Category: Friends (Page 3 of 6)

Wanna be our neighbor?

October 14, 2014 / Erica / 2 Comments

There are 3 houses for sale on our street. More specifically the 3 houses right next to us. Our neighbors across the street are selling, our neighbors adjacent to the north are selling and our neighbors one house to the south are selling. I tell you, I think I’m starting to develop a complex that it might be us! 😉

Okay, not really.

And in fact the one to our south was just listed last week and I saw a sold sign go up yesterday. That was sure fast! The other two have had a lot of movement on them, but no sold sign yet. I feel for all of them. I just hated having our house for sale. We were just talking the other day and remembering that we haven’t even been in this house quite a year yet. Crazy, right? I mean it feels like we’ve just ALWAYS lived here. 🙂 This house just feels like home. We love it. Which is good because we’re not moving for a very long time.

We worked on cleaning the garage this weekend–which was very much needed. It’s feels nice to not feel so cramped as I pull in the car. Plus we were able to get the snowblower pulled up towards the front (just in case) and put up our bikes and just purge some random things we thought we were going to use, but never did. Plus, the big thing was that we needed to find the bassinet to get down for Shannon to use! She is 32 weeks along now–yay! So close to the end! Which is truly a HUGE blessing since she has had a LOT of complications with this pregnancy and they thought she might have it prematurely back in July!

My favorite time of day.

September 16, 2014 / Erica / 1 Comment

The morning walk to the bus is quickly becoming my favorite part of my day. Often times the kids will hold hands and walk in front of me and talk to each other. It’s so cute. I also love this gorgeous fall weather that we’re having, so I enjoy walking slowly to the bus stop with the cool breeze. I’m sure I won’t enjoy walking to the bus when it’s bitterly cold and our noses are running and fingers are numb… but for now, I’m enjoying it. And it’s been fun to get to know our neighbors a little more who have kids on this side of the “U”.

In other news… well, come to think of it… I guess I don’t really have any. Life is full of routine and a lot of the hum drum stuff I enjoy so much. 🙂

Oh, no! Wait–I do have news! My friend Stacy had her baby earlier this month (but I just found out)! She had a little girl and named her Autumn. Isn’t that cute? She came about a month early, so it wasn’t even on my radar yet. 🙂 I hope to chat with her soon and find out how she and the baby are doing. So, there. That’s some fun news for you!

Stacy’s Baby Shower!

August 19, 2014 / Erica / 1 Comment

That’s right! She’s got the adorable baby bump goin’ on! I think she looks just fabulous–and is thoroughly enjoying being pregnant. It was such a fun party (baby parties always are!) on Sunday. I drove down to Owatonna for the afternoon and enjoyed lots of tasty goodies and cake and laughs. Good times all around!

Tea Party

August 18, 2014 / Erica / 3 Comments

Chloe’s friend Izzy has this adorable tea party set that they like to use. It’s quite adorable. So, the other day when they came over Chloe requested that they bring the tea set along and have a little tea party. And yes, it’s actual tea (catnip tea) in the pot. 😉

Chutes and Ladders (Hyland Park)

August 12, 2014 / Erica / 2 Comments

I’ve heard about the park called Chutes and Ladders before. I remember thinking that was a funny name for a park. In fact I think I asked if it was a REAL place. Apparently, it is. 🙂

Here is a link to the website from the Hyland park website: Chutes and Ladders

But here is a link to a blogger review on the park that I found much more informative (plus it has more pictures!) Tireless Tot

After looking at the pictures and reading a little about it I thought I knew what to expect. In reality, it’s a bit more “squashed” together than the pictures show. I was, however, pleased with how most of the areas were safe–except for the obvious places–everything was well contained with mesh, etc. for the little ones. One thing the review mentioned was that it’s easy to lose kids. And I must say a resounding YES. We went with our friends from church, so there were 6 kids–and because of unfortunate accidents (whoops: bloody lip, whoops: Josiah didn’t make it to the bathroom in time) the other mom and I were standing watch over 5 kids alone while the other mom ran off to fix the accident. And let me tell you! I was actively watching the kids and I still kept losing kids. By the time we left the playground felt like a buzzing bee hive with kids running and sliding and tumbling out of every nook and cranny. It was a bit crazy. If I thought I was going for a relaxing morning, I was wrong.

But all in all it was a great trip. The kids really loved it. We even brought along a picnic lunch to finish off our outing–complete with chocolate chip cookies!

Our tired, sweaty, but still smiling group.

Ice Cream playdate and MY BIRTHDAY!!!

August 8, 2014 / Erica / 3 Comments

Yesterday we had some friends over for a “homemade ice cream + homemade waffle cone + sprinkler party!” It was on my summer to-do list.

Homemade “No Churn” Ice Cream

We had 4 flavors of ice cream: 1) Mint chocolate chip, 2) Vanilla, 3) Chocolate, 4) Blueberry Cheesecake. I enjoyed 3 of the 4 flavors immensely… not so much the mint chocolate chip. It was made of all “healthy” foods and was too bitter in my opinion. But we had a great time tasting the flavors and making the waffle cones. So the kids played in the sprinklers for a while and then ate ice cream for a while and then ran through the sprinklers again to clean off all the ice cream! 🙂

And today is my birthday (yay me!) so we’ve done all sort of exciting things: killing Japanese beetles, Chloe drew me a nice card, went out to eat for breakfast, went on a 3 mile run, enjoyed some caribou and then Tim got off work early! So, we’re about to enjoy a delicious dinner and I think I heard something about ice cream cake!!

Beach Day & Como Zoo Day!

July 25, 2014 / Erica / 1 Comment

This week I finally got two of my “summer-to-do-list” activities done. I really wanted to get to the beach and to Como zoo, and we did it!

On Thursday morning we loaded up and met the Baker’s at a beautiful sand beach over by their house and spent the morning lounging in the sand and watching the kids play in the water. It was the perfect morning–no too hot, but nice and sunny. Chloe and Josiah were both so excited to go that they had a hard time falling asleep the night before and then they were up and had their swim suites on before I was even awake. 🙂

Then today we met up with the Tindall’s (friends of ours from church) at Como zoo. It was already buzzing with activity, even though we got there just before it opened. We loaded up and walked leisurely through the exhibits (the Polar bear was my favorite, the Tiger was Josiah’s and the giraffe was Chloe’s). Then we made our way back to our cars which we had strategically parked next to the playground and picnic tables, to enjoy lunch and a little fun time.

I’m so happy to finally done something “summery!”

So excited to be at the beach!!!

Josiah using the kickboard

6 kids are really hard to get situated on one tiny gorilla…

well, here’s a picture with 5 of the 6… haha!

Josiah exploring one of the computer stations at the zoo

the two little boys rode in the stroller. That made it much easier to keep them corralled…

our traditional turtle picture. I’ll have to pull up a side by side comparison soon…

riding the giraffe’s!

Happy Birthday Tim!

May 26, 2014 / Erica / 2 Comments

We had a Birthday shin-dig yesterday for Tim’s Birthday. It was really fun–I think at one point there were almost 60 people here. That’s a lot of bodies!

The most exciting thing that happened though, was that the grill caught on fire. I mean–a ball of fire roaring around the grill–kind of fire. Tim ran out and used the fire extinguisher on it but that didn’t really do much, so he ran down to the lawn and sprayed the hose at it until it went out. No serious damage or anything, but it was a little scary for a moment. There were plenty of people here to help if anything serious were to have happened. 🙂 I guess it’s evidence that we grill too many greasy items! The unfortunate part is that his grill is now dead. Totally dead. So, I guess he’ll get a nice birthday present this year! 😉

But besides the fire… there was fun all around! We had yard games to play, the hammock to enjoy, chalk on the driveway, Baker’s had their puppy here for a while, the kids ran in the sprinkler, oh, and LOTS and LOTS of food to eat!

Bring on May!

May 1, 2014 / Erica / 3 Comments

I just read Amy’s post and mine is very similar. Great minds think alike, eh?

Here’s to May! And a whole MESS of “New” things! New beginnings, new attitude, new weight loss start, new ideas for getting more veggies into my kids, new crafts to think up for Chloe, new ideas to take time to relax as a family, new law to mow, and new menu plan for our family.

See, May is going to be AWESOME!

In other news, I just had to post this picture. It was our nanny, Alisa’s, Birthday this past week, and we had her over to celebrate (her Mom was out of town). It was the big 18! So I even made her a crazy cake! I just love this picture–doesn’t she look so happy?