July 4th Weekend

We had a fun-filled holiday weekend! The weather was beautiful so it was great to be outside!

We started the weekend out on Friday, celebrating the Fourth of July with some activities in our town! I don't have any pictures to share, I took some with my phone but haven't had a chance to get them onto my computer yet! Levi did the coin dig at the school playground, sponsored by the bank, and had fun digging in the sand for some money! He found a good amount to put into his piggy bank. After that, we walked uptown to have lunch and let Levi play in the bounce house that was set up. Then we went and found our spot to watch the parade. Levi had a blast picking up candy! Paige fell asleep in grandma's arms so she slept through the whole thing!

After the parade, we headed down to my sister's for my niece, Aubrey's, first birthday party! She looked too cute in her glitter tutu and headband! (That she actually keeps on, ahem Paige.) I didn't get a pic of her alone, but here is one of my sister and I with our girls.

The best I could get of my two nuts! Someday they will both look at the camera and smile for me...right??

 Aubrey got a rocking horse from her uncle!

Cake time! She loved it!

Levi did a sparkler for the first time. He was a little leery, but thought it was cool!

Levi also got to go on a ride on Uncle Josh's motorcycle!

Saturday afternoon, we went to the beach for awhile. It was pretty packed right when we got there.

Katie and Aubrey even came, too!

Paul dug a big hole during the 10 minute swim break and buried himself. He got a few funny looks! 

It was a fun weekend! Looking forward to more trips to the beach this summer, and time spent with family!

Easter and Mother's Day!

Popping in quick to share a few pics!

These first few are from Easter. Our family and one of just the kids. The last one is Paige and I on the tire swing at my mom and dad's. It is the same tire swing my sister and I played in when we were little!

My little goofball, who always has to climb into things!

I thought this shirt was so cute! It says "Produced Locally". Ha!

And one more of me with the kids from Mother's Day yesterday. Love my little monkeys!

Birthdays!

Next up is a birthday weekend! We celebrated Madison's 9th birthday on Saturday, and Levi's 3rd birthday on Sunday!

For Madison's birthday, we all went bowling! The kids loved it! So fun!

She is looking so grown up! So pretty.

And then there's this monkey!

He wanted to have a puppy birthday party. I channeled my inner cake decorator and made the cake myself. I was a bit worried at first, but it turned out cute! Thank you, Pinterest!

And here is the best one I have of our family. Out of focus, but it's the only one that we were all looking in the same direction.

So that's that! Lots of fun! Not much else to say! :)

Minnesota Children's Museum

Hi all, I know it's been awhile, but I have some pictures to share from the past month or so. I'm splitting them up into a few posts. First off is our trip to visit Paul's sister, Katie, and brother-in-law, Jon, and the MN Children's Museum. I have been wanting to get up to visit them and go to the museum all winter, but Paul kept finding excuses not to. I finally got him to commit, and we had a lot of fun! Levi had a BLAST at the museum and I hope we can go back again. I didn't get a ton of photos, but here is what I have.

This area was probably Levi's favorite. It was all about water! Pipes and slides to put balls and little boats through, and things like that. Of course, he was soaked by the time we were done here, and the first thing he does is whip his shirt off because he hates it when his clothes are wet. Thankfully, I had his sweatshirt handy and put that on right away. :)

Paige did good in the stroller as long as she was moving or being entertained! :)

This was the grocery store in the "town" area. There were various shops and things to play in, like a post office, restaurant, doctor's office, etc. He had fun here too. He loved checking all is food out at the register. Everything had to go "beep!" and then he would put it on the other side of the register.

This area was for toddlers and babies. It was a woodland/forest theme with slides and tunnels. Both kids had fun in here!

This was from the swamp area. This was another of Levi's favorites because there was a stream to play in with plastic frogs, tadpoles, and things like that.

Other than the areas I mentioned, there was tons of other things to do at the museum. Very neat! I am looking forward to going back when Paige is a little bigger too!

After our morning at the museum, Katie and Jon took us to Cossetta's for lunch. We all got pizza. YUM! So good. And of course we had to get some gelato for our walk back to the car. Delish!

All in all a very fun weekend, and we can't wait to go back up and visit! Next time we'll have a tiny addition to cuddle, too, since Katie is expecting this summer! :)

January photo update!

Sharing some pictures from the first couple weeks of January.

Miss Paige likes to climb on things now. She thinks she is pretty smart! It's hilarious to watch her get up on something and just smile because she is so proud of herself! Obviously it's nothing too far from the ground, and I am right there if she gets too close to the edge. Just today she scaled the stairs twice, and makes a beeline if she looks in that direction. So I put the gate back up. Womp, womp.

Not much needed for explanation here. My farmboys just checking out some tractors!

MUST GET ALL THE CORDS!! As you can imagine she needed some assistance getting out of there.

Thought we would end our weekend with some root beer floats. Paige was not impressed with me putting her down to take a picture, even if it was by daddy, and Levi was not about to distract his attention from his float. Meh, I'll take what I can get at this point.

Stinker butt. She climbs up on the far right side then crawls across to the other side. She does pretty good getting down since its on a few inches up.

And just a couple cute ones of Paige in her bibs, because who doesn't love babies in overalls?

Family Photo

Realized I never shared our family picture from this fall. Our happy little family! :)

Only Paige is a little bit bigger now!

Christmas 2014 | A few pics

Only a couple weeks behind with these! But I still wanted to share just a few highlights from Christmas. It seems like the holidays just flew by this year. I didn't get as many pictures as I normally do, mostly because I had two kids to wrangle instead of just one. And also because my camera battery died for one of our celebrations and I had the wrong charger along. Womp, womp.

But in all reality, I'm glad that I wasn't so worried about getting a ton of pictures, because I was able to focus on being with my kids and our family, and just enjoy the time with them instead of being behind a camera lens the entire time.

The weekend before Christmas day, we celebrated with my mom's side of the family. Saturday was our whole family at the farm, and Sunday was with just my parents, my sister and her family, and us. We dressed the kiddos up for church so when we got home we attempted to get a picture of them together in front of the tree. I would call this a success! All three looking in the same direction? Perfect! They are pretty dang cute, if I do say so myself. Levi loves his two girls!

Christmas Eve we went to church and then came home and let the kids open their presents from us after supper. My attempt at a picture of them alone was not working, but Paul snapped one of me with them since he was not willing to try and get a family one using the timer. (Yes, I had two Christmas dresses for Paige. I got one on sale so I couldn't resist!!)

After we opened gifts, the kids got their jammies on and we set out some cookies and milk for Santa. (I got a super cute, personalized plate for them to put the cookies on but forgot to snap a picture of it! I did take one using Instagram, so you might be able to see it if you click on one of the pictures in the side and go to my account.) We also laid stockings out so they were ready, too!

She's cute and she knows it.

Christmas morning, and Santa came! Levi was most intrigued that Santa ate his cookies and milk! To this day, if someone asks if Santa came to his house, he'll say, "He eat all the cookies! And the milk!" Haha, cutie. He loved his gifts, and had fun helping Paige open her gifts too. Once we finished up, we got everything ready and went up to Annandale to spend Christmas day with my dad's side of the family.

The weekend after Christmas, we celebrated with Paul's family. I didn't get any decent pics from that afternoon, though. I was busy trying to keep Paige away from all the loose paper, and his mom and dad's house is pretty small so I didn't have any good angles anyway. The kids all loved their gifts from everyone, and we had a fun time!

All in all, we are very blessed to have such wonderful families to spend our holiday with. Although it gets a bit tiring at times always being on the go with the kids during this time, I am thankful that we have families that love us as much as we love them, and I love spending time with everyone.

Photo update :)

Just sharing a few pics from the past couple weeks!

He is always loving on her. "My 'nuggle her." or "My wove her." or "My jus give her hugs."

 He was a teensy bit excited to be sitting by Hunter and Reese on our hayride last week. Silly kid.

 And then this little eskimo. She wasn't real impressed with being bundled up. Obviously.

 Her snowsuit was a little big for her. We had to get a pic of the girls together!

 Typical lazy morning when daddy is home.

 This little stinker is really working hard on getting up on all fours. Ack! A few more weeks and I'm afraid she'll be up and rocking back and forth. Mommy is in no way ready for two mobile little people.

 Yep, she is pretty proud of herself!

Her other favorite thing to do is chew on her feet. Or suck on her big toe as pictured below. 

 And one more pic of my two monkeys. It was kind of funny, as I went through these pics deciding which to post, there was a series of a few of them, and they both had similar expressions in each picture. Poor Levi has a bit or a rash/dry skin around his mouth and chin. I've been trying to put lotion on at night, but I'm sure a lot of it is the fact that he still has his binker for nap and night time.

Have a good weekend!