Wordless Wednesday

Bloggers across the country, and maybe even the world, often participate in something called 'Wordless Wednesday' during the middle of the week.  Essentially, a photographic post that is descriptive enough that words are deemed unnecessary...

Easter 2011

We had a glorious and celebratory Easter down in Southern MN with my side of the family.  From great food to special Easter treats, to games and Easter egg hunts with cousins, with Grandparent & Great-Grandparent snuggles, and even a beautiful sunshine filled Easter day! 

On Friday evening Oma & Opa Steck brought the great-grandkids, among many other treats, flower pots ready-made to plant!  The girls could not have been more tickled last night when they went to plant them and found worms in their dirt!!!

We made a quick run to Cabela's Saturday, and the girls thoroughly enjoyed all of the mounted animals. It was much like my own bedroom, ha. 

We went to a very nice church service Saturday night so we'd have a little bit more time on Sunday to spend together.  And what could be better than fishing first thing Easter morning? 

Mike & family came out for Grandma & Grandpa's annual egg hunt (we missed it last year, because Hadley got the flu that morning!).  As you can see by her very determined expression, she was in top form this year.

Hehe.  Once again, I think Jeremiah is saying something about being surrounded by all of these girls!  (We missed baby Kenzie, who was off in MI with Heidi's family.) *Brooklyn 5.5, Jeremiah 3.75, Hadley 4.5, Piper 2.75, Savannah 1.5*

These two little buddies really enjoyed playing together out in the warm sun.

















And Piper could have just played t-ball with Grandpa all day!  Its a good look with the fancy dress, bat, and tennis shoes, eh.

Happy Easter, 2011!  He is risen, indeed.

Awful

Um, yah.  I. did. that. to. her.  To my baby!  My little tiny blond pixie girl.  Not on purpose, of course, but it was my fault.  I am not sure who cried more.  Me or her?  SO awful and SO sad. 

The short of it: a very unfortunate meeting with the end of a door.  But in case your curiosity is killing you, or probably more accurately my conscience is killing me, here's the long of it... All three of us girls have had a doozy of a cold/cough over the past 10 days.  I think the only thing positive about all this snottyness, was the fact that it prevented us girls from having, I mean getting, to wake up at 4 a.m. to turkey hunt with Kyle.  The colds have finally started to wrap up though, and as the girls' very wise great-grandmother Joan Graham once told me, "Its a good sign when they start acting crabby, as it means they are finally getting better."  Alas, Piper has a serious case of the crabbies.  

Today had been a relatively quiet morning on the crabbiness front, but it was time to clean up the playroom, and as with most two year olds, this has been a known instigator of whines in Miss Piper Lu.  I excitingly informed her that her first job was to find all of the stools, and put them back in their respective locations throughout the house. (Don't worry, I did not ask her in that way exactly, but used more appropriate language for a toddler; I am after all a speech therapist :). Apparently the stools were an integral part of the pillow house they elaborately built in the playroom all day yesterday?  As she immediately broke into whiney cries, and just plain wouldn't do it.  Classic two year old behavior.  Classic Piper.  I reminded her that she had a choice to either help Hadley & me clean the playroom OR she could choose to go to her room.  Another very defiant two year old, "NO" followed, which in turn earned her a trip to her bedroom.  A rather frequented choice lately.   

Just as I was closing her door, her cries turned up several notches and into an awful ear curdling scream.  I pushed the door back open to see what on earth had possessed such a scream, and WHACK the door met Pipey running full boar back at the door.  That terrible awful scream soon turned into terrible awful sobs; coming from both of us.  Instant purple, instant swelling, and instant sadness had by all.  Thankfully, after a little icing & cuddling the little miss is nothing but smiles now.  When Kyle came home for lunch and gave her a perplexed look, she just gave him one of her deep throaty belly laughs and then told him virtually the same story I just did.  Minus the snotty & crabby part of course, or the part where Mom feels like the world's most awful mother!

But if Piper can so quickly and easily forgive me, I can certainly work on forgiving myself before I do as most all mother's do - and drag it into that dark corner of our brain where we hold on to that mom-guilt forever and feed on it.  I think I'll work on the belly laughing thing instead, and next time I will talk through the door to her and make sure she is calm before I even think of opening it again. 

Two Slayers

Despite the record winds, chilly temps, and even a mix of rain/sleet/snow thrown in there... two of our hunters were successful.  The first was the smallest hunter (but obviously the best hunter), Sydney.  She got her nice 21 pound tom Friday evening; her first turkey ever!  The girls were nearly all tucked in when we got the call, so they hustled into coats & shoes over their jammies to see the big bird.

Obviously a picture outside would have been much more appropriate, but the garage was a might bit warmer! {Sydney, Uncle Kraig, Grandpa A, Hayden, Kyle, and the girls}











Due to the frigid temps and mighty winds, the hunters did come back each afternoon for a little warm-up & pick-me-up coffee (a 4 a.m. start will do that to you) and the girls were quick to get their snuggles in. 

And once Sydney got her bird, she chose our warm house (smart girl) over the cold turkey fields!  The girls could not have been more excited to play with her all weekend.

Brooke just happened to be visiting Paige this weekend, so Piper even got a (just-woken-up from naptime) snuggle in with her too!













And... the second and final turkey, a giant 25 pound turkey, came early Sunday morning just after sunrise.  Kyle and the tom gobbled & strutted back and forth (the tom strutted before his death, and I imagine Kyle after the tom's death) for over an hour before it was all said and done.  Both he and the girls are ecstatic!  And as you might guess, I am busy trying to find ways to use a lot of wild turkey in our meals.

While the weather could have been a bit more pleasant and/or they could have picked off a couple more birds, I think all of the hunters would agree that the time spent together was well worth it. 

Getting Ready

Kyle, the girls, and even I have been getting ready for the spring turkey hunting season.  Ground blinds need to be set up (a family affair), turkey calls practiced (just Kyle & the girls, not me - ha), and beds need to be cleaned and set up for the incoming hunters (group effort).  Grandpa A, Uncle Kraig, and cousins Hayden & Sydney will join Kyle for their annual hunt.  We took advantage of the gorgeous weather last Friday to get the ground blinds out.  And while Kyle & I got those crazy new fangled things pulled apart and put back together, the girls happily explored the woods nearby.

We finished out the ground blind afternoon with a pizza picnic at a local park.  I love how this picture captures Hadley's typical happy smirk and Piper's seemingly always messy eating face!

Hopefully there will be a follow up blog to this one, with pictures of giant turkeys! 

Target Field

I finally made it out to Target Field to catch a Twins game!  I have been itching to get there, and the opportunity (aka - I finally got my hands on a ticket!) to attend a game finally arose.  My sweet little brother, Nathan, invited me to meet him there Tuesday night and use one of his partial season tickets.  I'm not sure which part was more exciting - being at Target Field for the first time or having an entire evening with my brother!  And what a night for baseball...60 degrees and clear skies.  To top it off the Twins ran into extra innings and pulled out a very impressive win in the 10th bringing them slightly closer to .500. 

Target Field was all that I had expected and more. Incredible atmosphere, great visibility, huge variety of food & beverages, and NO echoing!  Strangely reminiscent of the few ball games I attended out at Fenway with Nathan in Boston (minus the Green Monstah).  I think the only thing that I truly missed from the Dome was the nostalgia of looking around and remembering the dozens and dozens of ballgames we attended as a family when I was a kid.  To look up over 3rd base and picture where my dad and I waved our Homer Hankies during Game 2 of the 1991 World Series against the Braves.  Or even look out at the first row of seats on the corner of left field where Michael, Nathan, Kyle & I cheered the Twins on during Game 1 of the 2002 play-offs against the A's.  Memories aside, I'd take the dreamy outdoor feel of Target Field any day.  I was, however, a little surprised to leave the game Tuesday night and not get slammed out the door by a gigantic gush of air?  Surprised yes, but displeased, probably not.  Thanks for the awesome night, Nathan!

Test Drive

Before the weather turned freakishly windy and cold again, reminiscent of November, we did manage to take a swing on out to our land to test drive Kyle's new four-wheeler this weekend.  If you remember, the girls did take a little spin around our neighborhood this winter, but we haven't really gotten 'her' going out at the land yet.  Despite the far too numerous piles of snow still scattered about, we did see a few signs of spring while we took a little tour over the property.  A few buds here and there, a lot of deer sign (which made Kyle so happy, he could hardly stand it!), and the nearly 30,000 trees Kyle planted over the past 5 years have really started to sprout up. 

'Spring' Break

Hadley had her preschool spring break a couple weeks ago, but Grandma had her 'spring' (better named 'winter' break, with all of this sufferin' snow!) break this past week, and came to spend it with us!  She brought Easter projects to do with the girls, cuddled up for many a book (per Hadley's request), played and replayed game upon game (per Piper's request), ventured into the cold to play outside for a bit, and even went on Hadley's preschool field trip to the bowling alley!  It was just lovely to have Grammie here.

The maiden voyage of the new scooter outdoors! 

Kyle 'taking it for the team' and trying to teach Hadley how to pedal her training wheel bike.  For whatever reason, this task seems to be harder than any other task we have had to endure as parents.  The kind of hard that makes you want to scream really loudly, in your head of course.

Can you see the excitement?!  She got past the mailbox, further than she's ever gotten before, hehe!  It ended after that.

Piper's attempt! Extra points to Kyle for doing it with both girls!

Off to the bowling alley!  Grandma got some really great photos of the little first time bowler, but for some reason I cannot seem to get them to size for the blog?  You'll just have to picture a small and very excited bowler who liked to carry the ball on her shoulder and then whip it down the alley as best she could!


Thanks, Grandma, we just LOVED having you!