Fa la la la…

We’re busy decking the halls.  We cut down the tree last weekend.  Thought it’d go well.  There was a little girl in the backseat yelling, “ho ho ho” and “tris tris tree” the whole way there.  Then there was a little girl saying, “car. uppy. car.” as we hunted for the perfect tree.  Then there was the ride into town to get cash because we had forgotten the checkbook and the ride back to the tree farm to pay for and pick up the perfect tree. 



With all that excitement, it took a bit to get lights on and ornaments on. While Kole and I were working on the tree, Maggie was busy climbing up and down the step ladder while simultaneously telling herself, “Maggie, sit down.  Sit down!” 



We did manage to capture her attention for bit – she helped put her ornaments on the tree.

Holy Flor de Nochebuena Batman!

That’s poinsettia for all you monolinguals out there.  Who knew there was a place just minutes (okay like half an hour) from our house?  Open just one day a year for the Annual Lions Club Poinsettia Sale.


I have never seen such a thing in my life~!  Seriously THOUSANDS of poinsettias, and we went in the last hour of the sale.  Unbelievable.  I was kind of glad that we didn’t pop in until things had died down – for the obvious reasons people with toddlers might list, but also because Kole admittedly looked like a homeless person in his Christmas Tree Getting Gear.  Those are his words, not mine.


We ended up buying some cool variety of splatter poinsettia (not painted) and a curly petal plant, too.  Oh, and I won’t make you ask about that sweater Maggie’s wearing.  Yes, it is the reindeer sweater Kole has been looking to purchase for himself for years now.  Maggie loves it and calls it her “Udolph shirt”… It’s no coincidence that she knows the name. Somebody felt forced to play “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” on repeat for what amounted to about 45 minutes last weekend during a particularly LONG part of the long trip to Minnesota.  What can we say? It made her happy – doesn’t matter that it drove us crazy.

Let the preparations begin!

We've started to prep for the season ahead.  Maggie's really into "helping", so getting ready for Christmas has changed a bit this year.  An early Christmas present puts her at counter level, and she's been pretty involved in the action in the kitchen ever since. 

adding ingredients

eating butter

watching

Consider this your warning - if you get baked goods from us this Christmas, there's a good chance that Maggie licked the ingredients before they went in the bowl!

We're back... I think.

Dear friends,
Has it really been 6 months since last we were here?  Sorry we've been gone so long, but hey, we've got an excuse! We're settling into our new home, and much to Kole's dismay there are more projects and plans floating around in my head than I can even explain!  There are shelves to build, rooms to paint, furniture to refinish, curtains to sew, and treasures to find homes for... it's exhausting.  I'll try to get organized here and share some finished projects with you along with some updates on the family & what we've been doing for the last 6 months.  More info and pictures to follow.

Love,
Kari

Perhaps we will learn to like the water.

This was Maggie last summer when she had her first encounter with swimming.

We are trying to improve on that experience.  We started swimming lessons last week.  I think it’s going to be a good thing.

 

We did songs and games in the big pool for the first 30 minutes, and then Maggie floated in this tube in the baby pool for the last 15 minutes.  It was a good family outing.  Hopefully we’ll be ready for camping trips this summer!

Happy Easter!

The weekend was a whirlwind of activity – more on that later… We took a bit of time out to go to an Easter Egg Hunt at the Old Towne Square shops near my school.

Maggie managed to snag a grand total of one egg.  One. The poor girl walked past a bunch of eggs to get to where all the kids were.  Well, those kids were 3 and 4 years old and were highly motivated by the candy prizes in the eggs.  Needless to say the whole egg “hunt” took about 4 minutes, and that’s counting redropping Maggie’s one egg so that we could get some pictures! Oh well, next year we can try again.

We heart the outdoors!

The weather was gorgeous yesterday!  Despite the full work day and an evening of things to do, we eeked out some time to play outside.  I’m taking yesterday as an indication that this summer is going to be pretty amazing!  Wally, of course, loves being outside. Maggie is enamored with the outdoors as well, especially if Wally’s there.