More birthday!

Here are some pics from the actual birthday celebration. Nothing too fancy, just the family.

This is a letter that NW wrote to LW for her birthday. She did the whole letter by herself. She didnt ask us for any help. She sounded out all of the words all on her own. She was so proud.

Breakfast donut with a candle.

This isn't birthday related. But I went and got her a new helmet for her skating lessons. The bike helmet wasn't cutting it, for me or the teacher.

Skating Lessons

Look who is taking skating lessons. It was bound to happen sooner or later. She is signed up for 6 weeks of lessons and we will see how she likes it. So far so good.

Lookin' good!

 Check out that stride..she's a natural.

Look who is 3!...almost

It wasn't her official birthday, but we had LW's birthday party on Sunday. Once again she wanted everyone to come to the party in costumes. Getting kids to wear costumes is easy, adults on the other hand are averse to wearing costumes. Except for Grandma M, she came dressed as Old Mother Hubbard and stayed in character for the whole party and through dinner. She might still be wearing the costume..who knows.

Here is the whole group of kids. Finally no Anna or Elsa or anyone from Frozen.

Funny faces.

Yup, that's me in the yellow. AW and I were the Man in the Yellow Hat and Curious George. I didnt think it was that obscure of a reference, but there were people who didn't know of Curious George. I guess you have to have a 3 and a 5 year old to relate. LW watches Curious George on Netflix non-stop.

Get ready.

In progress.

NW and Grandpa John. He wore his flair hair.

LW picked out a Sophia the First dress for the event. But as you can see she refused to wear it. Too itchy. So she was a bumblebee instead. There was a while there where it looked like the birthday girls was not going to be wearing a costume to her own party. She rebounded nicely.

Old Mother Hubbard and NW the unicorn.

NW and Grandpa Jim

A week off!!

I took last week off because NW didn't have school for a few days. We spent all week running around and doing things around town. Tons of family time. I had a great time and I would guess that the kids did too. What's not to love..bike rides, apple orchards and going out to eat. Sounds like fun doesn't it.

LW playing in a small pile of leaves she had me rake up.

One of the days I drove up to Crosby to ride my bike for a while.

Different bike, but still in Crosby.

I took the long way back home and came back through Brainerd. Of course I stopped at the rink. They remodeled the front of the building, but the rest still looks the same. It has been the same since I was a little kid. I love this place.

We stopped at the ice cream shop in Waconia and she had a vanilla ice cream cone. It takes about 30 minutes to eat a single scoop cone. That means that she ends up wearing about half of the cone because it melts faster than she can eat it.

She prefers chocolate chip mint ice cream.

Something caught their eye and they just stood there and stared at whatever was going on.

This is a picture of NW taking a video of her spraying the hose.

Completely Random

 As usual, I found a bunch of blog worthy pictures of a bunch of things that we have been doing.

The whole family at an open house a customer had at their restaurant.

Sometimes she wont take no for an answer. Today she insisted on bringing her luggage on the walk around the neighborhood.

Mixed in with all of this, I had a work trip to New Orleans.

We get up early and do a lap of the neighborhood. We were up at sunrise on this day. Check out the long shadows. The sun just came up over the trees.

This could be the coolest ride at any city park. It's a zip line that is about 40' long and there is a line of kids to give it a shot. If I thought it could hold me, I would have been in line too.

First Day of Kindergarten!

My little girl went off to kindergarten today. I'd be lying if I said it was easy. We have been going to the orientations at the school and meetings with her new teacher and everything to get her ready for school. So she was super excited and ready to go. The first thing she said to me today was how excited she was for kindergarten and how she wanted to get ready. She was ready to go, I wasn't ready to let her go.

Here are some pictures of the morning.

On the front step with a sign and her new butterfly backpack.

She practically ran onto the bus. We had to slow her down to take pictures.

Just for fun. Here is a picture of me going to school for one of my first days. Not sure what grade. Nice briefcase...

More Birthday

As promised, here are a few more pictures of the birthday parties.

That reaction is worth the price of the Lego's.

Lot's of work ahead of her. Once she starts, she cant stop. So this took her a couple of days.

This is the birthday party for the kids. All covered up and painting in the backyard.

Here is the birthday party party.

Funny faces.

Same group, under the swingset.

What's a birthday without a pinata?

Everyone got to take a swing at that thing.

After photo of the painted pots with the plants.

This is from the family birthday party. Wearing her new vest which is purple of course.

The birthday girl took this picture of us all. Not too bad.

Here is a picture of her taking a picture of us.