What a week

Not ready to talk yet...

Displaced

Squinting into the sun at Como Zoo
7 months old! 8 months old tomorrow!

Thank you Danielle and family for harboring the homeless while we had a showing yesterday afternoon. Not only that, but Danielle was running a day care for all our kids while Colin and I went back to the house to spiff up (and bake another sheet of c.c. cookies)! The kids played really well together, and had a wonderful time. We don't get to ride bikes in the street, in the big city! We were out of the house by 10 yesterday morning, and didn't return until almost 5 pm, when we packed a picnic supper and headed to Lake Nokomis to meet Kim and family. Little A was not feeling well so our visit was cut short, but we stayed and the kids took a dip in the lake. What fun!

Yoga, Skating, and More

Cleaning the house to prepare for a showing is my new form of aerobic exercise! We had a showing last night, so I finished making the house beautiful while Mike took the crew to ice skating lessons. I then headed to yoga for a wonderful evening of sweating (I normally HATE to sweat, but somehow I didn't mind it yesterday). We have another showing tomorrow afternoon, so we tried to stay out of the house today- a day filled with errands. The kids did such a good job- Babies R Us, Best Buy, Einsteins for lunch, and a trip to Cub!

Nice Fourth

We had a really nice long weekend. Mike was off on Thursday and Friday. I had a nice morning of shopping with Colin on Friday, while Mike took A and B for a bike ride. We met at Punch for lunch, then home to play in the backyard. On Saturday we went to the Richfield parade with Bridget and Steve's family. Then we went to Blake and Candace's house for a fun get together with lots of other young families. The kids were troopers! They played really hard, and even made it to fireworks on the boat on Lake Minnetonka. Sunday morning, I went to yoga, and we went to the Kingfield farmers market.

Sidewalk Talk

Yesterday after Mike came home from work, the kids were riding their bikes on the sidewalk out front, and Bennett was playing church. He would ride up the sidewalk, park his bike at the base of the steps, and sit next to me on the bottom step. He called out, "Annalise, come to church!!" She said, "what are you doing at church?" "Saying stuff and singing." Annalise opted to not attend.

What do we like to do?

When I try to remember 2009 years and years from now, I know I won't remember the day to day activities that filled our summer days. I love how simply the kids are entertained, and wanted to record for prosperity some of our favorite things to do right now. On Friday night as I tucked Annalise into bed, I asked what she would like to do on Saturday. Her answers were swimming in the pools in the backyard, and listening to "our Raffi music" on the computer. The kids can spend all morning just lying on the floor of the office, listening to the Car Music for Kids mix I made for them on iTunes, which is made up of Raffi, Lauri Berkner, the soundtracks from Ratatouille and Stand by Me, Jack Johnson, and some of Mike's golden oldies from the 50's. Something else I recently discovered, which keeps them occupied and thoroughly entertained for a long time is watching clips of musicals/showtunes on you tube. They watched Make 'em Laugh from Singin' in the Rain (the bonk one, as B refers to it) over and over and over... and laughed hysterically every time. Today the kids have eaten breakfast and watched you tube. The rest of my proclaimed Laundry/Stay at Home day has been comprised of playing with the transportation box, listening to Annalise read us books, and now (late, late, late) it is lunchtime.

Recent Upswing (in house showings)

It's been pointed out to me that my blog has suffered with the advent of facebook (something I'm quite aware of already), so I am going to make an effort to write shorter, more frequent posts, with or without pictures.

We had such a nice Saturday! Mom and Dad came over, and picked up A and B for a sleepover at their house. This was arranged so we could have some quality time with adults (?), or at least with Eric, Katie, Chad, and Karen. Katie and Eric were splendid hosts of a lovely dinner and evening of beer pong and tippy cup (can you see why I questioned our adulthood?) We picked the kids up on Sunday around lunchtime, and rushed home to prepare for a house showing. In our rush to get home, we forgot Teddy, fish blanket, Bennett's teddy bear (currently being called J-Jo), and the rest of their suitcase contents. Today, the kids and I went to the zoo for a quick loop through the outside trail to see the Africa exhibit. Then we stopped at Sonic for a cherry slushie on our way to PL to pick up our bedtime essentials and say hello to Grandpa. Then, we had to rush home to prepare for another showing!! How weird is that!

Misc.

I hope everyone is enjoying the heat wave! Since I last checked in, we had another two ice skating lessons, two house showings, two weddings, and an anniversary party in Wisconsin. Skating lessons remain quite entertaining for Mike, Colin and me to watch, and A and B are enjoying their time on the ice. For this week's lesson, they got to wear their new hockey helmets, and felt really cool. Now they just need hockey jerseys.

The two weddings on a Friday night is not something we'd like to revisit anytime soon. We failed to secure a babysitter in time, so Mike went to the social hour following the first wedding (Todd and Emily's, which was at 3:00!) and fought rush hour traffic to come home and pick me up after babysitter Sharon came over at 5. We then missed the second wedding ceremony, but made it to the rest of the festivities for Joel and Shayna's wedding, with Colin in tow.

Saturday was a busy morning, preparing the house for potential showings (there were none) while we were in Wisconsin for the rest of the weekend, for my cousin Scott and Barb's surprise 25th anniversary party. Sunday included a drive home from Marshfield, WI as well as a stop at Chipotle to celebrate Father's Day Mike-style. Annalise's plan for daddy included burritos, beer, and blueberry pie, but the pie is having some difficulty being realized, as I packed the food processor away in the decluttering process, and can't imagine making the pie crust by hand.

Annalise has been attending a 4 day music and drama class at SW high school through community ed. She is such a big girl, going into the high school by herself, and eating her lunch outside under a tree with just her best friend Alma for company. The boys and I went to a nearby park yesterday after dropping A off. Bennett enjoyed the wading pool while Colin napped in the stroller. We need to buy a new baby pool for the back yard- that is something that really needed to happen yesterday.