Category: Dannie

Chuck’s mom’s parents have recently moved from their home in Iowa where they lived for 60 years to an assisted living home in Austin, Minnesota. Chuck’s Aunt and Uncle live in Austin, too. So this year, on Christmas Eve, we made the drive to Austin to spend time with Chuck’s grandparents. It was a much shorter drive than the trip to Iowa.

Maddie had a great time playing with her cousin, Amira. They had a great time snuggling on the chair together watching “The Wizard of Oz”.

We had a great time being able to hang out with Chuck’s family and be able to go for just a couple hours. I know we will make the trip much more often and we are looking forward to seeing the grandparents more than once or twice a year!

This fall I visited Applewood Orchard a couple times. Chuck and I took the girls there one day and I also visited with some friends from MOMS Club. It was so much fun and I know we will make this a tradition every fall! (Chuck took so many great pictures that it was hard to cut back. So I’m sorry for all the pictures!)

Maddie liked carrying the basket around. It was still empty at this point. The orchard had samples of apples as you arrived. Maddie picked a crab apple. She loved that tiny little apple. Before we knew it, she had eaten the entire thing!

Maddie was really excited to pick out the apples. We taught her that she had to twist them a couple times then pull them off. After one or two, she had it down! She loved picking apples!

She just looked so darn cute standing in the isle of the apple trees!

It wasn’t a great season for raspberries, but Maddie and I had fun picking some anyway. Maddie wanted to eat them all as we picked them. The hardest part was making sure we picked some that weren’t swarmed with bees.

Chuck took Maddie on a hayride. She loved it!

While they went on a hayride, I hung out with this little sweet pea!

There was also a little evergreen tree maze. Chuck took Maddie through it and apparently she really liked the dog statue that was inside.

There was a big pile of hay bales. Maddie liked climbing on them and collecting small pieces of hay.

Chuck took some pictures of me with the girls!

And a nice man offered to take our picture. Too bad the girls look like we are torturing them!

A couple months ago, I went to see Cirque du Soleil with my mom and sister-in-law, Katie. I LOVE Cirque shows and this one was amazing and didn’t disappoint. This was Katie’s first Cirque show and she loved it, too!

Chuck bought Maddie a computer game to play together (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs). Maddie likes to play. She likes making her character jump! I just think they are adorable playing video games together.

One of Maddie’s favorite crafts to do right now is glue and noodles. This will keep her busy for quite some time. It’s a simple activity and I am just happy it keeps her busy for a few minutes.

Back in September, a couple neighbors had a birthday party for their kids. They had rented a couple ponies for the kids to ride. It was so cute. We figured Maddie would be really excited about it was her turn, and then she would freak out. But to our surprise, she got right on and had a great time. When she was done she told us “that horsey was bumpy.” So cute and so true.

Maddie found a shirt in her drawer that she wanted to wear. I thought it was cute that it said “nerd alert” on it and she had her hair in pigtails. She just looked so adorable.

Speaking of adorable, Maddie likes to wear her ponytails like Dorothy.

And sometimes she likes wearing her hat around. This girl is really into making goofy faces these days!

Maddie got a laptop for her birthday last year and Dannie got one this year. They both love them and it’s so cute to see them play together.

Dannie is walking all over the place now. She really could have been walking for a couple months now, but it was all about will. She just didn’t want to until recently. Now it is all she wants to do and she is so proud of herself.

Maddie likes it when I put our big pillow on the couch. Then she jumps on it and calls it her “taco”. Chuck’s mom made Dannie an activity book. (She made one for Maddie and our niece for their birthdays, too. I’ll do a whole post on it soon.) Maddie likes to play with it…while sitting in her “taco.”

Maddie liked the hat I got from my birthday dinner and wanted to wear it. I couldn’t get her to make a normal face while she was wearing it. I have no idea what she is doing with her hands!

Chuck was cleaning up the office and came across a bunch of post-it notes. Maddie thought she hit the jackpot and was putting them all over herself. Such a goofball!

I hosted a playdate for my MOMS Club and we made Jolly Rancher Suckers. I was impressed that they turned out so well. They were a huge hit with the kids and I know I will save this one to do as kids get older. I think I might make them for Maddie’s next birthday party as favors or snacks on the table.

While I was working on the suckers, Maddie wanted to play in the kitchen with me. She’s kind of a mama’s girl.

The other day I babysat my niece. The three girls play so well together. They were all so happy at lunch time, but I couldn’t get all of them to look at the camera at the same time.

On Thanksgiving, we had Chuck’s mom and step dad over for a Thanksgiving lunch. After the girls went down for a nap, I curled up next to the fireplace with a book.  (On my new Kindle, of course!)

I read only a couple pages until this happened.

So there you have it. A hodge podge of pictures that I have had sitting around. Now I’m off for a repeat of that picture above.

I’m just about caught up with all the posts that I never got around to posting about. I had never been to Sever’s Corn Maze before. I heard it was a lot of fun and I am so glad we went this year.

I think Maddie’s favorite thing to do was stick her head into the pictures. All. Of. Them.

She also liked to sit on the tractors.

Chuck and Maddie went on the big inflated jumping thing. They had lots of fun!

Dannie just hung out. She had a bottle while she watched Chuck and Maddie jump.

We had fun playing in the corn. Maddie wanted to be covered up it in. Then she pretended she was sleeping.

There was a hay bale maze. Chuck didn’t really struggle getting through it.

Just a cute picture of Chuck and Maddie.

They had a lot of animals there. Maddie liked the bird house. She was a bit scared of them, but she thought it was pretty cool when I got one to land on me.

Kangaroos.

Giraffe.

Llamas.

Camel.

More playing in the corn.

Chuck is such a great dad. He gave her piggy back rides, tried running in the corn with her, played in the jungle gym, and taught her how to jump into the corn!

And Dannie just happily chewed on her baby.

Chuck did take Maddie through the corn maze, but it was all the same thing to look at so she got bored. Plus it was pretty muddy in there, so they didn’t stay inside long. There was a swing set there, too. Maddie spent a bunch of time playing on that.

We spent the morning here and it was the perfect amount of time for the kids. There was lots to see without them getting too bored. I will definitely go back next year and if you haven’t been yet, you need to plan a trip there next season!

Over Labor Day weekend we took a trip to the North Shore and stayed at Bluefin Bay with some friends. We have gone with them for a few years now. We almost didn’t go this year since we thought it might be hard with two toddlers and two babies (ok, they were 9 months old…not really babies), but it was so much fun and we were so glad we decided to go!

Here’s a little rundown of our trip.

We played at the park.

Looked adorable.

Pretended to shoot things in the arcade.

Did some crafts. The girls were coloring puzzles.

Went swimming. They liked swimming, but they really wanted to be in the hot tub.

The babies were both hungry at the same time, so while we were in Grand Marais (where we did some shopping, sight seeing, rock throwing and had dinner) Trisha and I cozied up in some chairs to feed the kids while the big girls threw rocks! Lots. Of. Rocks.

Bluefin has free packages of s’mores, so every night we went down to the bonfire and roasted marshmallows and ate s’mores until we thought we might explode. Oh wait….that was just me.

There was this goose that would not leave us alone. It was freaking the kids out. Rightfully so. Those things are big. And mean.

Dannie did lots of snacking. Girl likes her food.

There was more rock throwing. This was definitely the most favorite activity of the weekend.

Searching for perfect rocks.

This was right after Maddie and I had a tickle fight on the beach.

Dannie liked the rocks, too, but her main goal was trying to eat them, so you had to keep a pretty close eye on her.

There’s a boardwalk along the lake between the two sections of the resort. It is one of my favorite places there.

More crafts. Last year Maddie wanted nothing to do with rock painting. This year she was so excited and was so sad we wouldn’t let her paint more. I think she painted three. Although she may have painted more, but we only brought three home. They are on our front porch.

More rock throwing. I love Chelsea’s outfit in this one. These girls have such personalities and love to pick out their own clothes!

One afternoon, we took a short hike. The girls were so stinking cute the whole time! Just wait until you see the other pictures! This one just needs to be blown up and framed somewhere!

The dads carried the babies around in these backpacks that we rented from the resort. The kids loved them.

This is just because Chelsea is adorable and I love her little face!

There was a brief break from rock throwing to eat Cheerios.

The Fisher family.

A little North Shore family photo.

As we were leaving, the girls wanted to hold hands. They held hands almost all the way back to the car.

Not only can you rent backpacks, you can rent bikes, too. So we got a couple bikes and a bike trailer for the girls and took a little ride along the shore. The real reason for the ride was that I wanted some ice cream. So we thought a little exercise beforehand was a good idea.

More rock throwing. I love that they both have tutus on.

This was what we got to wake up to every day. We had the windows cracked open so you could hear the waves crashing and the birds in the morning. I could have stayed in bed and looked at this view the whole weekend and been perfectly happy!

We stopped to visit Chuck’s dad on the way home and after our visit and the long, exciting, fun-filled weekend…we had two tired little girls on our hands.

We are so happy we were able to make the trip to Bluefin work again. I hope we get to go every year! And we are so blessed to have wonderful friends with kids the same age to share the weekend with! HERE are all the pictures from our trip.

Here are Trisha’s posts from Bluefin in case you are interested.

• Friday Night at Bluefin Bay
• Saturday at Bluefin & Grand Marais
• The Chelsea & Maddie ‘Show’ at Bluefin

Back in August, we made a trip down to Council Bluffs, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska to visit both sets of Chuck’s grandparents. We hadn’t been down there in a long time and since Chuck had the month off (this was when he was taking his paternity leave), it was time to take the trip down.

Luckily, Chuck’s mom was able to come with us. This meant we had an extra set of hands in the back of the car to help with the girls. She read books, gave bottles, had fun new crafts for Maddie to try….it was wonderful! Plus we were really happy we got to spend a bunch of time with her since she spends the winters in Florida.

Linda (Chuck’s mom) stayed with her parents and we set up camp at the other set of grandparents’ house. We had the whole basement to ourselves and didn’t have to worry about a bunch of stuff getting in the way at their houses.

Here’s a rundown of our trip.

Riding in the car. Grandma brought pipe cleaners and made whatever Maddie requested. This time it was a camera.

There were lots of walks. Usually they were spent to kill some time before a meal or to collect some goodies.

Sometimes we used our collected goodies for a craft project.

There was silliness!

Lots of visits to various parks.

And sliding.

And swinging.

And a trip to a farmer’s market where Maddie pointed out all the foods she knew.

And some walking hand-in-hand with great grandma Hays.

Playing with chains attached to walls. (We were making a pit stop to feed Dannie and Maddie decided this chain was loads of fun!)

We ate candy.

We ate ice cream cake.

We played with cousins.

We fed fish at the zoo.

And looked at Gorillas.

We waved at the underwater creatures.

And even got to brush goats.

We played in the sand.

We posed for pictures.

There was more swinging.

We walked across a really cool bridge between Iowa and Nebraska.

Played at another park…where we were surprised that Maddie fearlessly walked to the top of this slide and didn’t skip a beat and slid right down.

And did some more swinging.

We played in in the water.

And played dress-up at the Visitor Center.

Oh, and made cute faces.

We went to a splash pad and played in the water.

And posed for some more pictures.

We were able to get a pretty good family photo of us (considering the kids weren’t in the mood for photos) with grandma and grandpa Schminke (Chuck’s mom’s parents) before we left.

Then we drove home and grandma made more of Maddie’s requests out of pipe cleaners. This time it was glasses!

We had a wonderful trip and it was so fun to bring the girls when they could enjoy many of the fun things there. And it was fun to explore some of the things we’ve never done before. Playing at parks and running around splash pads is usually questionable behavior without children in tow.

Believe it or not, there are actually a bunch of pictures I left out from the trip. If you want to take a look at the ones that didn’t make the cut, HERE is a link to all the pictures from our trip.