Happy 4th Birthday Anna!

Our baby girl turned 4 this past week. Her daddy turned 39 a couple days later! I always look forward to this week in October. Birthday cake, presents, happy faces, surprise visits, friends. You name it, it is just a great week. Coupled together with it being Fall, and I don't think we can ask for anything better! 

birthday party

Annalee asked for a costume/Vikings/Pokemon birthday party, so last weekend, we indulged her many dreams and had a handful of family and friends over to celebrate. The new house is a great spot to gather, as there is so much more space than we previously had. It was a beautiful day for a party, so the kids spent a bunch of time outdoors, playing. Annalee now has to think about getting her thank you letters in the mail! 

Fulton cousins

We headed to the doctor to see Dr. Berry for the last time, as he is retiring in December. Annalee is 3' 4.12" tall and keeping on with the 60th percentile in height. Her eyes are top notch and her hearing passed with flying colors. She is so smart that the Dr. asked if she might get to early enroll in Kindergarten next year. We will have to think on that one. I am not sure what the rules are in Bloomington or if we would even consider having her be the youngest in her class. We shall see. 

Friends! 

Oleson cousins and Cadence

This little girl is 4!

Birthday morning, pancakes by daddy

Ryan's birthday was a great day, full of ripping out a closet in the entry-way from the garage. Now comes the decisions about what we are going to do on that floor. A mudroom is the idea, but we are not sure if the bathroom will remain a 3/4 or become a powder room. It would be nice to keep a shower in, but the plumbing is such that we may have some issues. We have plenty of time to figure all of that out, I guess! After demolition, our friends Jessica and Matt took the kids for the night and we headed out to Betty Danger's Supper Club, complete with a ferris wheel ride. It was a great night and we were home early because we are getting older and just wanted to sleep! 

A trip to an apple orchard with Rob and Jamie rounded out the weekend in a nice way. It was chilly, but beautiful day outside and the kids got out some energy. Fall is seriously such a fun time of year! And having friends in Red Wing is sure a nice perk! Thanks for moving away from us, guys! 

An accident waiting to happen or these jokers just having fun?
Depends on my mood.

This is the only good photo Jack took where is tongue was in his mouth. 

We spent this weekend at the farm, visiting Grandma Joan & Grandpa John. We visited Grandma's work and then spent time with G&G and Adam, Sarah, Henry and James. Photos below, as I love photos but don't feel much like putting them on Facebook! 

Bike riding

Over the past month, a big thing has happened at our house. Both kids are now riding bikes without the use of training wheels! This huge feat is made possible by balance bikes and the patience of one amazing dad (and credit to his sister Abbie for getting Anna to try biking without trainers in the first place). Ryan has been taking the kids to a lot close to our house to practice biking and, though she was skeptical at the beginning of the summer, Annalee is now getting the concepts of stopping, starting and biking in a straight line with her head held high! I am simply amazed. Now, I realize that biking is not a hugely difficult thing to learn and that most kids have it down at an early age, but these are my kids and I think they are pretty darn amazing, so this is a big deal to us! And, it means that we will be able to go on bike trips easily in the next couple years as a family. I am pretty sure family bike trips are one of the best things in the world! Jack has been riding for a long time now (read, a year) so is teaching himself all sorts of tricks, like sliding stops, riding with one hand and racing as fast as possible. So, without further ado, here are some photos of our biking superstars.

It seems we have been going many Sundays, as they are wearing their current Sunday apparel. I assure you (do you need to be assured, though?) that we have partaken in biking at the lot close to home quite a bit more than just on Sundays!

Have a wonderful week, whoever you are that reads this!

Summer time fun time

Happy August! We have been spending a lot of time at different cabins this summer, enjoying being around water and being around each other. We spent the Forth of July at The Lambert cabin on Whitefish with Adam's family; we spent nearly a week in Brainerd with Ryan's dad and Bea; we have done a handful of day trips north, most recently catching fish on Pokegama during the Fulton Fisherama. All these trips North leave me feeling that life might be more fun if we just moved up there and lived on a lake. But then reality hits and I realize that working down here offers us the ability to live the life we are both used to while affording us the opportunity to spend time with all those who we love.

Jack and Annalee are little fish, with Anna really wishing to be a mermaid. Their confidence in the water is absolutely terrifying, but they are learning to float on their backs and do flips with ease and, hopefully, learning to kick and swim and keep themselves safe. I hope that if we can foster a love for water and swimming early that they might be interested in participating in swim clubs as they grow up. It seems so much less dangerous than football and hockey!

I have also tried to get the kids into fishing this year! So far, I am the only one who is willing to bait the hooks for our family (Ryan has gotten a bit better, but still won't touch fish). We caught tons of croppies at the cabin in Brainerd and the kids all caught some perch at the fisherama. I, the only one with a fishing license out of the bunch, have not had much time to catch anything, but I hope that as they get older, J & A will become a bit more self sufficient and I will be able to cast out more often. It would also be nice to relearn how to clean fish so we can do a bit more than catch and release! I suppose, though, that one must catch large enough fish to justify that!

As the summer is quickly grinding to a halt, we are busy making plans for this Fall. Jack starts Kindergarten and Annalee will begin 5-day Preschool. Both of the kids will be at the same school this year and we are excited to find a few more weekends at home to start working on some projects on the new house. 

Jack's 5th year stats

I promise, promise, promise to post an update on our new house soon and fill you in on life, but right now, I have something far more important to write into this journaling space....Jack's five year stats. And in looking through the past few posts, it seems that most things are about Jack right now. That is simply not true, he just has had a great past couple months with much to talk about! We will be all about Annalee soon!

So, without further ado:
Jack is 3'9.98" tall (92nd percentile)
50 lbs on the dot (90th percentile)
and there is no longer a head circumference measurement, so we will just go with the idea that his head is still as large as ever!
There were measurements of BP (low) and BMI (average) too, but, well, another time and place for those two things!

Jack's eyesight is great and his letter comprehension is great and his number/counting skills are great. So, he is just great! He is a headstrong child who gets his way far more than he should (my fault, not Ryan's). He is a compassionate kid who worries about his sister when she hurts herself. He is friendly to everyone and has no problem introducing himself around a classroom. Jack is a unique force and is going to have an awesome summer at day camp and will be moving on to Kindergarten in the Fall.

Preschool graduation

I never really believed that the saying "they grow so fast" was anything more than a phrase that people with older kids said to young families. I never believed it, that is, until Jack started growing so fast that time seems to be going at warp speed. Seriously! He is almost four feet tall. How did that happen? 

We are now able to have four person conversations over dinner without anyone screaming or demanding to be fed! Each child can get him or herself dressed in the morning (though they prefer help). They still wake me up in the morning but most of the time it is by coming upstairs to cuddle instead of screaming until I get out of bed. And the things they are learning. Seriously, these kids are sponges! 

Jack had his preschool graduation ceremony last week. I took photos (obviously) and some videos. It was one of the cutest ten minutes of his school career. 

TBall has started for Jack and Annalee is ever more jealous of being too young for some of the things that her brother is able to do. We think we might get her signed up for gymnastics this fall. And swimming lessons. The kid is a fish.  

For good measure, I am adding a photo of Grandma Joan with Annalee and Teddy, one of Emily's twins. We are so lucky to have so many people who love us and the kids in our lives!

Easter 2016

This weekend was anything but calm at our house! Friday night started with the kids playing outside and us thinking we were going to get the house all ready to go on the market by the end of the weekend. Friday night turned into a police mandated emergency where we were not allowed to be in our house until after 9:30. Thank goodness for the Ide's! Katie, Josh, M & O welcomed us over to play way past bedtime and we were so grateful to have a place to go for a little while.

Saturday was the big Bloomington Easter Egg Hunt! The Keehan's joined me and the kids in search of eggs and music. It was a fun little outing and then J & A were able to go play at their house for a few hours while we worked on the house.

Sunday, after the kids hunted down their Easter baskets, we headed north to the farm for dinner. Though it was a quick trip up (and who realized there was still snow up there..forgot snow pants!), it was really nice being together with everyone. The kids played and we ate more than we should have.

The big news from this weekend? We found a house. There are still some hiccups to iron out, and we need to sell our current spot, but, if everything goes according to plan, we will be moving to West Bloomington sometime mid-May. The house is 3,000 square feet, with five bedrooms and plenty of family space. It is just down the road from the kid's school and it is bright orange! I absolutely love it and am hopeful that everything goes according to plan and we are in before summer gets going. The best perk? It is only five miles from work for me, so the commute will remain easy and I will get to spend as much time with the kids as possible while continuing to work.