Black Hills Vacation 2011

 

“I got my ears pierced!”

Kate got her ears pierced today. I’ve been looking forward to when she would be ready to do it, because she is such a girly girl that I knew she would love being able to wear earrings. She and I went to Claire’s in Maple Grove to have it done, and then had tea at Teavanna. She was so brave and so excited! She did great!

 

Update On Kate

For Kate's 6th Birthday in January, she had a tea party and then went with Mommy and her friend Audrey to see a play

In light of the fact that I have not blogged since Jake’s birthday, I hesitate to give an information overload by including everything that has happened in the last 6 months. So I have decided to just do an update on Kate, as she has had a birthday and a few other milestones.

She lost her first tooth in April

 

Last week Kate's Kindergarten class had a cultural celebration. They had been working on crafts and songs to share. Kate is in the middle of this picture wearing a vest and necklace that she made.

 

 

 

Kate's first dance recital was last night. She did tap and ballet and did a great job! It was so fun!

Jake’s Birthday Party in the First Snow

For Jake’s birthday party we had plans to go to The Works Museum, which has exhibits on science and engineering, but we woke up to about 3 inches of snow with more to come! So we changed plans and had a fun birthday party in the snow!

Happy First Birthday Joseph!

Joseph started out his day with some fun balloons.

Then he opened gifts from his grandparents.

He had a day full of walking (he stopped crawling just this week!)

We had a little party for him, complete with monkey cupcakes :0)

Joseph REALLY liked his cupcake!

Happy first birthday Jo Jo!

Halloween

 

Kate was Mary Ingalls, Jake was Indiana Jones, and their friends were Cleopatra and Pharoah. The kids had a great time and it was a perfect night for Trick or Treating! (I think if you click on the picture, you can see it bigger)

Joseph enjoyed carving pumpkins the night before. He mainly just watched, but we did have to get a few pumpkin seeds out of his mouth!

First Day of School

The Kindergartener

The Second Grader

And the baby stayed home to “help” mommy

Only a Boy

Me: Jake, did you wash your hands?

Jake: What exactly do you mean by that?

Daisies

I LOVE daisies. they are one of my favorite flowers! Here they are in the picture with my favorite little girl!

A Summer Tradition

Camping in the backyard is a family tradition for us. I think Matt and Jake started it before Jake was even 2  years old. The tent always goes up in the afternoon. Then we grill out in the evening and spend the evening outside. The kids play in and out of the tent. As it starts to get dark, Matt gets out the laptop and puts on a kids movie. The kids fall asleep in the tent, but everyone comes into the house by midnight. Daddy gets to carry the sleeping children into their beds. Joseph didn’t fall asleep in the tent this year, but he did get to join in on some of the fun! Before life got so complicated, we used to camp in REAL campgrounds along with our backyard tradition. We’ll get back to that someday, but for now we can just “practice” camping with all the conveniences of home a few steps away!