Oh Rapunzel

.....or Chef M???

Seriously....constant entertainment!!

Rock the Cradle

We went to an awesome(and free!!) kid's event last weekend. It was called Rock the Cradle and was put on by The Current radio station, along with many other sponsers. This was held in the building shared by the CTC and Minneapolis institute of Arts. It was a music/art event, all for kids. There was live music, a "musical instrument petting zoo", a kids disco, crafts, you name it! And the live music was kicked off by none other than the Okee Dokee Brothers!!! This solidified us checking out the festivities and I am so glad we did. What a great experience, though a bit crowded in places.

"We'll start the bidding at 25, 25 dollars, can I get a 25 dollars?"

This is the kids dancing to their favorite song, The Auctioneer

Kids and the Okee Dokee's Joe and Justin

This was my favorite part...the musical instrument petting zoo. The kids could try lots of different percussion instruments, a violin, and a cello. So cool!

Love

Drummin'

Easing into the cello....he started by resting his feet in the indentations on the side. Lovely.

And then, once given the bow, he proceeded to try to saw the strings in half! Maybe not quite ready for lessons. Yikes!

Baby girl

Baby band!

Hope to go again next year! Very fun!

Who needs toys?

Our kids really play well together(unless they want the same toy). Luckily, this day, no one has a toy! They made their own fun with the laundry basket.

N, giving Snow White a ride through the living room

Being silly

Another thing about my kids that makes me smile is their love for music and their ability to hear a song once or twice and suddenly know most of the words. While I do love music, the memorization is definitely a skill they inherited from their Dad! I always smile driving around the city, listening to their little voices singing all the songs on the radio. Too cute!

Grandma!!!

Much to our excitement, Grandma's company needed her to come up and work in the office for a week. While we were sad that they made her stay in a hotel and wouldn't let her stay with us, we made the best of it!

We started out with a surprise greeting for her at her gate and then out to dinner at Bridgemans. Yum!

Then, on Monday night, we all met at her hotel for pizza and swimming! These aren't the greatest quality, but I forgot my camera at home and was stuck with the phone...

My little fishies

I love how independent he is in the pool. He even had me take his wings off for awhile in the shallow end so he could work on going underwater and "trying to sit on the bottom."

M and Grandma

P is for....

Purple?

Pretty?

Princess?

Happy 30th Birthday to JM!

Getting ready for a tippy cup game....I was happy to just play photographer!

B and K, starting it off

Some of the Flight Instructors I worked with at XJ(JM worked with us too, so mutual friends)

J and BF

Everyone had a really fun time

My friend M, who I do not get to hang with nearly enough!

A little action shot. :)

JM, filling his boot we got them as a wedding gift

He was very excited to play the boot

A little Rock Band action

Miss J!

K and J...K plays on S' softball team

BF was having a good time singing!

JM tried on his bday gift from us at the end of the night.

Happy bday you youngster! :) Definitely more "young and heart" than we are! Glad we could help you celebrate!

Around the house

On Sat, S and I were heading out that night to our friend JM's 30th bday party. the kids were having a sleepover at Grancy's.

When I asked her what she was doing, she said "waiting for Grancy". She was a little excited and we weren't even leaving for about 6 hours!

What a nice big brother...rocking little sis.

More cousin time!

Annie Oakley meets Cinderella??

This face just made me laugh!

I think J has two eyes, somewhere??

Love those haircuts Auntie A gives him. He is just so dang cute afterwards!

See?? Cutest little guy!

Two silly little monkeys

Happy Valentine's Day!

We really don't ever do much for Valentine's Day, but I will say that it is really fun to see the excitement that the kids had for it. We sat down the night before and N wrote every kid in his class a valentine. I would read the list of M's friends and she picked out one for each of them. They had parties as school of course.

Then, at night, just because their excitement was so fun for me, I made a "valentine's dinner."

This was a heart-shaped pizza, though hard to tell by the pic!

Pink milk!

Heart finger Jello!

Yummy!

I wrote them each a little valentine and put it by there plate. It was cute to see how excited they were about them. N read his out loud and M clutched hers through most of dinner.

As cheesy as I find valentine's day, it's never a bad thing to share a little extra love and I do sure love my family! It was just how I would choose to spend a valentine's dinner!

When I was driving the kids home from school this day, I had the following, amusing coversation with N:

N: Mommy, when will have another baby?
Me: What?
N: Well, you had Madison a long time ago.
Me: I see. Are you sick of Madison?
N: No, but she's almost 3 and I thought you would be fat by now and have a baby come out!

Kid is on a mission for another sibling. Too funny!

Harold and the Purple Crayon

On Sunday, when we got home from St. Louis, Grancy had bought tickets to Harold and the Purple Crayon at the Children's Theater. That afternoon, she had hurt her knee, so asked if I would take the kids in her place. When I was growing up, we went to the CTC all the time. We used to be volunteer ushers there, first as Girl Scouts, then just on our own. It's so fun to be taking my kids there now. They both LOVED the play. M could not stop grinning. It was too cute.

Here they are with their souvenirs

The Taste

This month, we did something that we hardly ever do, we went down to St. Louis and left the kiddos behind with their Grancy. The area that Grandma and Grandpa like to hang out in is call Soulard. This area is also where some rather large Mardi Gras festivities take place. We went down for a weekend to a Mardi Gras themed event called "The Taste of Soulard." We had been down one other time to this, about 4 years ago(S also went alone last year). Each bar down there is unique and serves a signature food item that you can buy with coupons from the booklet you get for the event. Most of the food is super yummy, as are the hurricanes. :oP

This was the 2nd Annual "Run for Your Beads" 5K to kick off the event on Saturday morning and we had decided to run in it. The gang, minus me, had done this last year too. Come Saturday morning, we were starting to think we were a little crazy. It was about 15 degrees and super windy....I don't even want to know what the wind chill was! So, we bundled up as much as you can to run a few miles, and headed out to the race. I have to say, it was very fun! S and I ran together for maybe the first 1/3 mile, then we separated and all ran alone, except Uncle D and Grandpa stuck together. I had not been running much prior to that(really a handful of times), so was very happy with how I did! First in our group and I ran all but about two 30 second walks.

All Mardi Gras themed and ready to run!

Me and S, thinking "what were we thinking?!"

S, crossing the finish line in his Zubaz! :)

Here comes G!

The V runners, post race

Uncle D...yep Zubaz

One of my favorite themed groups there...The McDonald's gang. I loved the Hamburgler. Robble, robble!

Due to my lack of running and the ridiculous temps, my goal was to do it in under 40 min and I did it in 35. Yay!

After the race, we showered and headed back down to Soulard. Here is Uncle D at one of our stops.

All beaded and having a good time

Mmmm...hurricane!

At Big Daddy's for some stuffed mushrooms. Yummy!