Busy busy summer

This summer is positively flying by. It's hard to believe we're halfway through it already... but time flies when you're having fun, and we are definitely having fun this summer! Here's a peek at some of the activities that've kept us busy busy busy.

First, Maisie spent a week at Salolampi!

"Maija" - her camp name, pronounced "Maya" - had an absolute blast. She came home saying that she wants to go for two weeks next year! She learned quite a bit of Finnish, and enjoyed making friends and the camp activities. Her counselor's report that we got shortly after she got home said she worked hard, learned a lot, and even won the camp award, a discopallo (disco ball necklace), for being a good student and working hard. I'm so glad she had such a good experience!

It was a long week for us without Maisie! We wrote her letters and got a few in return, and also got to peek in on her camp experience through their Facebook page and their blog posts. (This pic is from the blog) If you look through their Facebook from June 16-21, you can find Maisie in a lot of their pictures!

The girls have both been taking swimming lessons at the YWCA.

Over the summer, the Y runs swim lessons almost like little camps... they're the regular length, but instead of once a week, they're daily for two weeks. Both Maisie and Ella have made GREAT strides in their swimming ability. Ella's gone from being unwilling to get her face wet, to loving jumping in and swimming underwater! Maisie is becoming a strong swimmer too, learning different kicks and strokes.

Of course, there's more to do in the pool at the Y than just swim...


Rollin' rollin' rollin'... as Aaron and Ella watch!

 Maisie, Dylan, and I have also been taking log rolling classes! (Ella would too but you have to be 6 to roll, boo!) It's really fun... I started a few weeks ago, prompted by a friend who's been rolling for about a year. Maisie and Dylan came and watched once and were instantly asking to sign up for the next session. Of course, they're already MUCH better than I am - they're shorter (lower center of gravity) and lighter (so the log doesn't roll as much under them). My P.R. is around 10 seconds, but Maisie's is 16, and Dylan's is 17! I worked much harder for my 10 seconds, though!

The kids took their usual trip up north for the 4th of July on the Range. This year, Laura and I planned the big kids' costumes with an eye on First Prize in the costume contest. Presenting... George Washington and Betsy Ross!

They got SECOND PRIZE! Apparently they lost to two girls who were not dressed up, and just holding a sign that said "Happy 4th of July Gilbert!" We were ROBBED. Dylan and Maisie were less upset about it than I was, though. They won $10 (which they split evenly) and enjoyed getting their picture taken as they walked in the parade. Maisie reported that everyone said they should've won. I agree!

And of course, we went to CONvergence!

Bubbles, Wonder Girl, and Venom acting very silly!

This year Dylan joined us on Saturday and Sunday, after the kids got back from their trip up north.

Steampunk Princess Elsa with Bubbles the Powerpuff girl

We all had so much fun watching movies and anime, doing crafts, checking out the cool costumes, collecting badge ribbons, watching boffing and taiko drumming, shopping in the Dealers Room, and of course eating too much candy.

Spidergirl vs. Venom

The kids are already planning our CON experience for next year!

So that's our summer so far... still to come we've got more swimming lessons, art camp, Chris and Kim's wedding, and of course the State Fair! I'm sure it'll fly by, and before we know it we'll be putting the girls on the school bus. We'll make the most of it while it lasts!

Willie the Millipede

This winter is really really reluctant to give up its hold on us. Every time I think it's finally over... we get another round.

Thursday April 3.

Today we're looking at a high of 38, but it was only 28 this morning at the bus stop... with a wind chill of 10. Tomorrow's forecast says "chilly with snow and rain." SNOW!

One side effect of the never-ending winter is that when it does warm up outside, however briefly, everyone immediately runs out to take advantage of the sun and warmth... and we're no exception! As you may remember, Maisie loved biking last year, but never really got the hang of it on her own - she either rode on the trailbike behind me, or used training wheels. This year it's a different story!

She worked and worked and worked at it until she mastered the art of the two-wheel bike! She was bound and determined to figure it out, and didn't stop until she got there. Now it's all she wants to do.

Saturday wasn't the nicest day ever - overcast and maybe in the 50s or low 60s - but it definitely felt nice compared to where our weather's been. So when we got home from Girl Scouts and Suomi-koulu, the girls headed outside to play almost immediately. They rode their bikes around the block (Ella's doing great on her two-wheeler with training wheels) and played volleyball and soccer with the neighbor kids. After a couple hours of that (seriously, HOURS), they ended up in the backyard where they climbed trees, dug holes, made mud, and found some little bug friends!

First the girls found a roly-poly, which they attempted to sneak into the house so they could keep it as a pet. I explained that it wouldn't be happy in the house - we didn't know what it eats, and the cats might get it, so we needed to put it back outside. They reluctantly complied... but we had to have the conversation again when they found a little millipede.

They really, really, really wanted to bring the millipede inside to keep as a pet of their own. They even named it Willie! Ella especially was unhappy when I said no way, absolutely not, Willie needs to stay outside. So I suggested we write reports about millipedes that they could take to the Science Museum to get points at the Collectors Corner, and that seemed to make everything better.

You may remember that Maisie did this once before, with her pine cones poster. She's also brought in small fossils that she found on the Mississippi River banks. Ella hadn't traded before at the Collectors Corner, so she was excited to get started!

The next morning the girls worked on their reports, using their observations and information we learned from a U of MN Extension website.

Maisie's had more text...



Millipedes have 400 legs. They curl up when they are scared. They are small. They eat leafs that are falling apart. You find them in damp places. They are dark brawn. from Maisie


while Ella mostly drew pictures, and then told me what to write for the captions.

They are long and skinny. They eat crumbly leaves and grass. They curl up and they go straight. This millepede is on my hand.

bonus pic, with Ella's new short haircut

At the Collectors Corner, the Science Museum staff asked the girls a bunch of questions about millipedes and their presentations... What kind of animal is it? How do you know it's not a bird or a mammal? Does it have a skeleton? How did you learn about it? Where do they live? Why does it curl up when it gets scared? The girls did great, and were each awarded 2,500 points. They now busy planning their next reports, so they can get more points!

We had plans to go to Gramma Liisa's house for lunch, but we had a little time to stay and play at the museum. I think the highlight for Maisie was getting to be the helper at the Science Live! show about cryogenics.

She's holding a ball and describing its properties (soft, squishy, bouncy) before it takes a trip to "Liquid Nitrogenland."

It was a great weekend of outdoor learning. I was (am!) so proud of how hard they worked on their reports. The Collectors Corner is such a cool resource, and a great way to get kids interested and motivated in learning about nature and science!

Braving the polar vortex

Brrr you guys, it's been COLD! That's been true across North America, and our little corner of Minneapolis has been no exception. In January, Maisie and Ella lost five days of school to closings due to extreme cold! I know some people thought the closings were excessive - this is Minnesota you guys, of course it gets cold, parents have to work, etc. etc. etc. But when it's that cold - air temperatures of -15 to -20, with wind chills -35 to -40 - it's just not safe for kids to be outside waiting for a bus that might be 15-20 minutes late. Little noses and fingers and toes can get frostbitten in just a few minutes! Not to mention the middle school & high school kids I see waiting for their buses without hats or mittens, even in the depth of winter. I am such a mom, I always want to slap a hat on their heads and give them a talking-to.

Anyway, winter, amiright? There's no escaping it, so you might as well try to enjoy it. The extreme cold finally let up a bit this weekend, and I think the cabin fever may have been getting to be a bit much, too. So we took every opportunity to be outside! On Saturday afternoon, the girls and I joined Laura and Dylan for some activities at the St. Paul Winter Carnival. We did some craft activities in the Landmark Center, and then headed outside for Maisie's new favorite activity: ICE SKATING!!

A few weeks ago Maisie attended a friend's birthday party at the Depot ice rink, and since then she's been NUTS about ice skating. The problem's been that it's been so cold out, we haven't been able to get outside much! But on Saturday it was beautiful, maybe 15 degrees out, so we hit the ice. And this time, Ella (who hasn't wanted to skate before) decided she wanted to try it too!

Dylan and Maisie were super happy to try to help Ella get comfortable on the ice. And it didn't take her long...

And she was off to the races! She fell - a bunch - but each time would look up and say "I'm okay, mama! Help me up!" and she'd be off again. She worked hard, and before long she really had the hang of it. I'm so proud of her!

Maisie, too, is improving by leaps and bounds. The last time she skated, she was still sort of walking along on her skates. But this time, with some help from Dylan, she got the hang of the slide & glide. I don't think she fell once! And Dylan, of course, is a confident and strong skater - he was a great help to both girls, and an excellent ice skating role model. :)

We finished up the night with the parade, hot chocolate at Dunn Brothers, and cheering on the Vulcans who successfully deposed King Boreas. The next morning Maisie told me that it was the first day of summer because the Vulcans won, right? Uh, not quite summer yet!

And a good thing, too, because Sunday was our Suomi-koulu Laskiainen celebration!

For those who aren't familiar, Laskiainen is a traditional Finnish sliding festival. You go sliding, eat pea soup and rye bread, and basically enjoy the heck out of winter. Suomi-koulu holds its Laskiainen at "Mount Como," a park in St. Paul that has skiing and snowboarding facilities. Laura and Dylan joined us for some awesome Laskiainen sledding!

(That's the 3 kids, wayyyyyyy down at the bottom of the hill. Maisie's in the red coat, Ella's on the sled in front of Maisie, and Dylan's to the right.) We stayed for three hours, sledding and playing in the snow, and warming up with hot chocolate, pea soup, rye bread, and pulla (a Finnish sweet bread flavored with cardamom).

It was a very fun - and very tiring - weekend of winter activities! By Sunday night Aaron and I were both exhausted. I could've used another weekend day to rest! But I should bite my tongue and be careful what I wish for... we might end up with another sub-sub-zero polar vortex blast, with cancelled school and broken-down buses, and that's no good either. I'll take the mild winter weather any day!

Back to normal

It's been a while since I updated! The holidays were a whirlwind of running here and there, and trying to stay warm. The girls were off school for winter break from December 23 through January 3, so Aaron was home with them trying to keep them busy and happy and entertained. We had a lovely Christmas Eve at Auntie Laura's house, and a cozy Christmas day snuggled up at home.

After a very fun New Year's Eve, when we hosted a sleepover with cousin Dylan, we headed up to the Edgewater hotel/waterpark in Duluth for a little mini-vacation before the girls headed back to school. Then, of course, the extra-long break got extended another two days, January 6 and 7, due to the ridiculously cold temps. On Monday morning the 6th, the wind chill was -51 when I woke up!!

But we're finally, finally back to a regular schedule. School's back in session, I'm back at work, and life is moving along. Everything's back to normal. Which always reminds me of one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite books, Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"Five to one against and falling..." she said, "four to one against and falling...three to one...two...one...probability factor of one to one...we have normality, I repeat we have normality." She turned her microphone off — then turned it back on, with a slight smile and continued: "Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem."

Picture time!

Visiting "Santa Joe" at the Midtown Global Market. Maisie was NOT interested in sitting on his lap.

New Year's day... Dylan was rolling on the floor laughing so hard!



Silliness at the waterpark




Fun with selfies



I mustache you a question.

The mustache really adds some gravitas, don't you think?

Weekend photo roundup

I hope everyone had a great weekend and aren't too sleepy on this post-DST "spring ahead" Monday.

Our weekend started off in less-than-stellar fashion, with Maisie getting some sort of tummy bug and throwing up in her bed Friday night. Not to worry - she's totally fine now, and I'm not sharing any pictures of it! So our Saturday was pretty low key...we just hung around the house, just in case there was going to be a repeat. But fortunately it was a one-time event. So Sunday, we got out and about!

We started the morning playing outside. Aaron and the girls have built an AMAZING snow fort in the back yard out of giant snowballs. Maisie wants to turn it into an igloo, but I don't know if the snow will last long enough for them to do that.

Even if it doesn't fully become an igloo, it's still pretty fun for them to play in and on!

Then, Sunday afternoon, a parenting group I belong to had a meetup at Edinborough Park!

You might remember Edinborough as the place where we had Ella's 3rd birthday party. It's not one of our regular play spaces (mainly because we're members elsewhere, so we tend to go places where we don't have to pay admission, like the zoo or the children's museum), so it's always kind of a treat to go there.

The girls ran and jumped and slid and climbed and then did it all again! It was a lot of fun for all of us... they enjoyed playing, and I enjoyed talking to the other moms and dads.

After two and a half hours of that, we were tired out and ready to eat, so we went to Pizza Luce.

A highlight of this trip was Ella's discussion of tattoos with our server, after asking to see his heavily tattooed arms:

"I know how to do children's tattoos. You put it on your arm, and then someone gets a washcloth and they push it on, and then you peel off the paper! My mommy has grownup tattoos. They push them in your skin with needles! When I'm a grownup I'm going to get grownup tattoos, but not yet. Right now I just get children's tattoos."


Ella, future tattooed lady (Maisie took this picture)



Picture dump

Some November pictures that haven't made it into their own post...

Madness!!

Opening birthday presents at Grandma Jo's house, with help from Dieter cousins



Yum!

Cake pops at Jasper's birthday party (so fun!)

A kitty headband she made at the MIA on Target family day

Riding a camel at the Science Museum


Ella wonders why Maisie is making such a silly face

 Pouty duckface at Jakeeno's

first Girl Scouts troop meeting

first banana split, post-Children's Theater at the Bad Waitress. Ella ended up wearing a lot of it.


yee haw!

 mechanical horse at The Egg & I

crafty painting time

Pack a lunch!

For the past three years, we packed Maisie's lunch every school day. This year, with starting kindergarten at a public school, she has the option of hot lunch! So exciting! But she had hot lunch exactly once. And aside from that one day, it's been back to packing her lunch.

For some reason, this packing of lunch chore seems a lot more onerous than it did in years past. I'm not sure why - there's actually fewer restrictions on the food she can bring than before. (Her school is peanut-free, whereas last year they had to keep the classroom free of peanuts, tree nuts, and eggs.) Maybe it's because her school day starts so much earlier? (6:55 a.m. bus pickup, as opposed to Aaron driving her to school for an 8:45 start time.) Maybe she's gotten pickier? Maybe because I know I wouldn't have to do it if she'd just eat hot lunch?!? Whatever the reason, packing her lunch is not fun and exciting, and often led to me and/or Aaron staring at the fridge and cupboards, wondering what on earth we'd send in her lunch. We tried to get her to pack it, but that didn't work either - she'd choose grapes, applesauce, and crackers, and not have a balance. So in an effort to simplify things and pack lunches she'd actually eat, I came up with a chart.

ARGH! I just spent a bunch of time trying to figure out how to upload it here, and I can't. GRR! So I will tell you about it. It has six columns and four rows. The left-most column has the following pictures, all of which I found online by googling for free clip art of food.



Vegetables





Fruit




Grains (that's pasta and cereal above the bread)




Protein

So in the evening, Maisie and I will pack her lunch together. She chooses one item from each category, and checks it off as it's completed. I like to think it's helping her learn about a balanced diet, which it may be. I know, though, it's made packing a lunch a LOT easier!

So, what does she eat? The most common lunch combination is grapes, sugar snap peas, cheese and turkey slices, and Ritz crackers. It's not the most exciting lunch in the world, but she likes it and eats everything. Single-category foods are easiest for her to choose: protein is often an egg, string cheese, or turkey slices. The vegetable is either snap peas or baby carrots. (Although she asked for tomato soup once!) Fruit is usually applesauce or grapes. Grain is usually Ritz crackers. Maisie and Ella are both absolutely NUTS about Ritz crackers! Goldfish are good, too, or a little container of cereal - strawberry Life is a favorite.

We do get some combos that allow her to check off more than one category: black bean quesadillas, cut into wedges (grain and protein); spaghetti with marinara (grain and veg); mac & cheese (protein, grain); chicken fried rice (grain and protein); sun butter and jam sandwiches (protein, fruit, grain); cheese pizza (protein, veg, grain); broccoli quiche (protein and veg). As you can probably tell, except for the quesadillas and sandwiches, these are usually leftovers of whatever was for dinner the night before. We will put the portion in her thermos at night, in the fridge, then heat it up in the morning so it's still warm at lunchtime. If we aren't sending something hot then the whole business gets packed the night before, so it's ready to grab & go in the morning.

Anyway, so there you go! It's no super genius idea that'll revolutionize packing a lunch, but it's how we do it. We definitely don't have the beautiful Bento lunch art, but who has time for that anyway? Not this family! So this is our method, and it's made the whole lunch business a lot easier for us. Hopefully others will find it useful too!

Pictures from this weekend

Last winter was awful. Cold and CRAZY snowy - so much so that the Metrodome collapsed (remember that?). This winter... not so much. I feel like I should write it as "winter," because in my Minnesotan mind, it barely even qualifies as such. I think we had one, maybe two days total where the temperature stayed below zero. Hardly any snow at all, for better (less flooding) or worse (the farmers' fields are going to be super dry). And it's already gotten hot out! We've had a five straight days of record high temperatures, and it looks like today's going to be #6.

But to look on the bright side of climate change, we were able to get out a lot this weekend... that's something, right?

On Saturday Maisie rode a trike from Auntie Laura's house to a nearby park (after a visit to the Children's Museum, if you're wondering what is up with her face).

It was an absolutely beautiful day, and she looked so cute on the red trike, with her color-coordinated dress! If it weren't for the painted face she would've looked like something out of a catalog, or a lifestyle magazine about the joys of simpler living. As it was, she was adorable and so happy and proud to be able to ride so far on the trike.

Sunday was also beautiful. During Ella's nap, Maisie and I went on a bike ride (me on the bike, her in the trailer behind me) that ended up with us at Chris & Rob's Chicago's Taste Authority, a Chicago-style hot dog/pizza restaurant. Once Ella woke up, she, Aaron, and Gramma Liisa came and joined us.

We sat out on the patio and shared tater tots and drank lemonade and enjoyed the beautiful day. This picture was taken before Ella fell while running... she made a perfect four-point landing, skinning both knees, her nose, and her forehead! But she quickly recovered, thanks to Gramma kisses, and some fun bandaids. Now she just likes looking at her scabby knees and telling us that they're getting better.

It was a fun (though busy, and kind of tiring) weekend. If this is what the spring and summer are going to be like... bring it on!

Science Museum trip

Yesterday was that most festive of holidays - Presidents' Day! Maisie and I both had the day off, so we all celebrated with a trip to the Science Museum of Minnesota. We wanted to check out their new Real Pirates exhibit, and I figured the girls were probably old enough for an OmniTheater movie. So off we went!

Unfortunately we weren't alone in our idea... there was a huge line! But we braved the crowds and got our tickets.

We had some time before our 11:00 movie so we went through various exhibits. The dinosaurs are always a hit. The girls also really enjoy an exhibit where they get to play with various colored lights. And they were quite taken with this big chair.

I don't remember quite what it was supposed to be illustrating... perspective, maybe? Anyway, big chair!

We saw the OmniTheater movie, which was really good - Under the Sea, narrated by Jim Carrey. It looked at undersea life in and around coral reefs. Lots of footage of cuttlefish, which I quite enjoyed. Maisie enjoyed the whole thing, and Ella fell asleep on my lap with about ten minutes left in the movie. I carried her out and down to the Pirates exhibit!

We had to wait in line again, which Aaron did not enjoy and which Ella slept through. She woke up just in time for us to go in! It was a really well done exhibit - it worked for kids, but didn't gloss over some of the harsher facts of life at that time. Of course, there were some cool artifacts recovered from a shipwreck -

several cannons (including this one), guns, treasure, and jewelery, along with more mundane articles of ship life, like plates, spoons, and tea kettles.

Afterwards everyone was hungry and cranky, so we went to the Cheeky Monkey
for lunch - it was a favorite of mine when I worked in that neighborhood, and I missed it. While we waited for our sandwiches, the girls kept themselves occupied with drawing.

This is Maisie's Jolly Roger. It's flying on bones (scary!) instead of a mast. The skull has a bone beneath it, is wearing a pirate hat, and also has a mustache - so as not to be too scary.

It was a very busy day but a lot of fun!

Hectically Happy

The last couple weeks it has been uncomfortably hot and humid. This hasn't stopped the girls from racing from one place to another, with any downtime whatsoever requiring copious amounts of Dora the Explorer (Ella adores Dora, but is terrified of Swiper), graham crackers and a record number of baths (for them, I'm trying to cultivate an exotic aroma and don't want to ruin it with unknown variables like water).

To beat the heat they go to the Children's Museum 2-3 times a week or play and swim at the playground...


...or go the zoo (Maisie at the Bird Show and Ella in the Den of Angry Goats).


There was also a bbq with a bounce house and swimming pool, probably Maisie's favorite event altogether, this summer.


God I'm worn out.