{ boo badgers }

And when I say "boo" Badgers, I don't mean the Halloween kind of boo. We had headed two weekends ago to the Lodge to see who would take home the axe in the rival Minnesota vs. Wisconsin football game.

If the game had been determined by whichever team had the cutest fans, Minnesota would have definitely won.

Wouldn't you agree?

Grandma and Grandpa C held a football party "tailgate" around the fire pit outside. It was an absolutely beautiful morning with the fog just lifting over the lake.

Oliver and Stella wouldn't have noticed though because they spent the entire 2 hours we were outside at the tailgate digging the candy corn and m&m's out of the snack mix dish!

Meanwhile, the boys made sure to let everyone on the lake know who they were cheering for.

Unfortunately the Gophers ended up suffering another loss to the Badgers. Though from the looks of this picture, both teams took a pretty big hit that day.

{ grocery store adventure }

My apologies to anyone who was shopping at Kowalski's last week on Tuesday. There were some crazy shoppers in the store who didn't know how to properly drive a shopping cart!

And now that they discovered these mini shopping carts, there will never be such a thing as a quick or uneventful stop into Kowalskis!

This trip to the grocery store also included O and S insisting on riding their trikes all the way there. It isn't very far but with two fairly inexperienced tricyclists, it sure seemed further away than normal. To top it off, the trike that Oliver was riding would barely steer and I had to manually push him the whole way.

Little did we know that he was just as good at riding a trike until he actually got a chance to use the Kettler that Stella was glued to. A quick search on Craigslist and I snagged another one up since it is far superior to the old Radio Flyer that we had. He is now the proud owner of a trike that he can actually ride!

{ monday morning madness }

They went from room to room to room causing destruction. Hello Monday!

{ doctor day }

Tuesday was doctor day for Oliver and Stella. In the morning we headed to the dentist for their first official check-up. It went WAY better than I expected it would. They both actually sat in the chair and allowed the dentist to probe and look in their mouths. At this age, they don't do an actual cleaning. He did look long enough to exclaim "Start saving for braces." Oy!

Bribery at its best as they were told by the hygienist that they would get to pick out a surprise for their toothbrush bags at the end of the appointment if they were behaved.

Second on the list for the day was a trip to the doctor for their flu vaccine. Easy peasy with little to no tears. Though again, bribery with stickers and a trip to Noodles for mac and cheese. It didn't hurt that  grandma and grandpa C were along providing necessary distractions at both appointments!

{ tricyclist }

We have an energizer bunny in our house. Her name is Stella. She. Never. Stops.

She recently discovered how to ride her trike and doesn't want to stop. As you can see from the picture below, she didn't even want to leave the seat to eat her ice cream. Fairly certain that if we let her take the trike into bed, she would!

{ morning of firsts }

Last Sunday morning we ventured out for family pictures which is not one of the "firsts" the title of this post refers to, but it did get us showered, fed, and out the door by 8:00am. The pictures went remarkably well considering our main "models" were two 2 year olds! Sorry, you'll have to wait until Christmas to see the final results.

It was a damp, windy morning and we were done at 9:00am wondering what to do to kill the rest of the morning. We decided to venture to a local coffee shop for Oliver and Stella's first taste of hot chocolate. They were on board as soon as they heard the word chocolate, though they each ended up taking only a few sips.

When I show them the pictures above and ask them what they got to try they say "Coffee!".

That only killed about 30 minutes of our morning so we decided to take a "train" (aka lightrail) ride. Oliver and Stella were super excited to ride on it and amazingly sat in their seats the whole time.

It was kind of funny to hop on it at the Fort Snelling park and ride, ride it to near downtown, get off and hop right back on one going back the other way, and get off at Fort Snelling. But, these two year olds knew no difference and thought it was fun!

{ superman }

The reason for all of those smiles? A beautiful fall morning at the park with grandpa and superman sliding.

{ twin cities marathon }

Garfield Ave represented out on the TCM course this morning with a cheering section!

It was a chilly morning at 28 degrees at race time - brrrrr! But, as always, it was so inspirational to watch thousands of runners running 26.2 miles. We saw young, old, man, woman, big, small, fancy shoes, no shoes, hats/mittens, no shirts. The amazing thing is that they were all accomplishing an amazing goal.

I always leave thinking that it would be a good idea for me to sign up for a marathon. And then I remind myself that I should go watch at mile 22 instead of mile 8 and I would probably change my mind!

{ vote no }

With the elections just a month away, political ads and messages are everywhere. Chop loves politics and I tend to stay out of it. But the one exception this year is the marriage amendment, to which we feel very strongly to "vote no". It would affect several of our close friends and thousands more in the state. Who are we to deny a couple the right to marry just because of the gender of their mate?

My running group also showed our support a few weekends ago at the "Big Gay Race". Over 5,000 runners/walkers gathered at St. Anthony Main for a 5k, pledging to "Vote No". This is a near and dear amendment to our group as two of the women are a couple. They are no less in love or committed to each other, or their daughter. I look forward to the day that I can attend their legal marriage ceremony in the state of Minnesota.

At the end of the day, love is love.

{ friends }

As Oliver and Stella get older, it has been fun to see how they actually remember other kids. Their "friends" are mainly determined by who the kids of my friends happen to be. Nonetheless, they still get excited when I tell them who we are going to see on certain days, whether it is at a play date or one of our classes.

Some of the usuals are:
Audrey and McKenna

Mariam and Charlie (at our Movin' and Groovin' class)

Julia and Lena

Ansel

That rounds out who I have pictures of but there is also lots of talk about Rowan and Clara, Emery, Edward and Rocco. 

In other happenings, we spent a morning at the park and sculpture garden last weekend. Per the usual, our kids just enjoyed running across the bridge near the sculpture garden instead of actually walking around the green open space.

I shared Stella's haircut in the last post so to keep things equal, here is a picture of Oliver with his new haircut and his prized "sucker pop" from the outing.

Fall baking continues and I've decided that each week until Thanksgiving I will attempt to bake a new recipe with pumpkin. Last week was Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins and this week was Downeast Main Pumpkin Bread. Both were hits.......the muffins for obvious reasons (they are filled with cream cheese and sugar) and the bread because it was a basic recipe but yielded a yummy, moist loaf of bread. Oliver and Stella also really enjoy helping by "dumping" ingredients into the bowl after I measure so it is a fun, productive activity for all!

Girls vs. Boys: Elizabeth and I do a kid swap one afternoon a month. The last time the cousins were here, I had to laugh at the difference in play styles that were simultaneously occurring with the boys and girls.

The Lyndale Avenue bridge construction has been ongoing since February and while I am beyond excited for it to re-open on October 15th, Oliver and Stella will most definitely miss our almost daily strolls to the bridge to see the tractors and cranes!

I won't name names, but a certain little girl in this house thought she didn't need to nap in her bed this weekend.

But she does look awfully sweet in daddy's arms.

And lastly, we had a great reunion with some friends from IU yesterday. We met Jenny and Adam when Chop was touring grad schools in 2007. We visited IU and were connected with them by a faculty member who knew we had being from WI in common. Since that first meeting, Jenny and I have kept in touch over email but haven't ever seen each other in person again. She is an amazing friend, mom, and photographer and I admire her in so many ways. They became parents 4 months ago to baby girl Piper. Oliver and Stella were smitten with all of them as you can see from these pictures!