Harvest Tradition

To celebrate the first week of fall Taber and I took the girls to our favorite Apple Orchard this weekend. Apple orchards are the highlight of our fall. The apple donuts, apple cider, fresh apples off the tree and all the fun farm activities make for a perfect family outing. It was also fun to see how different and yet how much the same things are from this year to last. The biggest difference is this little girl:


She's gone from being a squishy little baby to a full grown walking talking toddler. Last year she just sat in the the Snugli the whole time, this year she was fully engaged in all the apple activities. Here are some more fun little comparisons:

Taber and Teya in front of the corn maze. Biggest change for Teya, she's gone refusing to wear her hair down, to wanting her hair down every day so she can look like a princess. Taber's also changed a bit from this picture. Training for a marathon probably has something to do with it!

Me and Brinsie. Between this year and last I chopped off 12 inches off my hair, lost a few pounds, and can no longer carry the Brinster around in the snugli.

Teya and her pony lady friend. Not much has changed here. She loved the pony ride and the lady driving it just as much this year as last!

Here's a cute one comparing Teya last year to Brinley this year. I think they really look alike in these pictures.

The family on the tractor ride down to the orchards. Couldn't get either of the girls to smile for the camera but you get the idea. : ) Anyway, we had a great time, picked lots of apples, and took some fun pics to be able to compare to NEXT years harvest! Here are some of my favorites.

Girls in the fall leaves.

Teya and Daddy

Giggly girls (Brinley was laughing so hard that drool was coming out of her mouth) precious moments. ; )

Brinley was way into the apples. The whole time she kept saying. "Appoo, Appoo!" She almost ate a whole one all by herself.

Here's our loot. We went for the honeycrisp, so juicy and sweet!

And I leave you with Taber and our little monkey baby.
It will be fun to see what this munchkin is doing next year when the Harvest tradition continues!

It's that time again...

Fall is here and apple picking season is upon us! I got to take the girls to an apple farm last week for playgroup. Teya LOVES picking apples so much, I'm sure we'll be back several times before the season is over. When we got there we took the kids to get apple donuts and goodies first but she didn't even want any. All she wanted to do was get out in the orchards and start picking! It was seriously torture for her to wait. We didn't pick a lot since we'll probably get our big load when we go as a family. Still she got a nice bag load and we had some tasty honeycrisp apples to munch for a few days. Here are some pics from the day.

Teya and her playgroup buddies, Ladd and Clayton munching on their spoils.

Cute one of the girls. Teya is really into matching clothes lately. The last two times we've gone to the store she's begged me to buy matching outfits for her and Brinsie.

They had this slide on a haystack and Brinley just sat at the top and didn't move for a long time. I think she was either stuck, or just really enjoying the view!

Love how happy Teya looks in this one

Action jumping shot. Her favorite thing to do on the hay.

They had this really cute cow train but it wasn't running on the weekday. The kids still had a blast climbing around in it though.

Glad the kids had so much fun and grateful for all the farms around here that have given Teya a whole new appreciation and love for fruit!

Fried Snickers and the Miracle of Birth

The State fair is in town. Everyone told us we just had to go. Well what do you do at the state fair? I asked.The responses went somewhat like this,

"Make sure you buy the bucket of hot homemade cookies and then go hang out at the all you can drink milk bar."
"OOOO! You just HAVE to get the fried _______ (insert food item here)"
"Cheese curds, do not forget the cheese curds"
"Oh yeah, and don't miss the _______ on a stick (again, think of any food and they probably had it on a stick")

Sooo, we packed up some sunscreen and Rolaids and headed off for a day of gluttonous indulgence and fattening fair food. Within the first 1o minutes of arrival we had already bought Teya a snow cone and an ice cream cone. Personally I went straight for the fried snickers. When I heard they had fried candy bars it just sounded so wrong and yet so right, I had to try it. It was intense but I finished it and still had room for chicken on a stick and a bucket of homemade french fries. YUM!

The crowds were unbelievable. (125,000 people attended that day) My friend Adrienne told me it made Disneyland look sparse. She was right! If you turned around you could lose your family, even if they were standing 10 feet away from you. I saw a family with all the children dressed in bright neon yellow. Not a bad idea...
After I ate my fried food I was pretty much good to go. But we decided to stop by the Miracle of Birth exhibit were they had a ton of pregnant animals ready to give birth any day. We saw baby pigs that were a day old, tiny ducklings, baby chicks coming right out of their eggs, little lambs and a very pregnant cow.

The cow looked so uncomfortable that a crowd started gathering to see if anything would happen. The announcer came on and said they didn't expect any births to happen before closing time. Still, Taber and Teya went in for a closer look. Not long after they had wiggled into the front row, Mama Cow decided it was time to get the show on the road. A gasp from the crowd and I look up on the screen (they were filming it live) and see two little hooves coming out. At this point I realize Teya is in the front, catching the whole thing live! I kind of freaked out and yelled for Taber to get her out of there (I was already worried about the conversations that would come from this) But she wouldn't leave. Long story short, it was crazy, there were chains, the vet practically crawled into the cow, and my 3 year old has now been witness to the miracle of birth. Here are some pictures Taber took from his phone.

Warning: "graphic" cow birth pictures below. Click to enlarge at your own discretion!

I thought the cow birth would trump everything else that happened at the fair, but on our way home when I asked Teya what her favorite part was she said, " I really liked it when the baby chick almost climbed in my hand but it didn't." Gotta love kids! I'm just glad we all had a good time. : )

Weekend with the kiddos!

After two weekends in a row without the kids, we were ready for some good family time. On Friday night we took the girls out to eat, something we haven't done in 4 months! In fact, I think I can count the times we've eaten out as a family on one hand! Anyway, now that Brinley is older and can eat the food it's a lot easier. We went to Noodles and company and "carbo loaded" for our 5K the next day. (ha ha, ok, you don't need to carbo load for a 5K but I'll take any excuse to load up on carbs I can get!)

After dinner we walked down to Cold Stone to continue carbo loading. (Are there carbs in ice cream?) Teya picked blue ice cream to match her blue shirt. She's such a funny girl.

The next morning we were up bright and early for the Pioneer 5K and breakfast put on by our church. The course wrapped around a couple small lakes and was really pretty. Teya got to do the kids fun run too and did a good job for someone running in pajamas and crocs. (She's obsessed with her jammies and when we have to be out the door before 8, odds are we're not going to be able to get her out of them!)

After the 5K we cleaned up and headed to St. Paul to visit the Como Zoo. It's one of only 4 free zoos in the United States. I thought it would be kind of lame since it's free but we were surprised and how many cool animals they had (including Lions, Tigers and Gorillas!)

Teya on Daddy's shoulders at the zoo. Doesn't she look so grown up in this picture?

After the zoo we drove out to Burnsville to meet up with our friends the Hogges, who just moved out to Minnesota from Michigan. We took the kids to Chuck E Cheese and let them run wild while we caught up with each other. Their daughter is only 6 months older than Teya and the two got along great. She even convinced Teya to put on dress ups, I was impressed!

And the final highlight of the weekend was Sunday night's dinner. Taber decided to be ambitious with the grill and made his first attempt at cooking ribs. We were both amazed at how well they turned out. Every other bite I had to stop and say, "WOW!" I hate to admit it but now that the grill has come into play, Taber might just be a better cook than me. ; )

10 Reasons why last week ROCKED!

Okay, really it all comes down to one reason, Grandma Karen came to stay for the week which means total awesomeness ensued! Here are some of the highlights of her stay with us.

She taught Teya how to play hopscotch and Teya loved it!

We got to go see the sculpture gardens by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Here are a bunch of pics of us by the famous spoon and cherry, one of the most eye popping sculptures in the garden.

Teya actually liked the sculptures and had a great time running around and asking us if the "vultures" were going to eat her stuffed animals.

We also took Grandma to the Mill city museum and learned all about the flour plants that made Minneapolis the largest flour milling city in the nation.

The biscuits just looked too good. : )

Here's the fam at the top of the flour plant.

And one of the biggest highlights was that Grandma watched the girls for 2 1/2 days while Taber and I took a weekend getaway in downtown Minneapolis! While we were gone Teya and Brinley had so much fun with Grandma they didn't even know we were gone.

Here are some pictures that Grandma took while we were away. Stickers, goggles, slides, parks, push toys, bubbles, books, coloring, and abc's are just a few of the things that Granmda used to entertain them .

Meanwhile Taber and I thoroughly enjoyed relaxing on the beaches of Lake Harriet, hitting some great restaurants downtown, bowling, going to the movies, staying up late, sleeping in late, and exploring downtown without a care in the world.

A million hugs and a millions thank yous to a wonderful Grandma for a wonderful week!

Beating the winter blues

Since we've moved here a lot of people have asked how we're surviving the winter. Well really and truly it isn't that bad. I was scared from the horror stories I heard about arctic winds and subzero temperatures, thinking I would be trapped in my house all winter long. However, it was only REALLY cold for a couple of weeks. Now we're back up in the 30's and are able to get out and about quite often. I've learned that the trick is to balance fun indoor activities with getting out of the house as well. Here are some of the things we've been doing lately to beat the winter blues:

-We made valentine cards for Daddy. I let Teya use my scrapbooking scissors because the edges aren't sharp and she was in heaven! (Anytime she gets to use a "forbidden" object it brings her great joy) She cut up just about every paper in sight and then had tons of fun using the glue stick to put her snip-bits on cards.

-We made chocolate covered Marshmallows with her friend Abby. I saw the idea on my friend Tara's blog and thought it would be fun. You just melt some chocolate chips, dip the marshmallows and then cover them with sprinkles. Abby was very dainty with her chocolate dipping, barely getting her fingers dirty. Teya on the other hand went all out crazy!

In the end our marshmallows looked like this:

And Teya looked like this:

-We got together with some friends for a Wii party. I have to say, whoever invented the Wii is a genius. It's just as fun to watch how silly people look when they play as it is to actually play it!

-We went on a double date with some friends who treated us to a Minnesota Wild Hockey game. They were playing the Nashville Predators so I was a little torn as to who to cheer for. After all, we lived near Nashville twice as long as we've lived here. : ) I guess it was nice though because whoever won (it ended up being the Predators) would still make me happy. (p.s. is it just me or is Taber looking incredibly hot in this picture?)

-We took advantage of the awesome indoor playground at the Maple Grove Community Center. It's huge! (think McDonalds playground on steroids) and Teya has finally learned how to navigate the climbing apparatus by herself. (Before that Brinley would cling to me like a monkey while I wormed through the climbing maze giving Teya a boost at every switchback. Kind of exhausting)
And finally we've been enjoying visits to the Plymouth field house. It's a giant indoor field house where every Mon. Wed. and Friday they have toddler time. They bring out a bounce house and a jolly jump slide and tons of balls and toys for little kids. Teya loves running around with her friends and best of all, when we leave she always takes a nap! (something she has recently been growing out of) It's nice for me too because I go with my friend who is training for a 5K with me and we take turns running while the other one plays with the kids.

Here's a little video that gives you a better idea of what the field house is like. Teya burns off so much energy there! I also love the little bit at the end where she's wiggling her hips. She says she's just shaking it but I know that dance really means she has to go to the bathroom ; )

Fun at the Fieldhouse from Taber Rigg on Vimeo.