Blessings From Above: October 2011

Happy Fall to everyone (a month late... I know). It's been one wild 6-7 weeks since I last posted. School started back up for me, pre-school started,

the marathon came and went (and went great, might I add), and, most recently, Daddy went - to China! Yes, the kiddos and I have been pretty much on our own the past 2+ weeks. We are surviving and have actually settled into a new and temporary "norm" but we are all missing Daddy lots and lots. Tegan now asks daily how many more "sleeps" until B returns - we are down to one hand (5) sleeps counting tonight.

I've done my best to try and get the kids out and doing something different each weekend that B has been gone. The first weekend we went to a park in Chaska and a friend of mine did a mini one-hour photo shoot. So far the 7 pictures I've seen are amazing, in spite of the fact that C hardly smiled throughout the whole thing (little stinker!). On the way home we stopped at a local doughnut shop and each had a doughnut and beverage (juice for the kids, coffee for me). (I'll post pics when I have them)

Last weekend we spent most of the weekend up at my folks house on the north side of the Cities. I can't even remember much of what we did there other than the unfortunate ending when T threw the fit of a lifetime in the middle of Target and I literally had to carry him out to the car kicking and screaming "You're the meanest mommy in the whole world". It was one for the record books, that's for sure!

This weekend was a "long" one for us as it was Fall/MEA Break here in MN for students and teachers. I had Thursday and Friday off in addition but since the kids were paid for at daycare on Thursday they still went and I took that day to get loads done around the house. My mom came down Thursday evening and spend the night and much of the day Friday with us here at home. Tegan and I got out for some Mommy and T time... nothing fancy, he helped me run errands but he was excited for the 1-on-1 attention nonetheless. That afternoon I got a call from Brendan's coworker who also has a 4 year old and invited T over for the evening to play with his little guy. SO, at 4:45 T got picked-up and it was time for C and I to have some 1-on-1 time.

After a quick bite for the wee-one, we loaded up and we headed over to the MOA (Mall of America). I first had a quick return to do and then we trekked across Nickelodeon Universe to the American Girl store. There we picked out 2 new outfits for C's Bitty Baby (appropriately named "Baby" by Miss C herself) and then we checked out the B&N where we found a few new books and CD's to grow our brains with. Before we knew it, it was time to go pick-up T and head home for bed. Little did I know, but T's friend Brody has one exciting house with lots of toys we don't have (including a 1/2 or 1/3 size trampoline in his basement!!!). An hour after arriving at Brody's house I was able to convince T we really needed to get home and get C to bed (us all, for that matter). That's when my one truly difficult time alone with the kids - I was already jittery from an Excedrin Migraine I'd taken earlier (it has caffeine in it and apparently I hadn't eaten enough to counteract the jitters it can cause). Once the kids were in bed I started to get real anxious... nervous... whatever you want to call it. I finally decided to call my mom around 10 to have someone to talk to and just take my mind off things and being the amazing woman and mom and grandma that she is, she offered to come back down to our house and stay the night. Sure enough, less and an hour later she AND my dad got here and I was able to relax.

Saturday brought more fun - my mom and T played together for a good hour or longer while C, my dad and I hung out upstairs reading, talking and playing, too. Around 11 my mom, C and I headed over to The General Store in Minnetonka while T stayed home with Papa. We all had out own fun (T and Papa went to the park while C enjoyed eyeing up all the unique children's stuff the General Store has to offer). C and I even had a quick lunch, including the biggest and most frosting and sprinkle covered sugar cookie I've ever seen, and us girls headed back.

Almost forgot to mention that across the 3 days of Thurs-Saturday I painted the master bathroom & basement hallway, installed 3 new sink faucets in the master and main floor guest bathrooms, and applied a frosted window film to the master bathroom windows to allow us to leave the blinds open while maintaining privacy.

Today I wanted to get out of the house, so I took the kiddos over to Sever's Corn Maze in Shakopee where we had an absolute blast. T LOVED bouncing on the "jumping pillows" (Casey did NOT like them!!!).

After the "pillows" it was onto the Corn Pit (yes, a massive pit surrounded by hay bales and filled with 3 feet or so deep of dried corn kernels). It was very soothing to play in there, even for me.

T made corn angels (think snow angels but with corn)

while C just loved lightly tossing (no throwing per the rules) corn.

Then it was onto the tall slide, which after climbing to the stairs and getting onto this sliding mat decided he wasn't ready for that big of a slide yet. C fussed but I took her down and she was smiling by the end (sorry, no pics of that as I had the camera in my pocket and 2 hands on C). The hay bale maze was next. It was just 1 bale tall, so you could walk between the bales or on top of them. The 3 of us enjoyed doing both.

Before leaving we took a quick stroll through the exotic animal tent and petting zoo. You'd never believe the animals we saw. Many of them I'd never heard of. Did you know there's such a thing as a Ze-donk? Google it :) Needless to say we all took rests (naps for C and I and quiet time on the couch with The Lion King for T). What a day!!!