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!