A Great 12 Days

What a wonderful 12 day visit from our beloved Babu! After a year drought of not seeing her, it was wonderful getting to visit for a full 12 days! It was super fun and as the first photo shows, Bumble Bee was VERY excited to see her Babu once again!

BumbleBee literally JUMPED out of the stroller to get into Babu's arms at the airport luggage claim! It was so cute and she just snuggled into Babu and didn't want to go back into the stroller...

The next day was the Birthday party...as this photo shows the love between T-man and Babu, it was super cute to see T each morning WALK to Babu's legs and smile to be picked up. Babu happily obliged :)

We even went to the MN zoo one day. Babu surprised the toddlers with their favorite animals in stuffed forms: T-man loves the sharks; and Bumble Bee can watch the otters for HOURS!

Back seat love! Bumble Bee enjoyed spending time with Babu in the mini van!

T-man LOVED spending time with his Babu! Cute pic of the two having quality bonding time!

Thanks so much Babu for coming, helping us with the toddlers, being an adult chaperone for a 26 hour lock-in, and even letting Mommy sleep in! It was such a wonderful time getting to see you! We can't wait for you to come and visit again really soon!

A Very Veggie Birthday Party

**Disclaimer: since I turned my camera over to friends, these pics are wonderful...but sadly not done by me. I was having too much fun with the babies, I mean, toddlers :)

Alright, so two weekends ago, we had some 26 people come to the house to celebrate T and B's birthdays! With a now official 1 year old and a 2 year-old, it has been mighty busy, so I apologize for not updating sooner! At the birthday party, we had friends and family come and celebrate the toddlers birthday with a Veggie Tale twist! We played games like "Guess that Veggie!", "Madame Blueberry Hunt", and my favorite "Oh Where is Larry's Hairbrush?" It was a lot of fun getting to see the family kids looking everywhere for the small hairbrush that was hidden in a low tree... it also gave us the perfect reason NOT to cut our grass!

As you can see, there were lots of people. Thankfully we have a great deck that can hold everyone and everything for the party!

T-man on his bday! He LOVED being center of attention!

BumbleBee blowing out her candles (ok so the wind actually blew out the candles, but B LOVED her muffin peas!

Since Super Hubby does NOT allow the toddlers to consume sugar, we made mini blueberry "Pea" family muffins! Babu did a great job making them green, and way to go Auntie Kodet for getting the pea faces!

For the bigger kids and adults, Super Hubby made two great cheesecakes! This one was Larry- oreo cheesecake

and then there was Bob the cherry-caramel cheesecake! He did a phenomenal job decorating their faces too!

Altogether, a GREAT birthday party and LOTS of amazingly sweet and thoughtful gifts! Right before the toddlers had their meltdowns for nap time, we were even able to squeeze a family/friend blessing and prayer over them so that they can have a happy and safe upcoming year with Christ!!

So if you're ever looking for a certain Veggie Tale DVD, just hollar... we might have it in our new V.T. DVD library! Thank you all who came and everyone's prayers for the toddler's upcoming year's worth of adventures!

A Conversation with my almost 2 year-old

She's at the brink of being 2...

"One day, you're going to be all big and grown up, BumbleBee. Can you just stay my tiny baby forever?"

Bumble Bee: smiles, shakes her head furiously and then says, "No Mommy!" giggles and runs away :)

It brings me to tears thinking that this little princess will one day be all grown up! So until then, I'll love every minute with her :)

She loves to shop... and she shops hard! This one was at the Target in the Mall, I had to then proceed to walk thru the mall with her completely passed out sleeping on my shoulder as I pushed T in his stroller. Gotta love it!

Beat the Heat

Well today's temp reached a whooping 94 degrees outside, which meant it was 84 degrees in our home (since we don't have A/C)...so I thought why not bring the kiddos to the St. John's lake? It's the perfect place to go when you don't want lots of people messing around your stuff, quiet and less busy PLUS I LOVE St. John's Lake since it's super clean :)

This was T man's first lake trip... gasp! I know, I'm sorry all my Minnesotan friends who have practically lived on lakes their whole lives...but since I have two toddlers AND am pregnant, I figured it would be alright to hold off on the lake front until I felt it was the right time for an almost 1 year-old and almost 2 year-old to go crazy in!

BumbleBee LOVES sand! Although she is not at all fond of it being messy on her, she LOVES using her sand toys we got her for her sandbox at home. She was super excited to see them to play in the "dirrrt"

Even with a friend to help me with the fun, T man was still able to be tricky enough to grab a whole fist full of sand and start to eat it before we took notice! His face is priceless as we scooped out all that yummy sand :)

T man's dancin' pose! He LOVES the outdoors!

After a lil over a half an hour of sand time, I thought it'd be a good time to show them the lake... since they didn't even notice it the whole time! This is a good thing since we had to coax them out of the pool with yogart :)

Bumblebee's reaction = shocked that there were fishies in the "bafth" (her vision for bath)

T man's reaction = complete excitement and overjoyed with LOTS of "words" to describe his excitement! He wanted to touch the fish so bad... too bad they were afraid of him :(

Overall, this was a GREAT day... T fell asleep as soon as he was put in his car seat and Bella fell asleep right after lunch in the car. She slept for 2 hours!! Success? I think so!

Veggie Dance!

Hopefully this will upload as to my beautiful children getting super excited for their Veggie Tale Themed birthday party by dancing in the car!

Super Cute :)

Planning Events

I LOVE my vocation as wife, mother, an youth minister... I love that God blesses me with using my passions and creativity in all these contexts. But there is a HUGE passion I have that I get to utilize whenever an event comes up... OR when I make up an event... I LOVE party-planning! And with Super Hubby's bday this week, the kiddos joint party next week, I have LOTS to plan for and make great! I mean who doesn't love these??

Balloons! In the first month of college, I ransacked someone's room and FILLED it with these puppies to surprise her for her bday! She LOVED it... her roommate, not so much :)

After knowing Joe for only two weeks, my two gal pals and I decided he needed a birthday surprise...Jungle Joe got a dorm-room makeover with a Jungle Theme...

*Joe is still one of my best guy pals today!

Then there are times when we just didn't have a birthday to celebrate in college, and so to make sober-fun, I created events... the Annual Nerd Bowl, collaborated with a friend for Free Hug Day, CookieFest, The O.C. marathon nights, SuperHero Night... All fun! Too fun!!

Nerd Night... Actually for SG and I, we just came as we normally are. No costume needed :)

Free Hug Day was a HUGE success! We were even able to recruit!

Now, I get to plan the BEST party of them all! My kiddos 1 and 2 year-old joint Veggie Tale themed party! My kids LOVE Veggie Tales! After making homemade invite cards, I now get to work on all the FUN goodie bags and decorations! Don't worry I'll post everything as I work on them!

A Wedding Weekend

Last weekend we traveled out to Fargo to celebrate our sister's much anticipated wedding! This wedding has been in the planning for a while now and we were just super excited for Kensie and Winston to be in holy matrimony through the eyes of the Church! It was quite the morning, with bridesmaids getting up as early as 3 a.m. to start on hair designs to the great reception that lasted until 10:30 p.m.

For our little and growing family, the morning started at 4:30 a.m. when our darling babies woke up with teething pains. Bumblebee was in such pain that she was granted the gift of sleeping with Mommy and Daddy (a HUGE no-no since she LOVES to kick while sleeping :) and little T clung onto Mommy for a solid hour as I rocked him back to sleep only to startle him when lying him back to bed... just my luck I suppose. After falling back to sleep, Mommy had to wake up to get to the bride's parents house to get my hair done. It was quite the process, since it was to one side with a braid and a bun-like effect, I think it took some 50 pins to keep it up! And then when I got home to help P with the kiddos our little boy thought it'd be fun to pull Mommy's hair in one swoop! Thankfully Cousin Liz was able to fix it pretty nicely before pictures!

When we arrived at the church, we were able to get ready with both sets of bridal parties, and then the pictures started! BumbleBee loved her dress, and felt like a princess until the dreaded shoes were forced on her... she loves picking her shoes, but doesn't like wearing them for prolonged periods of time.

All in all the kiddos were good, both fell asleep in the car to the reception hall...so we let the rest a little before waking them up for the party, where BumbleBee danced the night away, well at least until bedtime at 9 p.m. where T the Tiger had great fun with Great-Grandma Ellie and Great-Grandpa Ed as he scurried around the place.

Here are some cute pics!

Bumble Bee in her "Belle" dress... she LOVED the flowers in her hair, but she kept wanting to smell them as well!

T with his smirky smile! This is his mischievous smile! He's ready for a party!

BumbleBee having fun lining up shoes!


The three piece suit was lent to us by Missy, who was so sweet enough to watch our pup over the weekend with her family back in Monti. T LOVED his outfit!!

THE face... this is the face of "Daddy, I'm tired, I'm ready to rock and roll and be the bestest little Bumblebee all day!"