Thanksgiving 2015

Enjoyed a fun, lazy holiday and long weekend. The kids were excited for the little bit of snow that arrived turkey day. We even got our family photos in thanks to Aunt "Nina". As for dinner, Sydney's sole interest was the turkey leg.

I asked Syd to smile for the camera. She said, "No, mom. Take an action shot of me in the snow." This is her idea of action. Um...ok.

Nana and Papa took the kids to see the Charlie Brown Christmas children's play. 

Sydney is in love with Snoopy. We're wondering if Colin might have an interest in working on/in a play at some point. 

All I want for Christmas...

He's not one to wiggle out a loose tooth and usually waits for them fall out on their own (usually while sleeping). This time his front tooth affected his pizza dinner, so he nervously worked it out, and after it bled a bit he went back to eating his dinner. Syd's photo bomb. 

Fall

These two love raking up the leaves, jumping into the piles and burying themselves. We've had a beautiful, warm autumn!

Happy Halloween!

We've made the leap to 'scary' costumes with Colin. In fact, by the end of trick or treating this Halloween, Colin declared he wanted something scarier with a mask. Geesh!

Sydney was happy with the many costume choices thanks to cousin Lexi, and made a few outfit changes. She was also getting over a cold and petered out about a third of the way through the neighborhood announcing she had a enough candy.

We still pulled in a ton of sugar and came home to find our candy bowl plenty full.

First Day of 2nd Grade!

Okay, so I see now how recording first and last days of school make the years seem like they fly by!
Colin was very excited to start the year with Mr. Utecht, "everybody's favorite 2nd grade teacher!"

Threenager

Sydney’s classroom posts daily funny quotes from the kids and a daily question posted to the class. Here are a few. The “bacon” is a derivative of Colin’s middle name, Patrick, that she has a hard time pronouncing. She calls him Colin Bacon to his dismay. Apparently she shares the same middle name when asked for hers at school. 

State Fair

Another family summer day included the Great Minnesota Get Together at the State Fair. Colin loved everything about it and asked why we hadn’t brought him here before. Sydney, on the other hand, had a hard time dealing with “all the stinky people”. She was truly gagging at the food, animals and people smells that permeate a fair. Both kids did enjoy the bumper cars and bumper boats. I liked the giant slide. 

We ate our way through the streets as one does with the French Toast with berries, whip cream and Pop Rocks, World’s Best Fries, Bacon on Stick, Roast Turkey leg, the Corn Roast, and Sweet Martha’s Cookies to name a few.

There was a cute kids "working" farm where Sydney and Colin has to work different aspects of a farm. They planted seeds, milked a fake cow, picked apples, drove tractors, etc. 

Since the fair brings another bout of hot weather, they had misters at several spots on the grounds. The kids liked getting soaked.

Colin’s one goal was to make it on to one of the news stations audience shots. After checking out all of the TV stations’ tents, we did find one where the news crew stage was toward the street. Bill held up Sydney and Colin who were waving behind one of the news people at one of the smaller networks. Our cousin, Shya, just happened to be working out at lunch and turned on the TV at the treadmill. As she surfed the channels, she saw Syd’s head pop up on screen and then Colin’s. Colin was thrilled.