The zoo, sickness, and yogurt.

That pretty much sums up the last few weeks for me and the Peanuts.

The kids and I are all sick again. Colds, stuffy/runny noses, coughing. Yucky. But hopefully this will be the last of it. We have been sick three of last four weeks and we're ready to be healthy again!

Since we've been so under the weather, we really haven't been out and about doing much. We were able to go to the Como Zoo last week when everyone was still feeling better with our good friends Angie, Coco and Elliot. Everyone had a blast on a gorgeous spring day (and yes, Ali picked out her outfit):






Other than that, we've been stuck inside. The kids are into yogurt big-time these days. I learned to never turn your back on a toddler and a preschooler with yogurt cups:






Hopefully we are all feeling better soon and we will have more fun, healthy pictures and stories to share in the days to come.

18 months old!

Christopher David turned 18 months old yesterday! I can't believe my lil' baby is already a year and a half old. The Peanuts had their well visits today (18 month for Christopher and 3 year for Alison). Both did pretty well and here are the stats:

Christopher:
24 lbs. 10 oz. (40th percentile)
34.5 inches long (95th percentile)

Alison:
39 lbs. (95th percentile)
38 3/8 inches (90th percentile)

The doctor commented on how tall both of my kids are, which is funny since their mom is 5'4. :-)

Not much else going on here. I haven't posted anything forever because the kids and I have all been sick since the weekend of Ali's birthday. Didn't think it would be too interesting to blog about snotty noses, ear infections, coughs, pink eye, crabbiness, and LOTS of television.

Hopefully by next week we'll all be back to 100% and there will be more fun things to post then.

Three Years Old!

My little baby girl is three years old now. I can't believe it. We had a very fun day for her birthday. Luckily Alison's birthday landed on a Tuesday so we were able to spend the morning at her ECFE class. It was a beautiful day so I made the kids picnic lunches and we ate outside. After naptime, Bryant came home early and we headed off to dinner at the Rainforest Cafe at the Mall of America (we did this for her 2nd birthday last year).

As a point of reference, here is Alison enjoying her dessert at the Rainforest Cafe last year for her second birthday:





And this year for her third birthday:





What a difference a year makes!!

We topped the night off by riding some rides (yes, even Alison rode a few!) at Nickelodeon Universe. Unfortunately no pictures of the birthday girl on the rides because I was with her on most of them; however, our crazy man Christopher once again rode the carousel four times with daddy and loved every minute of it!



We closed down the mall at the American Girl store (strategically placed right by the amusement park...they're marketing geniuses). The birthday girl got her first American Girl Bitty Baby Twin whom she has named "Hona." Hona is now Alison's new best friend and she has quickly become the fifth member of this family.

What a fun day. My baby girl is 3! Yeah!!!

Fun with Play Doh

Alison has been asking for Play Doh lately, yet it's always difficult to do these kinds of activities with Christopher around (unfortunately, he eats everthing...markers, crayons, stickers...and I assumed play-doh, as well). But I broke down yesterday and got out some new jars of Play Doh (okay, not officially play doh - some generic "fun clay" from Dollar Tree!) and let the kids go at it. Christopher was well behaved and had fun for about five minutes before he started trying to eat it - a new record!

And seriously, could this little girl look any more like her daddy?

What the Peanuts have been up to.

Colds. Teething. Mommy laziness. All these things contribute to my sad lack of blog updates lately. My apologies to all who have been looking at a picture of Christopher picking his nose for the past three weeks.

What have we been up to? Well, some exciting - and not so exciting - things.

Alison's first full haircut this past weekend! It went, um...as I expected. Here is a very excited Alison leaving for her first big-girl haircut:

And here is a very not-so-excited Alison during her haircut. Many thanks to the extremely patient hairstylist:

We were able to enjoy some our neighbor's famous fried chicken last week:

And we also made another trip to the zoo. Christopher loved the fish:

and loved spending the day with his daddy:

We took a fun trip to the amusement park at the Mall of America. On the way there, Alison was super excited and talked about how she was going to ride the roller coaster! Well, she wouldn't even get on the carousel. Christopher, however, rode it four times with his dad and cried every time it was time to get off! The giraffe was his favorite:

Alison's amusement park excitement consisted of eating popcorn and drinking lemonade with mommy while watching Christopher on the carousel:

We've also been busting the train set out lately. It is a source of great fun for a few minutes, until Christopher, aka "the tornado" inevitably tears the track apart or sits on it.

And perhaps the biggest hit of the past few weeks - a trip to Cold Stone Creamery! The kids were giddy from the sugar high and loved it. We even exercised some self-restraint and saved some ice cream to keep in the freezer for dessert the following night. The kids were so happy to see their beloved Cold Stone leftovers!

Christopher's Parlor Trick...I'm So Proud

As is the case with any mom, I like to think my lil' guy is pretty smart. Christopher talks a lot, likes to interact with other people, repeats tons of words if you ask him to, and the list goes on and on.

I've been working on the names for body parts with him lately. He's picking up on things quite quickly.

However, here is his response to the question: "Christopher, where is your nose?"



It's all cute until he follows it up with this:

Alison's version of a fun new "game"

Alison yells, "Let's play, Mama!" at least 50 times a day. I feel guilty because my response 75% of the time is, "Okay, right after I'm done washing dishes" or "Okay, right after I change Christopher's diaper" or "Okay, right after I'm done sweeping the floor." You get the picture.

So today, after a very fun playdate at our house with many of her ECFE friends, Alison once again said, "Let's play, Mama!" I said, "Okay, what do you want to play?" She must have been surprised by my response because she thought about that for a while. Alison then responded: "Ketchup." So naturally, my follow-up question was, "How do you play Ketchup?" She quickly responded, "First, we sit at the table. Then we eat it."

Simple enough.