Take Me Out to the Ballgame….

The whole fam spent the afternoon at the ballpark yesterday for the Twins game.  Many thanks to our gracious friend for the tix!

The kids had a blast.  And believe it or not, it was the 2nd game for each of them (even baby D!) D’s first game was earlier this year at a work even for Daddy-Man and the girls was at the dome a couple of years ago (here).

I was a bit nervous about the seats at first, they are up against a wall and I was immediately worried about how often we’d have to crawl over people to get out.  Luckily, though, the girls didn’t ask to leave the seats once and being against the wall was PERFECT for baby D and I to stand and sway for a good portion of the game.  I know the family behind me appreciated that I wasn’t standing in front of them!

After the game the kids got to go down on the field to run the bases.  Being out on the warning track and down on field level was thrilling for all of us. (I’m just going to go ahead and speak for baby D and say that he was thrilled too!)

Of course, I had to stop to for a photo op in the outfield.

The girls walking out to 1st base.

K has left Little Mama in the dust!

Little Mama rounding 2nd.

K headed for 3rd and then home.

 

I wish I would have had the shot just a little more to the left, I think K might be touching home plate in this photo.

Waiting to meet Dad behind home plate.

Waiting for Mom to catch up after getting behind in the crowd taking photos.
(It really is a shame nobody ever takes this girl’s picture, isn’t it!)

We had a fabulous time at the game.  It was such a great family afternoon! 

Christmas 2010

We hope that you had a great Christmas. 

We were THRILLED to spend Christmas in our own house this year.  It was exciting for everyone to have Grandma come to us in the frozen tundra and to get to wake up (for real this time!) in our own beds on Christmas morning.

I loved getting up with the girls and watching them as they scanned the packages under the tree and to hear them as they reported how Santa really did eat all of the cookies and drink the milk that they left for him.

Here they are on Christmas Eve in their traditional brand new holiday jammies.

  

We made a rule that it had to be at least 7 am before they could wake everyone up on Christmas morning.  Little Mama knocked on our bedroom door at 6:15 to ask if the “first number on the clock was 7, yet.”

I was able to stall her by asking her to keep my spot in bed warm while I ran next door to feed the dogs their breakfast, and when I got back she was still there but K met me at the door to tell me she was “sure we got a Wii, because there was a package labeled with all of our family names".

It wasn’t quite 7, so she and I went to get M and I let them come down to scan their loot and dig into their stockings.

 

It’s amazing how excited they get over a new toothbrush from Santa.

It wasn’t long before Daddy-Man was downstairs and I cheated a little on the time and let them go to the basement a few minutes early to get Grandma.

Since K was so sure that she spotted the package that held her much coveted Wii, they went straight for that one as their first pick.

They were both THRILLED to have been right and that they found the big gift first.  SANTA was the big hero on that one, but I definitely should mention that Grandma bankrolled this one for SANTA as her gift to Daddy-Man and me this year.

 

Once the big one was out of the way, we took turns opening gifts one at a time and by 8 we were enjoying some delicious caramel rolls.

We enjoyed a late prime rib lunch at home.  I really should have taken pictures of that because the prime rib actually turned out well (if I do say so myself!)

It was so nice to be at home this year and Grandma got her first white Christmas ever!

At home learning

Since K is only in school every other day and Little Mama is not yet in preschool, I try to fit in some learning activities at home.  Sometimes the learning is in the playing and discussion and other times we actually sit down at the table to do some work.

This week we did a few different things.  I found a great website that K’s teacher is using at school and got some worksheets for both of them to do.  K has been working on identifying beginning sounds of words and matching upper and lower case letters in school this week.  So we did more of the same at home with both girls.  Little Mama is starting to learn sounds that the letters make – she hopes to read “just like K does” soon.

I also added some cutting and gluing, turning practice with scissors into some fun art.

Little Mama got out the watercolors afterward to add a touch more color.

K also recently worked on a couple of graphing projects at school, so I thought we’d do one at home too.  I took some of our Halloween M&M’s and had K guess how many there would be (before counting), and then we lined them up on the graph paper to see how many there really were and then she graphed it herself.

 
It was great practice for her in both reading a graph and making a graph.

Not to be left out at all, Little Mama worked with her own pile of M&M’s.

For her the activity was more about sorting the candies into their proper color columns and then counting how many of each color there were.  She too wanted to attempt to graph them, but unfortunately her attention span doesn’t hold as well as K’s does for that kind of activity.  I was happy enough that she got some practice sorting and counting.

Hope you all had a great week!

The one where I have baby fever

I know 4 babies that have been born this month, and one other last month.  For me to tell you that I have baby fever would be like me saying that the earth is round.  I have major baby fever. 

I think Little Mama has baby fever too.  After 2 days of snuggling with baby A, she asked if we could get our own baby A.

Both girls loved spending time with her.  I had to fight them when it was time to feed her, just to get a turn myself!  For some reason, though, there wasn't any fighting when it was time for diaper changes.  Wierd.  I wonder why.

The Birthday Post | Little Mama turned 3

I just.can't.believe.it.  Could someone please explain to me where the last 3 years went?  I've completely lost them.  I know that I didn't age any - so how could she?

It feels like this was just yesterday.

Please forgive the fact that I'm a hot mess in that photo.  I'd just had a baby, you know.

 

We had a great time celebrating Little Mama's third birthday at Nick Universe inside the Mall of America.

We had 3 hours of rides and fun. 

I was a little unsure about how she'd handle this one.  The Wonder Pets Fly Boat ride.  She wanted to go, K, was willing to chaperone her.  So I stood back as they lined up and hopped on.

And hopped, hopped and then hopped some more.

Can you see, they held hands the whole time.

<

We capped our trip off with lunch at McDonalds and a stop at the Barbie store.  Where I swore that I wasn't buying anything.  Ha.  Yeah, right.  They are too good at getting their way. And who could resist a $3 Barbie Doll.

Happy Birthday Little Mama!

WE LOVE YOU!

Wordless Wednesday | it's fun being three

 

Happy 3rd Birthday Little Mama

 

We had a great day!  More photos to come.

Exploring the MCM

Saturday, we spent the afternoon with our good friends exploring the Minnesota Children's Museum. The girls had a blast checking everything out.

One of the biggest hits of the day was when they got to rock out on stage and see themselves on the monitor.

Another big hit was the dinosaur exhibit.  The girls got to dig for fossils.  M loved the goggles and "digging" in the old tires for fossils.

We had a great afternoon and can't wait to go back.

First.

M got her very first dance recital costume at class tonight. 

Girly Girls

Check out my girly girl painting her own nails.

and her sister's too...

I'm sure she could find time in her schedule for an appointment with you, if you are into multi colored nails and polish all over your nails and hands.  Oh. and the table and floor too.