My Park

Here are some pictures of me and the kids in my favorite place during my favorite time of year: "my park" during the fall in MN:

Kaylee almost made it the whole way around the lake...

Spontaneous Trip to MN

Alright. Here's the thing. I have a tendancy to post pictures from these trips chronologically and say a little blurb about each one. I'm sure there's a much more creative way to do things. After all, less is more (so they say). But remember, not only am I sharing this with family and friends far and wide, this is my only form of journaling or scrapbooking. So here goes.

I found out that I had a week off of doing daycare so I decided to check into a trip home to MN. It was the end of October and I knew I wouldn't be able to make it home over the holidays, so I thought this would be the next best thing - Autumn in MN - is there any place better?!

We arrived on Saturday, Oct 31st. The kids did GREAT on the plane, despite the fact that the DVD player only worked for an hour on a 3 hour flight! The next day we went to "my park" to hike around the lake and play at the playground.

Later, Heather treated Kaylee to a fun project called "cookie painting". It was a fun and delicious idea! Here's Hudson flashing his irresistable smile!

Another day Taylor came with me and the kids to the Children's Museum in St. Paul. What an amazing place! We could spend an entire day there and not see half of it! So many fun things for the kids to do.

I loved that I didn't have to worry about the kids getting into anything they shouldn't. Nothing is off limits there. Everything is very hands-on!

My favorite shot of the day:

This was a neat room for the toddlers. An enclosed place to climb, slide, run, bounce, build, and just go crazy in general. Even Taylor had fun in this room! This is the widest shot I got of the room.

Hudson loves to push things. He was inseperable from this cart (until he turned his back for a moment and a bigger kid whisked it away).

Look out!!! Baby driving a bus!

The water play area was by far the biggest hit. Kaylee loved sending the boats down this slide. Hudson just enjoyed playing in the water.

Hudson pushed Kaylee all the way from the museum, back to the parking ramp!

Off for a walk to the park!

You saw this already, but it deserves some explanation. This is us at the "red park". One that we frequented a lot during our visit. There is also the yellow, blue, and brown park. It seems every playground in MN has its own color scheme.

Hudson also likes to climb into things as you can see: and here:

Had to throw this picture of grandma in. Isn't she beautiful?!!

I think Hudson wants to STOP!!!

He's double fistin it - milk and juice:

This is cute...

This cardboard box ended up being the most loved and used toy during our trip. I don't know that the kids played with any toys at my sister's house. Mostly they took turns playing in the box!

"LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

See ya later!! :-)

Christmas Lights

Just thought I'd share some pictures I snapped tonight as Hudson and I were playing out in our dust of snow. It was snowing a lot harder in Lynden when we were at church this morning. Kaylee and Hudson had a great time playing on the church lawn in the snow. This is the first time Kaylee enjoyed the snow instead of being freaked out by the white stuff sticking to her shoes. Hudson was delighted with the snow and seemed to have no fear.


Anyway here's the front of our house...
Our lovely wreath...

And our "red, white, and blue" Christmas tree...

We usually have white lights on the tree. Last year we thought we'd try blue. It was a little to "dark" for my taste. So this year we decided to put them both on. With the red bows and many red ornaments, it turned out to be a very patriotic tree! I love it.

Oh, and one more picture of my manly little man on his big sister's tricycle. Real men ride pink!

p.s. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I just got pictures from my spontaneous trip to MN in early November and I also will be posting from our recent trip to the WA/OR coast. So stay tuned!