Happy Birthday Maddy!

Today we went to a birthday party for Elsa's friend, Maddy. It was another beautiful day for a party. Elsa had fun looking at their horses, playing on the swing, and running around in general.



Maddy had an Elmo-themed party. The cupcakes were a hit! Maddy's mom decorated them herself and they turned out great.



Here's Gracie and Elsa scarfing some birthday cupcakes.


Elmo even showed up and shook Elsa's hand!


Some of the kids and some of the crew hang out in the yard.


All five girls together: Ashley, Elsa, Maddy, Violet, and Gracie. One day we'll get them all looking at the camera and smiling!

Happy Memorial Day

Tim painted the house the entire weekend. It's so nice to have it done! I chased Elsa around the yard, took her on walks to the park, the usual. John and Melinda stopped by on Saturday and helped with painting (thanks guys!), then we had a BBQ. Here's Elsa wearing the pretty dandelion crown Melinda made for her.


Uncle John hard at work. Note new paint color.


This Day in History:
Memorial Day 2007. We took Elsa to the park in this tiny sun dress. Temps were in the 80's. She's just a chubby little baby!


Memorial Day 2008. Kept with the festive red, white, and blue theme; but this time covered up for the 60 degree temps. What a big kid she's become in just 1 year!

The Fast and The Furious

Elsa turned 21 months old yesterday, which is very close to 2 and it's beginning to show.
For instance, her favorite thing in the world is to play outside. But the 2-year-old in her has learned that she can argue and say no and rebel, and sometimes that's actually more fun for her, even if she doesn't mean it. An example...


Run Away?! You can actually see her smile at the thought of running away instead, and how that might be even cooler than going outside. Even though i'd been hearing her yell,"Outside!" for the past 15 minutes and she'd been waiting at the gate delirious with anticipation.

Once I finally caught her, we went outside and took a stroll to the park. For some reason the typically slow slide was very fast - I barely had time to hit record. In this video Elsa wonders, "Am I hurt? What the heck just happened?"


The sound of her butt hitting the sand gets me every time.

I've been a garage saleing machine lately, the reason being my quest to find outdoor toys for Elsa this summer before the new baby arrives. Unfortunately, most of the sales i've been to don't offer such desirable items. Craigs List does, but for some reason the stuff for sale in the northern suburbs is priced $20-$30 more than the stuff in the cities. UNTIL yesterday! I'm so glad I waited for a deal. I got this cube climber/slide for only $10. Score!


A few days before, I got this picnic table at a garage sale for just $5. Unlike other banners that have been raised in haste, I can honestly say,"Mission Accomplished!"


She also got a brand-new sandbox and toys, which she loves.


This photo is from a couple weeks ago. Even though it was cold and raining and her rain boots were 2 sizes too big, she had to be outside and loved it.


Baby #2 is just 5 weeks away!

Birthday Bash

This weekend we went to a 1st birthday party for Elsa's friend, Violet. The weather was great and we spent a lot of time outside, much to Elsa's delight.

In the background: Violet the birthday girl in her highchair, and Elsa on the side waiting with other kids to eat the cute butterfly cake.


Enjoying cake and ice cream with Gracie and Ashley.


She really liked playing in their playhouse and on the toddler slide.



She also appreciated the simpler things, like playing with rocks and weeds.


Violet's party was fun in a lot of other ways too: 1. They have goats. 2. They have a bunny. The kids loved seeing the animals, and at one point Maddy, Elsa, and Gracie decided it was hilarious to bang on the bunny's cage.


Even after after someone hollered at them to stop it, they kept smiling and kept right at it. Poor bunny.


We all had a great time at the party, and Elsa was particularly wound up after we got home. We put her to bed at 7pm (1 hour ago) and she's still up there mumbling phrases like,"Ashley, Maddy, Cake", "Happy Birthday Violet", and my favorite, the random shout out,"Party!"

Happy Anniversary to us

4 years ago...


4 years later...

Sales, Parks, and Mother's Day

We've been hitting a lot of garage sales lately. You can find so many great things at 8:00 am on Saturday, it got me wondering: why didn't we ever go garage saleing before? Oh yeah, because we used to be able to sleep in until 11:00 am. A few of our biggest steals include a new Eddie Bauer screen tent for only $25, a Columbia winter jacket for Elsa, and some microphone stands for Tim. Elsa seems to like going to sales with us, until she says,"One more gagage sale." Then we know we're starting to push it.
After dragging her around to sales all morning, we take her to her favorite place, the park. Last weekend we went to 3 different parks in one day. These pictures were taken at Paradise Park in Chisago City.

Elsa and Tim on the BIG slide.


She loves throwing rocks into the lake.


Crawling through a tunnel.


Dad having fun and looking giant on the swings.


A few of Elsa's most recent discoveries:

Corn on the cob.


Dandelions.


Trying to be gentle (but kind of squishing) a caterpillar.


Today was our last day of ECFE. Instead of our normal class, we went outside for an hour and then came inside for the last half hour to eat a picnic lunch. The teachers handed out a class picture (Elsa wasn't in it because she missed class last week), along with a hand print she'd done a couple weeks before. They also got a container of playdoh to take home, and I got a stack of pictures the teacher had taken of Elsa throughout the year. I had no idea they took so many of her - there must have been 20. Here's a picture of her on the playground today.

Me and a few of the other moms plan to meet at a park during our usual Monday class time during the summer. It'll be great for us all to keep in contact. More photos of those adventures to come.

And finally, Elsa and Mom on Mother's Day.