Grandpa and his girls

Grandpa Arnie got the girls all to himself tonight and I'm not sure who was more excited, him or the girls?! We love having him up here, and although we put him to work most of the time, he was able to enjoy the evening, work free!

Happy Halloween!

In Minnesota, we bundle up to go Trick or Treating; winter jackets, hats and gloves are almost always a requirement. ...

We went out with the entire neighborhood and stuck together for most of our time Trick Or Treating, at least 10 kids and 8 adults! ...


"Hey guys, wait up!"....

"All that running was worth it, my sister gave me a SUCKER!"

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

Hope it was as much fun as ours!

Halloween Eve!

It was a busy Halloween Eve for us :) We started the morning off with storytime at the library and a witch was our reader! The girls loved being in their costumes and hearing some funny and some scary Halloween stories. This afternoon, we were able to join Regan's class for a special Halloween party where the kids were fed cupcakes, cookies, ice cream, lemonade and candy and then sent on our way....can you say "sugar high"!? Yikes! Regan's especially looking forward to Trick or Treating tomorrow night!

Regan checking out some books before storytime all decked out in her costume.

The witch was good at holding the kids' attention today.

Regan was sweet enough to share her treats with Sidney and nice enough not to knock her down when she ate almost her entire cookie :)

She kept calling this her mask; she'll figure it out tomorrow after the first house puts candy inside her bag! She'll no longer need to use it on her head! Goof ball :)

Happy Halloween everyone!

(If you can't tell, Regan is wearing a unicorn and she is the rider, Sidney is a pink poodle...perfect for our little "princess")

Dancing Sidney

Thanks to Alison Stueber, we all love Raffi in this house :) Sidney's learning how to dance on her own, but doesn't quite have her balance yet. Enjoy!

Sidney's morning face

This is what Sidney does when she wakes up. Walks around with her "little blankie" and pacifier until her eyes adjust and she's ready for toys :) She's a little bit like her dad in that she needs a few (or many!) minutes before she's ready for the day to start.

Reading

Sure hope this isn't how she thinks we sound when we read her stories! (Sorry for the crying in the background, we had just baked cookies and Regan thought she could get two of them before bed?!)

Getting ready!

We carved pumpkins today, or should I say, Ryan carved pumpkins after I dug out their guts. Regan did the supervising and Sidney begged to get a chance to help (she still has this way of sticking everything in her mouth so she wasn't allowed near the seeds!). Regan preferred to stick her hands in the water of seeds over the pumpkin guts; she doesn't know what she's missing!

(see Sidney peeking up whining to help?!)

(nice job daddy! you do great work!)

I love bacon!!

Thanks for the bacon Uncle Lon, as you can tell, it's a hit! Ryan made it on the grill so I wouldn't have to smell it all week long; he impressed himself on how well it worked!

Finally!

It's been a long time coming, but Sidney is finally walking, on her own, and quite well! After you watch the video below, you'll know why it's taken her so long to accomplish this milestone, Regan has done a lot to get in her way (literally!). We're so proud of Sidney, and best of all, she beat Ryan by a couple of weeks (he was a late walker by his mother's report).

You might have a kid in preschool if.....

she comes home from school to tell you she had "meat chunk surprise" for lunch today!

Oh, the days of school lunches; I'm certain I don't miss them at all!

Sucker

Sidney got her first sucker tonight, of course she loved it! Since it took her a good 20 minutes to consume a dum dum sucker, we now have a new plan for dinner out-bring a sucker! Wish us luck as we try it out :)

Regan was showing us her colored tongue after eating her sucker, so Sidney decided to show us her tongue too! This one's for you Shane!

Half-Haunted Halloween

This afternoon we went to Woodlake Nature Center to take part in their Half Haunted Halloween party! Regan and Sidney both enjoyed being in their costumes for an hour. Regan was incredibly shy along the trail, not wanting to get too close to any staff/adults in their costumes. It took a lot of coaxing to get her to participate in the "games" to win her treat/prize. At the end, they have the biggest petting zoo we've ever seen. Ryan and Sidney got approached from behind by a horse! Regan's favorite were the bunnies; we think she felt the most safe hanging out in their separate pen, not to mention the bunnies were the softest animals out of the bunch.

Regan on the Lily Pad

Dad, Sidney and "the horse"

At one point, Regan told me "next time we get to bring a bunny home!". Wonder where that bunny will be sleeping??

Mom and Sidney at the end of a long afternoon. The Nature Center is really quite pretty. This is going to be our annual picture; check back in 2008 and you'll see a simlar pic. I'll try to post them together.

Pumpkins

This morning, our neighborhood park hosted a pumpkin giveaway. We love this event and enjoy letting both girls pick out their very own pumpkin; this year's pumpkins were HUGE! Regan's favorite part of the morning was probably the hot cider and cookie as well as the little toy she picked out. Sidney's favorite was sitting and touching all the pumpkins.

Construction

After about 3 years of waiting, the construction crew showed up yesterday to tear out the old driveway apron and build a new curb! We're so excited to have it look normal again. The girls loved watching the big trucks out the window; so much so that I even moved the couch out of the way so they didn't have to perch on the couch to see. We might have to make that a permanent move so they can easily see out.

Pretty Kitty Siddy

Sidney got turned into a kitty at school this week. I nicknamed her my "pretty kitty Siddy". Well, today, Regan decided that she'd try to turn Sidney back into pretty kitty Siddy and we caught her coloring with crayons on Sidney's face!!!!! Girls!

Family pics

We took the whole family for professionaly pictures today.

Here's a sneak peek from their online gallery; enjoy!

Fun by the fire

We lit a fire tonight, probably the first one since Regan was born. Pretty sad. We've been very scared that the girls would get too close to the fireplace or the flames would be too hot. Both girls LOVED it! Regan just sat, watched the fire and colored pictures. Sidney paid less attention to it, which is just fine; I'd rather her not get too interested in it at this age. She does know it's hot though because when she looks at it, she blows (like she's blowing it out; that's her way of saying "hot"!)!

We're in trouble

...no photo, let me explain.

Tonight I had the bath water running before bath time. Both girls were running around, half dressed and being very giggly. I didn't pay much attention and went into their room to grab PJ's. I knew something had to be bad when I walked into the bathroom to them teaming up against us! Turns out, they unraveled toilet paper (likely Sidney) and then threw it into the bath water!!! (that part was likely Regan's doing). I wanted to laugh but first scolded them and then turned my back so they wouldn't see me laughing. Ryan didn't think it was as funny. And he wasn't even the one that had to scoop out wet toilet paper....I almost wanted to throw it on the ceiling to see if it would stick!

Those were the days....

Snow

Ok, so it doesn't seem fair to me that we have snow in October, but since Regan was more than excited to get out and enjoy the day, I guess I'll try to be happy alongside her. She got to play out in the wet stuff this morning with Grandma Jan and apparently they had a great time and got pretty wet in the process. Welcome to winter!

First snow angel of the season

Dance!

Regan had her first dance class tonight; she loved it!! I have to admit that I was incredibly nervous she'd be one of the kids clinging to me or saying she just wanted to watch; needless to say I spent a very long time over the weekend preparing her for today. Thankfully she wasn't one of the handful of kids who refused to participate. I took a few videos from the class (she's on the far left in the group dance). I can't wait to see what next week brings :) After that we won't be allowed to watch the full class, so we'll have to wait until the recital to see the results of her hard work.

Regan practicing her sashays

Hard at work learning the class dance for the recital

Making a mess!

Next to eating, this is definately Sidney's favorite thing to do. I try not to let daddy see her mess because he thinks it's nuts to let her play with the Tupperware when she has boxes full of toys. Sorry dad!

Indian Point

Almost 7 years ago to the day, Ryan proposed to me on Indian Point in New Ulm. It's been tradition to head back up there to check out the fall colors. It was another great year of colors, although we all froze while trying to get a good picture. Amazing how much has changed in just 7 years!

13 months old

Sidney would barely cooperate to take this picture, so there may not be many more of these pictures. She likes to pull down the board...can't you tell?

We can't believe she's over a year old, and still refusing to use walking as her primary mode of moving around. Stinker. She's definately better at crawling and insists on doing it unless someone is waiting with open arms for her to walk to. She loves to eat (that's obvious in other posts) and remains a "mama's baby". She loves to dig in people's purses, unravel the toilet paper and throw unwanted items off her high chair! She keeps us busy :)

Fall photo shoot 2009

Some of my favorite trees are located in Augsburg Park not far from home. It's become tradition to take the girls' pictures next to some of my favorites. We headed over there today and I was not disappointed. Unfortunately it was incredibly cold so we couldn't play for long after pictures. I even put Sidney into her fleece snowsuit! Brrrr.

One of my favorite trees...

Sisters in leaves

Regan

Sidney

Climbing up!

This weekend we turned out backs and suddenly, Sidney was climbing the stairs! I challenged her to climb further today and she did the entire flight, all by herself. Of course, she turned back multiple times to check I was still there and would've tumbled all the way back down at least once while laughing at Regan. It's time to shut the doors and keep a watchful eye on our little climber!

Fun with the Schwartz's

Kari and the kids came up Saturday to spend the night and the kids (and parents!) had a BLAST! Although our original plans to ride the ski lifts at Hyland were cancelled due to rain, no one seemed to mind. They play nicely together and it's great for us to catch up in person instead over email :)

Kari was the lucky one who got to read bedtime stories

Ice cream and milk (in matching cups!).

School days

Here's a glimpse into Regan's Wednesday at school (which happens to be Show and Tell day).

Showing off a new toy (thanks to Sidney's birthday!).

Group art projects

Team work! They built this HUGE block tower; I bet they had more fun knocking it over.

Taking a break with friends.