Last minute gifts?

I saw this a while ago and thought I would share it.  Just in case you are in need of some 'great' gifts this time of year, check out this! My personal favorites are numbers 4, 6, 8, 10 14, 22, and my all time favorite: 12! : )
Thank you Parenting.com for this great information.
Happy Gaudete Sunday.

Love ya, mean it
Be here now.

Arts & Crafts Firsts

We are getting to the point where Lachlan needs other things to do besides reading books, playing with hist toys-especially his cars-and listening to music.  So we are starting to do more 'crafty' things.  He sat for quite a while recently and actually took the crayons and scribbled on the paper with different colors.  I was so impressed when he was done-which he indicated by throwing all the crayons on the ground and then saying 'Al-nuk' Translation: All Done

His first finger painting adventure happened way back in August.  Weird to think of all that has happened-good and bad-since then...

James was over and brought some finger paints for us to paint with.  We thought this would be fun to see how Lachlan did with it.  Well, he wasn't a big fan.  He didn't like the whole 'get your hands full of paint' aspect.  His Auntie Mary not only helped paint his piece of paper, but also helped paint him!  We may need to wait a bit before we try this one again.  

Huh, this is interesting.

Maybe this is pretty cool.

Nope!  Definitely not cool!

Thanks for the hand print, Auntie Murmur!

There!  It's all better with the sponge.

James was over once again and found this ooooold packet of clay.  I had it since college.  Please don't judge.  I had a little container of play-doh for Lachlan to play with (thank you, Hrad!) so we played around with that for a while.  Lachlan was not sure of what to think of the play-doh.  At first, of course, he wanted to eat it.  Since we were sitting at the table in his chair, what other logical thing would we do with this mushy (and salty!) stuff?  He decided quickly that he did not like it.  I think play-doh is a fun thing, but far out it is messy!

He was having a hard time trying to get it out.

Good times with sculpting.

Perhaps the blue tastes better than the yellow???

All he did in the end was break it up into pieces. 

We had these 2 cute little pumpkins we didn't end up carving, and I saw online a cute way to paint them.  So we cut squares out of masking tape and placed them on the pumpkins (and later we peeled them off when the paint dried).  Lachlan did a really nice job of crumbling up the tape instead of putting it on the pumpkin.  

This was his first time painting with a brush, so I wasn't really sure how things would go, but he did pretty well!  He splattered a bit-uhps! (as Lachlan would say) but for the most part, he did alright.  They still decorate out table, and will probably until the end of Christmas--no, I need to be better than that.  When the Christmas stuff comes out, the pumpkins will go buh-bye. 

Uhps!

All Halloooooow's Eve, etc.

Our Halloween, or All Hallows Eve weekend was a celebration of 5 days!  Party!

 Friday night, Luke and I went on our first date with out children since Torin was born.  We went to Ichibans in downtown Mlps.  They cook their amazing food right in front of you.  Instead of getting dessert there, we went to Cub and got some Ben & Jerry's and red boxed How to Train Your Dragon.  It was a really fun night!  Saturday morning Auntie Emi joined us on our trip to the HallZOOween and the MN zoo.  It was a trial run with the costumes.  The zoo is always a good time.  That night Luke, Torin and I went to friends of ours waaaay up north (North Branch) and carved some pumpkins(Lachlan was at Grampa and Nana's).  Good times!  It was FUHREEZING! But the starts were gorgeous.  I spent all ride up their coming up with my fabulous design!  Sunday we carved our HUGE pumpkin that we won at my parents' Church fall festival.  Even Weezer enjoyed the pumpkin carving!  Sunday afternoon we visited Mrs. Hrad with our costumes on.  Always SO good to see her!  We came back to Aunt Janey's delicious Halloween meal for us.  After that we went to a friends' neighborhood to do our trick-or-treating.  Thanks for hanging out with us, Shurts'!

Day 4 of our fun weekend was All Saints!  Yay for all the Saints!  This was the first time visiting SACS.  It was SO good to see everyone again.  I miss you, SACS!  Since it was technically our Feast day, Emily and I celebrated with getting a coffee (we like to celebrate our feast days with ice cream, but we did yummy coffee drinks instead).  It was a wonderful day of celebrating!  The last day of our penta-celebration was all Souls Day.  Of course Nora Jane was near and dear to our heart.  We spent the day remembering her.  

I am getting used to this new way of uploading pictures, and since this is already 2 weeks behind, I figured this is how it is going to be.  The pictures are WAY out of order, and I will add captions on some of them.  But I hope you enjoy our adorable children.  Gosh, we just love them so much!!!!  : )

Love ya, mean it

Be here now.

THANK YOU Aunt Carol for sending this!  It was a little big, but we loved it!  This is famous costume b/c its creator is a famous costume designer in New York, who also happens to be Luke's cousin.

My Bee and my Pea!

He LOVES the fish.

The 'gramma' and the Renaissance lady

Mine is the 2nd on the right- the scary profile, and yes I did create that all on my own!  Luke thought he would be ironic and make a pumpkin within a pumpkin.

The trick-or-treatin gang (Pea pod, bee, ballerina, pizza, bee again!)

Anyone know who we are?  Think 80s and 'Jump Jump!'

This is what our child does on too much candy.  He decided to go to the dog's kennel.  Or he was trying to hide eating more M&M's.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Lachlan needed to take a time out, so this is him being such a good boy and just sitting on his step while we are outside working with the pumpkin.  What a sweetheart.

Auntie Emi's idea....

Trick-or-Treating in action!

 

                                                          Torin was never really too sure about his costume.  I thought it was ADORABLE!!                       

Best pumpkin ever!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            

Up, Up & Away!

Up to the North Shore, that is. Away for a vacation. Just what this family needed!
This is the 3rd year we have gone up to the North Shore with friends of ours during MEA weekend.  It was weird not to actually have an MEA break this year...It was a wonderful time to get away-literally-the reception up there is a bit dodgy, and spend time with some wonderful people.  Exciting to have some new additions as well.  2 new babes joined us this year!  Here is just some of the cuteness we had among us.   

 

Lachlan found some sticks and started drumming on the bike rack--he is taking after his uncle & his love of sticks



 

Since Gooseberry Falls is right up the road-seriously like 5 minutes away-we take advantage of seeing the beautiful Falls; which make for some beautiful pictures.

Lachlan found a rock bridge.

The cool Daddies & The pretty little Mommies

The Fellas (plus a pretty little Baby Girl) & The Ladies

Me & my Boys

Say Whaaaat? Looking good!

 
Good times at Gooseberry.

This year we had a fun addition (aside from the babes!) to the festivities: beer tasting. What a brilliant idea! So we lined 'em up and closed 'em down!

There were 9 different selections and we were to rate them 5 stars based on taste. Whose beer won, you ask? Well, mine of course! Magic Hat #9. I totes recommend it.

The first pour of this annual (hopefully)event.

The winning beer. Isn't it beautiful?

The last beer we tasted was everyone's least favorite. I am not sure whether it was because of the taste or because there were weird things floating around in it...

Saturday night called for a few rounds of bowls-wasn't able to take any action shots of that game-I was too busy winning...oh wait, I didn't win...After we put the bowls away, we brought out the spoons! And what a ruthless game it was. Pretty much full contact. There were quite a few scrapes and many laughs, and here is the score card. Yes, though Luke could not win a game of cribbage, he won spoons. Good on ya, lovey!

This was our view from our cabin, and the sound of the waves were as mesmerizing as ever.

We needed some serious snugglin time out there because it was co-old! I mean, just look at those waves:

Ro family, we had such a loverly time. Thank you!!!

Minutes before we left. Fare thee well, North Shore, until we meet again.