Working 9-5

WARNING!

THE NEXT SET OF PICTURES WILL MAKE YOU FALL DOWN LAUGHING

(Don't say I didn't warn you...)

O.k. did you get the tears wiped from your eyes yet?! Coop and I decided to play dress-up this morning and this is what we came up with. He is dressed as Valvoline's newest employee. (That lunch box he is carrying was supposed to be his briefcase and it IS a valvoline lunchbox to boot) He laughed, I laughed, I swear even Duncan was laughing. Oh, and those are my glasses he was wearing. We tried to find the Mr. Potato head glasses, but they are M.I.A. Good times up here in Minnesota.

Because he's SIX now!

AMAZING!
Charlie turned 6! It just seems so insane. He decided he wanted the kind of party every kid dreams of-a ton of kids jumpy on huge bouncy things! Charlie had his part at pump-it-up and it was a huge hit. He had friends from the neighborhood and kids from his class come on Saturday afternoon. A GREAT time was had by all. Andy and I gave him a new acoustic guitar for his present, and he was so excited, surprised, and grateful he actually cried! He has been carrying the thing around for days constantly strumming it. He's now just patiently waiting for his first tooth to fall out...

Family time

Wow. We totally needed to rest up and get a lot of sleep before the week we just had...

Andy's family came into town! It was such a fun, busy week. We ended up having beautiful weather (how weird that we think sunny and 50 is beautiful!) and were able to do many different things.

We did end up spending TWO days at Mall of America. One day was dedicated to riding rides, and the other was for, well, SHOPPING! Alex and I snuck off every chance we could to ride some of the roller coasters!

look at that face! ha!

As the week came to an end, people started to get very tired...

Andy got a new hat.

Alex likes hats too.

The end.

I made it!!

Who checked their calendars? Who is keeping track of time?! I am! The boys and I came to Minnesota exactly one year ago today. What an adventure it has been. We called this all an "adventure" for the boys sake, and boy has it lived up to the name! At times it has been not so fun, but we are all happy and healthy and really can't complain. There have been many things we've enjoyed learning and experiencing, and others...not so much! We have been so blessed to have a group of people really rally around us and give us a tremendous amount of support while we made this transition, and we thank them greatly! And while I used to experience this on a daily basis:


I'm happy I can now witness this everyday!

Little reader

Cooper started reading! I promise! He sat down with some BOB books, and learned how to read! We are super proud of him, and I have a feeling he's going to not slow down on it anytime soon. (He may even catch Charlie soon....)

Snow totals

Here it all was during the worst part of winter. Good news is, the temps have been in the 40's with lots of rain. (That means we have substantial amounts of melting everyday) Towards the bottom of the driveway the snow drifts were at least 7 feet tall at one point. The boys used that as their own personal sledding hill! I can't wait until it's all gone!

On top of the patio table and chair

Several times we had to go out and shovel out the mailbox so the postman would leave us our mail

Wisconsin Dells

We went on a trip. A business trip to be exact. Andy had to travel to the Wisconsin Dells and we decided we would just put on some Valvoline clothes and name tags and tag along. We stayed here. The boys loved it. I thought maybe they would have gotten soft on their swimming skills, but I was wrong. We played on water slides for two days and were soooo exhausted by the time we were ready to head home. Oh, this was our first time at and indoor waterpark-it was great, but I prefer outside!

Picture post

That's what this is. A post filled with random pictures of the last month. We are now in the dreaded dead of winter. It's quite wretched. As you can see by the thermometer in the house, we've had some cold days:

That's right. The number on top was a balmy -16 outside. But if you look close you see a -25. See it? I felt it. Early in the morning that day. And let me tell you, I will take 120 degrees any day over that!

These pictures came from the batch of Christmas card pictures. Duncan didn't make the official card, so I thought I would put him on this one!

Christmas Eve. Christmas this year was a BLAST! Andy and I enjoyed every second of over-indulging our kids this year. We were all in great spirits and had the best time.

This was before the madness began. We (Santa) had to rearrange our furniture to accommodate all of the gifts. It was a lot, but our kids deserved it all this year. Their favorite gift to date is the Wii. (I think it's Andy's favorite too....)

Nana and Papa showed up on Christmas day! What a perfect ending to a perfect day. Who doesn't love having their Papa come upstairs with a giant Santa bag filled with gifts?!

Love birds sledding. That's right, we all went sledding one day. And yes, that is blood on my dad's nose. Sledding can be dangerous ;)

And finally, here's my Mr. Proper. He's doing very well in school. Working very hard on his reading and writing. He still enjoys riding the bus, and being extremely social in his class. He has been ice skating quite a few times and says he wants to keep playing ice hockey.

And lets not forget about Mr. Cool. Cooper, unlike his brother, claims he doesn't like school, and told us to take his ice skates back to the store because he doesn't like it! As most of you have already heard, he told us when he gets older he wants to "be awesome, and go on dates." He's more than ready to get into some warm weather, play outside, and make some new girlfriends. He is going to start speech therapy again, which we are super excited about.

Happy New Year to everyone out in bloggy land. 2009 was very good to our family, and we're hoping 2010 creates more opportunities for us and lots of happiness. Oh, and I am really hoping for an early Spring. I'm cold. Really, really cold. Can't ya tell?