"Stand-Ins" for Mommy

' Mommy Jenn' was fortunate enough to be able to go on a "girl's get-away" trip to Puerto Rico with her two sisters-in-law this week. One of them was on a business trip....so with some hunting down of good (read: cheap!) flights...they were off for 4 days. Daddy Ron was also in favor of this, and did a wonderful job of "holding down the fort" at home. Both sets of grandparents were lucky enough to be able to do the daytime care of the three kids...and we loved it!! It was fun to be "stand-ins" for Mommy!Ron usually walks Carl to kindergarten, but Poppa had the honor for two mornings. MorMor Kris got one too!

We had plenty of time for story reading with the youngest two while Carl was gone.

Louise got busy checking out the toy catalog for her Christmas choices!

Daddy Ron made pancakes for the kids on Day #2.

Gus got himself ready to go to Poppa and Grams' house.
Reading time on the second morning.

On Friday the two littlest ones spent the day at our house...and Carl came afterschool. Poppa took Carl and Gus on an adventure to deliver frozen turkeys and Thanksgiving fixin's to the Fransciscan Brothers priory. They enjoyed their trip and felt very helpful.

Pizza for supper when Ron came home, and then into "jammies" and back home. We had a great time! Not quite the same as Mommy...but it worked!

Talkin' Turkey with Logan

Logan spent the day with us today because he was running a little temp, and had the sniffles. Probably not enough reason not to go to daycare....but enough reason for me to want him here! In the afternoon we decided to go get the big turkey out of the attic for our Thanksgiving decorations. Of course Logan at two couldn't remember it from last year, so he was pretty interested in the big pile of nylon fabric. I plugged it in and it started to make noise and blow up. Mr. Logan Mechanical was trying to figure it out when all of a sudden it went "POP!" and sat all the way upright in the dining room!!!

YIKES!! I'm glad I was there with the camera! It didn't take long for him to befriend the big Turkey and want to get ready to take it outside and help me set it up.
We had a great time "talkin' turkey".

What does the BIG TURKEY say?? "GOBBLE, GOBBLE!"

And what does the little turkey say?? "gobble, gobble, gobble!"

He was really good at it!

It was fun having him around today. I miss having him every Friday. He found favorite toys and his favorite hat. He wasn't at all interested in a nap. What a great day! I guess it was my "Logan date".

A Tuesday Date with Carl

Tuesday again...and this time it was Carl for my date! I picked him up at his school after kindergarten, and we went in search of an after-school snack. We went to Panera where we could have cocoa (with whipped cream, of course) and a nutty chocolate chip cookie and talk about all kinds of stuff.
We sat in our booth while Carl enjoyed his cocoa, I drank my coffee, and he showed me his notebook with all his drawings. We worked on his homework a little, and then we talked about some other things we could do this afternoon. We decided to find a holiday craft project at Joanne's (which was just a door away), make a stop at Value Village to see their Christmas stuff, and then go home to have supper with Poppa and work on our project. Carl has learned to use the hot glue gun...and is really good at it! No burned fingers!

Meet "Rapido Raton", our new Christmas mouse. Carl plans to put him by the pretzel house he's helping make at home.

What a great afternoon!! Carl has grown up so much since school started this fall. It's also fun to hear him talk about all he's learned in Spanish. Today I heard the days of the week, all the colors, names of some clothing items, and many phrases! This is really fun! What a special guy!! My "Carlo"!!

A Tuesday Date With Gus

Three year old Gus and I have been talking about going on a date for a long time. I had heard of a great "Storytime" on Tuesdays in St. Paul, so today was the day! Gus loves to do errands with me too, and is alway so helpful. We took a load of things out to Value Village, stopped at the grocery store, and then headed for "The Red Balloon Bookstore" on Grand Ave. in St. Paul.

The Red Balloon is known for its excellent selection of children's books, and even more for their three outstanding storytimes. Gus and I found a space as the room began to fill with moms and kids. Kim, the storyteller arrived with many little puppet friends and props. Soon we were joining in singing songs, waking baby bear from his sleeping bag, and learning about the letter T and the number 3! Wow! It was great fun! As we left the store, each child received a helium red balloon to take home.
Gus' favorite restaurant is Curran's in south Minneapolis, so that's where we went for lunch. but we were being silly, and ordered BREAKFAST for lunch! Gus ordered the 1-1-1...that's one pancake, one egg(scrambled), and 1 sausage!

While we waited, we did one of our favorite restaurant distractions. We drew things in Gus' world. Today we drew his house, his driveway, and the appletree at Chuck and Cyndi's where we picked apples on Sunday!

After lunch we made one last stop. We voted!! Today was the day to make history! Gus and I voted for Barack Obama. It felt good to have my grandson with me on this special day! We both got "I VOTED" stickers!

I love dates with the grandkids. I need to do it more often....and I know I will. Good memories for them...Spectacular memories for me!!

Picking Apples Today

We had a chance to go to my cousin's house today to pick some apples to make into applesauce. They were what you might call "seconds"...but in this case, probably "fourths"!! The taste was wondeerful but they were strangely shaped due to something in their growing season. No worms...and probably just perfect for canning!! Jenn was up for the canning, so we were ready to go pick.

Carl and Gus were pretty excited to be able to climb the ladder to get to these special apples. It was a fun adventure, not at all like going to one of the Apple Picking Orchards in the area. This was just a beautiful fall Sunday afternoon, filling boxes of apples that can be used for something great, from just one tree in a suburban back yard! It was just a pleasant kind of day that makes you happy you have cousins, and children and grandchildren to enjoy!!

"How does this one look, Grams?"

Carl figured out how to climb the tree without the ladder!
Gus thought this was "the best"!