NEW BLOG POST ALERT

Scroll past the New Year’s post to see our fun in the corn maze and Noah’s Birthday Bonanza Weekend.

Up Next: Let’s Carve Pumpkins!

P.S. You didn’t think I’d have new posts day after day, did ya?!  I’m working on getting there!  Only four months behind now!  Whew!  At this rate, I’ll be caught up by Summer -  Just kidding. I’m really hoping to get a new layout up and running soon… I just have a little reading to do.  I’ve had other websites to work on. *wink* You know, the ones that pay the bills.  Hehe  Click on the link below and take a look at what Karen and I put together at work this week.  I think I’m really starting to get a hang of this web development side of things, not to mention Photoshop – I get to take credit for the brackets, which are going to get even better this weekend once we get the seeds!  GO Jacks!

KELOLAND.com’s Summit League Tournament page

She Can See!

When kids make faces at you, it’s adorable (most of the time).  But when ONE of your daughter’s eyes slowly turns into her nose while looking at you, it’s kind of freaky! 

Then we noticed it was happening a lot more often… and then other people noticed.  It kind of came on quick.  I immediately called the eye doctor and got her in.  It turns out she is very farsighted. 

I’m nearsighted. So, I’m not very familiar with what she can and can’t see.  The doctor says her vision is on the border of not being able to see near or far (combination of her mom & dad’s vision? – He sees far, I see near.  Perfect combo, right?).  So, basically she can see things in the distance, such as trees, but can’t see the details of the leaves.

Well, I noticed the “turn” the weekend before open enrollment closed, so I was able to add her to my vision plan, just in case (added Noah too – might as well, he’s probably next!) But her coverage on my vision plan didn’t begin until after the first of the year.  So we waited until then to order the glasses and save some money. 

It turned out they didn’t have any glasses small enough for Alexis, so they ordered in three frames (there were very few that even came small enough!) and went back to try them on and pick one out last week.  She picked out the “burgandy” ones.  Really, they’re a dark pink.  But Dad & I also agreed they fit her best.  Then, they just had to order the proper lenses to fit and got them finished up today… just in time for the weekend!  We rushed over before they closed and TA DA!

She’s had them for about three hours now and is doing a pretty good job of keeping them on.  She only took a few wobbly steps as we left the doctor’s office – OP! spoke too soon.  She just knocked her head into the piano bench.

Early reviews (through of a bad cell phone photo) are positive!

Now, I’m curious to see whether this helps her behavior.  I’m hoping a little that she’s been acting out in frustration of not being able to see.  Aww, come on, a mom can hope, right?

**PS: I’m still working on updating posts from August through December so keep checking back!  Hope to get some work done this weekend. I’ve also already taken 600+ photos with the new camera! So you have those to look forward to too!**

Still to come:

• Turner County Fair
• September Miscellaneous
• The Apple Orchard
• The Children’s Museum
• The Pumpkin Patch
• Noah’s 2nd Birthday
• The Corn Maze

New Year, New Blog

The Alexis and Noah Blog is now under construction. I’m still getting caught up on things from earlier this year.  But then we’re switching gears to a new look.  THAT is already in the works (and I now have a “Wordpress For Dummies” book to help me along the way – Thanks, Hon.)!

We’re now past Christmas and 2012 will be here in the blink of an eye.  But I wanted to thank everyone for who follows us here for being patient with updates.  It’s been a very busy year and once the summer came along, we enjoyed spending time outside versus on the couch updating the blog.  Sorry! You will be rewarded, though, with some great pictures.

So, just a little more patience please! And SkinnyPancakes.com will be here soon!

 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Yogi’s Corn Maze

Nap time ran a little late today, but I was still determined to get to the corn maze.  We packed up the kids and drove to Yogi Bear’s Campground north of Brandon and watched the light fade as the sun set.

Once we paid and got our map, we stepped foot inside.  Pretty cool, huh?  Well, we didn’t get far before we decided to cut across a little and head into a different area.  It turns out we had actually jumped into it backwards and were now heading from the end to the beginning.  The goal was to find all of the check points and answer a question about Yogi Bear.  We found all but one, but that’s not what the kids were interested in.

They just wanted to run in the dark through the maze… and dark it was.  I didn’t even think to bring flashlights.  So we wandered through by the light of a cell phone and the moon… and an occasional flash from my camera to see what we were looking at.

We had to pay close attention to Mr. Noah, because if you looked away from him, you’d lose him.  He got interested in running into the actual corn instead of staying on the path.  Then he realized there were little bits of corn on the ground and wanted to pick them up.  So we gave him a piece of a cob and he left a trail of kernels to help us find our way back. 

  And when it got really dark, we put the kids on our shoulders as we finished the maze.  We could move faster and it was practically impossible to lose them.

So, lessons learned: Bring flashlights to an evening tour of your local corn maze and cover the kids in glow in the dark clothing from head to toe.

(It was a good thing we did go when we did as the rain settled in that week and the maze was muddy for the rest of the season)

Party For Monkeys: Birthday Bonanza Day 3

When Noah woke from his nap the day of his party, he found I had decorated the living room and dining room to fit the theme: Monkeys!  I had made some faces out of paper to match his cupcakes.  He loved them!

 

And I got the bakery to put a monkey on his cake – it turned out perfect!  But he wasn’t exactly excited about getting his picture taken.  By the way, we’ve been taking pictures sitting on the dining room table since my high school graduation, when I got up on ours for a picture with my cake.

Noah REALLY wanted to stick his finger in the cake… REALLY bad! We got a smirk out of him at least.

UH OH! Where’s the finger going? 

 

He got spoiled: Cars, trucks, books, Little People, and a GIANT sock monkey named Max.  Uncle Brent felt a little one-upped, considering he got Noah his original sock monkey – and it’s been monkey business ever since.  Okay, Max isn’t just big, he’s probably twice Noah’s size.  So he works as a great body pillow too.  We joked about how I should just take the stuffing out and turn him into a Halloween costume for Noah. 

Noah pulled in a great crowd!  Our living room was full as usual… standing room only. Hehehe. 

And then it was time for cake – Noah got another monkey cupcake, as did Alexis.  And Uncle Brent showed the rest of the group Noah’s little balancing act trick.  Brent grabs both of Noah’s feet in one hand and holds him up like he’s standing on a pedestal.  Noah loves the excitement of being daring – I’m in trouble, I know.

Max is even bigger than Alexis!  She loved showing Great Grandpa Art and Great Grandma Linda her books, camera and other toys and took a great photo of Great Busha and Great Dzia Dzia with my camera!

We always enjoy having them all in town.  We’re truly blessed that they are willing to make the trip to spend time with us.  Just love soaking it all in as much as possible.

Happy Birthday Noah! (Birthday Bonanza Day 2)

Good morning, Birthday Boy!  Noah woke up as a two-year-old with quite the hairdo and chipper as ever.  What a great way to start a new year!  Doesn’t he just make you want to crawl in the crib and snuggle?  That sock monkey is pretty lucky.

But the Nuk has to go!  Mommy’s making a resolution for him!

We planned to visit the pumpkin patch again this year and got to the Garden of Weedin’ fifteen minutes before they opened to find a line already starting to form for the Pumpkin Pickin’ Days.  We parked the car and we were off to find, not one, not two, but a whole collection of pumpkins.

   

We always had a rule growing up that if you wanted the pumpkin, you had to be able to carry it on your own.  Noah did just fine.

  

Some were lopsided, some were mushy, some were holey, but we found plenty of pumpkins just the right size, sometimes two at a time.

Take a look at our take!  We found big ones, small ones and bumpy ones to keep.  And at $1 each, they didn’t come close to breaking the bank!  Not to mention the experience and watching the kids run around, trip over vines and finding their great pumpkin.  Too much fun!

 

We also walked into the little shed they have set up with canned items and specialty gourds and grabbed a few mini gourds and pumpkins for decoration.  The hay bales I bought for our front deck are going to look GREAT!  I can’t wait.

After dinner, it was time for a slice of birthday yummy.  I made cupcakes for day care to celebrate Noah’s birthday and kept a couple at home to also share with people at his party tomorrow. 

They’re just chocolate frosted chocolate cupcakes, mini marshmallows cut in half for eyes with a dot of black gel frosting, and vanilla wafers cut to make ears and the nose with red gel frosting for the smile and black for the nostrils (if you make them, the wafers cut better without cracking if you throw them in the microwave for a few seconds to soften them up.).  Aren’t they cute!?

So we put two candles in them, sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and he dug right in!

 

Doesn’t get much better than watching a kid eat a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting!  Pucker UP!

And this is all that’s left! Fin.

 

Time to get a good night’s sleep before the big party with everyone else tomorrow.

The Birthday Bonanza Begins: Visiting The Children’s Museum

 

To celebrate Noah’s second birthday, we started on Friday with a trip to Brookings.  Bill and I took the day off to spend it was the kids and the weather was going to be beautiful!  We decided to start the birthday weekend in Brookings and visit the new Children’s Museum of South Dakota.  I had heard lots of good things about it, which didn’t do the place justice! 

The first exhibit we explored had to do with produce and the marketplace.  First the kids got to pick vegetables such as carrots, pumpkins, corn, potatoes and tomatoes.

When they filled their carts or wheelbarrows as full as they’d go, it was off to the conveyor belt.  The hard vegetables had a little metal tab, which stuck to the bottom of the magnetic conveyor belt…

… and carried them up into the air where they hit stoppers and dropped into a sorting bin.

Then it was up to the kids to pull them back out and sort them.  The sorting bin showed their color, shape and size to help them along and the front end, which you can’t see in the left of the picture, opened to a play supermarket complete with registers, beeping scanners and fake food galore.

 

And when I looked down at my watch, I realized we had been playing on the farm for about an hour!  It was time to move onto something else… THIS was something else!

The ultimate jungle gym, right?  Alexis got the hang of it right away and jetted to the very top.  We were stunned!  She isn’t a heights person, but this didn’t seem to bother her at all.  Noah had some troubles.  He just wasn’t quite big enough to be able to climb from level to level.  The gaps were just a little too big.

 

That’s the view from the top, and not even the very top.  The balcony behind the climbing clouds didn’t take you THAT high.

Now it was time to really fly through some of the other areas… we were getting hungry already!  We found the water room, which was a giant water table with water guns and puzzles. 

  The air compressor pumps which help the balls fly into the traps in the ceiling weren’t working.  So, Bill had to lift Noah up with them so he could watch them travel down the water tunnels on the wall.

We also flew through the music room (don’t know how much of the noise I could have taken anyway), the art room (no painting today), the cafe and post office, and the TV studio.

Then it was time to step outside to see the… DINOSAUR!

The pictures don’t do it justice.  It moves, it roars, it scares the bejeezes out of Alexis.  But No-Fear Noah was all about checking them out!  So while Noah climbed on the railing, pointed and gawked in amazement, Alexis stood back and let him take it all in.

He’s not kissing the tree stump, I promise.  He’s just trying to climb up on it.

Lunchtime in Brookings means just one thing: Cubby’s!  It’s the sports bar where Bill, Nate and I had lunch after lunch in college.  They have great burgers (which now come in half sizes, thank goodness!) and these jalapeno raspberry wings that are awesome!  It was only fitting that we found a booth with a Twins bat hanging above it.  A perfect ending to a fabulous morning!

Oh, Alexis was pretty amazed too that there were televisions in the bathroom… and black toilets.  Details, details.