Visit from Uncle Bill

Bill flew in to town (literally, of course) on Tuesday and wanted to take us out to dinner. We went to Cossetta's in St. Paul and had some great Italian food.

The kids really enjoyed the gelato after dinner.

So fun to visit with Uncle Bill.

Silly time!

We spent Mother's Day weekend at the cabin. The kids and I did a 200-piece puzzle together. Success!

April Variety Pack

April 17 was the last day of ice skating for the kids. Lessons were once a week and started in November--we were kind of ready for them to be done. I'm glad that they learned this skill, living in Minnesota and all. They were both invited to ice skating parties and went skating at a friend's cabin this winter, so I know it will come in handy.

Immediately after ice skating, we headed over to the Community Center for Family Fun Night through the school district. Preschoolers who receive special services (M goes to speech) get to take part in these events once a month or so and this night was fire safety night. The kids got flashlights and a book about fire safety and got to tour a fire engine.

Saturday was picture day for D and her friends at dance.

Sunday morning concert at church. D is in the green dress.

The next Sunday evening, the choir kids put on a little musical that D was in.

D getting her award for attendance and participation.

Being silly with her friend after the performance.

The letter Y. Almost done!

I usually give M "in-between" cuts myself to try and make the time between haircuts last a little longer. Well...things went very wrong for some reason this time and my friend who usually cuts the kids' hair wasn't available for an emergency make-over. So, M had his first trip to get his hair cut at Kid's Hair.

She did a great job. We decided to go shorter than usual and I really like how it looks on him. Handsome boy! Such a big boy look now.

Three Bears Lodge

We spent the past weekend at a water park in Wisconsin with two other families we are friends with. We all had a great time swimming, going down the water slides, cruising the lazy river, and just overall relaxing.







They had an awesome slide the kids could go down all by themselves. M pretty much made a loop up and down the slide when he wasn't throwing and searching for his divers underwater.



On the bridge. I know it's pretty hard to see us. Just look for the kids' yellow life jackets.



D loved the water slides, too, but her favorite was floating the lazy river with just her life jacket--no tube. She also was tall enough to go down the big slides and she loved doing the one with tubes (as long as she was with one of us).





The Baby Bears.

Easter

I guess the rest of March was pretty uneventful because here we are in April now. Not quite sure what happened to U, but here is W!



We spent the first weekend in April at the cousins' house. Everyone had fun playing together. The girls played a lot with their American Girl dolls.



They did some snake wrangling, too.



On Good Friday, the kids and I colored eggs. We did it using Kool Aid, thanks to a tip from my sister.











Finding their baskets Easter morning.



And searching for eggs outside.







Going through their loot.



Eating Easter brunch with the family at the Officer's Club.



More goodies from aunts and uncles and grandparents.

Girls' Weekend

Four friends and I spent the weekend at our cabin for a girls' weekend. Saturday evening, we went to Smoland Prairie Homestead Inn for a bread making class.



We got a tour of the grounds and the bed and breakfast while the bread was rising.



While it was baking, we were served wine and dinner. Fun! Sunday morning, we ventured out for a walk in the woods. Probably the only time this winter we actually had any real amount of snow on the ground there, which lead to an interesting first night at the cabin (We got stuck in the driveway, had to have a neighbor come over to help us and Steve and kids drove up to plow out the driveway for us.) It looks beautiful now though!





Thanks for a fun time everyone! I had a blast.



It will be interesting to see how different it will look once they start logging the downed trees, which could start any day now.