It's beginning to look a lot like......

Well, to be honest it doesn't look a lot like Christmas today, but we have had a few mornings with snow. Last week it was great to wake up and see the white stuff covering everything. The girls really thought it was cool that they could wear their snowpants and winter boots. Ever since last week it has been cold and windy, but not enough of the white stuff if you ask me. I love the snow....well basically I love every season and look forward to each one. It's a good thing that I live in Minnesota, you betcha!

Speaking of Christmas, I have started to sneak a few decorations out of the crawl space. Everyday a little more red and green makes it way out of the Christmas bins. We will officially put up our tree this weekend, along with our outside decorations and nativity set. We are decorating a little earlier this year because we won't be around for Thanksgiving. We are heading back to Westbrook and Great Grandma's farm on Wednesday after school- if the weather permits. My parents will be alone this Thanksgiving, but they will have a full house come Christmas! We are excited to spend Thanksgiving at the farm this year. Our sister-in-law, Jen and niece and nephew Brooke and Brayden and Grandpa Doug are all coming from Arizona. It will be a very full house at the farm. Dare I say, close to bursting.

This past Monday the girls started back at their daycare. They were SO excited to see their friends again. They started their preschool curriculum again, which is wonderful! Our fridge is full of craft projects again and they come home exhausted. We love our daycare!!!

The girls have been into making towers. Really tall towers and then of course knocking them down. They are too cute! Enjoy the pictures!

New Family Pictures....

Hi everyone! Our new family pictures are now posted on our friend Matt Addington's website. Click http://www.mattaddington.com/ and then go to Your Photos and you will find them. Let us know if you would like to order any- you won't be able to download them off of his site. Enjoy! Here is a little preview.....

It's beautiful out!

Today the temperature reached 70 degrees. It made me wonder, is it really November? Hard to believe. But, unfortunately I am sure that the cooler weather will return this weekend. The girls had their bikes out today after school, without any jackets. Now that just doesn't seem right for Minnesota on November 3rd. The video is of the girls saying, "It's beaaauuutiful out!" I thought it was pretty cute.

Enjoy the pictures of the girls reading. Annika's favorite new thing to do is change her clothes, like 20 times a day. Now she likes to put on "comfy clothes or comfortables". Kate really likes to read on her bike and inside our IKEA shopping bags. Enjoy the start of your week everyone! Hugs and kisses from Kate and Annika!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! Tonight we had a lot of fun trick or treating and handing out candy. First we started out getting the girls into their Care Bear outfits, which they loved! They wanted to take their red wagon around the neighborhood, so daddy pulled them to a few of our neighbors. I think they had more fun just saying, "Trick or treat!" because they could care less about the candy. We even took a little drive to south Lakeville to visit Kati, Jeff, Natalie and baby Leah (our daycare friends). Then we came home to hand out candy and the girls were great little helpers. They really liked handing out the lollipops for some reason....

The girls decorated pumpkins last night and Jason carved up our largest pumpkin. We used finger paints and the girls had SO much fun. It was all over the place. Then today they made Halloween cupcakes with Aunt Jenny who came to watch them because we didn't have daycare. They even helped dump the eggs in, stir up the batter and of course EAT them!

Tomorrow we are going to a belated Halloween party at a friends house and then daddy is eldering at church for the first time at the evening service. Sunday we are taking family pictures for our Christmas card with our favorite photographer, Matt Addington. After that we are heading over to Uncle Chad and Aunt Jenny's to have some good quality family time. The weather has been great, in the 60-70's these last few days, so we hope to get a few more trips to the playground this weekend as well. I heard that we might get some snow next weekend- oh well. Welcome November!

Annika's ABC Puzzle

For the last week or so, Annika has been working on an ABC puzzle. It's a giant ABC train with picture clues on it. Well, Annika has it all figured it out. She can put that thing together with hardly any help at all. She does ask a lot..."Mama what's next"... but then she gets on a roll. Pretty impressive for a two and a half year old. I tried something new on my camera, even though I've had it for five years, I have never done a video clip. So this is my first try. Pretty bad for a former techy teacher. Not to be outdone, while Annika did her ABC's, Kate of course offered her own version. Enjoy!

A Good Ol' Pile of Leaves

The girls and I had a great time this afternoon playing in our huge piles of leaves. Jason was working on the raking part and we were just working on the silly playing part. Gotta love fall in Minnesota!

October Fun

Hi everyone. I know it has been a couple of weeks, so let's get an update. No marker incidents lately, no car repair needed lately....but let me share some of the funnier moments from the past weeks.

I always find it funny, yet very cool that I can now have conversations with Kate and Annika. Serious, actual conversations. Well, Annika was being a little naughty the other day and I went upstairs to have a good talk with her. I asked her why she was climbing on her bookcase after I had asked her not to....she said that Kate told her to. Ha! I thought, "Who should you listen to Annika?" "Grandma and Grandpa" she said, "Who else, Annika?" "Daddy.....and Ginger." (Our dog!) "Who else, Annika" as I am trying not to laugh out loud, "Ummmm, mommy?" Great! Now do you see what I am in for...... for the next 20 plus years. Oh dear!

Another Annika moment, we are sitting and eating dinner and Grandma Cloutier tries to trick Annika. Little Annika is telling Grandma all of the foods that she LOVES. After her extensive list, Grandma says, "and....broccoli." "I like broccoli Grandma" "You do?" "Yes I love broccoli........" Annika tilts her head and looks right at Grandma and says, "I no like broccoli!"

During the last two weeks we have been up north to Two Harbors to visit Grandma and Grandpa Cloutier at their house and see Uncle Marc and his girlfriend Tina. Then Grandma came back to Lakeville with us to watch the girls during our short MEA week. This weekend we finally went to the pumpkin patch. The girls see the pumpkin patch everyday on the way to daycare. They have been asking when we can go there for about a month. So they were very excited when we told them we finally get to go to the PUMPKIN PATCH!!! We had the whole patch to ourselves and the girls had a lot of fun trying to pick out the best pumpkin. They would walk over to a pumpkin and try to lift it and then say "So heavy!". We ended up with three cute little pumpkins and a HUGE pumpkin for daddy to carve up on Halloween.

This weekend the girls and I are home with Grandma and Grandpa and Jason is back in Westbrook for his cousin Sara's wedding. We are looking forward to Monday when Aunt Jenny is coming over to watch the girls while we are back at work after our nice long MEA weekend. Soon October will be done, I can hardly believe it. Where did 2008 go? Oh well, it just teaches you to enjoy every moment you are given......and that is what I plan to do. Enjoy your moments this weekend. God bless!