Tuesday, November 18, 2014

annual shopping extravaganza

As I lie around here on the couch writing on this here blog, my little Lucy is you-tubing the Christmas songs her class is singing for the local radio in a few weeks.  What a sweet little cherub voice.  I could listen to her all day.  Love that little bundle of way-too-much-energy.

November 7 - 10 we all headed down to Fargo for the annual family time of hanging out, eating, shopping, swimming and even some sleeping.  Well, I should clarify.  By "we all", I don't actually mean everyone.  Jodi was absolutely swamped with the opening of Human Rights Museum (was the 12th) so she couldn't make it.  That led to Jared, Chris and Jann also not making it.  It was very sad.  Thankfully, in spite of their absence, we managed to have a good time.

Now Lucy is singing the songs from Frozen along with the Pentatonix.  Just thought you'd want an update.

Once again I didn't take enough pictures - or even a single good one for that matter - but I was a little distracted.  We did have a lovely shopping break lunch at the Target cafe on Sunday.  Can't beat that.  Or perhaps you can - most of the time, in fact.  Like the day before at Panera Bread, for example.
Or like perhaps at Texas Roadhouse for dinner….. the favourite restaurant of most.  Always a long wait, but pretty much worth it.  Alex looks a little scary.  That's how she is when she is hungry.
Oh, she's smiling - but be when they called us.

Saturday we also had an "adults only" meal at some microbrewery restaurant.  It seemed like the food was really good although my mouth was so messed up I couldn't really tell.  In fact, I had one bite of my fish tacos and the seasoning hurt my mouth so badly I couldn't eat anymore.  But the company was fabulous.  The kids hung out in the hotel rooms watching movies, playing and eating pizza and Panda Express.  Does it seem like the whole weekend was about food?  Seems to be what I am talking about….
Sunday night Maddy, Alex and I went for a late night Target run.  Maddy was looking fine in her flower pants and plaid shirt.  I know mixing patterns is pretty in right now, but um….. well, you be the judge.  And Alex was playing the part of the gangsta.
When we got back to the hotel Grandma Rose and Auntie Kim (Rose and Kim to me!) were still hanging out in the lounge so we joined them, with our Ben and Jerry's frozen yogurt (here I go with the food again).  It was a lovely time - one of the highlights.

Oh.  And now Lucy is just listening to anything Pentatonix.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

first snow party

We got our first big dump of snow the day after we got back from our trip to Fargo (more on that later!) - November 11…. Remembrance Day/Veterans Day.  I had planned for a while to have a "First Snow (that sticks) Party".  I anticipated that it would be some day after school, but having it on a vacation day was great.  So we made some little invitations and Lucy delivered them to everyone on the street.
And then the kids played in the snow.  Cade thought he'd try out cross-country snowboarding.  I don't think it will become an olympic sport anytime soon.





The kids helped get ready for the party - snowflakes needed for decoration:


And snowman cupcakes needed for snacking.  I showed the kids how to do them, and off they went.  I used the little bit of extra cupcake batter to partly fill mini muffin/tart pans for hats since I neglected to by the appropriate reeses peanut butter mini cups!  And I forgot about orange gummies for noses, so dried apricots did fabulously.



Cade was the arm putter-onner…. the path of least resistance.  They all did a fantastic job!

Then for the rest of the menu:
Lucy made the signs and Mia put them cleverly on the bowls.  Pretzels (or prentzels, as certain Ackermanns call them): "snowman arms", carrots: "snowman noses"; chocolate chips: "coal"; marshmallows: "snowman bodies".  And then the "California snowballs" - clementines.

Much to Eric's chagrin, I bought a bunch of white mugs from the thrift store.  He was slightly unimpressed as I have been known to purchase an excessive amount of mugs at the thrift store.  But when he found out that they had a purpose other than filling our cupboards, he was thrilled.  Well, okay, not thrilled.  He isn't really the thrilled type…..
Anyway, the mugs were for decorating with paint pens. One for each kid that came.
At 2:30 we had a few start to come.

At first it was a little disappointing because most of the girls on the street were gone or busy with other things.  I was hoping for the whole crowd.  But I guess that is what happens with a spontaneous party!  It turned out to be great in spite of that and everyone had a great time.  A bunch of the boys came and even one couple with whom Eric and I visited for quite a long time (we said on the invitations that the kids could bring their parents if they wanted!).






They loved doing the mugs - I wasn't sure if it would go over with guys, but it sure did!  I just hope that theirs had better results than Cade's.  For some reason, his artwork got all messed up.  Bummer.  We had done it before so I don't know what when wrong.  Here's hoping that the rest were good!


The kids decided that roasting their marshmallows was a good idea.  Once their fingers started burning with the marshmallows on the short pretzels, I broke out the skewers for them.

Once all the planned activities were done, we told them they could go home and get their bathings suits (and ask their parents' permission, of course) to do a little polar hot tubbing.  Oh my goodness they were crazy.  And I can't believe no one broke or even scrapped/bruised anything.  The deck was an ice rink with all the water they splashed out when they kept jumping in and out of the hot tub to jump in the snow!








I'm pretty sure this will need to become an annual event.  It was such a good time.  
After we finally kicked them all out of the hot tub and off to their homes (dinner bells were ringing), we wrapped up the leftover cupcakes and Cade and Lucy delivered them to the kids who couldn't come.  Hopefully they'll get a sense of the fun they missed and do whatever they can to be around for the first snow next year!

step aside Sid - here comes Sid-ney….

Remember Sid from Toy Story?
Um….  Ya.  Meet our daughter Sidney.
Okay, so she was actually taking her apart with a good purpose.  She took it outside (Eric and I disagree about the okayness of that move) in the snow to play, and she got wet.  So Mia told her about a video on youtube where she could find out how to best dry her (even though she really wasn't very wet at all, I must say…..and a little water didn't hurt nobody).  This was the result:
I don't think Sid was ever so careful or organized!
And don't you worry your pretty little heads - Sage (the doll), is just fine.