Winter Wonderland

We arrived home from our Christmas trip to a house covered in snow. Thank goodness we have an awesome neighbor who blew all of the snow out of our driveway and blazed a trail up to our front door. Doesn't our house look so pretty?Santa Claus brought the kids snowshoes and cross country skis. The snow conditions weren't quite right for either as they both promptly sunk knee-deep in snow. They didn't really care though.

It turns out that eating snow and licking icicles is much more fun:

Christmas In a Nutshell

A family art project-- Eli did the reindeer, sled, santa and some stars, Sadie did the snowmen, moon, and ornamentsWe opened presents early this year so we could spend the holiday in Napoleon with Dennis' family.

We had to leave earlier than we anticpated because of all the winter storm warnings and blizzard warnings. We made it just in time as mother nature decided it was time to snow and blow. Luckily, Dennis' parents made the big move into the "city" so we weren't stuck out on the farm. (Which was good, because Sperles like to shovel. I think they shoveled out every single driveway in Napoleon 3 times!) They moved in right across from the church (which was good otherwise we would have missed midnight mass--ok we missed that anyways). The snowdrifts got kind of big as can be viewed here: Sadie and her cousin, Cole, were the only ones who braved the wind to go outside and play. They could have made it onto the church roof, but the parents were kind of against it. We ended up being snowed in for an extra day. But, we got in a lot of game playing. I am now a wake boarding expert (but only on the wii, not actually in the water), still can't beat Betty or Caroline in May I, and an Old Maid champ!

Cookies

The Christmas holiday wouldn't be complete without the making and decorating of cookies. We invited Eli's best friend from school and her family over for a little cookie decorating and merry making. As usual, the kids had a blast, decorated only a handful of cookies with way too much frosting, and didn't eat a bite of their dinner.
Dusting off a little flour:Oh the anticipation:Only in Minnesota do you have a Christmas moose:

Leanna using just a little bit of pink:There is no such thing as too many sprinkles:

Swimming

There is a resort just down the road about a mile that offers locals memberships to use their facilities. In the summer, they have a private beach, an indoor and outdoor swimming pool, paddle boats, kayaks, etc. In the winter, they have an indoor pool, hot tub, sauna, excercise room, and outdoor skating. We thought about signing the kids up for swimming lessons this winter but for the price of lessons we could get a membership at Ruttger's and take the kids swimming as often as they wanted to go. Well, we don't go as often as they would like to go because I would be swimming every day in the morning, afternoon and evening, but we do manage to go about every-other day. The pool is pretty warm and there is rarely anyone else in the pool with us. The kids have just recently starting wearing their life jackets in the water and it's awesome. They're "swimming" and I don't have to carry them around in the pool. We do have "practice swim" time where they try to swim without their life jackets, but the rest of the time is spent doing stuff like this:

Now that we have a new computer and it's a thousand times faster than our old one, I might be putting on a lot more videos!!

A Wrestling Match

A Weekend with Grandma and Grandpa

For the first time in 10 years, I had Thanksgiving with my mom and dad and brother. Dennis had to work the Friday after Thanksgiving so we had everyone over here for dinner. It was the first time I ever made Thanksgiving dinner and I have to say it turned out pretty good. The turkey was a bit dry, but the chipotle sweet potatoes rocked!
My parents took the kids home with them for the weekend so I could paint the guest room and repaint the awful color I painted the kids' room. I am still amazed at how much I was able to accomplish in just a few days. Apparently the kids spent the weekend being spoiled. I don't ask too many questions. What happens at Grandma's, stays at grandmas. On one of their expeditions they went to a local park for "sleigh" rides (I'm guessing a wagon ride might be more accurate as there wasn't any snow) and to visit Santa.Eli and Sadie told me that Santa was working out on the farm that day so he had to wear his work clothes. Much to my amazement, both kids sat on Santa's lap and told him what they wanted for Christmas. Eli wants a hockey stick and a puck. Sadie wants a princess, a Tinkerbell princess.
The good thing is that they behaved themselves enough so they get to go back to grandmas. I think she might even take them for a weekend again sometime. Although I'm not sure who has more fun...

A Trip to Minneapolis

I'm behind again at posting pictures with no excuse except for being lazy. So, here I am playing a little catch-up. Also, I feel I must add that I've been really horrible taking pictures, even on this trip I only took about 10. I'm so bad, I need to work on this.
Several weeks ago Dennis had a four day weekend. He didn't take any days off, it just happened because he was on call one weekend and ended up working Veterans Day, so we decided to take advantage of his schedule and the beautiful weather and head down to Minneapolis/St. Paul for an Ikea run, a little Christmas shopping and some extra-curricular activities on the side. We stayed with Auntie Mick and Uncle Mel, which is really enough fun, but we also went to The Minnesota Children's Museum.
It may seem like I only have a daughter, but that is because I was in charge of Sadie and Dennis was in charge of Eli. He was there.The weather was so beautiful (notice Sadie is just wearing a sweatshirt. In late November. In Minnesota.), we had to spend a little time outside. We went to the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory because it was close to the children's museum and because it's free.

I didn't take any pictures of real animals, but Sadie had to pose by every statue and hug and kiss every statue... You can never get that girl out of a gift shop...

Side note: I hate that every stinkin' museum feeds you into the gift shop at the end of the tour.The kids thought it would be funny to pose by the nude statue: I can't believe I'm going to admit the next place we took the kids. Actually, I can admit it, it's probably Dennis who would have a harder time admiting that he took the kids to The Mall of America. I mean, what's next, Disney World?? Dennis' values have gone slightly downhill since we've had kids.
Besides shopping, they do have lots of other ways to blow hundreds of dollars in a few hours. Take LegoLand for instance. The line was insane. Too bad I wasn't patient enough to wait in line to buy anything though I did find some things I wanted to buy. The kids got to play for free though.

Then we went to Nickelodeon Universe so the kids could ride the rides of their favorite Nickelodon shows. Dora and Diego were both in attendance, as well as Blue:Eli's first bumper cars. He looked petrified before he started but had fun once the cars started moving:
We also ate at the Rainforest Cafe and went to Underwater Adventures, an aquarium. Really, it was much too much for all of us. Can you imagine doing all of that AND going shopping too. Ai yai yai!!!
We did make it to Ikea and the Albertville Outlet Mall too which really weren't worthy of taking pictures at. It was a fun weekend!! Hopefully Dennis will get another one of those four day weekends again soon!