Go, Go, Goers!

I've been in pretty good control of things this holiday season...did all of my shopping, wrapping, baking, activities, etc. with enough planning and time so that I never felt rushed or stressed out.  BUT, it's amazing what happens when there are now two children in the house who are excited to open gifts.  We've always been a family to take turns opening gifts, but not yesterday morning...we let both Ava and G open their gifts at the same time, and there was paper flying, ribbon everywhere, and cries for assistance on putting toys together RIGHT NOW.  It was a little more chaos than I'm used to on Christmas morning!  Ava was very patient and waited if we asked her to, but G would look right at us while we were saying "take turns"...and his little fingers would be working that paper open, and it was clear that there was no stopping him.  So, we didn't.  And it was fine!  No, it was better than fine...it was wonderful! I had Friday the 23rd off, and Scott

Last Sunday I took Ava to see The Nutcracker at a nearby performing arts center.  This show was billed as having a bit of a Minnesota twist, which I thought sounded interesting, yet...I hoped they wouldn't stray too much from the original ballet.  Turns out that the story is the same, it's just the background settings that changed - and honestly, unless you read the playbill, you wouldn't have even known that it was set in Minnesota, as opposed to Germany (Austria? I'm not 100% sure where it is supposed to be!) It was a lovely afternoon spent with Ava, where we both enjoyed the ballet...the dancing, the costumes, and the music (my favorite part!)  It reminded me of all of the times my parents took me to see it when I was a little girl.  I hope to continue that tradition with Ava.  Afterwards, as an additional treat, I took Ava to a Caribou and treated us both to some hot chocolate. She was pretty excited to discover what coffee shops were like, and also taste the shee

We've had a family-filled fun weekend, so far.  On Friday night, I had dinner with my little family and then spent several hours with Scott's cousin and his wife.  Initially I was there to make some essential oil sprays, and then I ended up staying until past midnight...we were catching up on family things, and chatting about life, in general.  It was a great way to spend a Friday evening! Me, Nick and Melissa Yesterday was a baking day!  My mom came over for a big chunk of time yesterday and we did some holiday treat-making.  Ava and Mom cut out, baked and decorated the traditional sugar cookies. I spearheaded the fudge-making (although, something was different this year, as the fudge didn't turn out like it has the last several years...I'm still not sure what caused the difference...it's a mystery.)  And it took all three of us to make the sticky holiday wreaths.  All around a fun time!  G was running around during most of it, pretending to be a race car,

'Tis the season to visit with our favorite jolly man in red!  We've had a busy weekend with holiday festivities, and with the snow fall from last night, it finally seems like winter is here (I was just saying yesterday how odd it was to have no snow on the ground in early December.  Not that I'm complaining...I don't want it to stick around until May!) Friday night we met up with Grandma Karen and Grandpa Doug and visited with Santa (#1.)  Ava asked for a trampoline and G asked for a puppy (a real one, not a stuffed one.)  The answer to both of those requests is NO and NO.  I know, I'm no fun.  I'm sure Santa will come up with some other fun things that they'll both like, though. After we were done with the Santa chat, we headed out to a family dinner and had a good chance to sit down and catch up for a bit.  I think we've officially moved out of the high chair/booster phase...G is sitting on regular chairs at restaurants now (he sits on h