Dang Dog!

Well, let me see if I can give a few highlights of the weekend for ya. Friday was a nice day as Kate, Annie, and I got to spend some time with Owen, Ashley, Lori, Bridget, Sam, Grace, Maggie, and Luke. We all enjoyed some fun times at the Penny Carnival in Golden Valley. It was great to spend time with our friends!

Saturday was pretty uneventful (I can barely remember what we even did and it is only Sunday)! However we did have one pretty big event. The Black Dog! Our neighbors a few doors up have a large black dog that likes to run up to people and jump. I was talking the girls for a walk and low and behold here comes the big dog. He came running at us fast and starting jumping up on me and the girls. Both of them were hysterical to say the least screaming bloody murder. Kate started to run away and the dog went and knocked her down on the road and got her arm scraped up. Then he was jumping up on me and Annie. His head was as high as mine! Finally after I screamed at the owners to come and get their dog they did! Man, talk about tick me off! Both girls were so scared they didn't even want to play outside anymore. I couldn't even put Annie down in the house. She kept saying "No doggie going to get me". I have a feeling this event has traumatized them and we will not be going for walks up that street again. Oh and did I mention this is the SECOND time this dog has done this too us! UGH!

We did have some fun too though this weekend. Brian hung a swing in one of our trees and it is a HUGE hit with the girls. Let's just say we have had to tell them that the swing is "closed" when we want to take a break from pushing them. Both of them are having a ball with it. I hope the novelty wears off within a week or so otherwise we are going to be spending a lot of pushing them and breaking up the arguments over whose turn it is! :)

Oh and the last thing I can note is...Annie has NOT been as good at keeping her panties dry and poop free! We have had quite a few accidents this weekend which is making me really wish the potty training days would be done!

Annie's Big Day!

It was a big day in the Clemens' house today...Annie wore underwear all day long! She had three perfect "dry" potty days in a row at school (except for the accident yesterday when she got so scared at the storm sirens that she peed in her pants!) so we decided to test out the undies. I am happy to report that she went the entire day without peeing in her pants! She did have a #2 accident though. That part took Kate a little longer as well and I must say, that is not fun! At dinner tonight I was able to catch her before she went again in her pants and we made it to the toilet just in time (which is especially good since we were at a restaurant)!

Annie is so proud of herself that she has been announcing her accomplishment to all! At Culver's she told our food server that she was wearing underwear and then after we went to the bathroom she stopped at the booth before ours and proudly announced real loudly that she just went poopy in the toilet! Gotta love kids' honesty!

We are hoping her dry streak continues and that soon we will officially have both kids out of diapers (well, except for Annie at night)! Go Annie!

What a Weekend!

The weekend was so packed full of fun that it pretty much flew by. Here is a (hopefully quick) synopsis.

Friday
My birthday family dinner surprise turned out to be GREAT! Brian and the girls took me to the Loring Past Bar in DinkyTown. We had wonderful food, the atmosphere was so cool (live blues/jazz!) and the girls were great! What a treat to go to a non-kid restaurant! We then enjoyed a malt at Annie's Parlor for dessert. Well, that was our second dessert. The restaurant had already given us a molten chocolate cake. But come, it was my birthday after all! Thanks B for the fun time!!!

Saturday
Saturday was a fun day for all too! Brian and Annie got up and went out to Watertown. Bri got the chance to get on my step-mom's Harley for the first time this year and went cruising with my dad and great uncle for almost 4 hours. He was in heaven! Annie got to hang with Grandma Nancy and they went to a parade and visited with Bapsi and Aunt Deb. She had a great time! Meanwhile, Kate and I did some cleaning, shopping and then I took her to her first "drop-off" birthday party. It was supposed to be a pool/slip-n-slide party but considering it was 62 in July, that didn't happen! Instead they all played outside on the girl's cool playset and they even had a jumper! The dad took one for the team and got into their above ground pool and gave the girls rides in an inflatable boat. Kate was a little nervous for me to leave at first but when I showed up to pick her up, she had a little problem wanting to leave! My excitement for the day was that I got to spend over an hour sitting in a Caribou relaxing and reading a book...ahhhh, wonderful!

Sunday
Today we decided to enjoy the weather and go to Como Zoo, even though Annie was being a very naughty little girl! She woke up on the wrong side of the bed and unfortunately stayed there until almost 2:00 (BIG issues when she was an inch too short to go on the swings!)! We had a fun little picnic at Como Park, went on some rides, and actually only saw 4 animals while we were there! The rides and the playground took precedence this trip! Annie and Kate were crawling up the ropes and going down slides like crazy! Oh, and doing the zipline! Annie has a grip of steal and kept telling me to get away when I would try and hold onto her! Kate went on the cars you actually drive on a little road path for the first time. You are supposed to be over 38" and 4 yrs old to ride. Since she is almost 42" we figured she was big enough. However, Brian told her to tell them she was 4 in case they asked. So later in the afternoon Kate was talking to someone in the playground and told them she is now 4 years old! Nice what we are teaching our children! ;)
The day rounded out with a stop at Izzy's Ice Cream Parlor in St. Paul. A favorite of mine and Brian's when we lived on Grand Ave.

So overall it was a very nice weekend that went way too fast! As I predicted, this was not a short synopsis! Sorry it got a little long. Have a great week!

Kate's Secret

So I found out last night that for my birthday tomorrow we are having a family dinner someplace in downtown Mpls. Brian said "Kate knows where but I told her not to tell you, so don't try and get it out of her!" Well....most of you know that I like to try and find out anything that relates to presents and surprises! On the way to school today we were talking about the fun things coming up this weekend so I decided I would remind them that it is my birthday tomorrow and that we would do something fun. Kate said, "Yep, we are going to a family dinner. I don't know where though. But when we get there, I can tell you and it will be a surprise!" WHAT!!!! I couldn't even get a 3.5 yr old to spill the beans! Oh, but I wasn't trying ;) Dang, she is good! So, I guess it will be a surprise!

In other exciting news, Annie had two completely dry potty days at school yesterday and today! She has the most stars on her potty chart than anyone else in her class! YEAH ANNIE! However, I was not that impressed when she decided to poop on Kate's floor tonight and walk into her room with it on her feet! Kate called her a stinker. Literally that was true! :)

Last night the girls and I were enjoying some time outside after we had dinner. I think we may have an athlete on our hands with Katelin! She was dribbling and shooting hoops like crazy! When we got the ball and bat out she was hitting them into the road! Needless to say there was a lot of cheering coming from our yard! I am still rooting for soccer, golf, tennis, or volleyball though. We also enjoyed some freezy treats, which has become their favorite treat since the 4th of July parade when floats were tossing them to the sidelines. Brian taught them how to eat them all by themselves and drink the remaining juice. After all, Brian eats about 15 of them a night so he knows how! Here are some pics of them enjoying their treats!

Summer Sickies...Blah!

Well, the weekend didn't go quite as planned when we discovered Kate had a fever on Friday night. We took a trip to Gerten's for some plants and tried out a new pizza place for dinner. We knew something wasn't right when she didn't want to even try a bite of pizza. Poor thing kept saying she had a headache and stomach ache and you could see it in her eyes she wasn't feeling well. Sure enough, we got home and she had a 101 fever. We had a feeling it might be an ear infection when she kept saying "What, What" all day on Saturday. This happened a few weeks back when she had an ear infection too. Even though she had no fever today we still took her to the doctor and sure enough...double ear infection! Luckily we have an appointment with her ENT next month as I am pretty sure they will be putting the tubes back into her ears.

So, because we weren't certain what was wrong and didn't want to take her too many places with a fever, we decided not to go to Como Zoo or the Lakeville parade as we had planned. We did still have some fun though. Annie and I went to the Lakeville festival with Corrie and Sam. They enjoyed riding the train and the petting zoo. Sam kept trying to pet all the animals' butts but Annie was a little less excited. She gets that from me...I am not much of an animal lover. Pretty crazy though when you have turkeys, goats, llamas, baby cow, ducks, sheep, ponies and more all walking around and bumping into you! She finally did get the courage though and combed the llama! Kate ran errands with Brian and had lunch at DQ so she did have some fun! Saturday night we did some family noodle art. That entertained them for about 30 minutes!

Today we went to lunch for the first time at Majors Sportsbar, pretty good. Then Bri took Kate to the doc and Annie went to Target with me. Man was she hilarious! She was lounging in the front of the cart with her sunglasses on and a new microphone she got and was yelling at everyone that walked past. She had to tell everyone that she had a new Dora toothbrush and to look at her glasses. She was cracking me up!!!!

We ended the weekend with a nice walk since the weather was so gorgeous. Too bad we couldn't have enjoyed it a little more. We did grill out both nights and enjoy dinner on our deck though. Here are a few pics of noodle art and Annie in her outfit she wore to Target with her microphone!

Free Food!

Well once again the girls have earned us some free food! This time, thanks to their creativity (well, kinda!). Kate and Annie entered a coloring contest at Famous Dave's at lunch on the 4th of July. The prize was a free kids meal. You can imagine how excited we were to find a postcard in the mail today for Kate saying she won a free meal for her entry. After all, her coloring is really good! Well, then we found another postcard marked to Annie...she won too! Let's just say Annie's entry was a little more on the abstract spectrum which I am not quite sure would have secured her a 1st place award :) Regardless, both girls thought it was very cool they won a free meal and can't wait to go back! Kate was jumping up and down and running in circles in the drive way. She likes to eat out at restaurants...wonder who she gets that from! :)


Here's a photo of the proud winners with their cards. They were a little excited to sit still so it is the best I could get!

Annie the Artist

So I forgot to mention that we discovered Annie's creativity today. Brian was outside mowing the lawn and I was inside trying to get the girls some lunch. Kate decided she was going to pull some attitude and got a little smart mouthed with me. Unfortunately her behavior only went downhill which resulted in the necessity of having a few consecutive time outs. I think this was to date one of her biggest meltdowns. How quickly a child can go from being an angel to screaming at the top of her lungs!

As I was chasing Kate in circles around the house trying to get her into timeout, Annie was off on her own, coloring. (That sentence sounds pretty funny and indeed to someone watching it probably was!) This went on for about 5 minutes. When I proceeded to continue making lunch, Annie came up to me and said..."Ta Da, look Mommy, markers!" Let's just say a picture's worth a thousand words!

Annie thought she looked a lot better in markers than the paper looked with markers on it! At this point, all I could do was laugh hysterically! As Kate says, "What a little stinker!" Luckily it was washable and only on her arms and not on any furniture. Needless to say, the markers were put away for the day!

4th of July Weekend

What a weekend... full of laughter, fun and sadness all at the same time. Unfortunately on Thursday evening my grandmother passed away from a massive heart attack. She was the only grandparent with no known heart problems. She had terminal cancer and had been battling various cancers off and on for 40 years, she was a fighter! It is hard to deal with something so unexpected. We were lucky enough to have just spent some time with her at Annie's birthday in May. She loved being with her grand kids and I am so blessed to have had 33 years with her. I just wish my kids would have had the chance to get to know her better. Grandma, you will be missed dearly.

In between family gatherings, we tried to give the girls some sense of normalcy and celebrate the 4th of July. On Friday we spent time with our friends Lori and Mike and their two kids Owen and Ashley at the park and beach. We all had a great time! I must say I was rather impressed that both girls did not hesitate to play in the lake, I wasn't sure what to expect. We then went and visited with Bapa (my grandpa) and family and stayed over night at my dad's house. It was the first time that the girls slept in the same room and in sleeping bags. That was an adventure!

Saturday, the 4th, we ventured out in the drizzle and went to the Delano parade. I hadn't been there since I danced in it years ago! The girls were not quite sure what was going on at first but within 10 minutes they were gathering candy and cheering like old pros...what fun! We went to Famous Dave's for a patio lunch and then all took a 2 hour nap while it poured outside. The evening ended with a spontaneous trip to the Lakeville festivities where the girls played at a park, saw some clowns, danced a little and then watched fireworks! Annie was of course rowdy, excited, and oohing and aahhing at the fireworks. Kate was tired and ready for bed! It was to date, their latest bedtime...11:30! Luckily for me they slept until 8:45 today!

The weekend ended with more family time with saying goodbye to Grandma. We just got back from the visitation and tomorrow will be the funeral. It is a sad reminder to cherish the ones you love and spend as much time with them as possible.I almost forgot that while we said goodbye to one family member we welcomed another....Preston Michael Komara! Brian's sister Kristen welcomed her first son into the world at 1:00 AM on Saturday (the 4th of July!). She was not due until the 21st but the little guy decided he wanted to come into this world with a bang...hee hee! :) We will be visiting Michigan in early August and can't wait to meet our new nephew and cousin! How exciting.

Here are a few pics of the 4th of July!