Easter

The Easter Bunny stopped at our house very early this morning, to hide baskets and eggs for the boys.  Nolan found his basket in the toy box, and Kale's was hidden in the jungle house. They were so excited, especially for the big tootsie pop suckers! 

After church we headed over to Greg and Ellen's to celebrate with everyone.  We once again hoped the egg hunt could be held outside, but the weather this spring is not cooperating! The kids still had fun.  It was a day of no naps, so bedtime was nice and early.

Dying eggs

This was the first year we dyed eggs with the boys.  It hold their attention for about 10 minutes, which we thought was pretty successful!  The most surprising thing about the whole experience was that they both LOVED to eat the eggs.  I didn't like hard boiled eggs until the last year or so.

More birthday fun

After Nolan fininshed his last swimming lesson on Saturday, we drove down to Mankato to celebrate Hattie's first birthday and Emma's 8th birthday.  We were hoping for nice weather, but instead got to do the egg hunt in full winter gear and in the snow!

We found out some other very exciting news, too - Gina and Eric are expecting their 3rd child in October!  Family gatherings are continuing to get bigger, but the houses seem to be shrinking!

Nolan's day of fun

 Adam and I took the day off work today to spend with Nolan, to celebrate the day after his 4th birthday.  We started the day at JC Penney's with his 4 year photo shoot.  It took him a little while to warm up, but once he did, he did really well!  Bribes of M&M's and Hershey Kisses helped, too. 

We made our way to the Mall of America after that, to spend some time at Nickelodeon Universe. The only rides he's ever been on were at our community carvinal last fall, so we weren't sure how he would do.  We quickly realized he would be fine when he picked his first ride to be the Log Chute! I don't do well on rides so Adam went with him on most of them.  Adam said after they went down the huge drop off at the end of the Log Chute Nolan told him he didn't like the slide at the end.  He didn't cry, so we were proud of him. He went on almost every ride he could - the big rig trucks, the Swiper Sweeper, the bumper cards, the barnyard rollercoaster, the hot air balloons, the carousel, the ferris wheel, the train, and a few others I can't remember.  I don't know if I've ever seen him smile as much as he did today.  He pulled Adam to each ride and couldn't wait to go.  We took our lunch break at the Rainforest Cafe, where he had his very first icee drink.  He loved it until it started melting together, and then he moved on to his chocolate milk. His favorite part of the drink was the cherries, so much so the server brought him out a little bowl with 10 of them in it - and he ate every one of them!  We spent a little bit of time at Lego land, but it didn't hold his interest like the rides.  We finished our day in hopes of finding him some watermelon ice cream, which he keeps talking about.  We didn't find it, but he did enjoy a cherry sundae - his choice!  He only napped about 5 minutes in the car, and held it together all day.  We are so proud of our not-so-little 4 year old!

Birthday party fun

We celebrated Nolan’s 4th birthday on Sunday - St. Patrick's Day. It was cold – what a difference from the last few years. It was nice and cozy in our house, though, with 30 people! Nolan picked a Buzz and Woody theme. His reaction to the cake I made was fantastic – a lot of jumping up and down, smiling and laughing. It made the 2 ½ hours I spent on it worth it:) He really enjoyed being the center of attention, which is unlike him. It’s funny to watch kids year to year on their birthdays. When he used to open his gifts he wanted to play with each of them before moving on to the next gift – which resulted in us trying to move it along. Now he opens each gift and is excited, but quickly puts it away so he can move on to the next one! It was a big year for bey blades, race car wall track, big wheels, and his first live fish!  We're on day 3 of the fish and it's had 3 names: rainbow, fish, and now Nemo.  I think Nemo is going to stick.

On Tuesday night, while Adam was at archery, Nolan made a comment that his right ear hurt.  I thought it was because he and Kale had been laying in the tub with their ears under water.  At 8:00 Nolan woke up crying hysterically that his year hurt, and of course it was too late to go to urgent care.  Adam was up with him until 12:30 am, when Nolan finally fell asleep.  A trip to the dr. Wednesday morning confirmed a double ear infection, with the left ear so bad there was a blister on it.  No wonder the poor kid was crying!  He's on an antibiotic again for 10 days, after already being on it two other times this year.  Spring can't come soon enough!

We celebrated Nolan's real birthday by lighting a candle in his pancake and singing happy birthday in the morning, followed by his requested meal of macaroni and cheese for dinner.  In between he also had a party at daycare, where he got his very first Razor scooter from Jane!  He had another piece of cake and we sang to him again.  He really loved his birthday!  He got a new Twins jersey and a baseball glove with a tee ball.  Hopefully we can use it soon!

Hide and seek

The boys love playing hide and seek.  Tonight when they were playing with Adam it was Nolan's turn to count.  It went something like this:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 41, 42, 43

Cough, sniffle, fever

Kale started coughing last Saturday, and it got pretty bad pretty quick.  This was followed by a phone call from Jane Monday fternoon that he had a fever.  We thought he was doing a little better on Tuesday, until I got another phone call from Jane on Tuesday afternoon that his fever was almost 103.  Adam met me at the clinic with both kids after work.  Kale was checked out for bronchitis and pneumonia and it came back negative, but they still treated him for it with a 5 day liquid version of the Zpac.  The dr. said it's unusal for a cough to start before a fever, and that if he still had a fever in two days we would need to bring him back.  Luckily his fever broke this morning, so we should be on the mend soon.

Crazy Kale is 2 1/2!

Kale turned 2 1/2 today - holy cow!  He is active, tempermental, opinionated, funny, happy, energetic, and musical (meaning he loves to sing!).  He is very complimentary these days, giving a thumbs up and telling us "good job!" when he thinks we've done something well.  He tries to sing along to most music he hears, and then sings songs on his own, too, like his ABC's, Where is Thumbkin, BINGO, and Twinkle Twinkle.  He still likes the songs Beer Money and 50 Ways to Say Goodbye, but also likes the Beach Boys and Elvis.  He can count to 10 and his favorite game is tackle - which consists of him going in to his 3 point stance, saying hut and tackling either me or Adam without slowing down!  When I put him to bed he insists that Peanut Butter should sleep on the ceiling, and I have to explain gravity to him every night.  He sleeps with a baseball pillow, Peanut Butter, his blanket and his Vikings dream light every night.  He loves Nolan and in his perfect world would sleep with him every night.  He tends to favor me right now for most things, and if he doesn't get his way throws quite the tantrum.  He's still affectionate and gives the best bear hugs.  He loves his daycare friends and Jane, and talks about Grandpa a lot. 

Snow, snow go away!

The boys and I had a fun Saturday.  Adam was gone for the night, so I decided to take the boys to the mall after naps to play.  It's too cold to be outside, and we've been getting a little stir crazy.  They played for 45 minutes and then another 15 on the little cars/trucks that you're supposed to put a quarter in - but I never do.  After wearing them out a little bit we headed over to our favorite special treat place - McDonald's. And not just any McDonald's - the first one they've been to with a play place!  The deal was they had to eat good to play, and they did.  They are such little monkeys and they had so much fun. 

I ran my first 5k of the season yesterday morning - 100% Irish for a Day at Lake Harriet.  It was cold and wet, but I had a lot of fun running with my friends.  Last year Adam and the boys watched me run, but the weather didn't cooperate this year.  I'm hoping they can come out and watch me run my races in April!

Ice Fishing with the Boys



Kale's 1st Ice Fishing Adventure

All winter I had been talking to the boys about getting them out to do a little ice fishing, which proved to be more difficult than what I thought it would be. Apparently it's more important to get in a good nap than it is to go ice fishing. My Dad and I finally got the stars to align, the weather cooperated and we were able to get the boys out fishing for the first time this winter. We met grandpa on Lake Riley and got to ride in the trailer behind the four-wheeler to the other side of the lake. Both Nolan and Kale were smiling from ear to ear. We stopped at the spot where grandpa had been catching a couple of fish and planned on getting the fish house all set up. I took the boys off the trailer and noticed one of the fish holes that Dad had drilled shortly before we got there. Of course what do I do...I tell the boys to watch out for the ice holes, because the water is cold and if they fell in we'd have to go home. I then proceeded to show them with my boot that my foot would go in the hole. This was the WRONG thing to do. I turned around to help Dad set up the fish house and not 30 seconds later I look back at Kale...who's up to his knee in the exact same fish hole I hoped they would've avoided!



Look at the fish in the bucket!





With a quick check of Kale's foot I confirmed that indeed we had a boot full of ice water. Kale's a trooper though. We set up the ice, got the heater going and took off his boot and sock. After wringing the water out of the sock and pouring out the boot Kale got to wear my glove on his foot the rest of the afternoon while things dried out. Not only did Nolan catch a couple of sunfish, but Kale did too...with the help of Grandpa. The excitement of it all was almost too much to bear, so after Kale caught his first fish through the ice we had to go outside and pee on the snow too. Kale dropped his pants, did his thing, and was back inside in a minute. Nolan had a similar scenario, however round one ended in stage-fright and round two took almost five minutes...even I was getting a little cold and my pants were up!



Nolan makes it look easy!



We wrapped things up when Kale said he had to go #2. We packed up our things, hopped back on the trailer and boogied back across the lake. With rosy cheeks and a bucket of fish we rode back home in time to meet Mom for dinner. Of course we were late, which I'm sure will be the first of many times that happens!

Between the four of us we kept about a dozen sunnies, which I filleted that night. The following evening we cooked them up and the boys ate more of the fish than Tricia and I did! Apparently I need to do this more often!