You spin me right ‘round, baby

Right ‘round like a record, baby

Right ‘round, ‘round, ‘round

 Call me!

Zoe's phone imaginary conversations don't cease to amuse me.

Check out Roman:

Hambone, hambone
Have you heard?
Papa’s gonna buy me a mocking bird
And if that mocking bird don’t sing
Papa’s gonna buy me a diamond ring
And if that diamond ring don’t shine
Papa’s gonna take it to the five and dime

Zoe, she just looks like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. SO girly. This child came from me?!  And she's loving her Christmas dress. I think I brought this out a month ago as a "princess dress" and she always wants to put it on now. Fine by me, I'm glad we're getting some additional use out of it!

 
And this little compact sits in her purse as well. I think it came from a happy meal and had some lip balm in it (which was empty by the time I got home from work!). It doesn't stop her from making herself pretty.

And apparently Roman was in need of a little beauty help too.

It was Saturday night, I guess that makes it all right.

Errand runners

Yeah, I'm just going to start sending you two to the store for me!

We had to run a few errands this morning. One stop was the grocery store. For the longest time I would not attempt it by myself. You're getting big enough where it's possible to let you walk along. Possible, but not ideal.  Usually there's some kind of kid cart (racecar, or at least a 2 seater). Well imagine my delight when we stopped at this Cub Foods and they had "customer in training" carts available for you two! I'd seen these before, but it's been awhile and it wasn't at a Cub. You did really well actually.  It kept me laughing throughout the store.

And imagine my surprise when we turned the corner and saw THE EASTER BUNNY!
You certainly did want to check this out.

And when you found out there were treats - well that takes the cake.

Roman even helped himself to a second one!  But there's work to be done.

Gotta stock up on the cereal while it's on special...

I (don't) want my 2 dollars

Yard/Garage/Church/ECFE/whatever sale season is upon us! Woo hoo. I hit a couple the other weekend and found this pink bean bag chair for $2. Wee hee hee :)

(I want my two dollars...No, you can have it)

So I guess it was time to take down the Christmas trees in the yard...

Roman "helped" move the parts around for me. Good thing I hadn't found all the corresponding boxes in the mess that was the garage and shed and brought them out so that next winter we'd have a simple assembly task.  Or good thing I now know not to pull all the trees out of the ground at once and expect little ones to not touch them.

"I want to color". I wish I could transcribe what it sounds like. Cu-yer. THIS was the perfect spot for those non-washable crayons. Outside and away from surfaces I care about. 

And a time to get out the chalk. This easel sat outside all winter, and it's looking a little worse for the wear. But oh well, we picked it up for free on a walk last fall. If it makes it thru the summer I'll be happy.  A friend of mine gave me a gigantic chalk board when I first moved into our house. Real slate I think. I had mentioned to her that I always wanted to write on the chalkboard when I was in grade school. I loved it. Her work was getting rid of one and she salvaged it for me. SCORE. It's been in the basement for a long time, but one of these days it's going to get used again.

This was the nice Wednesday when we spent most of the day outside. Which meant digging out toys from last summer. Cutting the grass (as previously posted) is a fun task. For now!  Doubly fast with two.

And the house. The house. This was under our newly refashinoned covered storage area and Zoe wanted it out in the yard. I wasn't ready to do that, but she went ahead and played in it anyway. The "kitchen" sink was full of muddy water, which I didn't realize until about 20 minutes after she said "I'm going to go wash my hands" and disappeared. Yep, you washed your hands in the dirty, wintry mix of snowmelt and dirt. Oh well. When nap time came around I was able to wash up the house and bring it out in the yard.

I thought that was going to work well  until we had some "ownership" disputes.

Yeah, it's interesting for one to learn to stake their claim. As is the concept of sharing.  But we get by. Or we have time outs. Or we realize we really need a better plan for discipline. Yeah, something like that.

"See my sandcastle?"

Even cleaning up a closet is an adventure and a journey in imagination for you.

fun with cousin Mina

Mina joined us on a jaunt to the Minnesota Children's Museum. This time the craft room (I bet it has a better name than that, but I don't recall) had a cardboard castle that was open for decorating.
We sat at a table and made a mess, er...made some decorations.

Zoe liked the glue.
I started to clean up the mess, but then I realized that this room is for kids. Kids make messes. A little (or a lot) of glue on the paper topped table wasn't going to get us kicked out of the place.

And take a look at that Castle. It had been up 3 weeks when we were there.

We did put an outline of our handprints on the floor.

And cousin Mina added her own "flair" to the castle. Way to go, Mina!

This is what happens when you take the grill out for the first time in the spring

You get crispy spiders.

It WAS nice to get the grill out again, though. This means your Dad gets to be responsible for a portion of the meal. Sounds good to me.

Ah...no people

After our hair cut experience we went for a picnic over in the new...Huh. I'm not sure what it's called. Kind of a park, kind of not. An amphitheater? Let me back track. Maple Grove has a huge community center (of which I've never been in) overlooking a man-made lake (or the vestige of a gravel pit?). Next to it a new library, which we did check out last fall, it was very nice. And next to that library is this area for congregating. Congregatin' Stat'on. That's what I'll call it today. It's actually where we went last summer for the kids parade, only this time it wasn't teeming with people. Just us, and a few people here and there going for an afternoon walk around the drainage ditch, er, lake.

Actually, it was quite nice. I liked it. My patience for crowds has largely diminished, so this was perfect.

It SO reminds me of Colorado. This whole section of Maple Grove does for some reason. Maybe it's the newness of it all, so much like suburban Denver that your dad and I saw on during our meandering early days. Or maybe it's the style, the look that they chose. Or maybe it's the pig piles of dirt that are all around. MN mountains. When I first moved into my house none of this was up there, it actually was a gravel pit. And it's been growing and growing since. There is terrain. Is that sad? Sad that it takes earth moving equipment to make some interesting landscaping features?! I don't care. I like it.

The world is your stage kiddos. Yeah, that's an awfully easy line. But then again it reminds me of standing on the Red Rocks stage with your dad, back in the day. :)  Did I tell you about the time I recklessly bought Robert Plant/Alison Krauss tickets for a show at that very venue?  Did I tell you that before the June show we found out I was pregnant with you and that kind of put the kibosh on travelling out there to see it? Or at least we thought our time and money was best spent elsewhere? Yeah, I think it was. It is.

By the way this place does have a real name. The Town Green. Very disneyesque. I think I prefer to call it the Congregatin' Stat'on. Hillbilly Havana. The Town Spleen. Gather round the ol' spillway. Rendezvous at the runoff pond....

There was a little girl who had a little curl...

Right in the middle of her forehead
When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

This was a rhyme that was in a book I had as a child and for some reason as I looked at the pictures I took today, I had the first two lines running thru my head. Not the last 2, but I guess I'll take them ;)

One little boy badly needed a haircut and one little girl was brushing the hair out of her eyes, so we thought we'd take them both in at the same time. Zoe was gung ho. We didn't make an appointment and had about a 20 minute wait. That wasn't so bad, because the place we went had a little kids size table with crayons and paper, a shelf full of trucks and another shelf full of dinosaurs. And there was a lot of activity, so there was never a dull moment. Everytime another child was done Zoe asked "my turn?". Pretty soon little one. Maybe because she was anxious to get a dum dum lollipop at the end!

 At any rate, she made no fuss. Daddy was there to document the process with a video camera, mainly because we did the same for Roman a year ago. That seems like a long time ago! I think I'm understanding the declining documentation that goes with succeeding children (speaking as child #3). Been there, done that. But for you, Ms Zoe, we document the cutting of the hair.

Although your Dad and I both remarked that it was probably something we could have done at home. A little off the front, a little off the back...

But I think this worked out well. You got your dum dum, mama got some pictures. There was no crying, there was no screaming, there was no hurt feelings.

There WAS an envelope of your hair. And there was a sticker on your shirt for being such a good girl.

There WAS a little bit of waiting for your brother to get done, but this was old hat to him.

 
He got to babysit the stylist's Thomas. Lucky him :)

A good day for a backyard picnic!

Last Wednesday (or the day of sun- woo hoo!)



UNTIL a little girl decided it was a good idea to become one with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or open 'er up and use its contents as lotion.



It's times like these when I wonder where she learned this. And, sorry Shawn, I tell myself "she picked it up at daycare". Not because I intellectually believe that, but it certainly is an easy excuse to think she saw another child do something and is imitating it. Which is no reflection on our daycare provider. I really don't know how she handles it. Kids coming from different houses, different rules, different philosophies. And we're pretty relaxed at this house. Maybe too much, although Roman bit Ms Zoe yesterday, so we had to deal with that one. Not good.

At any rate, I probably should be blaming tv/movies/media because that's the likely source. Ok. Going forward I need to think of a faux scapegoat. Time to become creative...

Because cleaning your hands on your brother's hair just isn't acceptable Ms Zoe!

We're ready

Scratch that, we're more than ready.

We had a super stupendous nice day yesterday and since it was my day off, I was able to get out and enjoy it with you two (and a picnic lunch as a family, with your Dad). I'm prepared to call it the official beginning of spring. Yeah, I know officially that already happened, but you have to be careful in Minnesota to attach yourself too closely with those calendar milestones. It doesn't mean mother nature isn't going to "bless" you with her wintry mix.  But I'm confident that this is is, we're on our way to warmer weather. And this, my little ones, is a beautiful thing to behold. Spring is rebirth and renewed energy. It's excitement and happiness and thankfulness for sun, glorious sun!

 And time to get out there and enjoy the outdoors.

Take a walk. Look skyward.

We were able to get up to St Cloud this past Saturday to have a short visit with Sister Helenette. Since we were up there, we decided to check out the Munsinger and Clemens Gardens. Yeah, it's too early, but we now know to go back when the plants are growing and the flowers blooming.

Remnants of snow remained from the last snowstorm (see what I mean about relying on the calendar for seasonal cues?!)

But you had fun trotting down the paths and checking out the giant fountain, even if there was no water yet.

We walked down to the Mississippi. Picture of you 3? No thanks, said Ms Zoe (and cheese said Roman).

You guys were having too much fun picking up acorns. The world is never boring.

These are the days of playing hard

And falling asleep on the couch before dinner.

To be fair, I think this was day 1 of the cold that went around the house (poor girl!)

One way to ask for a snack

"Mommy, I want cheese to-the-rescue!"

Happy Dance!

Because the kids are interested in mowing the lawn?
Well, yes. But more that it was SO NICE out today. What a great day to be off work. We were able to clean up the yard a bit and take out some fun summer toys.  Zoe ditched the hoodie after a short time, and wouldn't put it back on. Roman followed suit not too much later. I couldn't blame them.

I had to pause and be thankful for our yard. We have a small house, which oddly enough I don't really dwell on as much as I used to, but we have a great yard for the kids to play in. No, it's not perfect , but this time of year it certainly is fun to spend the day in that "room". We were out all day. More to follow.

Hard to believe this was only 2 weeks ago!

Thanks to Daddy for taking these pictures (from inside the house!).