Health Night at School

PTA organized a family health night at school in early October. It was a great event, with lots of fun activities and a spaghetti dinner.

Dana was one of the first kids to attempt the climbing wall, despite the cold drizzly weather. She climbed all the way to the top, then stopped to look down at everyone with a great big grin. And then she climbed back down, while the climbing guy said to the crowd, "Everyone watch Dana. She's climbing down exactly right." When she got to the bottom, he gave us a brochure for climbing camp and told us that Dana's a natural. Oh, good. That's what every mother wants to hear about her kindergartener.

Dana thought the yoga station was pretty cool, too.

It was a really fun night, and Dana still brags about her climbing skills.

Bayfield Apples

About 100 years ago, back in September, we hopped in the car for an impromptu trip to Bayfield, Wisconsin to pick apples.

It was unseasonably warm, so we stopped at a lakeside playground for a while before heading to the apple orchard. It is the most awesomest playground ever, according to the girls.

Nora liked the climbing wall a lot. They both loved the tire swing and made us push them until we all got dizzy.

I don't know what this crazy contraption was supposed to be, but it was pretty fun, until Dana knocked her noggin.

After the girls ran off some energy, we climbed back in the car for the 5 minute drive to the orchard.

The dwarf apple trees were a huge hit with the kids. Dana was thrilled that she could reach fruit without help.

Nora was pretty psyched, too.

It took us about 15 minutes to pick an entire bushel.

I baked 2 apple pies, but we ate the majority of these straight up. I used the last of them the day before Thanksgiving to make 2 quarts of applesauce.

We are looking forward to making this an annual tradition. It was good family fun.

Elsa

She's eight days late, but she is finally here!

Her name is Elsa Rayanne and she was 8 pounds and 22 inches long. Rayanne is a combination of my dad's middle name and Liz's mom's middle name. She has a ton of black hair and gorgeous blue eyes.

Dana thought it was adorable when Elsa couldn't stop licking her blanket. She also thinks her cry is really cute, and she knows just how to sway to soothe her new cousin.

Nora is a natural. She knows exactly how to hold her arm to support Elsa's head. She couldn't resist smooching that beautiful face.

Mama, Daddy and Elsa are all doing great.

Dana's Got Skills

Nora, Dana and I were sitting on the couch one evening this week when Dana started giggling. We looked over at her and saw this:

And then we made a big fuss over her spoon hanging on nose trick, and we both tried it and failed. And that encouraged her and then she started to get sassy about her new skill.

"Watch me! I can walk with the spoon on my nose!"

"Look! I can do the splits with the spoon on my nose!"
Honey, the fact that you can do the splits at all is impressive.

"I can dance with the spoon on my nose!"

Showoff.

Our bellies ached from all of the laughing. Dana put on a great show.

Working on a Window

Nora's top two front teeth have been wiggly for months. Seriously. The kids had their teeth cleaned in June and the dentist commented on her wiggly teeth at that appointment.

Tonight, at long last, she pulled one of them out.

I was in my bedroom putting laundry away and she was in the bathroom, and she came careening into my room, laughing maniacally, with blood all over her face. She thrust out her hand with that wee tooth pinched between two fingers and just laughed and laughed.

I can hardly stand to look at her, she is so adorable.

I am encouraging her to pull the other one out so she can have a nice window in her mouth before her permanent teeth come in and make her look all grown up. I'm kinda hoping both top front teeth will be gone for Christmas photos. By next year, she won't even believe in the Tooth Fairy anymore.

First Day

School started the Thursday after Labor Day, with Dana entering kindergarten and Nora starting third grade.

Dana's a pretty independent kind of kid, so we weren't really surprised that she was 100% excited to climb on the bus and head off to school. No tears, not even from Mama. We lucked out in that kindergarteners and third graders have lunch and recess together. So Dana and Nora sat together on the first day and Nora showed Dana the ropes.

PTA has a Tears and Cheers event on the first day of school, just after the school day begins, so after we got the girls on the bus, I drove to school to help set up. And I snapped a few photos of the girls getting off of the bus (I was not the only one) and then I got this one of Dana waiting to go into her classroom. I don't know when my baby got big enough to zip her own coat, put on her own shoes and head out the door.

We're a few weeks in now, and they are both doing great. They both adore their teachers, and they are both happy to go to school in the morning. And I have been spending my days racing around tackling the world's most ridiculous to-do list. But it feels pretty great to be getting projects done.

The Great Minnesota Get Together

August is a big month around here. In our house alone, we have two birthdays and our wedding anniversary in the very same week. There are three more birthdays in the extended family in a ten day stretch, so things get a little nuts.

This year, to celebrate Nora turning 8, me turning 33 and Kevin and I being married 13 years, we hopped in the car and headed to the Minnesota State Fair.

I must be getting old because this sky ride freaked me out. It's just a chair lift, really, that takes you from one end of the fair to the other. But Dana is so small and the bar over our laps had a gigantic gap, and I was sure she was going to slip under it and land on the roof of a barn or in the box of a shiny new pickup truck. I kept my arm tightly around her for the whole ride. The photo above (see Nora and Kevin in the yellow seat?) was taken with one hand when the ride stopped for 5 minutes or so, with us hanging out in the blazing sun 200 feet above the fair.

Dana has a thing for butterflies, so when she saw the butterfly house, she HAD to go inside. It was pretty wild-butterflies were just flitting around landing on people. Dana was a little freaked out at first, but also intrigued. She was very interested in getting them to climb onto her fingers, but she was worried about them landing on her face or hair.

We got to the fair before 10am and by 4am we were ready to go. Except it took us another 2 1/2 hours to actually exit because we kept seeing more and more interesting exhibits. The sheep barn was particularly interesting. I wish I would have taken a photo, as the sheep had all been shorn and were wearing these robes over their entire bodies, including their heads, to keep them clean. They had little eye holes to see out of, and they looked like they were getting ready to go trick or treating. And then there was a really sweet little guy for kids to pet. The girls thought he was adorable and soft and they wanted to take him home.

Oh, you noticed Nora's green hair in the sheep photo? She was really excited to get a Fair Do. We waited in line for 15 minutes to pay and get an appointment. The appointment wasn't for 45 minutes, and so we waited. And waited. And waited some more, until it was finally her turn. And then she went into the salon and within 10 minutes she came out with two green and blue pompoms covered in glitter. Totally worth the wait.

Neither Kevin nor I had been to the State Fair since we were kids, and the girls had never been. We all loved it, and we can't wait for next year! We ate snow cones, caramel apples and cheese curds, but next year we need to try roasted corn and some deep fried craziness. It's shocking that we were there for almost 9 hours and we didn't see everything we wanted to. But we DID see the American Red Cross building after Dana skinned her knee pretty badly. They had air conditioning and plenty of ice cold water, plus they cleaned as much grit as they could out of Little D's knee before coating her in Neosporin, bandaging her up and sending us on our way.