Christmas

Christmas this year is kind of a blur.  With so few days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the fact that we were getting ready to go on vacation made it go by really fast.  I'm not gonna complain though.  The fewer days that my house has to have Christmas stuff all over it, the better.  

For starters, we got rid of our artificial tree and graduated on to using a real tree.  I listed it on Craigslist for free and set it out on my front steps and it was gone within an hour.  Easy peasy.  

Here is the real tree.  A Douglas Fir from Home Depot.  We set it up in the kitchen to to keep little Doodlepaws away from it as much as possible but she should sneak into the kitchen all.the.time and I would find ornaments all over the place.  She only managed to break one and thankfully it was one that I didn't really care about.  

This is a picture of a picture, but we went to the Santa Experience at Mall of America. What a great Santa!  He plays with the kids and makes them feel comfortable.  My little scardey cat even sat on his lap.  

We went to Ben & Angie's house for Christmas Eve.  Presents were a bit hit.  Anna got lots of Minnie Mouse stuff and Meredith got all sorts of fun stuff.  

A lot of time was spent jumping in the trampoline with Bowen and Chris.  

Here are the goods Santa brought.  

We spent Christmas Day at Robin & Irene's house in Wisconsin.  

We opened a few more gifts.  

We had a great time!  

The tooth

We have officially entered another phase of childhood.  The one where they lose teeth and grow really big adult teeth and don't look like little kids anymore.  **sigh**

Meredith's two bottom teeth have been wiggly for months.  Since late September or early October.  Just last week, one became very wiggly.  You could push it back and forth, up and down.  It was just hanging on by a thread.  Someone was so excited to lose it that she let me yank it out.  For a minute, we thought it was going to come out on Christmas Eve and that the Tooth Fairy AND Santa would have to come on the same night.  But Meredith was too excited for that and well, the tooth came out on 12/23.  Right before bed.  It's a good thing that the Tooth Fairy receives communications very quickly.  She left two of the $1 gold coins under Meredith's pillow.  Now that the first one is gone, she isn't quite as anxious to get that other one out.  I have a feeling it will be sometime in the next month.  

Without further ado, here's the new smile.  

Hockey

I'm a bit late with this hockey post.  My intention was to put up some Thanksgiving pictures but I realized I haven't mentioned hockey yet! Meredith started up again about a month ago.  This year there are about 120 mini mites so they had quite a few new kids sign up.  I think they really made an effort for people to try it for free and emphasize that you don't have to have experience to start playing.  The kids got divided up into 4 teams based on ability and Meredith got placed on the 2nd team.  She will be in mini mites again next year so she will probably move up to the 1st team next year.  There are a lot more girls signed up this year.  Out of the 120 or so kids, there are 21 girls and there are 5 other girls on Meredith's team.  Once she is done with mini mites next year, she will move up to U8 which is all girls. 

Greg signed up to coach this year.  I love seeing them out on the ice together.

I think she is doing really well with it.  She hasn't learned to be competitive yet though.  She likes it so we will stick with it.  We're so thankful that this gets us out of the house on the cold weekends of the winter.  Even if it is a 7:00 a.m. practice. 

Halloween!

The day before halloween was dreaded by me.  You know, it means that I get to carve a bunch of pumpkins for the kids.  Oh Joy!  I HATE carving pumpkins. It's gross, smelly, and it makes my hands hurt like a ::insert expletive here::.  But as a parent, you gotta do what you gotta do.  

It starts out something like this.  I cut out the top of the pumpkin and the older child squeals about how cold and slimy it is.  She does her best but manages to get out 1/100th of the pumpkin guts.  

The little one doesn't even try and gives me this reaction.  Ugh.  

So, being the awesome mom that I am, I clean and carve all three pumpkins.  ::sigh::

The top one is mine.  The middle one I did for Anna.  And the bottom one Meredith designed and I did the rest.  

Meredith decided a long time ago that she wanted to be Cinderella for halloween.  Fine by me.  Nice and easy and cheap.  She was even growing out her hair for months and months to be able to wear it up like Cinderella.  We got it all cut off the next day.  Hahaha!  Thank goodness.  I was tired of the tangles.  

I love these next two pictures because it explains perfectly in pictures how things are at my house all.the.time.  Fighting over things.  Stealing things from one another.  I could go on and on.  

We went out trick-or-treating with our neighbors (Mer's BFF) and got lots of candy.  

Anna couldn't keep up so she got dropped off at home to enjoy some of her new snacks.  

Picking Pumpkins at Pahl's

I'm kind of sad about this but this is the first year we haven't gone to Emma Krumbee's since Meredith was born.  I guess I have just started to get bored?  The drive is too long?  I just don't know.  Since Pahl's Nursery is about a 1/2 mile away and I had a buy 2 get 1 free coupon, we just decided to go there to get some pumpkins.  They have a blow up bouncy pumpkin every year but Meredith was SO disappointed that she was too tall for it this year.  But it was fun.  They have a corn pit, a hay bale maze, free popcorn, and goats.  

So these pumpkins that we picked are a hot commodity amongst the zillions of squirrels we have hanging out in our neighborhood.  I think there's a nest in every other tree.  And there is one out back of our house that is like a $5 million squirrel mansion.  It's monstrous.  They seem to like to eat the small pumpkins they can get their hands on.  And they do it right out in the open when we walk to the bus top every day at other houses in the neighborhood.  I noticed that one night they tried to eat my pumpkins but I think they are too big.  Just a few bites taken out of the top and they have been left alone for the most part.  

Anyway, the squirrels  climb up the walls of my house to get to my deck (not connected to the ground in any way) to eat my bird seed.  I. hate.them.  I've resorted to chasing them off my deck with a tension rod.  Actually, my ultimate goal is to beat them to death but I have not succeeded with that yet.  I've broken my tension rod though.  And I purposely accelerated my car near my driveway to try to run one over but was unsuccessful.  I'm sure my neighbors thing I'm a nutjob.  

I'm waiting until the evening before Halloween to carve though as once they are carved, it becomes a squirrel delicatessen.  

Meredith's 6th Birthday

It has been brought to my attention that I never shared pictures from Meredith's birthday in September.  I guess that's a Mom Fail.  We kept her party small this year and took all the kids to Kid's Hair to get their nails and hair done.  They all had a blast.  Then we continued on to Davanni's where we used their party room to have pizza for lunch, cake, and open a few presents.  

It turned out great and they all had a blast.  

Here she is letting her nails dry and getting her hair done.

 

 Here are all the girls with their crazy hair. 

 They all played a bit before we left the salon. 

She picked out princess cupcakes so we stuck 6 candles in one. 

And the  best part of all...presents!

Fall

My favorite season is upon us now.  I absolutely love fall.  What a glorious month of September we had and I'm looking forward to a lovely October.  Meredith is on her SECOND field trip of the year today.  They headed up to Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Eagan to do a nature hike.  What a perfect day!  

Meredith is very excited about Halloween.  She's going to be Cinderella this year.  Anna is going to be a bumblebee.  The same bumblebee that Meredith was when she was 2.  

Hockey is going to start in a couple more weeks.  We're all really excited about it, although Meredith is doing a clinic this fall already.  It will be fun to see the kids she played with last year again.  

We bit the bullet and booked an Alaskan cruise with the whole family for next August.  We are really looking forward to that and having some other family come along with us.  I have been saving for years for a vacation.  I've been saving all my cash back on my Discover card, all the money that I make selling my gently used kids stuff at JBF consignment sales, I take surveys online, etc. for this.  Alaska is a bucket list destination so I'm really excited for it but 10 months is such a long time away!

We found out a couple weeks ago that Greg is the recipient of an all expenses paid, 7 night cruise for two courtesy of RBC (his employer) which will set sail in early January.  Every year, RBC charters out  a WHOLE ship for a week and holds their performance conference on board.  So we will be enjoying that this winter with 800 of RBC's finest and their guests.  CAN'T WAIT.  They have not announced the itinerary yet so I am very impatiently waiting to find out what our destinations will be.  We do know that the ship is the Celebrity Constellation and it will leave out of Ft. Lauderdale.  

Just a few pictures to share this time.  I literally have taken ONLY these pictures since Meredith's birthday party a month ago.  

Here's Meredith's Halloween countdown witch she made.  Pretty cute if you ask me.  

And look at this little cutie.  Her cuteness makes up for her 2-year-old stubbornness.  

Yesterday, my friend Amanda from Amanda Kellogg Photography took these pictures of the girls.  Love them!  

1st Day of Kindergarten

The day finally came.  The day where I send my child in a bus off to school all on her own.  To tell you the truth, I was completely ready for it.  And so was Meredith.  I am truly grateful that she missed the kindergarten cutoff last year by a mere 8 hours and 37 minutes so I wasn't forced to make the decision of if she was ready to go or not last year.  Had she been born just a few hours earlier, I probably would have sent her but I am glad that I didn't have to make a choice and am grateful of that extra year she got at home.  Anyway, she was so ready for school.  The past two months have been pretty bad for her behavior-wise and she needed to get back on a routine AWAY from home.  

She is in afternoon kindergarten.  I wish our district offered all day kindergarten free of charge but I digress.  Next year they will with the new legislation passed a couple months ago.  

We went out to take a few pictures.  

Her friend Lydia was out playing so we played all morning.  

Then when it was time to walk to the bus stop, Anna wanted in on the backpack action.  

Lydia is in her class so they wait at the bus stop together.  

A rare snapshot of me in the picture.  

And off they go!  

I'm happy to report that her first week of kindergarten was really fun and she really likes it.  Her teacher, Mrs. Johnson, is really nice!  She is excited every day to go.