Another Weekend Gone...

It is Sunday night and I am wondering where the weekend went! Grandpa Larry and Grandma Shirley got in town for a visit on Thursday afternoon and we have been having non-stop fun since! The girls enjoyed staying home on Friday and playing in their new pool from Grandpa and Grandma and going to the park. Of course they couldn't believe how big the girls have gotten since the last time they saw them in February. Saturday we celebrated cousin Sam's 2nd birthday which was a great time, except for the two accidents Annie endured :( First she bumped her mouth on Kate's knee and had a bloody mouth, then they were jumping on the tramp and Kate fell backwards and hit her head on Annie's head which resulted in a nice big bruised bump right by Annie's eye. Poor thing. Saturday night Brian and I enjoyed a dinner downtown at a Mexican restaurant we hadn't tried before while the girls stayed with Grandpa and Grandma. We almost didn't leave as they were both in hysterics when we walked out the door, but of course 5 minutes later they were having a great time and forgot we were gone! Today all the girls went to the mall to get Kate a pair of jelly shoes since Annie got a pair for her birthday and Kate kept wearing them! Then we had more outside fun enjoying the nice weather! Kate and Annie had pizza with Grandpa and Dad and Shirley and I went to Champps with my mom, sister and niece. Then we saw The Proposal, GREAT movie! I do have to say that I sure hope the concept of texting is gone by the time my girls are older. ..try going to a movie with a popular 15-yr-old girl!!! Now it is the end of the weekend and time to go to bed to get up for another busy week. But yeah, the 4th of July is here this weekend so I am sure you will get another update next Sunday :)

Happy Father's Day

First off...can you believe I am posting two days in a row! Must be a record! :) Today was a GREAT day! Kate, Annie, and I took Brian to Famous Dave's in Uptown for a delicious brunch! I think it was maybe one of the girl's first brunch experiences and it was definitely a first for live music. They were a little overwhelmed at first but once the band started to play, the girls were dancing in their seats...and out of them! Needless to say they did not eat much but they had a ton of fun laughing and dancing. And Brian and I ate enough to make up for them! Such a good brunch! Then we went and walked around Lake Calhoun for a bit before heading home.

After a few stroller races and a video call with Grandma/Grandpa Clemens and Uncle Terry, we decided the gloomy weather made a great day for napping and we all slept from 2:30 - 5:00!!! I then made a pretty good Italian, candlelight dinner. The evening rounded out with a good game of CandyLand, with believe it or not...no whining! :)

I am pretty sure Brian had a nice day and that was the goal! He is the best father and husband and deserves more than one day like today! Our family would be lost without him.

Happy Father's Day to all the other dads that might be reading this!

Fun Saturday

Today was a good day! Gorgeous weather meant Brian could be outside doing landscaping again. Not so much fun for him, but the yard is really starting to look great and I think he enjoys how it feels when he sees the finished product! I took Kate to a birthday party for her friend Zadie from school. It was at The Little Gym where about 10 girls got to run around in a gymnastics type setting for an hour with instructors to help them tumble and play games with them. They then opened presents and had cake. 1.5 hours was the perfect amount of time! It gave me an opportunity to gab w/ some of the other daycare moms too which was nice. Kate got a goodie bag with a tutu, wand, head piece, and wings too! She was a fairy all day after the party, even at DQ (a family trip after dinner was a necessity in this nice weather)! It was great seeing her have so much fun!

Annie had a big day and wore some underwear for the first time. It lasted about an hour until she decided to take a pooh in them without telling me. The pull-up came on quickly just in time for the DQ trip. We will try again tomorrow...after all the Father's Day festivities are done that is! She was very excited though about wearing underwear! Now, if only I could get her to go on any other toilet in the house besides the big one in her bathroom!

We enjoyed a nice bike ride last night around the neighborhood. The girls saw a golden retriever sitting in a yard and Kate said, "Hey, that looks like a big dog. But wait, it looks like it might be a lion actually." It was pretty funny to hear her say it so casually. If it actually would have been a lion, she showed no fear!

Well, off to bed as tomorrow we need to get up early and try to go to Famous Daves for a Father's Day brunch (without reservations)!

Good night!

Walk for Wishes and more!

I think in my last post I mentioned that we would be better with updating the blog now that we have the computer upstairs. Yeah, not so much! :) So...here are some of the things we have been up to. Today was a gorgeous Saturday and perfect for the Walk for Wishes that we participated in around Normandale Lake. We walked as part of Team Betty Crocker with my mom, cousin Lorrie, Corrie and Sam. It was a two mile walk and the girls were great in the their stroller. Afterwards we had fun jumping in the jumpers and amazingly I won a raffle for a year of free Panera bagels! My screams of excitement were somewhat hilarious and of course Mom thought my winning number was hers! We want to thank all of you that donated to this wonderful cause. We are so blessed to have two healthy daughters and hope that all the sick children out there make a fast recovery and get their wish granted!!

A few other exciting recent events include the purchase of Kate's "big girl" bike. Unfortunately she was just a tad to short for the 14" or 16" in. bike so we got her a 12". She will outgrow this likely by next summer but then we can pass it down to Anners, who already tries to ride it!! (I think she is starting to realize Kate gets all the new things and she gets the hand-me-downs. Poor girl!)

We also had a lot of fun today with the water table and got out the kiddie pool for the first time this summer. OK, so the pool is more for babies and a lot smaller than I remember but it works just fine for splashing! They had a blast!

Bri and I have been really busy too! If you notice in the one of the pool pics, Bri is in the background working on some of our new landscaping. He has been busy every night this week, all day Friday and Saturday (he is still working and it is 10:30 p.m. right now!) trying to finish our new front bed. It looks GREAT so far! Thanks Mom for all your help too! Unfortunately that is only the start of our landscaping projects for the summer so I have a feeling most free weekends will be filled with outside work. I have had a little fun this summer and have been playing on a kickball league with some of my co-workers. So far we are 1-2. I have had a few great plays, actually making MVP two games ago, but this past week was a sad one. Bri and the girls came to watch and unfortunately they were yelling "Good try Mom" more than they were "good job Mom". Kate told me she was proud of me even though we lost! I did manage to make a great save but of course it was just after Bri and the girls decided to take a break from cheering and go to the park! Luckily we have until the end of the July to try and improve our skills!

Hope you are all having a great start to summer as well!

Happy Birthday To You Annie!

A little slow with posting lately....but here's Annie and her birthday cake!

Annie's Birthday Party & Kate's Dance Recital

We had a jam packed day this past Saturday. Kate had her annual dance recital at Hopkins Community Center. This was the first one we attended and I must say, I think Kate was one of the best dancers, and of course one of the cutest! She was so excited for her show it was all she talked about for weeks! Even when she got up on stage, she had no fear! I think tutus could be in our future for quite some time!

We celebrated Annie's birthday with a little family party after the dance recital. It was a gorgeous day so we spent much of it outside. The kids got to play in the driveway and the adults gathered in the garage to relax and chat. Annie had a fabulous time opening her presents, her favorite by far was the basketball hoop from Bapa David and Grandma Nancy. She bent over and screamed with enthusiasm when she opened it...pretty hilarious!

Sunday we did more work outside and also listened to the Gopher's Baseball team play in a tourney down in Louisiana. Unfortunately they took second and won't be progressing to the College World Series but they still have a great weekend! Way to go Mikey!

Memorial Weekend

So you have come to realize that we will always be about a week behind in our posts! I finally got the pics downloaded from Memorial Weekend and had some time to just sit and write a post. We had a really nice Memorial Weekend! We celebrated Annie's 2nd birthday by going to the Como Zoo but unfortunately Annie wasn't feeling well so we cut the trip short and decided to postpone her birthday party until the following week. After about 2 hours at Urgent Care on Sun. morning, we learned she had an ear infection...third for 2009! Luckily she was in a lot better spirits and we spent most of Sunday and Monday outside. Brian was slaving away in the yard working on landscaping projects and well, I ....sat in a chair and enjoyed a good book! :) Ok, Ok...I worked hard too but that was mostly on Thursday and Friday when I took off work to plant some flowers around the house...a job I hate by the way. I also treated myself to a massage after having the gift certificate for over 1.5 years! Oh, we also spent some time at the park with Cousin Sam, Auntie Corrie and Uncle Mike. All in all, a nice holiday weekend!