Maddie singing her Z, Y X's

Santa 2014

Ben & Maddie had their annual visit with Santa today. Maddie wants a Nintendo DS (hand-held video game system) and Barbie clothes. Ben wants a LEGO police station. 

Maddie was worried about being too nervous so she read Santa her request.

Here comes the bride!

Ben & Maddie decided that today they were going to get married -- to each other. So I thought you might like to watch the video. And there's a little surprise at the end. Enjoy!

Halloween 2014

This year it was Elsa -- of course -- and Superman. Ben had originally planned to go as a Ninja, but somehow changed his mind to Superman.

Trick-or-treating was interesting because Ben refused to wear anything warm. He only had a short-sleeve t-shirt and shorts under his costume. Needless to say, he was the first one begging to go home!

They're off to kindergarten!

Happy day in our house....

On the trampoline at the MN State Fair

Last day of daycare!

Wow, the last two years have flown by! It was such a great decision to put our kids at the Northwestern College child development center. They've enjoyed every minute of it and learned so much. I'm pretty certain I can count on one hand the number of days one or both of them did NOT want to go to daycare.

Today is their last day at the center. Then they get a long vacation at the cabin. Then next Tuesday it's off to kindergarten!

I snapped a few pictures this morning when I dropped them off....

Here's Maddie's favorite teacher, Karrie. 

This is Maddie with a castle the kids have been making recently.

Signing in. Today they had to put their names on ribbons (the theme this week is State Fair)

This is my favorite....our morning ritual. They wait by the playground door and I wave to them, and blow kisses, from the sidewalk outside before I head back to my car. 

Recent pics..summer 2014

Last weekend we went to the Minneapolis Fire Museum, where you can check out old fire trucks -- even get in and pretend to drive this one. And then they take you on a ride around the neighborhood in an old fire truck. We got to sit up on the back (like where the hoses go), but the kids didn't want me to take a picture for some weird reason. 

Here's a pic of Ben with one of his Lego creations....

And a pic of Ben today at the Washburn County Fair in Spooner...

And here's Maddie with her Tinker Toy creation....

And Maddie last week, dressed up like Elsa from "Frozen." She wore this to her "princess and fairies" art camp that she attended (just a couple hours each morning last week).

Giant slide

You can see a video of the kids going down the giant slide at the Washburn County Fair, in Spooner, today.

They had so much fun!

Click on this link to see the video

Summer 2014!

Saturday was a quintessentially perfect summer day at the cabin -- brilliant sunshine, warm but not ungodly hot and a little breeze. I pulled out the fancy camera to add to our collection of pictures on the cabin wall. I try to get at least one or two each summer and the kids love seeing pictures from years past. In fact, they wanted to re-create a couple of them in these pictures.....

Preschool graduation!

Tonight we had the first of what I hope will be many, many graduations for Ben & Maddie. It was a cute little ceremony, complete with white caps and capes. The kids sang several songs and did a percussion number with sticks. They went around and introduced themselves and pointed out their family. And later they said what they wanted to be when they grow up and they displayed a picture (on a screen) that they drew depicting this future occupation. Ben said he wants to be a police officer. Maddie said she wants to be a dance teacher. They each got a diploma and a chance for a picture with their primary teacher. And then a group photo at the end, which was pretty much a disaster since very few of them (especially the boys) could sit still by that point). We also tried to get a family photo and didn't have the greatest luck with that, either.

Mother's Day 2014

The kids and I had fun today picking out flowers and then planting them in our front yard!  We planted marigolds and wave petunias, on the advice of our neighbor who ha the most amazing green thumb. We moved some planter barrels that we used last year for tomatoes (and the two years' before that as sandboxes!) so they are now in the front of our house. I think it will add some beauty that the front of our house is lacking -- due to a complete lack of landscaping. 

When we were done, I managed to convince the kids to let me take some pictures and I actually got some really, really good ones. You might see these again on the next Christmas card and most definitely in a frame up on the wall :-)

Maddie's dance recital

Tonight Maddie had the dance recital that capped off her year of dance class. She had fun, but is not so desperately in love with dance. So this will likely be the end of her dance career (which is fine with us). The $50 costume is a bit much for a five-year-old, so this isn't quite my speed. Anyway....it was cute watching a bunch of girls attempt to dance.

Easter 2014

LEGO-mania!

My brother, very thoughtfully, gave us a giant bin of LEGOs -- the ones that he and I played with when we were kids. I pulled them out a few days after Christmas, when we were hibernating due to massive cold, illness in the family and closed daycare. They were a huge hit!

I have never seen Ben & Maddie play so nicely together and sit and work on the same thing for such a long period of time. There were a couple days when we just built Lego stuff for two or three hours at a crack in the morning and then again in the afternoon. Crazy!

I was especially impressed by Maddie, because she has a hard time doing things on her own. She usually needs some direction. But with the Legos, she just went to town building and she wanted to make her own creations -- without help from me and without looking at any guidebook.

Ben, on the other hand, wanted me to make him the creations in the guidebook that came with the Legos. And of course that was impossible because the stash of Legos didn't necessarily have all the right pieces. UGH. But we did our best.

Here are their two spaceships!

Chocolate faces!

I got this funny pic of the kids after they had chocolate ice cream one day

5th birthday party

Ben & Maddie invited their friends to a party at the YMCA in Shoreview, where they played in a bounce house for an hour and then had cake and opened presents. We ended up with 13 kids, including the birthday boy and girl.

They had a great time and came home with even more gifts! Our house is now officially overflowing with too many toys.

Here are close-up pics of the cakes that I made.