{ memorial day weekend }

We kicked off our Memorial Day weekend with a Friday night bike ride to Lake Harriet.

The weather wasn't great but it was nice to get out of the house and not deal with cooking/clean up!

Saturday morning we hit the road to head to the Lodge for the long weekend. First thing on Oliver and Stella's agenda was "candy apples". One of their favorite shows (Max & Ruby) talked about candy apples on an episode last week. For some reason they got it in their heads that Grandma & Grandpa C were going to make them and have them at their house when they visited. Well, Grandma & Grandpa didn't disappoint.

While the weather was so-so (mild but at least no rain!) and there was definitely no swimming, we managed to burn off kid energy other ways. Oliver by dancing with the Gopher.

The infamous tree swing.

Fishing! Which Oliver and Stella seemed to really enjoy this year. Or maybe it was the fun of kissing the fish after catching it. Or, for Oliver, "kicking" the fish back into the water.

Playing with old school toys, circa 1970s.

First boat ride of the year!

A visit to a nearby horse ranch, where the owners were nice enough to let us bring carrots to feed the horses and pet them. All of the kids (and adults) got a kick out of it.

Stella was especially excited about it and I think she, if not all of them, could have stayed there for a lot longer visiting them!

We counter acted trying to burn off their energy by having campfire s'mores.

Last but not least, a highlight was watching Stella ride her balance bike. She has gone from hardly being able to ride it a month ago to being super comfortable and cruising down hills on it. I think the motivation of having older cousins riding around on their bikes helped and it was just a matter of getting past the frustration.

She rode down this small hill on the road over a dozen times. She might need a new pair of shoes in a few months since the "brakes" are her feet!

Anna was great about "racing" with her and riding down the hill.......which takes patience and skill since she had to try to stay out of Stella's way.

A great weekend and kick-off to the summer (which judging by this week's weather, is never going to officially arrive)!

{ nine! }

That was then:

And this is now:

We celebrated our nine year wedding anniversary last weekend and headed out to Restaurant Alma on Saturday night for dinner (thanks for the babysitting Grandma and Grandpa C)! It was an amazing meal and we both agreed the best overall dining experience (food, service, etc.) we've had in the Twin Cities.

Cheers to nine!

{ mother's day }

Mother's Day came and went and I never got around to recapping it. It was a low key day and we headed to Pat's Tap for brunch with Grandpa and Grandma C. Chop's theory was that any bar that serves brunch must be good. And he was right, the food was great and bonus was that it was kid friendly......ski-ball!

And clearly Oliver was feeling right at home.

After getting home from brunch, Chop and Grandpa got to work on unloading this.

A rainbow play system that we had purchased off Craigslist a few weeks before. For those of you who aren't familiar with what they are, they are fancy (and expensive) wood play sets. They can be super elaborate and cost upwards of $10,000 (for real), with the smallest versions around $2,500 new. We had been debating purchasing one a few months ago and decided agaisnt it as the new price tag was a little too steep. And because we needed the smallest size, I wasn't having any luck on Craigslist finding one.

I happened upon one about a month ago and after rushing down to Shakopee one morning at 7:30 to see it before others snatched it, we purchased it. Note: when you hand a few hudred dollars cash over to someone for something you don't take with you or plan to pick up for two weeks, make sure you get something in writing from them. Or at least their full name. It was about 24 hours of wondering if we had just been taken when the guy emailed us back with a nice write-up about the purchase.

We saved a lot of money by disassembling, hauling, and reassembling ourselves. It took about half the day to get it all together, including replacing a few boards. Oliver and Stella were eager helpers.

They were also eager to test it out and have spent a lot of time on it since.

And have mastered pushing each other on the swings. 

But "Superman" swinging is still their favorite.

To top it off, it makes the perfect water slide on a hot day!

It has been a great addition to the backyard and we are enjoying being outside more and more everyday, including meals!

{ wordless wednesday: park buddies }

{ wordless wednesday: painters in training }

{ 'hood love }

I love our neighborhood. We are just hitting the year mark from when we moved into our new house and the Tangletown neighborhood. I can't think of a single thing we don't love and the list is topped by location.

Almost every day (in the summer) we take advantage of having multiple Minneapolis parks within walking or biking distance. These twin monkeys need to burn energy.

They have no shortage of it. And despite the look on Oliver's face below, he was doing an equal amount of jumping and shaking on the bridge.

There are several Little Free Libraries in the front yards of people's homes in the neighborhood. You take one, you leave one.

A Tangletown landmark, the Washburn Watertower, is just 3 blocks from our house. The steps make for a killer stair run repeat workout.

We are within triking distance of a new yogurt shop, "Freestyle Yogurt". Think multiple yogurt flavors with over 20 toppings (gummy bears, brownie bites, sprinkles, etc.) to go on top. You fill your cup with what you want and you pay by the weight. I see a lot of visits here in our future!

And who doesn't drink the final drips?!

The neighborhood is filled with beautiful homes, landscaping and friendly neighbors (including family!).

Our house has lots of concrete for bike practice. Too bad it all needs to be replaced in the next few years!

Our biggest gripe - we still don't have single sort recycling. We are literally the last section of Minneapolis to get our container for it. Here is a record breaking recycling curb for us. Yikes!

Here's to many, many more great years in this house and 'hood!

{ potty time }

Over the past few months, Oliver and Stella began showing a more serious interest in the potty. A typical instance, O or S or both would tear off their diaper and exclaim that they had to go potty before failing to deliver, then would often top things off by throwing a tantrum about putting their diaper back on. Eventually, we began to have the occasional success story, but they were few and far between.

This in-between stage proved much more difficult to manage than diapers, so we took the plunge almost three weeks ago. With the extra hands of Grandma and Grandpa C around for a few days mid-week and a day off for dad on Friday, we started talking up the idea of getting rid of diapers and switching to underwear.

With a bag of M & M's in the house and a sticker chart made, we put O and S in underwear on that Tuesday morning. They were excited about it and quickly got the hang of going potty to get a M & M. Overall the day was a huge success with Oliver only having one small accident.

A lot of people do a true "three day method" where you don't leave the house for three days but we had ECFE on Wednesday morning and I decided to just go with it and see what happened. Oliver had two accidents and Stella made it through class with none. The next few days went great, except for the fact that they wouldn't poop (did you notice on the chart that there are no stickers over the "X's" for poop?!). Sorry if this is TMI but no poop in the potty OR in their underwear for either for 2.5 days. They would ask for a diaper when they needed to go and I held out and wouldn't give them one until they were hysterical after 2.5 days because they were so uncomfortable from holding it.

They continued to do well with pee - Stella has had only one accident since switching to the underwear. Oliver's last accident was ironically when we were at Target, in the toy aisle, picking out his toy for doing so well with potty training. Ha!

They still ask for a diaper to poop so once a day we put one on them, they poop, and then go right back to underwear. I've heard this is fairly common and know they will eventually do it. Any moms out there reading who have been through something similar, let me know if you have any tips on making the transition easier for them! Otherwise we'll just continue to wait. I've tried some pretty big bribes and even those don't seem to peak their interest.

Another transition that makes us realize they are growing up so fast! 

{ spring has sprung }

Or so at least we thought that spring had sprung. This has been one spring for the record books. Last week on April 23rd we had this.

And then last weekend we were doing this.

It's making us all feel a little crazy, even Stella.

It is safe to say that Oliver and Stella were absolutely giddy when they were able to get outside in 70 degree temps.

Only in Minnesota would a toddler do this when the sun is shining for the first time in 7 months (notice that there is still a snow pile in the shade)!

We made the most of it and spent all of the nice days at the park or outside on the block riding trikes.

It's too bad today it is back to 30/40 degree temps and we came oh so close to getting 6-9 inches of snow dumped on us. Mother Nature, you win!