Miles' 3rd B-day

Miles celebrated his golden birthday on the 3rd of December!


I made him a birthday banner.


Here he sports his birthday "crown" while waiting for a piece of yummy chocolate cake.


Happy Birthday my big/little boy!

Post-Halloween

Miles and Max as elephants trick or treating at Calhoun Square.


Miles and Lucia at their Friday morning class.


My adorable nephew Rio on Halloween. He went as a super-cute baby.


I love carving pumpkins. This year the themes were funny mummy and a spider!


Some treats I created for an adult/kid party we all went to. The party was great!

Tug

Dinner Parties and Space Exploration

Max threw a dinner party on Sunday. He invited G.G., both grandmas, Auntie Allie and crew and a couple of other guests. He really didn't have anything to do with the menu, mostly b/c his diet mostly consists of peanut butter, but he did plan the way the evening would go. This is what he said, "the people will get here, we'll all run around outside and exercise and then we'll come in to eat." So I was thinking, 'sure, whatever you say, kid', believing that people would come into the house and just enjoy some wine and chat a bit before dinner. But Max organized everyone as they arrived, corralled them outside to run around the house, then he brought them in and declared, "now we're ready for dinner!" It went just as he planned. He's a good little host.

But this picture captures the mayhem that happened after dinner. Miles and his cousin, Lucia, decided to become space explorers and ran around with waste baskets on their heads yelling, "WE ARE SPACE EXPLORERS EXPLORING SPACE!!!!!" And Lucia took it one step further by asserting she's a space explorer princess. Apparently space exploration comes naturally to tigers.

Miles Style Dessert

We're big on dessert in our house. We mostly use dessert as a bargaining tool to get our often picky toddlers to eat more dinner. Otherwise known as the bribe. So tonight we had a chunk of rich, chocolate cake Grandma Carol had given to us. Max actually opted out of the cake stating, "no thanks, it's too rich." Which it was, in a decadently chocolate way. So he had ice cream with some chocolate syrup. But Miles, he's always in for dessert of any sweet kind. He wanted a piece of cake with ice cream. But Miles didn't stop there; no he decided to add a carrot to his dessert. Yes, a carrot. Don't ask me why. It would take a whole laboratory of behavior scientists about a bazillion years to figure out why Miles does what he does. His brain is just naturally kooky.

Needless to say, his carrot remained untouched.

And as for the tiger costume, ever since I pulled out the costumes earlier this month to check the wear-ability/size status, he's been wearing a costume (rotates between tiger, elephant, lion or bee) non-stop everyday. In fact, if he's not in costume, I often do a double take to make sure the costume-less toddler really is Miles.

Puppy Love

Gus has a girlfriend. Her name is Annabelle and she's an 11 week-old yellow lab who's as cute as can be. Our neighbors Bergie and Therese got her a couple of weeks ago and, with the fabulous weather we've had these last few days, it's been a non-stop puppy love fest in our yard.

Apple Orchard

We took a little trip to McDougall's Apple Junction to experience some fall fun and pick up a couple of pumpkins. It was pretty kid friendly complete with a playground to play on and a kid's corn maze. The boys really loved it.

Martial Arts on Ice Cream

The other night we had a family dinner at the Birchwood Cafe where we enjoyed great food and drink. When the big ice cream sundaes arrived for the boy's dessert I thought we'd be able to partake in the yummy treats. But Miles wasn't too keen on sharing. In fact, when I tried to sneak my spoon in for a taste he confiscated it and then proceeded to employ his own special "double spoon" eating method. Nothing was going to breach his ice cream perimeter. He's a true ice cream ninja if I ever met one.

MN State Fair

I love the state fair. We've made it a family tradition to go every year. Max has been 5 times and this was Miles' third year at the fair. There's just such an overload of activities to experience.


The Sky Ride gives a great view of the fair.


This was the first year for all of us to ride the big slide; we loved it so much we all went twice!


Gotta love those butter sculptures.


Kiddie rides were a big part of our day.



The building blocks at the Fine Arts building were my boys' dream come true.


As was the food.


Matt accidentally ordered fried pigs ears; he thought he was ordering french fries. Blah!


Huge pretzels were a huge hit!




And no trip to the fair would be complete without visiting the animals.

Yard Sale Treasure

Look what I scored at a yard sale this weekend: a DQ bike! I needed a bike. But not for exercise. No, I need a bike to get to DQ. There's a Dairy Queen about 6 blocks from us, which is walkable, but with 2 kids and a dog it seems to take longer than it should when we walk. Matt's been biking forever and we have a great trailer to haul the kids to and fro, so he's been bike savvy for quite some time. Max also has a bike (with training wheels) and I'm sure Miles is not too far behind in joining the biking community. I figured it was time I jumped on the bike bandwagon in our family. Now we can get to DQ in record time with my new set of wheels!

P.S. I paid $.25 for that cute purse.

What Gus Puts Up With 80% of the Day

There's no doubt about it, Miles LOVES Gus. But his love is more like a torturing, obsessed love that translates into many toddler experiments on Gus. Here he demonstrates how he tries to keep the puppy's mouth shut, but Gus breaks free and continues with his day of fetching balls, eating and sleeping. At least until Dr. Miles, the doggy scientist, decides it's time for more research into what results when he pulls the puppy's tail or holds his leg while Gus is trying to walk, two very popular tests at the moment.

2 Boys in the Garden

It's inevitable. I see in my garden 4 moss roses blooming, and they're a few different bright colors, and I think, "that'll make a nice photo." So I grab my camera and start to take some pics. But the boys have a radar. A we-know-you're-doing-something-you-are-really-into-right-now-and-we-have-to-be-a-part-of-it radar. They have never taken an interest in this little part of the garden before today and now they are digging and playing right by the flowers I'm trying to photograph.


So now my photos have some little legs in them.


And a blurry toddler face.


And a small boy hand reaching for the flowers.

And, for me, the pictures of flowers with my boys in the background are even more sweet than if it had been flowers alone.