Jack Came to Visit

Dennis' brother, Greg, and his wife Michele were heading to San Antonio for a conference and needed someone to watch Jack. We happily agreed to it and enjoyed every minute of it. Sadie enjoyed playing the big cousin ("like Emily," she says) and Eli was bummed that he had to go to school every day. Jack is a pretty easy toddler and reminded me a lot of Eli at this age. As long as Jack got to do whatever is was that was a part of Jack's routine then Jack was as happy as a clam. He has an intense focus and can sit and entertain himself for quite a while. He knows all of his letters and numbers (seriously, I have a bag of magnetic letters and numbers and he'd pull them out at random and say every letter) colors and shapes. And he happily does whatever you ask him to do.
The only bad thing is that he arrived in the midst of our sickest week here at our house. Jack made 2 trips to the dr. once for Eli and once for me. By the time Jack left, we were all on antibiotics and Jack was too! But, we did manage to have fun doing lots of other stuff that helped us forget about the coughs and runny noses. The weather was amazing so we spent lots of time outside. Here are some highlights of Jack's stay:
A trip to the gym bin (at the begninning of the week we still had a lot of snow so it was hard to be outside as it was wet and slippery). He loved the pit and would say "C'up Sadie" which was his way of saying cover-up sadie. So we would hide Sadie in the blocks and she would jump out:

No trip to a cousin's house would be complete without a bathtub picture:

One of Jack's favorite things, pushing "the button":

Pusing "Jack's bike". I love that the chickens are in this picure, seems fitting considering how much Jack loved chasing them:

Breakfast (and lunch and supper) of champions-- Pancakes-- it's about all we could get him to eat:

Sadie Rides on Two Wheels

Sadie was bound and determined to learn to ride her bike without training wheels. I thought that she wasn't quite ready as she wouldn't ever let me let go of her seat and her balance was all off. True to Sadie form, she decided she was going to do it so she did it. There was a long day of screaming and falling and pushing her bike over and kicking her bike and blaming me for her falling and more screaming, before she was finally able to do it, but she did it.

The Donut Race

This weekend we participated in the Black Lake Loppet just outside of Bemidji. It's a very kid friendly race and is meant to be a fun event instead of a serious ski event. The entrance fee is a donation tot the food shelf. People came in costumes, some only wore their underwear... you get the idea. It's fondly referred to as the "donut race" because halfway through the race you have to stop and eat a donut before you can continue. The race is staggered in hopes of a mass finish at the end. The big winner is the person who comes in 13th and everyone brings trophy's and ribbons from other events as prizes. It truly is a blast and the kids got into the spirit of the event.
Here they are at the starting line:

The kids needed some assistance down the first big hill:

It was a beautiful day:

Sadie needed help getting up some of the hills. I think she could have done it herself, but she preferred the ride over the work:

Going down is always more fun than going up:

Taking off skis at the finish line:

Most of the kids only did half of the race (and we took all of the short-cuts on that half so we probably only did a little more than a quarter of the 11K race) so we enjoying our reward at the end of our ski:

Sadie and her first crush Louie ("But mom, He's just so nice to me!"-- believe me, all the girls love Louie):

The Sadies hanging out by the fire:

Picking their prize:

A Sperle Update...

The kids have been celebrating Dr. Seuss all week at school. Monday was crazy hair day. Sadie's hair couldn't be too crazy because we go straight from school to gymnastics. But, Missy, my friend who does Clara's hair to the nines and my hair-inspiration did Clara up as Cindy Lou-Who. It was too cute.

Speaking of gymnastics, Sadie has been going 4 hours a week for over a month now and it is going pretty well. She complains sometimes, but once she's there she's in hog-heaven. It's amazing how much better she's gotten this past month.

Eli's behavior has really turned around this last month and he's a much less grumpy kid. Maybe he just got used to being at school all day, everyday. But, he's much more fun to be around.

Speaking of school, we just received notice that Sadie and Eli both got into the charter school, Schoolcraft, that we were hoping to get into. We are very excited to make this change and I can't wait to give you reports.

Dennis enjoyed his 40th birthday. We went to eat Mexican food and the kids were disappointed that they brought him a shot of tequila instead of fried icecream. Dennis got a beer brewing kit and is currently taking a beer brewing class. He also got books to teach himself how to play the piano. He is not quite a concert pianist, but he is improving!

Dennis also got a promotion at work. He is now assistant chief pharmacist, not to be confused with assistant to the chief pharmacist.

No new news from me. I've just been working on some house projects and playing Martha Stewart, which is quite enjoyable. Next year, I've been informed that I should look for a job as my current job as Stay at Home Mom is coming to a close. I was thinking Housewife might be a good new job, but "teacher" pays more!

What's new with you?