Movember Moustaches and Morning Cafés

Auntie Rachel came to visit over Thanksgiving and brought these super cute bearded hats she made for Lawrence and Max. They are sooo cute!

  

This was Lawrence's first time meeting Auntie Rachel

I know I speak for Jess too when I say we are so happy our boys have Rachel for an 'Auntie' and that we miss her loads and loads. Ray and Jess took me out for a delicious birthday breakfast (and the best vanilla latte ever) at People's Organic Cafe that was so special to be the three of us together. Thank you friends. I wish we had gotten a picture! dang. I guess we'll just have to go again over Christmas. (right girls?)

While she was here we made a morning trip to Isles with Charles' other special 'Uncle' Ishabor for some puppy tails. YUM.

 

 I love my friends and I love cafés and when the two come together it is truly a wonderful thing. 

Carrying the Banner

This is the first year Charles has really participated in Halloween. Chris and I weren't sure we were going to do anything but decided that we would give it a go. Our good friends the Hildens invited us over to their house for pizza and trick or treating in their neighborhood so after a stop and Nana and Papa's house so they could see Charles, we headed out for some Halloween fun.

I had wanted to dress Charles up as a garden gnome but he was not having it. What did he want (agree) to be? A NEWSIE! Be still my Jack Kelly loving heart. It was a bit last minute so I had to make do with what we already had. Good thing I snagged this hipster vest at Goodwill a few months back.

'neva fear, Brooklyn is here!'


We switched out his conductor's hat for a more newsie-esque one that Papa lent us. With a paper tucked under his arm the costume was complete. "a penny a pape!"

'what's a matta? You scared a Brooklyn?'

It was so fun to see the little kiddos dressed in their costumes. Max was Max from Where the Wild Things Are- isn't he darling?? I could eat him up :)

'let the wild rumpus start!'

'look at this, 'Baby Born With Two Heads'.. must be from Brooklyn'

Charles had such a fun time. Thanks Hildens for inviting us!


And Jess, this one's for you:
'dear me, what is that unpleasant aroma? I fear da sewer may have backed up durin' da night'
'nah, it's too rotten to be the sewers.'
'it must be... the Delancey bruddahs!'

I will most definitely be watching The Newsies today.

Now and Then

A year ago, almost to the day, that we said goodbye..



.. and a year later we are together again!



Our boys sure have changed in the last year! I am so excited to have our friends Janet and Dion here and to spend a few days with them. Monday they came and helped celebrate Chris' birthday with us eating meat and hanging out at Lake Calhoun. Tomorrow.. the Fair!!

 
(Chris can't wait to have a baby in overalls again)

Fourth of July

This was our first fourth of July back in Minneapolis and boy was it a hot one! A whopping 101 degrees to be exact! We left the comfort of our air conditioned apartment and headed to a friends house to bbq. Luckily there were water balloons, squirt guns, and just plain old buckets of water to keep us cool.

 

This was the first fourth of July in four years I think that I didn't make 'my' flag cake (I say 'my' because I got the recipe from Pioneer Woman who got it from Barefoot Contessa.) In reality, with this heat, the icing stripes would have melted away within a few minutes. Instead I made chocolate chip cookies and lemonade cookies, both of which have been part of my cravings as of late. When it comes to cravings I have been wanting chocolate chip cookies and lemon dessert-y stuff. yum yum yummm.

While I don't have a picture of the cookies, I do have a photo of Chris' three meat creation.
Behold, a bacon wrapped burger stuffed with shrimp. oh yes

 

Despite the heat, we had a really good time. We are thankful to be back with old friends and for the new friends we have here too.
As the evening went on we could hear people setting off fireworks and Charles didn't really like the loud noise. He wanted to see them but not hear them. We got home just when the real fireworks were starting and could see some from the front of our building but after a few minutes he wanted to go back in. Perhaps next year he will be more into it.

 

"nothings says 'U.S.A.'s the bomb' quite like a bomb pop".. S. Kirby

update

What have we been up to? Let me show you...

Como Zoo
 

Lake Calhoun


Cupcake quest with Jessica


playdates with Hannah


parks


Mother's Day crafts


Baby Shower for Amy and 'reunion' with college roommates


Onesies

It's 2012 Baby!

Well, the holidays have come and gone and now we are in 2012. Wow. Can't believe it.
2011 was a big year, and I am excited to see that this year will hold for us too.
Speaking of years, Christmas weekend was my ten year high school reunion. Technically it was ten years last May but thinking that a lot of people would be home over the holidays it was planned for Dec. 23rd.
I was SO nervous, I almost didn't go, but thankfully I had three other girl friends who planned to go as a group together. After getting over our nerves we finally broke free from our table that had been our safety and we began to mingle and then the nerves faded away and I was able to really have a good time. It was weird and fun and nostalgic, all at the same time, to see people and brought back a lot of memories from our high school days.
I am so glad I had these girls to go with

And, I am loving that I am once again close to my dear friend Rebecca. She makes being back that much better. It's so fun that we were dear friends in high school and now our kiddos are going to the same daycare. Full circle. :)

Stoop Days

I miss our old stoop everyday. This is from our last day in Brooklyn. Sharon and I were trying to get some pictures of Charles and Hailey together. We told them 'put your arms around each other'.
They both did this at the same time.


There, that's better


 

It's crazy how fast they are growing up. It's only been three months. Sharon and I share pictures of our kiddos with each other pretty often and to see how much H has grown since I saw her last hurts my heart. Sharon can't believe it either. We used to see each other almost every day. We have had them talk on the phone a few times and I know he remembers her. It will be crazy to see them together again this summer. I am sure they will have changed so much.

A Reason To Get Dressed Up

Friday night our friend Nate got married. We had met Caroline only a few times before but it was so obvious that they were a perfect match. God is cool like that.
Aside from the excitement of being able to celebrate our friend's wedding, we were also looking forward to a date night. It had been a long time since Chris and I had gotten 'cleaned up' to go out for an entire evening of fun. He wore a tie, I wore a new dress. There was dancing. It was thrilling.

Missing my friend

'I thank my God every time I remember you, in all my prayers for you I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now... it is right for me to feel this way about you because I have you in my heart..'
Philippians 1:3-7

A Baby Shower for Jessica

I had the honor of hosting and co-planning a baby shower for one of my dearest friends, Jessica, last weekend. She is due in November and all of us who know her and Dave are so very excited to meet this little baby.

Rachel, Becky, and I planned this shower for Jessica and if I may say so myself, it turned out lovely.
There was a lot of food. Glorious food.

The spread..

  

 

 

We wanted to get food that we knew Jessica loved so our menu included pumpkin cheesecake, grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup shots, peanut butter fudge brownie trifle shots, 'Angie's' kettle corn, and a hot cocoa bar, just to name a few :)

We decided against the usual silly shower games and instead had everyone participate in a craft that would be hung on the wall in their nursery. Not only is it super cute, but it is also something special that Jessica and Dave can have for the baby that was hand made by their friends.
We gathered the letters of the alphabet in various sizes and fonts, and for some we just got frames or blocks so people could take a more creative approach as to how they would create the given letter. For example (and missing from this photo) we got a small round mirror for the letter 'O' and a ruler for the letter 'I', canvas for the 'F' a frame for 'P', and a box lid for the 'S'.  We supplied craft paper, buttons, yarn, fabric, paint etc.. and let each guest decorate a letter, or two or three, for Jessica.

This is what we started with..

Craft time:

   

The (almost) finished product: 

Doesn't that look so great?? It's going to look awesome in their nursery, and most importantly, Jessica loved it.

I'm a little sad this picture turned out blurry but I treasure it nonetheless. Good friends celebrating the upcoming birth of Baby Hilden. Congratulations Dave and Jessica! We love you already little baby, and can't wait to meet you.