Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we went to St. Cloud for the annual feast. The kids had an especially great time playing with their cousin Ani. They took off into her room and we barely saw them the whole day.

Ani, Lila and Elsa. Notice how Elsa rolls up the sleeves of her jacket. She rebels against the wintertime lifestyle.


Lila and Elsa in their Thanksgiving Day finery.






At bedtime, I help one of the kids brush teeth while Tim takes the other one and has what they call, "D Time". One of the more recent D Time activities has been piggyback rides, while the girls shout out,"Rapido!" (Thanks, Dora). Sometimes they even do a double piggyback.

Cousins!

Last night we had a spur of the moment idea to finally introduce Elsa and Lila to their new baby cousin. (Tim hadn't met her yet, either.) The following photos describe their first meeting. Beware: cuteness overload.








Help!



Lila was very curious to see how the baby ate.


Very curious! :)




I made this snowman last Saturday during the first snow. It gradually started falling backward, but never fell. He's been defying gravity like this all week. That's some pretty cool unintended engineering!



Aww. Here they are, getting along. I have a photo almost just like this from last November. It's definitely the month where we start to cuddle up inside more often.

Product Review: The Good Nite Lite

This summer the kids started to wake up at 5:30 am. I finally decided something had to be done, and in my sleep deprived state, I ordered The Good Nite Lite from Amazon. It came in the mail a few days later. I showed the kids their new nightlight and explained that when the moon is glowing, it's nighttime. When the sun comes on, it's okay to wake up. And it worked! Instead of Lila waking up screaming at random hours, she started waking up saying, "Mama, sun is on, come and get me!" The real test was Daylight Savings Time. The first day I forgot to switch it and the kids got up at 6. The next day I set it for the new 7, and they got up at 7. Brilliant. Most mornings they wake up exactly at 7, so I know they must actually wake up when the moon is still on, and then stare at it until it turns into the sun!

Today we had our first snow - a blizzard. We woke up to a winter wonderland and I was totally unimpressed. I haven't said anything about disliking winter, but somehow Elsa was already on board. Right away she said,"Aww, why did it have to snow? Look, it's covering my slide! I'll never swing again!" Awhile later they were excited to go outside, so we got bundled up.

Elsa had fun making snowballs and throwing them at me.



Lila could barely walk in the snow and wanted to be carried. She also didn't like having mittens on because she couldn't get to her fingers.


The snow was really heavy, and every now and then we'd hear a loud craaack! as the weight of it would break a tree branch. It was fun, but it's already hard to imagine another 4 months of this!

Jackpot

Uncle Jesse.

Uncle Jesse.

Auntie Jessie!


This is our new niece, Avery Lynn Swanberg. Isn't she adorable?! She was born on November 7. We're so thrilled she's here! Elsa and Lila are still getting over colds, so they haven't met their first cousin yet. You can bet I'll post pics when they do!



Daddy Shane.


Momma Jenny.

Halloween 2010

I'd planned to share these photos right after Halloween, along with the birth of my niece (Due Oct. 31), but she's still not here! So...

Halloween day we went to visit Jenny and Shane and did some shopping. Lila played the piano and ran around while Elsa sat quietly on the stairs. She started to feel kind of under the weather.


I wore this wig for Halloween 1999 when I went with my friends as Jem and the Holograms. Elsa thought it was pretty cool.


Tim is the master pumpkin carver around here, so it's become a tradition that he carves the pumpkins. He designed and carved these babies in about 10 mins. I told him to make the one on the right look like Lila. It kind of does, doesn't it?!


The kids in front of Grandma and Grandpa's house on Halloween.


When we got there they were carving their pumpkin. Elsa insisted that they make it a puking one.


We tried something new this year and went to a big neighborhood development for trick-or-treating. The streets were packed with people - it was totally chaotic. Most people didn't bother handing out candy at the door, instead they sat in their driveways and had huge bonfires. At one house, a guy was dressed up like a demonic scarecrow and suddenly I heard Lila gasp and inch toward me. She was too afraid to take her eyes off him or to cry. She just said in a monotone voice,"I want my mommy" as she stared at him. Everyone at the bonfire just laughed at her!
This lady is like, Grrreat...thanks for taking my picture.


We got to about 5 houses before Elsa wanted to go home. Poor kid, she was worn out. They still ended up getting plenty of candy.
SUUGAAR!