{ good stuff }

We've been up to a lot of what I would call "good stuff" lately. Including.....

Parade scootin' at the Linden Hills Festival.

A classmate's birthday party with pony rides. Yup, real live pony rides.

Standard Target shopping shenanigans.

Stella's last ballet recital. She has absolutely loved this class and her teacher, Miss Bri. Luckily I snagged her as a babysitter so we will be seeing more of her.

Neighborhood wagon rides. And lucky for me, I'm not the only one having to pull.

Lady Gaga concert to celebrate my friend Sue's 40th birthday. Awesome performer and equally awesome people watching from the concert suite.

Outdoor playset trick practice (that terrify me). Must get her signed up for gymnastics asap.

Family bike rides with the tag-a-longs to Lake Harriet with stop for ice cream.

30 mile solo bike ride for me. And I changed my OWN flat tire.

A cookout at our house with a trip for yogurt with Chop's friends from high school and their families. So much fun to have the kids at an age where they can all play together. And act crazy together.

{ spring concert }

Oliver and Stella's spring concert was weeks ago but better late than never in documenting it!

In addition to being a concert morning, it was also "bring a visitor" to class day. Chad and I both lucked out and were able to go since they each got to bring a visitor. It was fun to spend some time in their classroom and meet other classmates.

The concert was fairly typical of most preschool concerts. Lots of frantic waving, looking around the room, poking the the kid standing next to them, you get the picture.

Entertaining as always!

{ may days }

I had started this post on "May Day" but never got around to finishing so here we are two weeks later! We did celebrate May 1st with the delivery of May Day baskets. We kept it classy this year with red solo cups and pipe cleaner handles. The kids enjoyed them nonetheless.

I snuck away the first weekend of May for one night with these lovely ladies to the North Shore. We did a whole lot of sitting around, relaxing, talking, eating and wine drinking. I'm always in awe of the beauty of Lake Superior.

I finally completed a goal I've had for a LONG time. To sew a garment of clothing for Stella. It is a very basic pillowcase dress but I'm still pretty proud of tackling it and hope to leads to more!

A rare glimpse of the two of them getting along and quietly reading to one another. What?!

They are usually up to monkey business like climbing as high as the sky.

I headed up to the Lodge with Oliver and Stella last weekend while Chop went on a fishing trip with his family. It was a nice change of scenery and although the weather wasn't great, we managed to get outside a bit to make the most of it.

Oliver and Stella also had their first night of sharing a room in two years. We've always managed to keep them seperated when traveling since they stopped sharing a room in our old house. Chop and I typically sleep with one of them in seperate rooms since they both tend to get up so early and we don't want it to be even earlier. But neither of them wanted to sleep in a room alone at the Lodge and since there was only one of me, I said we could all share a room. There were three beds in the room; a queen bed for me and a twin bed for each of them. Long story but after putting them to bed I was in and out of the room a few times telling them to quiet down and go to sleep. I listened outside the door as they talked about being lonely, it was too dark, etc.  I heard rustling around and went in to find them both in the queen bed. They insisted on it so I let them be. We all slept through the night and had a fairly normal 6:00am wake-up. As cute as it is, I'm still happy we don't have them sharing a room at home though!

We came back home on Saturday and Chop was still gone on Mother's Day morning. But this was all I needed.

And who needs breakfast in bed or brunch when you can go swimming with two kids and then head to Target for grocery shopping?! I think I was one of the only moms in the store. It was a ghost town compared to most Sundays and the shoppers that were there, were dads with kids.

May 15th marked our TEN year anniversary. Man, that makes me feel old. Or we got married really young. A little of each I think.

We celebrated with a lovely dinner at Cafe Lurcat. Cheers!

{ week rewind }

The last week included a trip to the zoo......it had been awhile and we were able to go OUTside to see the animals!

A little backseat chatter from these two......
Oliver: "Mommy, I want to be a prince for Halloween"
Stella: "Mommy, I want to be a frog for Halloween"
Oliver (sadly): "But Stella, who will be my princess?"
Stella: "Okay Ollie, I'll be your princess"

This almost 4 year old boy still lets me rock him to sleep for naps every other day (otherwise naps wouldn't happen). But he doesn't complain......he is happy with "Wheels on the Bus" and being rocked to sleep. I'll take it for as long as I can get it!

It's as though Disney created a movie for Oliver and Stella's viewing pleasure. "The Pirate Fairy" has the best of both of their worlds and a rainy day = movie time! 

This recent picture is terrifying and hilarious at the same time! A favorite recent quote from her came after she said she was full from dinner but wanted dessert "My belly is full but I've still got a little room in my back".

Stella had her first princess birthday party to attend over the weekend. It was a Frozen theme and attendees were told to come dressed as a princess. She chose Sofia and was on cloud nine about heading to the party and being dropped off there. She had an awesome time and is still talking about it.

Here's to hoping we survive the rest of this upcoming week - rain, rain and more rain in the forecast. Oliver already said to me yesterday "I'm having a really hard day with all of this rain". Ha!

{ easter 2014 }

To say that Oliver and Stella were excited for the Easter Bunny to visit would be an understatement. They chatted it up for quite some time before the holiday came and were sad once it was over asking "Is tomorrow not Easter anymore?".

They awoke to find a letter from the Easter Bunny telling them that they had to find their baskets in the house and the egg hunt would take place after brunch. And off they went to find the baskets.

Once they discovered their baskets, they were thrilled to find Crocs (which I finally buckled and got them after not last year and having them whine for a year about wanting them!), new Legos (no more giant Duplo size!), sippie cups, and "running" clothes.

They got right to work building their new Lego sets.

Then it was time to get cleaned up for brunch. Stella was of course more than happy to put on a nice while Oliver was anything but happy to put on a pair of pants that didn't have an elastic waist!

I also pulled out some major bribery to get some pics of them together. I would call it a success!

Once things went downhill, we called it quits.

And then we were off to Grand Cafe for brunch.

Chop and I quickly snuck away from brunch and left Oliver and Stella with Grandpa and Uncle Shawn to bring them home so we could get back and hide the eggs. They wasted NO time in starting their search when they got home. 

And then of course the highlight was actually opening the eggs to see what surprises the bunny brought.

As if that wasn't enough excitement, we had also been holding out on giving them new bikes. They were each earning cotton balls in a jar each day for different things (Stella staying in her bed at night and Oliver wearing his glasses). I spent a few weeks scouring Craigslist for the perfect bikes (size, price, etc.) and scored what we were looking for.

Oliver isn't quite ready to be riding a two wheeler but we aren't planning to put the training wheels on and are hoping he can ride his balance bike a bit to improve his balance before tackling the two wheeler.

I have major bike envy of the bike we got for Stella. It is a new age retro cruiser and we pimped it out with a matching bell and streamers.

It is a size up from the two wheeler she rode last summer and is a tad too big for her. She had a hard time riding it by herself and immediately got discouraged and wants nothing to do with it. Fingers crossed she changes her mind in the coming months!

Overall it was a beautifully, blessed Easter Sunday!