Best friends

Much like my sister and I are, I see Mira and Amelia on their way to becoming close friends. I'm so grateful they both will grow to know the close bonds of sisterhood. I feel so fortunate to have a sister/best friend all wrapped up in one wonderful person. I pray my girls have that same bond as they grow. They are well on their way.

100 pieces? No problem!

Mira loves to do puzzles. After buying her all the 24 piece puzzles I could find, I was on the hunt for some in the 50 piece range. No luck. Apparently, they don't make 50 piece puzzles, or else Target just doesn't sell them. So I opted for a 100 piece puzzle, hoping Mira would find it challenging but not frustrating.

And boy did she like that one! It's a good Care Bears puzzle that allowed her to divide it up into 3 sections: blue bear, pink bear, and purple bear. She put each bear together one at a time and after about 45 minutes had the entire puzzle completed (with a little of mom and dad's help). Very impressive! She was so proud of herself.

I used to do puzzles all the time in the winter. A nice steaming mug of cocoa, a bowl of perfectly buttered popcorn, and a puzzle were great for cold winter nights. I'm looking forward to carrying on the tradition with Mira this year and every year after this. How long before we are to the 550 piece puzzles?

Getting a good start:



Almost done!


Success!

Amelia is 6 months!

Amelia was officially six months old yesterday. I can't believe how quickly the time flew with her. She's really growing into a little girl now. She smiles all the time and is a happy, babbly, chubby baby. She's starting to sit up on her own and can hold a pose for a few seconds. It's going to be nice to be able to put her on the floor in a sitting position soon. Her best friends are her toes and they are in her mouth a lot.

We've eliminated the carrier car seat and I'm really loving not having to carry that thing around in the store now. So much lighter! Amelia has her 6 month doctor appointment in 3 weeks, so I'll update on her stats then. Here's a photo of Amelia at 6 months, having tummy time and another one of her in her winter bunting!

Grandpa's visitation arrangements

Grandpa's visitation will be this Wednesday from 4-8 pm at the Lundberg Funeral Home in Cannon Falls (5839 Hwy 19 Blvd.,507-263-4246).

His funeral will be Thursday at 10:30 am at St. Anscar's Church in Cannon Falls.

Rest in Heaven, Grandpa

A much loved father, grandfather and great grandfather; Orlando Curtis Norstad passed away on November 4 at 12:57AM.

Grandpa was 91 years old. His was a life filled with much hard work, but he had so much love and happiness about him. He is survived by 9 children, 22 grandchildren, and many more great children. We'll miss you, Grandpa!

Happy Halloween!

We had a wonderful Halloween with the girls tonight. Chris's family came over for dinner and trick-or-treating. Mira was a scarecrow this year, and Amelia wore a little Halloween onsie. Chris's mom and her husband watched Amelia while we trick-or-treated up and down the neighborhood. Mira's cousins, Cole and Cara, came with, along with their parents (Matt is Chris's brother). Everyone was out tonight! It was fun to run into so many of our friends and neighbors. And the kids made a HAUL! In fact, we went to so many houses that Mira actually said, "I don't want any more candy" and promptly quit walking up to houses, preferring instead to stay on the sidewalk with the parents. We live in a wonderful neighborhood where the families are friendly and we all know each other. Makes for a comfortable Halloween night.

Hope you all had a wonderful day! Now we just need to decide what to do with all this candy. Sorry in advance to our coworkers!

Michelle

A piece of nostalgia

Yesterday at Chris's dad's house, he had raked up a huge pile of leaves for all the kids to jump in. It totally reminded me of when I was a kid and we did that. Of course, now that I'm an adult, it's hard to take the time to rake up all those leaves (we all know how much hard work that is!) and then let the kids mess it up only to have to do it again. I was thankful for the opportunity for Mira to jump in the leaves to her heart's content.

But if you could see the teeny piddly tree in our front yard, you'd know that a stiff breeze blows all the leaves from it into the neighbor's yard. We don't even have to rake!

Below are two videos from the day.

Halloween surrounds us.

Last night, Chris and I took the girls to PF Changs for dinner, then to Borders bookstore for what their flyers promised to be a Spooktacular Halloween Party! Well, 10 minutes after the party was supposed to start and we were the only people there, we finally left. What a disappointment! We bought Mira a Halloween book to make up for it, but I really don't think she noticed that the party never happened. So we won't take much notice of their party for next year. Mira looked adorable in her costume, though!

Then today we went to Grandpa Randy's house for a Halloween party with Mira and Ameila's cousins. The kids played "Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin" and jumped in a huge pile of leaves they raked up. It was a really nice day for it. Below are a few photos from both days.

Monday is Mira and Amelia's daycare party, then we still have Halloween night for trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We have a fun week ahead.

Oh, and my sister and her family is back permanently from Australia on Monday night! The kids and I are driving down on Tuesday afternoon to spend some time with them. It's been 10 months so we can't wait to see them! Welcome home, Kelly, Duey, Chesney, and Logan!

Scary bedtime story

Mira (at bedtime): Mommy, do you know the monster story?
Me: No. What is it?
Mira: Once upon a time, there was a monster. And he went up to a shark and poovered him!
Me: What's "poovered"?
Mira: Jumped. He jumped on the shark and bit his head off! Then he stomped him into pieces. He stomped him into pieces. Then he put a lego on his tummy belly button.
Me: Ooh, that's a scary story.
Mira: Yes.

Ahh, the imagination of a child telling bedtime stories. I particularly like the appearance of a lego at the end.

Michelle

Happy almost Halloween

It's quickly dawning on us that Halloween is just around the corner. You know what that means? It means that Thanksgiving is just 3 weeks after that, and Christmas is just 4 1/2 weeks after that. It's going to be a busy next few weeks, to be sure! Plus we are throwing in a 6-day vacation to DisneyWorld right before Thanksgiving. Tip: Never tell a three-year-old SIX MONTHS before a trip to DisneyWorld. Lots of "Are we going to DisneyWorld today?" has occurred over the summer. Mira is thankful to hear it's getting close. "Soon after Halloween," we tell her.

So we've been spending some time getting ready for Halloween. I'm not a big decorator for that holiday. Too many witches and ghosts aren't really my thing. But I do like pumpkins on my porch steps. Mira and I went to pick up a pumpkin today, and Chris carved a great face into it. Now I'm drying out some seeds to toast. It's a great fall treat! We love to make our "harvest blend" in the fall, our little nod to Chris's late grandma, Beverly. Peanuts and candy corn in a bowl. You can't beat it! But I made it last weekend and we went through two jars of it in about 3 days, so no more of that in the house. It's addictive!

Here are some random photos. We're doing crafts in the house to pass the time and Mira really enjoys playing learning games on sesamestreet.org on the computer. She's really getting good at navigating the games by herself, and she uses the computer mouse with relative ease. Amelia is enjoying her exersaucer and Bumbo seat more, which keeps her head off the floor. We're working on keeping her upright when possible to get her head to round out a little.

It's a nice fall!

Michelle

Apple Jack's Apple Orchard

There is an apple orchard in Delano called Apple Jack's that Chris and I took Mira and Amelia to today. It was really fun! They had lots of kids activities, like a horse and goats to pet, face painting, wagon rides, and pumpkin and apple picking. Mira really enjoyed the place, especially picking her own pumpkins. They are gracing our porch steps right now. Amelia slept a bit of the time in the Snuggli. It was a perfect day to visit.

Princess Party, Take II

Mira finally was able to go to her princess party today. It was planned for last week, but the "Princess" was rear-ended on her way there so they postponed it. It was worth the wait. Mira had such a good time, along with 15 other little girls dressed in their princess best. They heard the story of Cinderella and were helping the princess to tell it. Then they did a craft and she painted each of their faces. Then they did some songs and games, and each got to take a picture with the princess.

Happy Birthday, Chris!

I just wanted to wish my wonderful husband a happy 34th birthday today! Honey, you are a terrific father to our two beautiful girls and a terrific companion to me. We all hope you have a birthday worth remembering!

Love,
Michelle

Blast from the past

It's a tradition for us to take the kids to the State Fair every year. Chris and I like to capture our family in photos at the arcade. It's so fun to see how we change every year. We started doing this when Mira was 3 months old. Judging from this year's photos, we won't be able to fit all our heads in next year!

Princess Party, Take 1

Mira was signed up to go to a "Princess Party" at the Community Center last week. She got all dressed up in her princess best (the dress was given to her from Grandma Lindell for her 3rd birthday). When we got to the party, we were told the "Princess" who was supposed to lead the party and the craft was in a minor car accident on her way to the event and so they had to cancel it. Fortunately, they rescheduled it for a week later, so we'll post photos of the party. But I wanted to show a photo of the girls in their cute dresses!



And, of course, a couple random shots of the girls. Can you believe Amelia is 5 months old this Saturday? Where did the time go?

Thirty O'Clock?

Mira: Mommy, when it's 20 o'clock, it's your turn to watch your show.
Me: There is no 20 o'clock.
Mira: Oh. When it's 30 o'clock, you can watch your show.

I'll never get to watch my show, will I?

A career in Princessistry?

I asked Mira today what she wanted to be when she grows up and she said, "A fire fighter!" I think she might be channelling Grandpa Bob's volunteer career choice. Looking for a lesson to teach, I was just about to launch into a discussion of how she would have to be strong to be a fire fighter and therefore would have to eat all her vegetables.

But before I could even start the vegetable lecture, Mira said, "I change my mind. I think I want to be a princess."

Twarted again! Unless someone can figure out a way to explain why a princess should eat her vegetables. Lovely skin and hair, perhaps?

(To be fair, Mira is pretty good at eating her broccoli, peas, corn, and cauliflower. We pretend she is a giant dinosaur eating all the green trees!)

Our happy baby

Here is a video of Amelia laughing. When we get her going, she has the greatest laugh!

Amelia eats cereal and rolls over again

Tonight we started feeding Amelia rice cereal with a spoon. We were pleasantly surprised at how quickly she took to it. She was pretty hungry, so I'm sure that helped. By the end of the bowl, she was eating like a champ!




And here is a little video of Amelia rolling over for us. She does it so quickly sometimes when we put her on her stomach for tummy time. She's getting to be so active!