Pinatas have come a long way!

One of Lillian's requests for her 4th birthday was a Pinata! We were able to go to MI for her birthday this year to also celebrate my mom's birthday, which is only 2 days before Lillian's. The first step was for her to choose a pinata, which was a task because of the variety!! She decided on a Disney Princess Castle. And, then the cool thing about this pinata was that you didn't have to hit it with a big stick to break it open! Instead, there were a bunch of strings on the bottom where one string would open the trap door that would let out all the candy! I didn't know how it would go, but it was fun to watch the kids each pull out a string to see if the candy would come out! Even a little bit suspenseful!! I think Lillian was pretty pleased at the whole thing:)

The Two biggest reasons why I haven't been blogging!

So, I've been a bad blogger!! I can't believe how much time has past since my last post!! Oops!
I think I have two good excuses though:)
The first one would be that I got pregnant! As of today, I am 38 1/2 weeks. The first 6 months I struggled with nauseousness, and that was tough! It's amazing how fast the time goes though, and how you push through! I couldn't just lay around and do nothing, cause I had Hannah and Lillian to take care of! It will be interesting to see how the change is between 2 kids and 3!
The second reason I haven't had much time to blog would be because this year, we decided that we would home school Hannah for kindergarten! It was a big decision that we went back and forth on, but I am glad for the decision we made. It's been an interesting journey! Some days do go better than others:) She is actually doing a public school online using k-12 curriculum. She has a teacher we can go to when we have questions, and who checks in with us once a month. There are also optional monthly outings that we have been able to go to as well. We got to tour the MN state capital building, visit a volunteer fire station, and we got a tour of an Outback steak house and eat lunch there!! The curriculum was free, which was a bonus, and the online set up they have worked great! There are goals to work towards each quarter, which helped me a lot! She has met all her minimums as of now to move on to next year, so when the baby comes we will be set!
As far as pregnancies go, this one I have been the busiest by far!! I was also able to exercise for the majority of it, which was the first time that's happened! I figure since the baby is so close to coming, I should post something, and then be ready to post pics of the newest addition to our family whenever the baby decides to arrive:)


Hannah on her first day of kindergarten.

State Fair 2009

We had a lot of fun at the state fair this year!! Since the girls are older, we lasted 8 1/2 hours this time!! We were all pretty worn out by the end! The girls did the little farm hands exhibit again. They did kids rides, which they loved!! We ate a bunch, and the highlights were cheese curds, a peanut butter cup shake, the apple cider freezies, the chocolate rainbow ice cream, the dole whip, and fries (that's what I can remember!). We also made it on the Kare 11 news at 4 by just sitting in the audience! It was a lot of fun! Also, after making it to the fair many years, one thing I had never done was ride the giant slide! That was my goal this year, and I did it! Going down the slide was so much fun!! Hannah also loved it, but Lillian to our surprise didn't enjoy it that much. Maybe she'll like it better next year!

More teeth loosing adventures!

So, this actually happened a couple of months ago, but I just never got around to blogging about it!
I'm not sure why, but it seems like loosing teeth for Hannah, so far, has been kind of dramatic. And this last time was no exception! We were at a friends house, and the have a ledge upstairs where you can look over it and see the downstairs. Kids love to play here! Hannah was peeking over the ledge, and holding herself up, and some how slipped and banged her teeth right into the ledge!! She was not a happy camper!!! She was bleeding and crying. I felt bad for her! We called her dentist though, and they said it should be ok, and that her teeth were probably close to coming out if hitting made them that loose. So after she calmed down, we took her home, and blessedly one of the teeth fell out while Bill was reading to her before bed. The other tooth was super loose, but we just left it alone! Then about a week later, while we were in MI, I pulled Hannah's shirt off so she could hop in the bath, and randomly the other one fell out too! Hannah was an early teether, and they say if you get them early, you tend to loose them early! She has now lost 6 teeth at only 5 years old and has another loose one now! I hope the rest of them just some how come out easier than her first ones have!

My first 5K!

Last week I did something that I really thought I would never do! I ran a 5k! I never thought this would happen, cause I am actually not really a fan of running! It's hard to run for long periods of time! A couple months back though, I started going on the tread mills at the Y to change up my routine. It took me weeks to even get up to running a mile straight! Then I moved to running on their indoor track. And running a mile here or there. Then some girls asked me if I would be interested in a 5k. Since starting to run a bit, I thought maybe I would try one at some point, but didn't know if I could do it so soon! The two girls who asked me to do this particular 5K also went camping at Lake Elmo, so we all went for a run together. It felt like we went forever, and it was only 2.25 miles! Then over the 4th of July in MI, Bill and I went for a run and went 3 miles. I ran two, then walked for 1 tenth of a mile, then ran the rest. So I figured that it could be do-able to do the 5k.
It was an experience! The race was right in down town Minneapolis. Hundreds and Hundreds of people ran! We started in the middle, and at first it was even hard to get pace, as we were passing people, and people were passing us! Andy, who was also running with us, even stopped to get cheese curds!! And then caught back up with us! At first it was kind of fun, with all the people, and the excitement of running, but then it started to get tough! I was glad to make the one mile marker! It was really nice to have Bill and other friends push me to keep going! We made it to the bridge we had to go over, and I was really wanting to stop and walk, but I kept going!! Then we got pretty close to the finish line and my feet were even starting to go numb!! But Bill and Andrea told me to keep going! I'm like, "but it hurts!!" But they were like, "you can do it!" And finally, I crossed the finish line in about 38 minutes!! I ran the whole entire thing, and didn't even stop once to walk!! It was a very tough, and very fun experience! I can now say I ran a 5K! I'm not sure if I'll do one again, I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

A week of grillin!

When Bill had his week off from work, he thought it would be cool if he could help out with cooking so I wouldn't have to do it all, which I thought was really nice! So I thought it would be a good idea if he grilled! I don't really grill, and he loves to do it! So here is what we ended up grillin.
Pork tenderlion, which turned out awesome on the grill! He cut a slit in it, put garlic in the slit, then slathered the whole thing with olive oil, salt and pepper.
Steak, which was in honor of Father's day!
Burgers
Brats
Grilled chicken sandwiches (which also turned out really yummy!)
And, Kabobs! We have never done kabobs before, and they turned out good!
We also did corn on the cob a couple times, cause Bill and the girls love it!
Is was a fun week to try this, and a good change up for our menu!
Thanks Bill, for being willing to grill all that week!

4th of July 2009

We went up to MI this year for the fourth. I also had my 10 year class reunion! I can't believe I have been graduated from high school that long!
We had a fun time! We went to the parade, which the girls loved, and they got a ton of candy!! Also, the first people to come down the parade route were the, "give every kid a flag" people. Hannah and Lillian thought it was pretty cool that they got there own little flag to wave!



We also did the Ishpeming fireworks at night, which were really nice. My dad took Hannah to ride on a pony, which see enjoyed! And, she also loved riding on the 4 wheeler too!
Here is a picture of us while we were waiting for the parade to start....