Category: Products & Places

We went to a Valentine’s Day playdate and I had Maddie help me make valentines to give to her friends (we also gave some to a few family members and friends, too). She did a great job with her own and with Dannie’s.

For Valentine’s Day this year, we got the girls a couple small gifts.

Dannie wanted to kiss her owl…over and over and over.

Chuck, as usual, picked out some amazing gifts for me. Look….a bouquet of kittens.

He also got some custom-made M&Ms.

I got Chuck a Build-Your-Own Internal Combustion Engine. He thought it was really fun and promptly put it together in his spare time over the next couple days.

It was a great Valentine’s Day this year. We all loved our gifts!

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!