Yarn and Kids

A couple weeks ago, Keenan spent the weekend at our house. He arrived sporting a scarf he had finger knit for himself.

When the girls saw it, they were impressed, and he offered to teach them how to make their own. Lucky for them, I have a lot of yarn laying around.

Here's Keenan giving a demonstration.

And here's Dana working on hers.

Nora thought it was the perfect time to get out her knitting needles and work on her scarf.

This was a happy night for me, watching the three kids so quietly and intently working on projects.

Sledding Hill

Yesterday I posted about the Winter Olympics at Nora's school. Today I took Nora, Dana and Keenan to the school to use the sledding hill. It's such a great hill!

It took Dana a while to work up the nerve to go down on a sled alone. So here she is on her caboose.

And here's a view from the top.

I took the girls yesterday, too, and I rode with them. Unfortunately, I am the only person living in the state of Minnesota who does not own snow pants. And so, today I did not sled. There's hardly anything more uncomfortable than wet jeans, after all. And I got my fill yesterday.

Christmas is right around the corner!

"Christmas is right around the corner!"
Dana likes to share this fact with anyone who will listen. Doesn't matter if it's a friend, family member, or a complete stranger. She is incredibly excited and wants to spread the joy.

We always put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Kevin put the tree up and I helped him string lights, and then we just let the kids have at it.

That's right-we didn't hang a single ornament. Nora, Dana and Keenan took care of that job, and they took it pretty seriously.

At first it looked sort of funny, since there were no ornaments on the top 1/4 of the tree. Then, someone had the idea to stand on a chair, and everything got a bit more evened out.

We always bring out the Christmas CDs (this year we listened to the Louis Armstrong and Friends Christmas Collection) and sip hot cocoa with marshmallows, whipped cream, colored sugar and candy canes. Bring on the sugar!

I keep meaning to decorate the rest of the house, but it's been iffy around here. I have a quadruple ear infection and it has really run me down. It's not that I suddenly have 4 ears, friends. No, I just have outer and middle infections in both ears. It's especially fun because there is so much fluid built up behind my eardrums that I can't hear at all out of my right ear. I think I heard Dana call Nora and Keenan a really bad name today but I can't be even 50% certain because I am that congested.

I am going to bed now. It IS 8:42 on a Saturday night, after all.

Friends

Our friends came "home" for a visit the week of my birthday. What a treat!

Jessica made the trek with Sophie, who is 9 days younger than Dana, and Tommy, who is about to turn 2. We spent almost every day last week with them, getting as much time as possible together.

Dana, Sophie, Nora and Tommy head down the canal towards the lighthouse. Josie was there, too, but she was hanging with her mama, who also happens to be Sophie and Tommy's auntie.

We had dinner at my sister's house one night, and the kids attempted to pose for some photos. This is one of the best shots.

This is what most of the photos look like.

We tried to coerce some with the mamas and kids, but not everybody was up for it. It was getting rather late.


Our friends flew home to New Hampshire early Saturday morning, and we already miss them. Nora has told me every single day how much she wishes they lived here. She doesn't understand why anyone would bother living in New Hampshire.

The L.L. Smith

Last week, my mom took me and three of the kids on the L.L. Smith, a research boat operated by the University of Minnesota Sea Grant.

Last year, my mom took me, Nora, Keenan and Zak and our boat departed from Barker's Island in Superior. This year, she took me, Nora, Keenan and Adrea and we departed from Two Harbors. Here, you can see the kids in the foreground and the L.L. Smith docked at the breakwater.

The captain took us to a depth of 300 feet. At that point, the research folks brought up water and soil samples for us to study. Here, the kids check out the soil from the bottom of Lake Superior. It was really muddy!

This was, by far, the favorite activity. The kids call it "fishing." The pans have water samples in them, and the kids use eye droppers and tweezers to grab samples, which they transfer to petri dishes.

Then they take the petri dishes into the lab and place them under the microscope. They had so much fun watching the teeny tiny wormy creatures and clams.

I just love these shots of the kids looking into the microscopes. They were fascinated!

Knife Island was completely covered in gulls and cormorants.

It was a great day out on the lake, despite strange weather that changed every few minutes from hot to cold, from rainy to sunny.

Canal Park

On Friday morning, we went to Canal Park with some friends.

We were lucky enough to see a ship go through the canal, which is fun on many levels. There was waving, there was awe over the bridge itself (the Aerial Lift Bridge can raise to its full ship height of 138 feet in less than a minute), and there was astonishment over the length of the ship.

Afterward, we spent some time on the beach, throwing rocks in and testing the icy water.

Isn't this a fun photo of Keenan? Maybe he's doing yoga. Maybe he's winding up to throw a rock far into the lake.

These two are so funny. Our friends are 2, 3 and 4, and these big kids had better things to do than hang out with the wee ones. They shared secrets in hushed voices, waded into the water and generally kept their distance from us.

Dana found a ladybug on her knee and transferred it to a stick. She thought it was really neat and wanted to take it home for a pet.

We eventually made it to the fountain and spent half an hour walking on the path and playing in the shooting streams.

This was the first time we visited Canal Park this year. Is that sad or what?! (And on a side note, I sure wish my keyboard had an interrobang.)

School's Out for the Summer!

Thursday was Nora's last day of school, so we decided to have some friends over for dinner.

After eating pizza, the children enjoyed ice cream cones, courtesy of Jodi and Miles. I love Nora and Ayla snuggled up together on the bench in their costumes.

Later, we got out the play dough ice cream set and they all got busy. There was a lot of play outside, too. It was a really fun night, and a great start to summer vacation!

We spend almost all of our time in Grandma and Grandpa's pool in the summer. This year, the kids decided they wanted to help Grandpa clean it out. It wasn't very warm out, but they all threw on their rubber boots, selected appropriate tools and climbed in!

It is currently 42 degrees and windy, so I am not sure when they will enjoy the fruits of their labor, but they were pretty proud of their hard work.

Summer in May

Yesterday was summer. It was 75 degrees and we spent the entire day outside. I am still giddy from the joy! I am keeping my fingers crossed that today will be just as lovely, but it was 38 degrees when I woke up, so we'll see...

I weeded my entire vegetable garden on Sunday. I know it looks ridiculously tiny, but it's a bit bigger than it seems. If you can see some tiny specks of green in there, those are carrots. They are from last year. They have green tops. I have no idea if they lived through the winter or if they reseeded themselves or what, but I kept them in the garden once I realized they were not weeds. I figure that up north, we need as much help as we can get, so if that means planting carrots and harvesting them an entire year later, I'm in.

Here is what is going into this garden. Well, some of it. We will do beans and peas from seed. Here in the wagon we have tomatoes, cucumbers, and yellow peppers. There are also pansies and a clematis for my flower garden.

Currently I pull the wagon into the garage each night and back into the yard each morning. This is to avoid the inevitable late-May frost.

I spent a couple of hours cleaning weird things out of the yard and woods. Things like broken toys and thistles (also known as porkies for some reason). When I finished, and the garbage can was full despite Monday morning pickup, Kevin mowed the lawn. Dana got her lawn mower and followed him around, eager to do her part. She likes to follow me in the house with her toy vacuum. I love this about her.

Nora lives in the Rhinosaur River. She spends so much time out here, collecting seaweed, mosquito larva, rocks, flowers. I spent a lot of time just downstream from here when I was a kid, and I understand her fascination. For the record, there is a large, flat rock poking just above the surface of the river, and Nora is kneeling on it. She is not kneeling in the water.

Here is a bigger shot of their island. It isn't technically an island, but let's not get nitpicky about it. In the upper righthand corner, you might notice the remains of a campfire, especially if you click the photo to enlarge it. Last weekend, Keenan was over and the three kids conned Grandpa Don into helping them clean up their island. He built a little fire and they burned up all of the "junk" that was in their way (think branches, twigs, rotten tree trunks). They even convinced him to get his motorizer brush cutter out so he could make a clearing. They are all so proud of their island. Zak has a similar island downstream, on Grandpa Don and Grandma Inese's property. They call it George's Island because my dad calls Zak "George". Anyhow, the three younger grandkids are thrilled to finally have an island of their own. Nora went so far as to color a flag on a large sheet of paper. She hung it in a tree, but it rained that night and the flag didn't survive. I foresee a sewing project...

Summer, we have missed you!

Corn

Today was our regularly scheduled Sunday barbecue.

Guess what we brought?

This photo makes me think it's summer: corn, bare feet, a blanket on the lawn, a bouquet of cow slips. It wasn't hot, but it was a pretty nice day! And I feel pretty lucky to be a mom to such lovely girls, and an auntie to such great boys!

Here's hoping your Mother's Day was lovely!

Cinco de Mayo

On Saturday, we went to our friend Callie's annual Cinco de Mayo party. It was held at her dad's house, since he has plenty of space and the most amazing backyard.

The backyard is a fairly steep hill, which is very cool. This tire swing was a huge hit. Kids can propel themselves by climbing into the tire and walking up the hill. When they get as close to the top as they can, they just lift up their legs and fly! Keenan spent a lot of time pushing kids on the tire swing, which was even more fun. That kid is strong! Nora looks so gleeful here.

There are two giant dinosaur sculptures in the backyard. Callie's dad made them both. Here you can see Keenan and Dana climbing on one of them. The other is a t-rex.

I did not get a very good photo of the pinata, which is sad because it was spectacular! Callie outdoes herself every year. This year the pinata was a giant brown frog in a sombrero. The kids all took turns hitting it. At one point, Dana chose a baseball bat, spun around in a complete circle, and flung the bat into the garage. Not very effective, but pretty funny (since nobody was hurt and all). Eventually, Callie's sister Shawna broke the frog all the way open.

I love this shot of the kids gorging on their pinata treats. Keenan, Dana, Nora, and Josie snuggled into an oversized armchair to look through their treat bags.

Keenan and his creepy frog hand. There were many different kinds of frogs stuffed into the frog pinata.

Nora being silly with an inflatable cactus. See that fire in the background? Proof that May in Minnesota is not that warm.

Dana thought is was hysterical to sneak up behind people and put this ginormous sombrero on their heads. Here, my sister Alyx poses after being "hatted" by Dana.

I took a lot more photos, but this highlights our evening. We can hardly wait for next year! What will the pinata be? Will I come up with a more thematic cupcake flavor?

Keenan Cutting a Rug

On Saturday we attended the much-anticipated wedding of my good friend Tara and her fiance Dan.

I have to say, it was a lovely affair. And I am going to tell you upfront that Nora had my (Kevin's) camera for the first part of the evening, so I didn't get any of the shots I intended to. By the time she returned it, I had forgotten the initial awe and was busy with other things. Also, I don't have any photos of any of the four Ackers, but I am pretty sure my sister does. So I will try to get some from her to post later. I wore a pretty fancy dress. People were shocked to see me in something without stains. It was sort of embarassing.

The highlight for the kids was the candy buffet. That's right: an all-you-can-eat candy buffet! There was a banquet table with about eight different kinds of candy in canisters, complete with silver scoops. And Tara's sister folded the most beautiful origami boxes out of black, white and red paper so people could transport their treats home. Or else to their tables. Maybe both. The kids were in heaven, from selecting the prettiest box to filling it with gummy bears, malted milk balls, M&Ms and all sorts of other treats. I really wish I would have taken a photo of that. And of the cupcakes. Can you even believe I forgot to take a photo of the tiers and tiers of cupcakes? They were amazing-most were white cake with raspberry, lemon or vanilla buttercream, but there were also carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Kevin told me he heard someone say they were the best cupcakes he had ever tasted. I suggested Kevin do right by me and set him straight on who makes the best cupcakes (hypothetically, ME!), but they really were delicious. Plus, I am not sure this man had ever tasted one of my cupcakes before, so it's hard to punish him for that.

Grandma Bev picked the girls up from the wedding just after 7pm so Kevin and I could stay as late as we wanted. It was good timing, because they were so wound up from the excitement and the candy buffet! They left before the dance started, which is sort of unfortunate, but they were so ready to go.

Luckily, my nephew stayed much later, and WOW can that kid dance! It totally cracks me up! His brother, Zak, was exactly like this at weddings when he was little, too-dancing up a storm, not a care in the world. I tried a hundred times to catch Keenan on film, and these are, sadly, my two best tries.

The first one starts with him break dancing and then shows some of his other moves. The second one shows him from behind, doing the Robot. At one point, he ran back to our table for a drink of water and some gummy bears and he said to me, "Boy-time really flies when you're dancin'!" Also, earlier in the evening, another little boy came up to Keenan and said, "Hey! Let's go find some chicks to dance with." So apparently 4 year old girls are chicks nowadays.

This just kills me! About five minutes after I took the second video, I looked out on the dance floor and there was Alyx, my sister, holding Keenan and dancing to a slow song. And his eyes were closed! He danced and danced for almost 3 hours straight and then he just crashed.

They camped him out on a bench at the back of the room and he slept for another 45 minutes or so, until they carried him out to the car to go home. I remember when my girls were babies and they would fall asleep in the midst of chaos, but Keenan will be 8 in June! I can't believe he could tune out the very loud music enough to sleep. Then again, I didn't dance my heart out all night long like he did. So cute!