We All Scream.....

.....for Ice Cream......

yummy ice cream in Excelsior tonight.....

Don't P*SS Off Abby

you might end up with a couple of these......

in your head......

if you decide it is funny to destroy the American Girl Classroom set up on the kitchen floor.....which took over 2 hours to create......just sayin' you should watch out for the wrath of Abby.....

everyone is feeling okay now. but there were lots of tears. from both of them.  and lots of "discussion". lots of discussion. first from mom, all the way to and from the doctor's office. and then from dad when he got home. and then again before bed. i think the message sank in.

we've had a great summer...and I'm sad to see it almost over. but i think the kiddos may be getting on each other's nerves a bit. it's probably a good thing that school starts in a week and a half. we don't need any (MORE) broken bones.

chicago get-away

just back from our very quick chicago weekend.  we fit a lot in in a short amount of time.  we stopped off at the great wolf lodge waterpark in the dells our first night (thursday).  it was just as we remembered it and the kids still love it. h&g actually went down one of the bigger slides and loved it.  mike somehow wobbled along on one foot and didn't fall once on the very slippery cement floors. due to his injury i was designated at abby's water slide buddy, so i got to experience it all this time! we swam some more friday morning before taking off for chicago.  we made it fairly quickly, but then hit the famous chicago traffic. kinda forgot about that. took over an hour to get into the city. so our 3 hour drive actually ended up being over 4. but it was nice to gaze at the city and take pictures as we moved along at 5 miles an hour :-)  we finally made it to our hotel and met trish there for some shopping.....american girl and the lego store! everyone was able to spend some birthday money (thanks mom!) and they were very happy. off to dinner at a great restaurant (best desserts ever. yes, plural desserts. so yum!) and then back to the hotel for some rest.

you can't see the miles of break lights. miles. miles.

pretty buildings to look at, though :-)

view from our hotel. beautiful lake michigan out there

old water tower station

pretty house by michigan ave

darth vadar at the lego store. it took griff 2 seconds to find the legos he wanted. we were out of there in record time!

american girl store. we were here a bit longer, ahem. took awhile to find the perfect outfit.

sat we got up early to go to the shedd aquarium. we got there around 9am and saw an awesome whale/dolphin/sea lion/penguin/hawk show.  we then saw the 4d movie planet earth. after that we walked around a bit and spent a lot of time staring at the sharks.  we left around 12 and were STUNNED at the line to get into the place. it wrapped around and around and around....almost all the way back to the parking garage and soldier stadium. those people were probably going to stand in line for 3 hours to see some fish. crazy.

view of city from shedd

view of city from moving car on the expressway.  see that tall white building? mike's old work building. sniff. sniff.

anyway, off to uncle tim's to see g&g newman and order some chicago style pizza. YUM!  we hung out saturday afternoon with everyone and then left before sunrise for MN.  Got back in time for lunch at home :-)

a great visit....made both mike and me miss chicago and all the hub-bub of the city. we got a little nostalgic. and then we reminded ourselves of the traffic. ugh. the traffic. and then i remembered the outstanding dinner and desserts. and that cancelled out the traffic issue :-) seriously, best food i've had in a long time.

did not get many pictures. sorry.

Peter Pan and the County Fair

These two things have nothing to do with each other, but I'm too lazy to do two different posts. This past week Abby was in a theater camp, and they performed the play Peter Pan on Friday. It was really cute. She was a "little flier", which means she had two dance routines in addition to the finale.  She had a lot of fun and says she'd like to do it again next summer.

Today we headed to the county fair. It was HOT.  And poor Mike had to hobble around on his broken foot.  The kids had fun. There were pony rides, an extreme canine dog show, some rides (with the scariest carnies ever), lemonade shake-ups, and a pick-a-duck game.  Good day for the kiddos. Griff was so wiped out he fell asleep on the couch at 5:54 and has been asleep ever since! He didn't even wake when I carried him to bed.

We're 4!!

This birthday is almost harder to believe than Abby's.......it's mind-blowing that it's been 4 years since Hannah and Griffin were born.  The time truly has flown by.  They are little people now and so much fun. I remember having a conversation with a mom who had 4 year old twins in Abby's preschool class when H&G were just 1 year old.  I asked her when it got easier.....she said when they are 4.  At the time that seemed SO FAR AWAY....and so depressing! But, here we are.  And she was right :-)

They had a great birthday today, opening presents first thing in the morning and having a birthday breakfast: Hannah wanted pancakes and Griff wanted Raisin Bran! Then it was off to the library (due to a rainy morning) and then Starbucks for their favorite treat, a pumpkin scone and "coffee" (water in a small coffee cup). Then we came back home and tried out the new scooter (Griff) and new roller skates (Hannah). They are going to need some practice!

After a dinner of pork tenderloin and ravioli, there was cake and ice cream. Uncle Don and Uncle Dave stopped by with more gifts, too. All in all, a very good day for the little monkeys.  Now I just need to figure out what to do with all this cake......the neighbors may be getting some slices tomorrow!

Just woke up.....can't believe all the gifts!

Notice my little shutter-bug in the background? She had to take pictures, too!

Hannah is totally into mermaids and loved her mermaid barbie

A new t-ball bat!

cars :-)

a huge stuffed horse from g&g meiers

ah, playmobil....lots of little pieces, but t hey love them!

family photo

Hannah had a garden fairy cake and griff wanted a golf course....so we did 1/2 and 1/2 on one big cake!

Blowing out the candles. Hannah got all embarrassed when we sang to her, she was almost crying in this picture......

but she recovered to blow out her candles!

Photo Shoot

I took the kids out for a little photo shoot today.  I promised them ice cream at the local ice cream parlor if they cooperated.  You'll see from the pictures that even the promise of ice cream wasn't enough to get Hannah to crack a grin.  She therefore didn't get any ice cream.  Oh, I'm kidding. She got some anyway.  But she's on my list.

Miss Abby was more than willing to pose for me today.

This is my favorite of her.....love it

Favorite of Griff

She so didn't want to be out here, taking pictures.

Best group shot I got.....they were not into it.....

I love this one of Abby in the background

This one is kinda cute....