Happy Halloween!!!

Although the girls are actually three years old, we considered this their first "real" Halloween as it was the first time they went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. All the past years we have only dressed up and visited Granny M and Gaga and Papa's homes for treats.

We started out early and visited Granny M's apartment complex for treats and to visit with the residents who were waiting in the lobby to greet the children. Next we headed to Gaga's and Papa's house to trick-or-treat and for a short visit.

After all the visiting, we were off to our little neighbor's house (Grace who is 6) for her 2nd annual Halloween pizza party. We had some fun playing with all the kids and after having a bite to eat, we headed back across the street home for a potty break and to get daddy to start trick-or-treating.

The girls were super excited and got more and more excited seeing all the houses with their lights on (the universal signal for candy on Halloween)!!! They did super great, ringing the doorbell, yelling trick-or-treat when the door opened and almost always remembering to say thank you!!! It was super cute to see how excited they were to receive treats in their pumpkins and how they ran back to show us the goods.

A couple of houses into our trek, we came across some pretty scary, or as we like to say ... Halloweenie, homes and treat givers. They braved these homes (but needed to be carried by mommy and daddy) and were so proud of themselves for surviving!!!

The sheriff's department also had a squad car in our neighborhood and the girls received really yummy Tweety bird lollipops from our new favorite reservist ... who shall remain unnamed, but we now know your secret ...

We made it to about 30 homes before the girls were ready to head back to our home and hand out candy to the other kids. Fortunately, mommy and daddy had the forethought to bring the double jogger with us for those tired legs and the remaining trek back home where we had a great time handing out candy and eating a few as well before heading to bed ...

Honestly, this was the best Halloween ever for me ... living it through the eyes of my girls ...

Happy Halloween Everyone!!

Enjoying Autumn Fun & Pumpkin Carving

This afternoon the weather recovered nicely from the snow flurries we had earlier in the week and it actually got up into the upper 50's ... so we headed outside to enjoy the few leaves that our trees have dropped so far this year and to carve our pumpkins ... yeah change that to play in the leaves and watch mommy clean and carve pumpkins by herself ...

Daddy got the girls settled out in the yard with the leaves and rakes and he headed to start organizing the garage for the winter. The girls had a GREAT time playing in the leaves, especially Madison. Alyssa really enjoyed running around and raking the leaves though!!

It took mommy about 1 1/2 hours to finish the pumpkins before heading in for supper with the girls. The girls chose pumpkin patterns for ... surprise ... Pablo and Uniqua to match their costumes.

After dark, we stepped backside to officially light the pumpkins and change them into jack-o-lanterns ... the picture is slightly blurred, maybe mommy should have skipped the pumpkin spice latte before taking the picture!!

Only two more days until our first official trick-or-treating!!

Classroom Halloween

Just a quick picture of the girls and their classmates posing for a Halloween picture. They celelbrated the holiday with a mini-party including a Halloween limbo, Halloween crafts and, of course, a treat exchange!! They had a great time and were super excited to candy in their treat pumpkins!!!

Harvest Hoopla 2008

Last evening the girls and myself were joined by Christian and Aunt Tammy to head over the local elementary school to have some fun at ECFE's Harvest Hoopla!! We got the kiddos all dressed up in the Halloween finest and headed out to the party. The kids had a blast running wild in the open gym and dancing to the music the DJ was playing.

We took a break from the dancing to head over to the other gym to play some Halloween party games and collect some great Halloween favors like pumpkin necklaces and monster teeth!! The kids also found an inflatable obstacle course and had fun running through it many times.

We stopped by the scarecrow stand for a few pictures and then headed back to the other gym for more dancing.

Mommy noticed that we were missing Pablo's head for Madison's costume and the kiddos stayed and danced while mommy went looking for the missing head. The head was recovered just in time to return to the gym to find Alyssa stripping down to her turtle neck and underwear and announcing she had to pee and at the same time Madison was having a breakdown as the DJ had run out of glow in the dark bracelets and the three Amigos didn't get any. After a mad dash to the bathroom with a half naked girl and a crying penguin, Aunt Tammy saved the evening when she produced three glowing bracelets out of her magic diaper bag!!!! Once we had all the kiddos re-dressed and bracelets in place, we headed back to the dance and all did the chicken dance.

We decided to take another break in the dancing to enjoy a chocolate sundae with Halloween sprinkles and share a cookie ... YUMMY!!

After our snack, we once again headed back to the dancing for a few more songs and then called it a night and headed for home. It was a lot of work for mommy and Aunt Tammy, but the three amigos had a GREAT time, so, of course, it was all worth it!! We can't wait for Halloween!!!

Sever's Corn Maze 2008

Today mommy, the girls and cousin Alexia made our now annual trek to meet Aunt Tammy, Christian, cousin Amy and baby Heath at Sever's for the fall festivities. This is an actual aerial view of this year's corn maze and other activities.

We arrived as the doors opened and then the kiddos made their way through the hay bale maze with the help of their cousins.

After finding their way through the hay bales, we stopped to hear a couple of tunes played by "The Blue Ox Jazz Babies" at the little entertainment stage. The band loved the girls instantly and played the theme song to the Pink Panther for them (they were both wearing pink sweatshirts) and then they followed that up with a song about little sweethearts. The girls loved it and danced to the music to show their appreciation!!

Next we took a few minutes to take advantage of a couple of picture opportunities with our now obligatory three farm animals ... next year we need to find a picture board with four faces with the new addition of Heath to our brood.

Cinderella's pumpkin carriage was another photo op and the kids actually managed to cooperate enough to get a shot of all five (Baby Heath was fast asleep on mommy in his sling) kids looking at the camera!!

Everyone then went to a small petting zoo/feeding station with some chickens and goats, except for mommy and the girls who headed over to the pony rides. The girls absolutely love ponies and horses.

We all met back up again for a magic show while cousin Amy and cousin Alexia took off on their own to explore the corn maze and have lunch. The little ones stayed with mommy and Tammy to watch the magic show and enjoyed a lunch of ghost shaped cheese sandwiches, baby carrots and trail mix with vanilla wafers for dessert.

Our next stop was the bigger petting zoo area which had baby kangaroos, baby deer, baby goats, a baby cow, ostriches and a sheep. Also, for viewing only, there were baby tigers and a few other exotic animals.

Finally, our last stop was the famous corn pit!!! The kids had a blast climbing around in the corn pit with their bigger cousins, so much so, that nobody wanted to leave when the time came. Hopefully we will be done picking corn out of hidden places by the time next year's corn maze is ready to be visited!!

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Toddler Tuesday!!

We have had a busy, busy day today. Our morning started out as usual for a Tuesday, getting Alyssa to speech therapy services at the school, then mommy and both girls were off to the library for family story time. The group at the library was a small one today with really only four kids (including Alyssa and Madison) being present for the story time. The theme was "bears" and the kids got to enjoy five books about bears including a bear hunt in the library. The girls enjoyed that a lot. We then headed home for lunch and a nap.

After napping, we headed into Bloomington to the MOA (Mall of America) for Toddler Tuesday (this is done every Tuesday all year long). Part of the deals with Toddler Tuesday, is that for $10 per kid, you can get a three hour park pass for unlimited rides at Nickelodeon Universe ... a SUPER deal!! We met our buddies Christian and Heath (as well as their mommy and daddy) for some serious amusement park rides. We packed in a surprising number of rides in that three hours and everyone was ready for bed by the time we left. The girls favorite ride was The Wonder Pets Flyboat and Christian loved Swiper's Cars!!

The three amigos on the flyboat:


Driving the big rigs:

Riding Train:

Baby Heath Just Hanging Out:

The girls even talked their daddy into springing for super-sized stuffed Pablo's and Backyardigans coin purses, which are currently also sleeping in their beds with the girls as mommy types ...

What a great day!!

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Visting Granny B & Grand-Dad's Bluff

We have been in La Crosse, Wisconsin for the past few days visiting the girls' Great Grandma, Granny B!! Daddy took the scenic route down the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River and we got a chance to enjoy the emerging fall colors, which were absolutely beautiful.

We arrived at Granny B's in the early afternoon on Thursday. Mommy and granny got to do a little Christmas Shopping that afternoon. Friday morning we all went out for breakfast and then headed out again Christmas Shopping. The girls thought they were something pretty special when they each got to take a turn riding with Granny on the electric shopping carts at the stores, Granny even let them steer a little bit!! Granny B got a lot of gifts purchased and mommy helped her wrap them later that night. Driving back to Granny's for lunch and a nap, Madison mentioned that she wanted to go to the top of that "mountain", also known locally as Grand-Dad's Bluff. We decided that we would take a drive to the top after lunch and a nap.

After napping, we once again headed back out and up the "mountain". The day was a beautiful one and the fall colors were beautiful from the bluff top view:

After enjoying our bluff top visit, we headed back down the bluff and directly to daddy's favorite handmade ice cream shop, The Pearl, for some sweet treats.

We had a very fun visit and the girls enjoyed spending time with their Granny B. Before we headed back to Minnesota Saturday morning, Granny B gave the girls each a "My Little Pony" for a Halloween treat ... it was love at first site for both!! After lots of hugs and kisses for Granny, we headed out and we really can't wait for our next visit with Granny B ...

We love you lots Granny ...

3-Year-Old Well Child Check Ups

The girls saw their doctor on 9/30 for their 3-year well-child check ups. They were not supposed to have any immunizations at this appointment, but due to our family traveling overseas in the future, Hepatitis A was recommended for the girls and Twinrix (Both Hep A and Hep B) for myself ... lucky daddy did his series of these immunizations while mommy was pregnant with the girls. We survived the shots with some crying by the girls, mommy survived without tears. The girls also got their fingerspricked and "milked" for lead levels and hemoglobins, which were all normal. No tears were shed over the fingerpicks and actually both girls seemed rather intrigued by the blood that was being "milked" from their fingers.

Now for the stats:

Alyssa
Height is 40 1/2 inches or 3' 4 1/2" (103 cm) which is about the 97th percentile.
Weight is 34 lbs (15.4 kg) which is about the 80th percentile.

Madison
Height is 37 1/2 inches or 3' 1 1/2" (95.3 cm) which is about the 50th percentile.
Weight is 29 lbs (13.15 kg) which is about the 35th-40th percentile.

So, the difference between the girls is significant but about the same ratio as one year ago. They will return in six months for their second Hepatitis A vaccine, otherwise next routine check up will be at age 4.