4K Open House

Tonight was Amelia's 4K open house!

She is going at our local gym (similar to a YMCA) and we are thrilled!  I got our application in the first week they were accepting them because we really wanted her to go to this particular site!  They include swimming lessons as part of their curriculum, swim every other Wednesday, on the opposite Wednesdays they have a gym class with one of the gym's instructors and a lot more!  It just seemed like a very active environment for our very active girl!

She will continue speech with the school district at 4K.  Her speech pathologist will come into her 4K classroom once a week and work with her either individually or with the group, depending on what they are doing at the time.

She starts in "5 more sleeps" (we measure time for her in "sleeps") and we are all very excited! 

Little Conductor

The other night, after dinner while I was doing dishes, I heard a tap, tap, tap.  It was Amelia tapping an old glow stick on the kitchen table.  I asked her what she was up to and she responded, "I am the conductor!"  I suggested she find some "people" to conduct.  Her solution?  Miniature My Little Ponies.  I helped her set some up (because she kept knocking them over on accident) and then I went back to dishes and she conducted the ponies.

I got to listen to her ponies perform Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik!  She hummed it quite accurately too - I was impressed!  This girl never ceases to amaze me with the things she comes up with!  Her familiarity with classical music at the age of four, to me, is quite impressive!

Busy Weekend

We had yet another busy weekend!  Saturday Jason was a groomsmen in a wedding.  He left in the early afternoon for wedding stuff, I dropped the kids off with my family right before the ceremony, attended the ceremony and then picked them up to go to the reception!  It was a really small wedding, held in the bride's parent's neighbor's yard.  They have a nice pond and waterfall with a bridge and gazebo etc!

Sunday afternoon, Amelia and I took Jason to a Twins game for his birthday!  My parents and I got the tickets jointly and I knew he had been wanting to take Amelia to a game so we gave it a shot!  She actually did pretty well.  We were in direct sunlight the whole game so she got a bit hot and crabby but she made it!

First foot long hot dog :)

Waiting to catch a home run!

ON the field, waiting her turn to run the bases after the game :)

Out cold on the way home :)

We had a Norwegian Chai ice cream cake from Izzy's with my family for Jason when we got back and then we headed home for baths and bed!  It sure was hard getting up this morning for work - I was still beat from the weekend! 

Midweek Randoms

Last weekend we had intentions to stay home and relax.  Well, I had plans to knock things off the to-do list (which I did) since it would seem I am officially "nesting."  We almost did it!  The only thing we did this weekend that we hadn't intended to was a trip to my parent's house to fix the kitchen drawer that Joe pulled out and broke into four pieces!  Thankfully my dad was able to get it looking good as new so we don't have to call our landlord and put in a maintenance request :)

Saturday morning Jason worked a voluntary extra (early morning) shift so I thought it would be nice to have breakfast ready when he came home.  I got out a box of muffin mix and Amelia and I got to it!  Halfway through putting ingredients into the bowl I went to grab the oil and there was no oil.  No neighbors were coming to my knocks on their doors so the kids and I quickly got into the van and went to the gas station for some (very over-priced) vegetable oil.  

We got them finished and cooled just in time!  He said he could smell them as he walked up to the apartment :)

Over the weekend, Amelia gained a ton of confidence on her bike!  Our neighbor ("Upstairs Kim") was helping her and she got Amelia to go over speed bumps by herself, make wide turns and, literally, quadruple her speed!  There's no stopping her now!

Joe is trying so hard to ride the trike but he's not quite getting it yet...

I plan on picking him up a helmet before the summer is over so we can get him going so he can keep up with the big kids!

A couple weeks back we got Joe a doll.  He has shown way more interest in dolls than Amelia ever has and with a new baby coming it seemed like a good idea.  Boy was it!  He loves his baby :)  He hugs him, kisses him, pushes him in the (full-size) stroller and even gives him drinks:

It is the sweetest thing.  Ever.

Monday afternoon my sister came over and set up a huge train track using just about all our track pieces and the kids had fun with it!
 

 I really should take the train stuff out more!  Sometimes I just don't see the point since both kids, especially Joe, are content to just drive their trains all over tables, walls and furniture :)

Amelia and Joe have been at each other all week so far but tonight, right before bath and bed, they just started being the sweetest to each other.  They were hugging and "falling over" in the kitchen over and over.  Between hugs they would come over and hug me and give me a bunch of kisses.  Then they'd go right back to hugging each other and laughing.

It was just what this tired mama needed tonight :)  Love them!

Weekend Getaway

This past weekend we had a little vacation to the north shore!  We left Friday morning and headed to Hayward and the National Fishing Hall of Fame!  Jason has been wanting to go for awhile and this trip was a great opportunity - it broke up our drive for the kids :)

Giant musky statue with 2 kids in it's mouth! (click to enlarge)

After looking around and letting the kids explore we got back on the road stopping only to picnic for lunch!

Our first night we decided to hang out at the hotel and swim, order pizza and explore the rocky beach.  The pool wasn't a huge hit but eventually both kids somewhat warmed up to it.

Watching Amelia and Joe run on the beach, throw rocks in the water and wade in the freezing water (their feet turned pink!) was seriously the highlight of the trip for me - they were so happy and free!  We went out both nights and it was the most relaxed I felt all weekend.   

Bath time was fun on the trip because we had a whirlpool tub in our room!  

Amelia begged us to come in the "big bath" with them and on night two daddy obliged.  They thought it was great!  

And now, the reason for our trip...A Day Out With Thomas!  Thomas the Tank Engine made his way to Duluth, MN and we went to see him and take a ride on him!

There were lots of activities set up at the site including bounce houses, bubbles, train tables, story time, meetings with Sir Topham Hat, entrance to the Lake Superior Railway Museum and more!  We got there several hours before our train time and it was the best thing we could have done!  We got to do everything without the crowds and long, long lines :)

Amelia loved the inflatable slide!

Joey could have played at the train tables ALL day!

We took our ride on Thomas at noon!

Excited boy waiting in line :)

It was a short twenty minute ride through the depot and to the edge of Canal Park but both kids had a blast!  It was their first real train ride and who better to give it to them than one of their favorite engines?!  Joe was so overwhelmed he passed right out on that twenty minute train ride:

Little buddy was out cold!

Once again we spent the evening at our hotel :)  

Family photo on Lake Superior

Joe brought his "wormy" with and for some reason kept throwing him in the lake and then he would panic and Amelia would scream, "I'm coming!  To the rescue!"  It was pretty cute :)

 

Jason took Amelia to rent a movie from the front desk and they had a little movie night while I got into bed early.  I hadn't slept well the night before because I had two kiddos right up against me nearly pushing me out of bed!  *we had a king suite so we all shared the king bed!

My morning view :)

Sunday morning we got checked out and headed to Canal Park in Duluth.  We got there just in time to see the lift bridge go up for a ship to go into the harbor.

Waving at the ship's crew!

While Joe pushed the stroller around Amelia chased seagulls - which Jason said was one of his favorite parts of the weekend.

She just could not slow down and kept running back and forth!

On our way home we stopped at Pattison State Park to check out Little and Big Manitou Falls.

We lucked out and there were parking lots nearby both falls so we didn't have to hike (which helped us get home earlier!)  

The ride home was a bit rough with restless kids but there were times where they were both happy.  Proof:

Once we got home they wanted to play trains since they each got a new wooden Thomas character train Saturday.  I was too wiped out to want to drag out our wooden train sets and help them set something up etc so I offered the road rug and (luckily) they Amelia was fine with it!

Overall we had a wonderful weekend.  No matter how wonderful it was I can't deny that it was stressful.  We were out of the (loose) routines we hold at home and we were stuck in the car a lot!  I can also tell you we were quickly reminded of why we rarely go out to eat as a family...can you say stress?  The kids and I eat fast food on Thursday because with speech it just works out better time-wise.  Fast food vs. a sit down, we found out, are two very different ball games!  Joe is just not at a good age for eating out and it doesn't help that we have two very high energy children that feed off of each other, ha!  

We are off to a strange start this week because Jason got called up for jury duty so the kids are spending some time at my parent's house so my sister can watch them and I don't have to miss work!  I suppose we will settle back into things at home later this week :)