7 lbs 11 oz and 19 inches long. Oh, and her head was in the 95th percentile! That I do remember ;)

It has been so fun to watch her grow into such a fun, smart, and caring little girl. She continues to amaze us each day with the things she says and does. Tonight I was asking the girls what they were going to tell Santa they wanted for Christmas when they see him. Annie was talking about princesses and Snow White and Kate said all she wanted to tell Santa was that she loved him! Aaahhhh :) She is definitely our sensitive and caring one. She takes such good care of Annie too. The past three school mornings she has woken Annie up, took her to the bathroom, changed her pull-up, got her and Annie dressed all before they come into our bedroom! What an amazing little helper she can be...when she wants to! ;)

Yesterday we celebrated her birthday with a family party at our house. Kate had an absolute fabulous time opening and playing with all her new toys! Annie did too of course (even if she had been in time-out 5 times that day before the party even began!) Thank you everyone for making her day so special. Today we let her pick her restaurant of choice for her birthday dinner. No surprise that she chose Chipotle! Her teacher gave her a birthday cake crown to wear and she proudly wore it singing "I'm the Birthday Girl" everywhere she went! Speaking of school, she will be joining the Rainbows class at school too now and will be back in with all her little girlfriends!

We will also be celebrating her birthday with her first kid's party in December. Wow, has that been interesting to plan. That will be a post all by itself in a few weeks :)

Below are some pics of her birthday party we took yesterday. Happy Birthday Katelin! Mom, Dad, and Anners love you very much!!!!

Dancing Queen

Annie had her second in-school dance show yesterday but it was the first one she actually danced at! The first one consisted of Annie sitting on mom and dad's lap with face buried in our chests while the rest of her class hopped and danced around the room. Not this time..Annie stole the show! Check it out!

Preston!!

This is long overdue but we're getting around to editing and posting some videos....as you may notice by the other recent posts. Here are Kate and Annie so happy to be gently holding their new cousin Preston after his Baptism in August!

August Magic Show

A little slow getting this one posted but prepare yourself for the debut performances from Kate The Magician and Annie The Magician Conductor!

Happy Halloween!

Boo!

Well there weren't any ghosts here this year but there were two cute princesses! Check us out with our pumpkins AFTER we had been out trick or treating for several hours.....which means we were hopped up on sugar for this picture! Look at those smiles!

Gap Casting Call

Here's one more worth mentioning! We thought it would be fun to enter the girls into the Gap casting call contest since we had a few pretty nice pics of the girls and let's be honest - it would be pretty fun to see the girls make the finalist list and any prize they won would certainly be welcome....... but let's be clear too - we have no delusion that this would actually happen. There are a TON of amazingly cute kids entered in this and the odds are just too stacked against you. But hey, like with the lottery, if you don't play you can't win. It's fun to dream a little though! Here are the pics we entered.

Go to the Gap website and find the contest link, then search for "bandtfamily", and vote!

October Festivities

Since I have been a slacker again, I decided I would provide a little update with some of the things we have done this month. It got a little long!


7th Wedding Anniversary: Brian and I celebrated 7 wonderful years of marriage on the 12th! We enjoyed our evening by having an amazing dinner at The St. Paul Grill and then spent the evening at Crowne Plaza in St. Paul. It was a very nice treat for us to get away for the night and have some quality couple time. Aunt Corrie spent the night with the girls and got lucky enough to have them sleep until 8:50! That NEVER happens. They must have known that Aunt Corrie likes to sleep in!



College Girl's Trip: Brian got his "Mancation" w/ the guys in August and I got my girl's weekend in Arizona this month! Five friends from college stayed in Scottsdale for three days and two nights. We spent most of the time enjoying the record heat of 100 degrees by lying by the pool and soaking up rays. We also had two fabulous dinners out, did a quick shopping trip to an outlet mall and climbed two mountains for our morning exercise. Well, OK...we climbed half of one of them (most of us chickened out when we saw we had to actually use a pole to climb up part of the mountain) but the other one we did three miles (pic posted below)! I would definitely enjoy working out more if we had the mountains to climb in MN! Needless to say we had a great time and it was so fun to catch up with friends and have a little relaxing "me" time. I am hoping we make it an annual adventure! Oh...and Brian did a GREAT job watching the girls while I was gone. They enjoyed time at a pumpkin patch picking pumpkins, went for a bike ride, and played with Sam!





Birthday Celebrations: We have enjoyed a few family birthday celebrations this month. My step mom turned the big 50 so my dad took me, Brian, my sister, her husband, and my grandpa out to dinner to celebrate at Jax Cafe in Mpls. We had a wonderful time celebrating with everyone and a great dinner to boot! We also hosted a birthday party for my grandma who turned 89! All the kids had a great time playing together. I think the highlight of the day was my brother-in-law playing "happy birthday" on his accordion!







Halloween Party:: The girls had their annual school Halloween party last week. Kate was Snow White and Annie was Princess Aurora. They had a lot of fun playing games with their friends and getting prizes and treats. A hilarious moment was when the girls entered a room where a boy dressed as Spiderman was really getting into his character by crawling around the room. Kate and Annie just stopped to watch and he then took his mask off and said, "It is OK Kate, it is just me...Donovan!". Too cute. The girls are VERY excited to go Trick or Treating in a few days.









That sums up some of the fun things we have done this month. It has been a busy one but very fun! Of course in the midst of all the fun, we did have a few trips to Urgent Care. Kate had another ear infection and Annie had a UTI. Wouldn't be a complete month without one of them being on antibiotics. We are just praying H1N1 stays far away from our house (and yours too)!

Funny Faces

So I was harassed again by Bridget for not updating our blog and I decided I better add a post! Because it is midnight, I decided to make this a quick post of a few fun pics of the girls. I was looking through some recent photos and found these funny faces that Brian took of the girls. We've got a silly face, a pout face and a smiley face! When I look at these pictures my heart melts. Brian and I are so very lucky that we have these two beautiful, fun, and sweet girls in our lives! What a wonderful family :)

Oh, and I will get an update (or two) in this week with fun pictures and stories of some of the exciting things we have done this month!

Two Peas in a Bedroom

Anybody still check this blog out?!?!? Hope we haven't lost our followers with our dismal update record lately! We've been busy lately shopping for new twin beds so we could move the girls into the same room together. It's still a mess but Kate's day bed is taken apart and the new beds are all set up in her room. No....there's not another little one on the way, just making Annie's old room into a play room for all their stuff. Our hope is that they eventually start to go into the play room when they wake up at 6am on the weekend instead of coming into mom and dad's room! And of course that they keep building a great sisterly bond! Tonight we listened in on them from outside the door and heard this - Kate:"Goodnight Annie" Annie:"Goodnight Kate" Kate:"I love you Annie" Annie:"I wuv you too Kate" Kate:"Do you like your new bed Annie?" Annie: "Yeah I wuv it".

Dad's Birthday Weekend!

So after being told by my friend Bridget that out of all of her friends' blogs, we are the worst at updating ours...I was feeling guilty and thought I should write something tonight rather than just sit on the couch!

This past week was a busy but fun week! Bridget was in town for the week and stayed at our house. The girls were so excited to have her here (and so was I)! We got to go for a walk around Lake Harriet and to dinner with Tasha and Lori and also enjoyed a movie one night (a romantic chic flick!)! We even had a productive meeting on financial planning!

Friday was Brian's birthday! I enjoyed it by taking the day off of work! We were supposed to do something together but he had to go into the office for a half day so I decided to do some shopping! We picked the girls up early from school and headed to the MOA for dinner and rides! We enjoyed a nice Italian meal at Tucci Benuch and surprised Dad with a Happy Birthday song and a brownie sundae! Then Corrie, Mike and Sam met us and we went on rides. It was super fun! Brian got to go on the Frog Hopper, along with 4 other little kids! He barely fit! It was Annie's first time and because she is not quiet 36 inches they made an adult ride too. Pretty funny! We did all the usual rides plus some! Now that Kate is over 42" she can go on the big rides there! So she ended up going on the Pepsi Orange Streak adult roller coaster 3 times! She screamed with pure delight the entire time! She also went on the adult version of the Frog Hopper...it takes you high into the sky and then suddenly drops you down (and repeats this motion)! She looked so little but again, had a blast! We didn't leave the mall until 10!

Then Bapa David and Grandma Nancy picked up the girls on Saturday and took them for the night! The girls had so much fun going to a new park, doing art projects, baking cookies, riding on the tractor/trailor, and so much more! Dad said they were angels the entire time! They even got to sleep together in the big bed at night. And Bapa and Grandma got to experience potty training joys when Annie peed on the floor in Target! Thanks for giving us some adult time Dad and Nanc! :)

Brian and I enjoyed a nice lunch at Maynards on Lake Mtka and then had a couples' massage for his birthday! We then did a little spontaneous shopping when Bri decided that instead of doing the annual b-day dinner at Fogo De Chao he would rather buy a PS3 and play games, watch movies and eat pizza rolls all night! So...that is what we did! We now own an Xbox, Wii, and a PS3 (not to mention the Nintendo, Sega, Atari...!)

Then today Brian picked up the girls and got to go for a nice motorcycle ride with my dad before bringing the girls home. I enjoyed some quite time that allowed me to clean, do a little clothes shopping for Kate and bought some mums for my pots!

All in all, it was a GREAT weekend. Believe it or not, I don't have any pics I can share as we didn't have the camera with us at all this weekend! But, at least you got to read this LONG post about what we did! :) Hope you all enjoyed a nice weekend as well.

State Fair '09

It is hard to believe but the State Fair has come and gone already this year! It truly marks the end of the summer :( After patiently waiting all week for Dad to get home from California, Kate finally got to go on Saturday night! Boy did we have a blast! The first thing we did was hit the Giant Slide as Kate couldn't wait to go down! Well, we spent about $30 alone on just slide rides! But it was worth it right ;) Then we visited some animal barns. Kate is not much of an animal fan! She likes to talk about them but not really be anywhere near them! The favorite barn was the poultry barn where we would laugh at the ducks, chickens, roosters, etc.! The honking noise scared them a few times though!

We spent the majority of our time in the kiddie midway of course! Both girls enjoyed some fun rides! Kate couldn't stop talking about the Lady Bugs ride which had music as loud as the regular midway with fog/smoke and boy did it go in circles fast! I think Annie's favorite was the ride that she got to lie down on her tummy and fly. How she got on it, I have no idea! It said you were supposed to be 42" and she isn't even 36"! In fact, if you notice the pictures, we put a high pony and wore tennis shoes to try and make her 36"!! It didn't work :(

But...I have to say both girls probably enjoyed the Euro Bungy the most! After waiting in line for 30 min. we were a little afraid Kate was going to chicken out but she didn't! In fact, she loved it and laughed the whole time! Then of course Annie wanted to jump so we couldn't disappoint her! She was so excited she ran right up to the jumper when it was her turn! She kept saying she was going to do flips but she didn't quite make that happen!

All in all, it was such a fun night and the girls were so well behaved! I am amazed to say that we did not leave the fair until after 11:00PM! It was the latest the girls have EVER stayed up! Of course they both fell asleep in the car but when I tried to take Annie's sucker out of her hand, she woke up and said "No" and then went right back to sleep gripping it as tight as possible!

Until next year!!!

Annie getting ready to jump!


Annie and Dad ready to fly!


Kate and Annie on the Little Mermaid ride (This is when I told Annie to smile with her eyes open!)


Kate and Mom on the Dragon Roller Coaster!


Annie obviously enjoyed her Sweet Martha's Cookie!


Kate Bungee Jumping!


Annie pre-Bungee Jumping...Talking Big About Doing Flips!

Michigan Trip

Well, we survived the road trip to Michigan this past week! I must say, the driving went WAY better than we expected. We left Thurs. around 6 a.m. and thought for sure the girls would fall back asleep...yeah, not gonna happen! They slept maybe a total of 45 minutes all the way to Chicago. We stayed in our old town of Geneva for the afternoon/night. We had a great time at the city pool, park, and of course enjoyed Portillos for dinner. Ahhh, how wonderful! The girls did a great job sleeping in their own double beds too in an adjoining room in the hotel. We got up early on Fri. and drove to MI.

We spent most of Friday playing with our cousins at their house. They just put up a huge new playground and had a brand new John Deere riding toy for the kids. Lots of hours of fun spent there. Well, except until Kate got run over by cousin Trennen! The kids got a little excited to start driving and forgot to wait until everyone was in the car. Looking back it was pretty funny to see but at the time it was very scary to see this tractor that holds up to 140 lbs going over Kate's leg, tummy and up her arm! Saturday we spent the afternoon there too (and boy was it hot out!). The only issue was the two beagle dogs they have. Unfortunately because of the girls' incident with the big black dog, they are very afraid of dogs and that caused some trauma around the two little puppies. We made some progress but still have a long way to go! Any suggestions, please provide!!!

Saturday night we baptized cousin Preston. The girls had such a great time holding him, especially Kate. She couldn't stop kissing his forehead. And Annie couldn't stop kissing his feet! What great cousins they are going to be to him! Then on Sunday we spent some time visiting Kristin and Chris' HoneyBaked Ham store. We got to make our own sandwiches in the kitchen and learned that we probably wouldn't get paid much if that was what we did for a living ;) I think we are lucky we don't live around there or we would be eating their food a lot!!! Kris and I got some girl time and went to the outlet mall for a few hours so that was nice. And then we got to spend some adult kid cousin time over at our Aunt's house playing video games on Sun. night.

Mon we got up and left at 8:00 a.m. and decided to drive through the UP rather than through Chicago. What a nice change of pace! We all really loved it. The girls were doing so great that we decided to drive through all the way home! 15 hours later (and a stop for lunch, dinner and The Mystery Spot) we made it home at 11:15 p.m. I can honestly say that the girls did not complain once on the way home!!! We watched Cheaper by the Dozen 2 more times than I would like to remember and spent hours playing with Silly Putty (which we keep finding all over the car)!

We had a great visit with our family and wish we could spend more time with them. We also learned this weekend that we will probably move the girls into the same room soon as they both really enjoyed sleeping on single beds in the same room! What little buds they have become! We look forward to seeing everyone again for Christmas as we will be making the trek back in a few months!

Friendly BBQ

This past weekend we finally got all the high school girls and husbands together for a BBQ over at Liz's house. It was so great to see everyone again. The girls had a great time playing with Sierra, Alex, and Colton. I think they could have stayed there forever playing in playhouse in the backyard. Man, I wish we had one of those to keep them entertained! Unfortunately Kate started to cough and get a scratchy voice when we got home that night. It is a good thing Brian decided to take her to urgent care on Sunday as they informed us she had pneumonia and of course...two ear infections starting again. UGH! We are definitely calling the ENT back if she gets one more infection as this has been the 5th one in the last 3 months. Not fair for the little peanut. Luckily her pneumonia doesn't seem to be too bad as she is acting really well for the most part and isn't short of breath or wheezing at all. We were shocked actually with the diagnosis. Hopefully her meds will kick this out of her system as we are supposed to drive to MI this weekend for a family visit and baptism of little Preston. Crossing our fingers she feels better over the next two days!

Annie enjoying the pool at the BBQ

The girls driving the jeep. Kate said she wants to be a driver when she grows up. She said she can drive cars, boats, planes, buses...anything she wants!

Painting on Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m.! Had to find a way to keep them busy that early in the morning while Dad slept in!