Outdoor Christmas Tree!

We put our Christmas tree outside this year!  It's a tree we cut from our woods.  With a toddler...and the patio finished...and windows at the right height...it worked out great and I LOVE IT!  We might keep putting it outside from now on.  It's more fun decorating it outside.  Doesn't matter if it tips over...no furniture to rearrange...

Store Pictures

The school was closed as an elementary school in 1972.  It's on the historic register. 

The woodwork is very nice! 

Ant farm

Felicity loves her ant farm!  The ants came on Saturday and they are hard at work building tunnels! 

Halloween

Calvin has been LOVING his new Lego creations.  He's even been gracious enough to insist that I keep the alligator on my night stand.  😊

The boys acting out their costumes.  Isaac's got the Spiderman pose down and Calvin's letting his skeleton bones dangle.

 End of the school day on Calvin's birthday.  He had an awesome day!

this weekend

We went to the Field Museum with Brekkes this weekend.  It was a fun day!!

We also celebrated Felicity's and Ian's birthdays

Paigey's started walking :)

Not a lot of walking in this one, but her expression at the beginning is priceless.  

I stood Paige up to take her picture today...and she started walking all on her own!  She's been practicing now that she's got the hang of it.

deer

One of the mama's and her two fawns are now in the front yard everyday looking for apples.  

patio, yeah!

Middle of Sept we had a patio poured!  We put the kids' handprints in the cement.  Paige has a footprint instead of a handprint because she grabbed a handful of concrete!

Bathroom remodel

We remodeled the worlds smallest bathroom.  It turned out just as fun and as cute as I had envisioned!  Never thought I'd be replacing wallpaper with more wallpaper though!

Calvin was super proud of his Lego tower (after it got knocked down by Isaac about six times...).

A few Minnesota pictures

We spent Sunday afternoon at the beach at Lake Harriet

 At the fair!

Fawns Playing

Ian has a camera for ANIMALS ONLY!  People, power lines, buildings and such are not allowed in any pictures.  Today we had two does and three fawns in the yard.  He learned how to record video and caught the fawns playing!

Play set!

We got a fun new toy in our backyard this weekend!  It took David and Randy about 8 hours to put it together, which is actually much shorter than we were expecting.  It doesn't have a swing :-( but I think we're going to try to hang one from a limb of our tree.  The boys love it!!!

Calvin was so excited to eat a snack at the little picnic table.

July

Our neighborhood has a 4th of July bike parade every year.  They even had police officers blocking off streets for us to cross!

 Remember the world's most cautious swimmer?  Well, he jumped off the DIVING BOARD today at swimming lessons!

A few Montana pics

Finally getting around to sorting through some of our Montana pictures.  It was a great trip!!

Paige is a crawler!

Paigey's been a full time crawler for a few weeks now!  She is still a smiley girl.

Spring Show! WOWZA

This year the show is set on the south seas. 

The music is always fabulous. 

This year is no exception!

 E's dance...part one.  They are rainbows!

Part two.

A little taste of a ballet class a few years older.

And this.  This is only the beginning...it's dramatic, so much fun to watch. 

one-year-old cutie pie

Paigey has started crawling...slowly. 

Today she got both of her sweet little legs going the right direction!

 

And here's one from her birthday, eat a chocolate cupcake!

Last weekend

The weather was gorgeous here last weekend so we took full advantage!  On Saturday we stopped by a local farm and saw their baby goats and sheep.  They also had a bunch of chicken running around.   Sunday we headed into the city to go to Maggie Daley park.  It's part of the larger Millenium Park complex so we stopped by the big silver bean.  It's a really nice park!

 Their hair matches :)

Arizona

Here are a few highlights from our trip to Sedona.  

It was hard not to take a million pictures of the beautiful scenery!

View from Chapel of the Holy Cross.

 Chapel of the Holy Cross

 Slide Rock - there was a natural water slide you could go down in the river.

 Oak Creek Canyon

 Montezuma Castle - really cool!

 All dolled up for the wedding!

 View of Camelback Mountain from the Wrigley Mansion.