A New Nephew

Back on February 15 my brother called in a panic. It seems my SIL was going into labor and their plan of having her mom come and watch the kids wasn't working. They couldn't get ahold of her and Talia wanted to get to the hospital "right now" and would I please come over. I was out the door in 5 minutes arriving at about 6:00ish. They were out the door by 6:30 because my brother was adamant about installing the car seat and he needed to vacuum out the car. Don't ask. Brothers do weird things when their wife is in labor. Darren called about an hour and a half later saying that Talia already delivered the baby. Bennett came fast and furious, but at least it was at the hospital and not in the freshly vacuumed car! He was a chubby little thing and big compared to her other two peanuts. Welcome to the world Bennett Gabriel! We can't wait to watch you grow.

The hospital announcement.

A happy family.

Proud (and tired) mom and dad.

Dennis holds Bennett for the first time!

Skip to the last weekend in April when Bennett was baptized. Here he is at 10 weeks!

Proud auntie.

Doting cousins making Bennett smile!

Waterpark Fun

During Spring Break way back in March we went on a totally kid-friendly trip to Wisconsin Dells. We stayed at a hotel called the Wilderness which boasts 4 indoor waterparks, 2 mini-golf courses, too many arcades to count, a haunted house, a ropes course, a gigantic indoor playpark, laser tag and more. It was a crazy noisy experience and I'm pretty sure every kid and their parent in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois was there. It was insane. As you can imagine taking pictures at a place like this just doesn't happen mostly because I was wearing my swimsuit the whole time which meant no pockets and when I did have my camera we were in a place that was dark like the glow mini-golf courses or the haunted house or the laser tag. Plus, I was too busy participating in said attractions and had my hands full so taking pictures just wasn't going to happen. But, here are a few highlights anyways!!

Eli loved the wave pool and the indoor/outdoor hottub. Sadie prefered the water play areas with fountains and dumping water. The water slides were fun too but the lines were long.

One of the 3D mini golf courses...

One of the many fountains that Sadie made me take a picture of her sitting on.

One of the great things about this trip is that we did not even have to leave our hotel. We were there for 4 days and only left our hotel once!! There were 2 tvs even so the kids could watch their shows and Dennis and I could watch ours. I even saw my first episode of Duck Dynasty-- who knew?? Needless to say, after too many trips of driving, driving and more driving the kids were thrilled to experience a hotel vacation where they didn't have to sleep in a tent and had nothing pressing to do but kid fun!
We did leave to go to restaurant one night that we heard was fun because they deliver your food by train. We made reservations so we could get one of the train tables, but we still had to wait for our table. The kids loved sitting up at the bar, ordering root beer, wearing buffalo hats and sitting on a saddle. How fun is that?

And look... the food does come on a train. It was a fun night out.

I'm sure the kids can't wait to go back and that they would count this as one of their favorite trips of all time.  Dennis and I loved seeing the kids have so much fun!

New Girls

All photos courtesy of Sadie's ipod!

We had a masacre this winter. A masacre that killed the last our poor little girls including our dear sweet Annie that we all loved so much (including our neighbor who found her not once, but twice in his house). She was a special bird who never failed to make us laugh. Who knew you could love a chicken so much!? Were were all heart-broken that day.

 We were chickenless which meant we were also eggless so we were patiently waiting for chickens to arrive at our local fleet farm so we could get some new girls. Then, the chickens showed up but spring didn't... we waited as long as we could and finally the kids convinced Dennis that we absolutely could not survive another minute without chicks. We bought 4 chicks which is enough for us and our purposes. The kids each picked one out. Sadie picked a bantam and named her Chippy. Eli picked out a Blue Polish and named her Smokey. Dennis got a black sex-link and named her Clementine. They picked out a Polish for me since I wasn't there and I named her Catalina. The Polish have crazy feathers on the top of their heads and right now they look a little crazed as their fluff is changing to feathers! They are pretty cute. Now if they'd just hurry-up and lay already.

Peacemaker Club Project

One part of my job is to advise an after-school club called "Peacemakers." We have spent 6 months working on a radio program about exclusion and bullying to be aired on a local radio station KBXE. Here is a news story featured on Lakeland News:

Schoolcraft Open Mic Night

One of Schoolcraft's PAC fundraisers is an open mic night. It is held at a local pub called Brigid's. The students sign up to perform. There was everything from piano, to jokes, to cup pounding, to pogo stick jumping. The talent abounds--and where the talent was little, the confidence was there to make up for it! Eli and Sadie selected a piano song to play. I was even suckered in to playing a duet with Sadie. I have not played in a piano recital since I was in third grade, but I think we rocked it! It was a great experience for the kids and for me too.

Don't Give Up On Me!

Dad: Funny, Mom: Love, Eli: Weird, Sadie: Cuddly

Hey all! Don't give up on the blog. Eli and Sadie's blog is not over, it was just on a long vacation. I am promising you that I will catch you up with all of our happenings during the month of May. Keep checking back for highlights!!

Service and Compassion: A Haircut

A few months ago when Sadie's class was studying about Expeditionary Learning's Design Principles, she decided that she was going to cut her hair and donate it to a good cause so she could do "service and compassion". She wanted to wait until her hair was long enough so it wouldn't be too short. We decided to donate her hair to "Beautiful Lengths" because they require less hair, only 8 inches versus the other organizations that require 10 and I felt like her hair would actually be used for what it says it's going to be used for.  She was pleased with the length and with knowing that she's helping people with cancer.

Winterfest

Today was Schoolcraft's annual winterfest in which everyone participates in fun outdoor winter activities. The weather was a perfect day for outdoor play, a balmy 20 degrees. Kids and staff came dressed in their warmest clothes and had a great day! Note: I spent most of the day with the kindercrew because they seemed to need the most help, putting on, taking off, emergency bathroom runs, warm-up breaks and the like, so there are way more pictures of Sadie than Eli...

Cross country skiing was first on the list...

 Then a little playing while we waited for our next activity.

A warm-up with hot chocolate and games/coloring:

Next was wagon rides, I never seem to get good pictures on wagon rides...

The activity that the kids were most excited for was dog-sledding. I have to admit that that's what I was most excited for too!

Sadie getting her turn!

And me getting mine!

Then, a fantastic chili lunch and back out to ice-fish!

Our last activity of the day was stories by the fire complete with marshmallow roasting and s'mores!! It was a perfect ending to an almost perfect day. It was a fun and exhausting day. What a wonderful celebration of Northern Minnesota and all of it's wonder and opportunity.

Crazy Hair Day

It's spirit week at Schoocraft this week. Today is crazy hair day. The kids were excited to get their hair done this morning. I think this is the first morning ever that Sadie woke me up and told me it was time to get her hair done, usually I'm tieing her down in her chair to comb through that mass of hair! They both turned out cute, but Sadie's is pretty stallar!

Eli's spiky blue do.

Eli and some classmates being crazy!

Sadie's bun-hawk.

Sadie and some classmates being crazy!

Happy Valentine's Day

I sent the kids to school this morning with their homemade Valentine boxes. They were armed with Valentines and big smiles ready to party!! I hope you are spending the day with those you hold near and dear to your heart. xoxo

Brrrrmidji Polar Days

Several weekends ago Bemidji held it's annual Polar Days with lots of outdoor/snowy/cold events lined up. Dennis took part in the 5K Polar Challenge. It looks cold, but it was actually pretty nice about 20 degrees, no sun though and the wind was blowing! There were about 120 participants and they're off:

This is what the kids did while we waited the 20 minutes for dad to cross the finish line:

There he is. He came in 10th place. Time 22:52. He got first place in the 40-49 year olds! Not bad considering how icy it was.

Then we went over to watch the polar plunge. The polar plunge is where half-crazy people jump in the freezing cold water for fun. Usually it's for a cause or they're with an organization, but it's crazy to watch. First of all they are half naked. Second, they are standing on ice waiting to jump in the water (I was cold and could hardly have my hands out of my mittens long enough to take these pictues.) Third, they are jumping into freezing cold water. I took pictures of these girls because they are the Bemidji Roller Derby team, the girl in the red tights is a teacher at Schoolcraft. Here she is pumping herself up!

The big jump:

The race for the stairs... It's amazing to see everyone come up out of the water. They are in pure survival mode. Some people, after being in the water for only about 30 seconds came out totally confused and obviously in shock. It was wild to see.

Maybe next year, you'll see us all jump in the lake... or maybe we'll just wait until summer!

A Celebration: Eli, Food For Thought

Last week, Eli and the first grade crews had their "Food For Thought" celebration. They spent the first semester looking at food: why we eat what we eat, where we get our food from and why, my plate (the new food pyramid) and nutrition, parts of plants and how they grow, and why people from other countries and cultures eat what they eat. They had 4 field work (not to be confused with field trips. The kids go to work and learn--as you'll see) days: 1 to a local berry farm, 1 to a dairy farm, and 1 to a local restaurant and the farmers market and 1 to the German Village Bakery. At the berry farm, the farmer said that he really needed help marketing his berries to the public and asked the first graders to help him. They, of course, said that they would help him but they weren't sure how. So, they did a ton of research and decided that they should build a website to help him sell his goods and they included a lot of other local farmers as well.

The students made self-portraits like those from Arcimboldo

Eli shows us how they began the process of designing their website.

I included this picture because this was one of my favorite parts. They looked at a book called "The Hungry Planet" that shows images of what families around the globe eat in one week and how much they spend. The kids had to find the countries on the map, evaluate if the food listed is fresh or processed and if they are getting all of the food groups, and think about why people eat what they do beside just "it tastes yummy." and compare if what they eat is similar or different to we eat.  It was interesting what they discovered!

The French Teacher was there with a bunch of French words and phrases that they learned during the food expedition. It was all about different kids of food, where to shop, etc.

Here Sadie is exploring the web-site that the students built.

Without further ado, click here to go and view the website that they created. As you will see. There was a lot of time put into the creation of this website and the kids were so proud of all of their hard work. Make sure to watch the videos!!