Sleeping on the floor.

Kadence has entered a new phase of not wanting to sleep in her bed.  For the past week, at nap and night Kadence has been moving to sleep on the floor by her door.  I know she is fine, but still move her back to her bed before I go to sleep.  One night I was putting her to bed and she said, "NO, I want to sleep on floor."  So I just said ok.  Sure enough when we checked on her later, she was fast asleep on the floor.  Little turkey.

An early spring Zoo trip.

As most of you know, the zoo here in town is one of my favorite places to take the kids.  We have a family membership so broken down, each visit costs next to nothing.  It was pretty nice Saturday morning, so Ryan and I took the kids for our first trip this spring.  Not all of the animals were out yet, but the kids had a riot nonetheless.  Turns out we weren't the only ones with the idea, the zoo was pretty busy!

Landon checking out some animals.  They both like to climb on the fences and peer in.  He got a little too close to one of the Rhino's and it turned around rubbed it's butt on a post and sprayed urine!  There is  a sign posted to beware as Rhino's will do this as a way of marking their territory, but we had never actually seen it done!  Thankfully we weren't close enough, but we grabbed Landon and backed up quickly just in case!

Of course it wouldn't be a trip to the zoo without a stop at the petting zoo.  The kids were feeding the goats here.

We spotted this peacock spreading out its tail.  Of all the times we have been to the zoo this was the first time we saw that!  The kids thought it was pretty neat.  It was beautiful-and neat to see him strutting his stuff around!  I don't know what it is about looking at the animals, but it never seems to get old...not for me either!

The end to Kadence's week long birthday celebration.

We ended Kadence's week long birthday celebration Sunday with a little get together with Grandpa Gary, Grandma Sue, GG, and Aunty Arin.  We had a small lunch and then had some cake and ice cream after the birthday girl took a nap.

Kadence thought she was pretty special and loved the extra attention.

She got some good snuggle time in with GG...

and of course with Grandma Sue, too.  Funny little girl loves that "snate" that she picked out.

I really like this shot of Kadence reading her Princess book to GG and Grandma....priceless.

Of course Landon had some fun, too!  He knew it was his sister's party but loved the extra attention he got as well.  He played rough the entire day, his favorite thing in the world.

Silly.

Kadence wasn't quite able to blow out her candles...but thought she was since her brother was helping :) Precious.
Another great day.  Days with family just seem to go too fast.  I still can not believe my baby girl is 2 years old.  Where does the time go?

"I'm a Cowboy!"

On Thursday Aunty took Landon out to her friend Leann's place to see her horses.  Landon was pretty shy the whole time they were there-I am assuming a combination of fear and being very tired.  He did go for a short (7 minute) ride with Aunty while Leann led them.  It was the first time he had been around horses so I think he did pretty well.

The next day when Leann stopped over at our house, Arin said, "Landon, do you remember Leann, we went to her house yesterday and rode horse."  Landon replied, "YEAH, I'm a cowboy!!"  This is so funny since they never said that to him while he was out there!  I am thinking that he probably put it together being as Toy Story 2 is one of his favorite movies.  Too fun!

4 kids 3 and under...

We had a great weekend with my sister, mom, niece and nephew visiting.  It was chaotic at times as we had 4 kiddos 3 and younger in our small space.  There were several times I wondered how my grandma did it with 5 little ones all very close together.  Amongst the chaos we had a great time and everyone slept well!

We went to the Kirby Science center on Friday morning to blow off some steam.  Here is Annabelle as an astronaut.

Landon the Astronaut.

The little ones playing at the water table-their favorite!

The shadow maker!  This is one of my favorite parts-hard to get a good photo though.

The boys spent A LOT of time wrestling with each other and Ryan of course.

We fit all 4 in the tub together.  It was a little crammed but we all managed quite well!

I had all kinds of help in the kitchen all weekend.  Here is Landon and Annabelle helping me make Grandma Junes frosting for the cake.

Here is why they really help....

As you know, Landon isn't always the best eater, but when it comes to frosting and other sweets...that is a whole different story!

My first attempt at a cake.  I gave it a C-, we'll see how the next few turn out!  No matter how it looked, it was sure yummy!  The 3 littlest ones birthdays are all within about a month, so we celebrated them all together.   We decided to include Landon since he is only 3 and probably wouldn't entirely understand.  I do have to say though, on Kadence's actual birthday day, he was good and knew it was just about her!

Here's Kadence getting a peak at the cake...she really wanted to dive in!

Everyone got to blow out their very own candles!

Opening presents.  This was the first time Kadence had any interest in opening her presents, so it was pretty fun!

Annabelle was so cute and loved her new clothes!!

AJ having a turn!

Landon opening his presents.  He didn't have as many but was sure happy with what he had...thanks mom and Jill for including Landon-he is spoiled:)

We had such a nice weekend.  It is always so much fun to have my family come and visit us here.  On Sunday we drove to Albert Lea to have lunch with my Grandma Kalis and Aunt Dori.  We surprised Grandma and sure had a good time.  My sister and mom went back to Cloquet from there and the kids and I came back here.  They were really good considering the end to a busy weekend was spent mostly in the car-and on the most beautiful day yet!

I have been fortunate and able to spend some great quality time with my mom and sister this past month. We certainly have to take advantage of it now since we could very easily be far far away a year from now.  Thanks for the great weekend guys!

Kadence's Birthday day.

What a great birthday day celebration we had with Kadence.  Since our families both live away, the birthday celebrations last more like a week than a day.  We kicked off the celebration this last weekend when my mom, sister, niece, and nephew came to visit for the weekend (I will post pictures later).  The birthday extravaganza will not end until Sunday when Ryan's parents and sister Arin will be here for some birthday fun.  We did not plan a big birthday bash this year.  

On her 2nd birthday, sweet Kadence....

relaxed a little with her 8 balloon bouquet and new pink bear from Grandpa Ken and Grandma Debbie.  She was thinking she was pretty cool already!

She played outside on the beautiful, but very windy 60 degree and sunny day.  

We took a break from outside and went to the toy store where Kadence picked out her special birthday present-a Jessie doll (from Toy Story 2) and then went for a nice early dinner at Chili's.  

Since we had birthday cake last Saturday and will have more this Sunday, we opted for some Cold Stone ice cream for her birthday treat!  She picked M&M's and sprinkles to be mixed in with her ice cream!

We ended the evening video chatting with both grandparents and watching Dancing With the Stars.  Kadence danced around our living room as she watched-both of our kiddos actually like watching the dancing, which I take full advantage of!  Jessie did not leave her side the entire day and she insisted on bringing her to bed with her.  

What a great day! 

Happy 2nd Birthday Kadence Jean!

My sweet baby girl is 2 today!  Happy Birthday sweet girl!  We love you so much!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom!  We love you so much!

Spring is here!

I think we can officially say spring is here!  The temperature has finally hit 50+ and we are LOVING it! We took the kids to Falls Park yesterday afternoon to see the much talked about, massive amounts of water.  It is easily the fullest we have seen the Falls since we have lived here.  There were many people out enjoying the beautiful day and sight.  We even almost made it on the news.  Being the big dork I am, I was a little disappointed.  What a change from 2 1/2 weeks ago when we ventured to the Falls.

The kids of course had fun running around and we even brought Emma for the outing.  The jets were flying over the park for most of our trip which was very neat and exciting to all of us except Kadence.  She told me "airplanes too loud Mommy, I scared."  She did get a little more used to them thankfully.

I think Landon was most excited about all of the sticks he found to throw in the water-100% BOY.

I think this is a fun shot.  We were actually getting sprayed by the water and you can see it in Kadence's face!

This was when Kadence thought she needed to be carried because of the jets. Makes for a fun picture anyhow!

Many more trips to the Falls in store for our family of four!