Christmas Eve at the Water Park of America

This year we decided to go with a smaller Christmas in regards to gifts and spend the money we would have spent at the Water Park of America. The Radisson Hotel near the Mall of America has the biggest inside water park in America. We stayed at the Radisson and spent most of Christmas Eve swimming. It was a lot of fun! There were "big" slides for the older 3 and Nathan. There was an area for smaller children where Michael and I hung out. My parents and Brigham joined us for a little bit. There was also a "lazy river" which is where the first picture was taken.

At the area where Michael and I played, there was a huge barrel at the top and when it would fill with water, it would dump it all over the play area. The next picture is of Nate getting dumped on. He loved to wait until the barrel would get full and then enjoy being doused with water.

My kids are really into flashing the "peace" sign whenever their pictures are taken. Nate started the trend and now they can't say "cheese" without saying "peace" as well.

After swimming, we went out to IHOP for Christmas Eve dinner. Nothing like IHOP goodness!

The kids in their Christmas Eve jammies, a tradition that we love to keep going.

Time to Update the Blog!

A new Chuck E. Cheese restaurant opened up in Rochester. The first night my parents and my brother, Brigham, were in town for Christmas we went to eat and play. Everyone enjoyed it! Below is one of Andy's prizes from all the tickets he won! Unfortunately, his mouth is not big enough for him to comfortably wear them. But he looks cool anyway!

Nathan and Brigham had a competition going with this game. They both wanted to get the high score. When we left, Nathan's high score still stood.

Every year at our school, the Kindergartners make and decorate Gingerbread houses. Nate and Haley have done it, so it was Andy's turn this year. He had a lot of fun decorating it!

Costumes! I tried to save money this year by making costumes, it came back and bit me in the face! Nate and Andy are Gargoyles, a costume we found on Family Fun. They didn't turn out as expected, in fact they looked like Muppets. I spent twice as much money than I would have if I had bought them. Nathan said, "You're making memories, so it's okay." But then we ended up throwing away everything but the sweatsuits. Haley wanted to be an Angel and I found her costume for much cheaper than it would be if I made it, so she looks beautiful! Michael is wearing a hand-me-down costume from Andy. He's a dragon and he loved wearing it! When we went to the kid's school Halloween parade, people kept calling him a dinosaur. His reply? "I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a dragon!"

Daddy helped Andy with his.

Star Wars Clone Trooper


Carving of the Jack-O-Lanterns. Nate did his own this year.

Signs of Fall Part II

Another sign of Fall is our annual trip to Tweite's Pumpkin Patch. My mom and I took the kids while Nathan was in Russia. Again, it was a beautiful day and it even got a little warm, so the kids didn't need to wear jackets and were sweating. It was a wonderfully fun trip, as it always is.

Oh, my handsome Andy! Those blue eyes get me every time!

This slide was Michael's favorite because he'd go really fast and then biff it in the sand!

Michael eating sand after the fast slide.

When we've gone in past years, we've never taken time to feed the animals. Thanks to Grandma Bice who supplied the many quarters, the kids got to feed goats, bunnies, and chickens. They have these cool pipe things set up so all you have to do is drop the corn into the pipes and it goes to the animals. The chickens seemed especially hungry, so we spent most of our time with them. The kids really enjoyed doing this, thanks Grandma Bice!

Next to feeding the chickens, this was the other highlight of our trip. The pumpkin patch has these rubber ducks you can buy for $1.00 and then the kids can race them down this homemade water track as many times and they want. Michael absolutely loved it! He soaked himself from chin to knees. In fact he carried around his "bath duck" for days afterwards and eventually lost it.

On the wagon ride.

Every wooden stand or photo opportunity that we passed, Haley had to stop and get her picture taken. We have several shots of her, but I only chose a few.

The pumpkin patch has several sandboxes spread throughout, some are big and some are small. We had to tear Michael away from this huge sandbox because we had more to see before it closed. He LOVED the sandboxes! At one point he was doing "sand angels" in the sand!

These black slides are always a favorite. The pumpkin patch has these slides at several places in the patch. The family who owns it made these slides out of some big black tubes. These slides are very fast and the kids always enjoy them!

Signs of Fall

One thing that I love about Rochester is their love of Apple Orchards. We have several that are a short drive from our home. Every year the preschools and kindergartens get to go on a field trip to an orchard. This year I got to go with Andy's class. It was a beautiful day and we had a good time with his class. We got a full instruction of how they pick and sort the apples, how they make apple cider, what they do with the rotten apples, and where they keep them (in a huge room that they keep at 30 degrees - it's a huge refrigerator room). The kids got to pick an apple, a small pumpkin, and try a few blueberries (although, I'm sure they don't compare to yours Miriam!). I love this first picture. The apple orchard man was telling us how they make apple cider and I wanted to get a shot of Andy listening with his teacher, Mrs. Huddleston. Andy has this sixth sense when it comes to cameras and at the last second he turned and gave me this cheesy smile.

We went through a corn maze and Andy was gracious enough to stop and let me get his photo next to the stalks.
Out of all the pumpkins we saw, Andy chose a very dirty one!

This is us on the tractor trailer ride.

Andy with his Kindergarten class. He's in the back directly below the apple. You can barely see his face. Of course he had to be in the back because he's one of the tallest in his class.