Family Fun Weekend - Day #1

This was our annual Minnesota Family Fun Weekend, and boy did we have fun. Thursday was day #1 - camping! Yes - you read that right - camping. I'm not sure if M&M Dad is trying to slowly break down my camping protests by starting out with a "pseudo camping" trip, but it may be working.
He found a place nearby that had camper cabins - yeah no tents, potential middle of the night animal issues (Starshine had a lot of concerns about his), or problems with rain!


The girls were super excited about the bunk beds...

We made a fun dinner of pudgy-pies, and after dinner discovered that Jr. Princess is by far the family's best marshmallow toaster. All of hers turned out perfectly golden brown and delicious. Who knew she could be so patient :)


The park also has GPS units you could check out to go geocahing. This was a huge hit with the girls, and made long nature walks a lot more fun. We may have to look into buying our own.

The only bad part of this whole trip was the mosquitoes. Deep Woods Off was no match for the zillions of them. And poor Jr. Princess looked like she had some sort horrid rash by the time we left, because her poor little skin overreacts to bug bites. Thank goodness I remembered the anti-itch cream!

This photo pretty much sums up how much my cuties enjoyed our first camping trip - I have a feeling we will be doing this again!

Fun in the Mail

Last week I left a comment on my BFF from college's blog for her 3rd bloggerversary, http://howell5.blogspot.com/2010/07/3-year-bloggerversary-giveaway.html and she pulled my entry out of a hat to win a prize. Yeah - who doesn't love to win a prize? The girls were super excited when they heard it involved Jelly Bellys..

So this weekend my box arrived, full with a cute Paul Dean serving bowl, water bottle, lotion, candle and Jelly Bellys - yum. I tried to serve our dinner of ravioli in the cute bowl the first night, but it you could barely see it because it only filled the bowl about 1/3 of the way. So last night we made popcorn so I could make a big enough "dish" for a photo...

(And no, Paula, I didn't add a stick of butter :).)

Thanks Melissa! I have decreed to the family that "thou shalt not use Mom's new water bottle," so hopefully I'll get to enjoy it for a few weeks before somebody breaks, wrecks or loses it :) Starshine has been inspired and wants to have her own giveaway. Maybe I'll get that organized after our upcoming fun family trip.

Oh, and since the girls got so much candy at this weekend's party, I'm hoping they'll forget about the Jelly Bellys I now have hidden in the cupboard!

Community Fun

We love our local community's weekend festival. So much, in fact, that when we're scheduling our family long weekend vacation, we make sure they don't overlap. And here's why...

Saturday morning starts with a parade, which always involves lots of candy, Bakers Square giving out pie gift cards, and the local florist handing roses to Moms - awesome. We even had a flash back to our youth with a marching band with Steppers - cool. Here are the girls ready for their haul with their bags...

After a quick lunch out of the hot sun, we head to the park for all the activities. Open house at the fire station...

...which includes a huge, fire hose assisted slip n slide. This year only M&M Dad and Jr. Princess gave it a go. It is not for the faint of heart. It's cold, the spray is hard, there are skin injuries, and there's always some little kid crying (not ours this time!).

Late afternoon involves fun demonstrations, like this Tae Kwon Do one where Starshine was brave enough (with lots of prodding from us) to go on stage.

There are also super jumps. K-9 dog demos, and this year, they had dock dogs competing by the lake. This was cool because there were dogs everywhere!

Mind you all of this was free, which is why I don't understand when people are paying for all the carnival rides and other activities. We were tired and ready to get out of the sun long before we had exhausted all of our fun free activities.

We chilled out at home for awhile before heading out for some late night fireworks fun. I surprised the girls with glow in the dark necklaces while we waited. It's kind of a tough park to see fireworks from because of the trees, so M&M Dad noted next time that we should watch from the freeway overpass. Hmmm - not very festive. I think he was just hoping for an easy exit.

And the best part, according to Jr. Princess??? Well, not going to bed until almost 11 of course! (She's posing by her clock)

Sunday is definitely going to involve some lounging around the house!

Super fabulous hair

The girls' daycare had an American Idol party day on Thursday. I thought this meant a karaoke-type fun day with lots of singing. I was wrong. Imagine my surprise when I picked them up and they had these FABULOUS hair dos!

Normally I make them take a bath and wash this stuff out before they get it all over the sheets, but I was easily swayed to let them keep it for one more day. The only downside is there is glitter EVERYWHERE! Though in a house of girls, that is not something we aren't used to :).

A little bit of everything this weekend

On Saturday, Jr. Princess got her very first play date at our house (though she has been enjoying playing with Starshine's friends for years). She was so excited, that she was flying around the house getting things neat and organized in anticipation. They had a fun few hours of slip and slide (it was flaming hot), water balloon induced giggles, dress up, and who knows what kind of fun hiding out in her room.


Later that evening we were all trying to relax and unwind from the fun when it was time for the traditional family trip under the stairs as tornado weather blew through...Last year it was a lot easier because Starshine slept the whole time and had no memory of it. http://shoreviewstories.blogspot.com/2009/08/eventful-saturday.html
This time the poor thing was totally worried the whole time. Jr. Princess, on the other hand, enjoyed staying up way past her bed time thoroughly! She thought it was a great opportunity to use her glow stick.

Today while relaxing before our family outing to the nearby lake, Starshine was super excited to pull out her loose lower tooth. That's five teeth gone in the last few weeks - she'll be drinking though a straw soon! Oh by the way, Grandma L won the tooth pool. OK, she won by default because NO ONE ELSE ENTERED, but she was actually only a few days off on her guess.


Finally, file this one under "I don't know how kids come up with this stuff..." Jr. Princess and Starshine performed a concert that included Starshine playing the piano WHILE Princess decked her out in various dress-up accessories. We'll call it performance art?

We're taking this show on the road

This year Starshine finally became proficient in hula hooping, with a few pointer from me on how to move your hips (it's really not in a circle like one might think).

Jr. Princess, in true "I may be the 2nd child, but I will do everything my sister does" spirit, decided she would learn, too!

M&M Dad even gave it a try. And after the girls and I were done hysterically laughing at his pathetic 1st attempts (seriously, I think the hoop fell straight down only barely touching him), even he managed some real hula hooping. He wouldn't let me videotape him, so you'll have to take my word on it.

So, call me the Yoda of hula hooping... "feel the force young Jr. Princess..." Anybody else need to learn??

My babysitter

On Saturday Starshine and Jr.Princess had a babysitter . They played EleFun and Trouble Starshine won both!Then they had dinner and watched a movie .Then Starshine and Jr.Princess read to Babysitter and she said we were excellent readers!When it was time to go to bed I was sad :( because I liked her :)! In the morning Starshine asked her mom and dad if they could go out again and that was because she wanted Babysitter to baby sit again!

Starshine

Super Brave Girl

Starshine's dentist was concerned a few weeks ago that she has yet to lose her top two teeth. So he recommended pulling them out. And, following her trend of not winning the genetic war (she got M&M Dad's bad eyesight), she apparently has a small jaw with closely spaced upper teeth like me, so......

he needed to pull the next two teeth, too, in order to make room for the first two big teeth! Here she is after her super brave outing to the dentist to have 4 teeth pulled, and several bloody soaked gauze pads later...

She was a super trooper, and the dental hygienist was very proud of how brave she was. Starshine was hoping to have enough room to fit a straw in, and then she discovered she can stick her whole tongue out with her teeth together!

Now, "All She Wants for her Birthday is Her Two Front Teeth" But I have 4 less teeth to brush!

So, Starshine is hosting a pool on when she'll get her first front tooth. Post a comment to enter!

As a side note, Starshine has been biting her nails for years. I have even offered to take her for a real manicure if she can stop biting long enough for them to grow out (no dice so far). Today, however, she discovered she can't really bite her nails without her 4 front teeth! Let's hope this helps break the habit.

My teeth have loved me apparently some of them don't :(

Fathers Day

Today was a slightly odd Fathers Day, because my Dad is out of the country, so we don't even get a chance to give him a call. Well, we hope you're having a great vacation and we love you!

We did, however, get to shower M&M Dad with love. First, the girls nicely watched tv for a bit downstairs this morning and didn't wake Dad (and me) up until almost 8.

Then, Jr. Princess was passionate about serving him breakfast in bed, which was perfect because he could lounge around watching the World Cup as we made him an egg sandwich with strawberries.

For our activity we went for a bike ride for some family fun, followed by me taking the girls for a leisurely trip to Target to make sure he got some alone fun (running while watching more World Cup).

Of course, we made him pizza for dinner. We debated making him a dessert, but M&M Dad will often comment he would rather have 1) more pizza, or 2) peanut M&Ms over pretty much any dessert. It just felt wrong serving peanut M&M's for dessert, so we're at least going to sprinkle them on ice cream tonight, and then let him have the rest of the bag. (I'm sure he'll polish off the leftover pizza at some point, too).

Most importantly, I have resisted temptation ALL DAY, from asking him to clean, garden, or haul anything. Ummm, except the one time I needed the old ottoman out of the living room, but seriously, I could NOT have gotten that to the garage without his help.

The girls were in great spirits hosting a fun day for their Dad.

Super Carnival Fun

Friday my Division at work had a fun carnival for families. Of course, it was mainly employees with children because no spouse (mine included) wants to waste a vacation day going to their spouses work event...

Well, the girls and I had oodles of fun. Who wouldn't considering everything was free and there were no lines/no waiting for everything, including pony rides...


Mini car racing...
Henna tattoos...

Various DJ led contests, including this hula hooping one (Starshine was super excited early last week when she realized she has finally learned to hula hoop)...
To show Starshine that it's not embarrassing to participate, I even joined the adult hula hooping contest. Based on the practice round I totally would have cleaned-up, but in the real event I botched the initial spin and was out in the first second. I totally choked. Sigh... At least I also got to demonstrate good losing behavior.

There was also super jumps, balloon animals, crafts, caricature artists and carnival games. Our favorite was the carnival game where you got to throw baseballs at plates to break them. The girls were in awe that they were being encouraged to break something!

It was a great time. The girls love to point out that Mom's work is super awesome fun, and Dad's is super boring :).