Introducing the newest member of our family...

Pinchers!

Here's the proud mama...

Starshine's class studied crayfish this fall, and they could enter a drawing to bring one home, and she won. What do crayfish eat? What kind of home do they need? Beats me - we have a lot to learn. I made it clear that if they ever have a unit on mice, hamsters, rats or any rodent-like creature - FORGET IT!

Starshine has been hounding me for a pet lately, so this should be a good test run. She wasn't ready to pick it up, yet, but she was willing to pet it. Jr. Princess won't get within 4 feet of it.

Pinchers is the best pet I ever had even though I have never had one ;)!

Ahhh, so glad Starshine is learning sarcasm :)

Nature Walk

We definitely had to make the most of this gorgeous fall day, so we headed out for a fun nature walk and geocache find.

Man, I can't believe it is supposed to snow later this week. Ah well, then we can start working on Luge 2.0!

Happy Halloween!

On Sunday the girls were working on a secret project that required me to be banned from the kitchen. Sounds good to me - can someone please bring me a diet coke!

Well, several hours later I was invited back to see a super Halloween-decorated dining room complete with ghost and bat chandelier... black cats on the chairs, and surprise spiders on my seat - eeek!

What fun!

After a spooky dinner it was time for some trick-or-treating! It's a bit of a bummer to have to wear winter coats over the costumes, but I guess it doesn't matter because people trick-or-treat in the dark here anyway.

It was quite the haul!

Happy Halloween!

Our latest favorite video

Jr. Princess loves watching you tube videos, so we thought we'd share our latest favorite. It made the whole family laugh this morning...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcUxwpOQ_A

Meemer!

Pumpkin Carving

Last night was family pumpkin carving time. (Why, you may ask is Jr. Princess wearing a grass skirt? Doesn't everyone when they carve pumpkins?)

Jr. Princess loved scooping out the guts!

The big news was Starshine was big and strong enough to do her own carving this year. The design and carving was all her own.

Have a spooky Halloween!

Pre-Halloween Fun

Today the girls and I headed out to a Halloween party at my work. Jr. Princess was all set to be a princess this year, but after one of Starshine friends gave her a cat costume, cat it became. (Notice she can barely squeeze herself into it. She's big for her age, and Starshine's friend is a teeny little thing). Starshine pulled together a lovely cowgirl ensemble.

FYI - I did Jr. Princess's nose and whiskers in washable marker. Easy to draw with, and washes off in a snap at the end of the day!




There were fun carnival games, a candy walk, balloon animals, and of course, fabulous face painting...

M&M Dad was invited, too, but we also gave him the option of a little quiet time alone. The only catch was if he did, he was in charge of dinner (and any disaster he creates in the kitchen). Well, I think I came out ahead. The girls and I had a great time, AND M&M Dad made the most delicious green chile enchiladas the two of us had drooled over a few days ago on America's Test Kitchen.

Starshine's first cache

Ever since our first geocache find, Starshine has wanted to hide her own. So, since we had a lot of time this weekend, I took her over to Island Lake park and let her scout out her own location. She found this awesome tree with a hole in it, and we went home and crafted our own container (thanks Grandma and Grandpa M for the pill container and camo duct tape!). Then, after seeking permission from Ramsey County park and rec, we dropped it off. Here's a photo. the black string is all you see as the container is suspended down in a very dark hole. We made it nice and easy (no bush-whacking required), just like the caches she likes. She was very excited because someone found it the very first day!

Disc Golf

The girls had off of school today for teachers' convention, so I stayed home to have some girl time. We started the morning doing a whole lot of nothing, which is a nice change of pace after the first busy month of school. Starshine taught Jr. Princess how to finger knit, which turned into us all wearing matching pink scarves on our outing - fabulous! We then drove down to have lunch with M&M Dad at a Chicago food style diner - yummy.

After we dropped him off, we decided to try a new activity - disc golf!

We had a lot of fun just walking through the park, and occasionally throwing frisbees at the targets. More than one uptight golfer had to point out to us that we weren't using the right kind of disc (we brought our el cheapo frisbees). Ummmm - duh - we're just out having a little fun, loosen up!

We also played at the park and found a geocahe. All-in-all it was a nice afternoon.

Thanks Grandpa!

A week or so ago, Grandpa L innocently asked me why I hadn't blogged in awhile. I had a mini melt down about how overwhelmed I currently was with:

• arranging to get the insurance claim and contractors lined-up to fix the bathroom (and possibly some other things) after our Labor Day water leak
• Finding our super old furnace was dead (more estimates and furnace research)
• I started WWIII in Starshine's girl scout troop because we wanted higher behavior standards, and was trying desperately to role model appropriate female leader behavior to Starshine while setting up a Mom's meeting to resolve the issue (I hate female drama!)
• I have been wanting to get a new computer for upstairs for months, but have not had time to understand all of the million of decisions that entails...
• I'd been fighting off a virus for over a week, and honestly just wanted to sleep...

So, Grandpa L heard me loud and clear and super nicely researched the perfect computer for us to buy, told me what to order, and it just came today - yeah!

Now I can use the computer even if M&M Dad is on the treadmill, and the girls can use it while I'm making dinner, but I can still supervise - yeah!

I'm not sure who was more excited - Starshine getting to listen to her Pandora channel while we made dinner, or Jr Princess that a new box arrived for her to play in! (I can't believe she even gets into a laptop box!)

Thanks for the help Grandpa L!

Grandparents' day

Today was Grandparents' Day at the girls school, and M&M Dad and I filled in as "special people." Since this was Jr. Princess's first year, she got to pick which parent came to her event, and she picked me. All the Kindergarten classes started in the gym with a few poems and songs for the crowd (she now has all kind of options for the Thanksgiving family talent show!!)...

We then went to her class room for cookies and photos

and then we were set loose in the school so she could give me the grand tour of the school. It was cute as could be to hear about the school in her words. It did give us a chance to go down the 3rd grade hallway to spy on M&M Dad and Starshine doing the activities in her classroom. They were busy talking about school "when I was a kid" (which I'm sure is more impactful with grandparents. Honestly, their school seems very similar to what M&M Dad and I had), and playing math games.

It's a joy to see our kids at school because we can see how much they love to be there.