Veterans Day

For Veterans Day NW's school asked that we bring in a family picture with a veteran. Grandpa Jim and NW are in the middle column at the bottom. Nice gesture by her school to show some appreciation to those that served.

I saw this display in person yesterday and it was alot more impressive than I expected. The display covers the entire wall of the lobby of the school. There were family pictures with kids and their grandparents, kids with their parents or just pictures of those have served. The entire things was very touching and very well done.  It was a nice thank you to everyone that did what was typically a thankless job.

Thank you.

Sleep over...kind of

Grandma M had everyone sleep over so that I could paint LW's room uninterrupted. This was good until about 11:30. Then I went and picked up LW so she could sleep in her own bed. AW and NW still stayed overnight. I brought LW back over at 7:30am to rejoin the party and so I could get back to painting.

PJ's on and ready for bed. Just kidding.

Here is how LW rides in the cart at Target. It reminds me of the movie Titanic.

Halloween

Here is a picture of the neighbor girls and our girls. They ran around the neighborhood for about 2.5 hours. I pulled LW in the wagon for a while. But overall a very impressive effort.

Carved and painted pumpkins. Gotta do both.

NW's dance class.

Look at the cute Unicorn and Bumble Bee!

Blame this on the neighbors. They thought it was fun to sort the candy to see what was the most popular candy given. It was pretty cool to see. Especially since the popular candy wasn't same between the 2 kids.

NW's haul.

This is how I am used to seeing the candy. It looks like a lot more to me.

Both kids at dance class.

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.