5th Annual Thanksgiving in Florida

For the fifth straight year we went to Florida for Thanksgiving.  We had a lovely time.  We stayed at the Great Outdoors in our own fifth wheel, the kids went swimming every day (sometimes twice a day).  Ben and Gabe went on an alligator hunt.  Mike felt that the alligator farm was a very creepy place and would be a great setting for a horror film.  They had a pet pig whose name was something like pork chop or ham bone.  I wisely stayed away as I made an assumption that they would have other reptiles at this alligator farm and I was correct.  There were a few giant snakes lurking around, thankfully no one took any pictures of them.

This year we went to Disney Hollywood which was okay, not my favorite of the Disney parks. Ben however thought it was GREAT as he got to see the Little Einsteins and get Leo and June's autograph.  The Little Einsteins are some of Ben's favorite characters and the number one item on his Christmas wish list is a "Take a part Rocket" which is from the Little Einsteins.

The all time favorite thing to do in Florida (for Ben) is to go to the beach.  Unfortunately it rarely gets into the high 70's when we are in Florida in November and thus we waited until our last day which was our warmest day to go to the beach.  Although the temp was warm it was very windy at the beach.  That didn't stop the boys though, Ben was super excited to run in and out of the ocean.  Crazy Uncle Ryan and cousin Gabe actually went swimming in the ocean.  Here are a few photos from our beach adventure.  

Twin City Ten Mile

Way back in early October I ran the longest race of my life to date.  The Twin City 10 mile.  I loved it!  Never considered myself a runner until this year.  As I type this post I'm wishing I had kept up my runner as I'm feeling very out of shape after all the extra eating over the holidays.  I hope to do this run and many more next year.  I had so much fun.  Here is a little video of the race, you can see me at the very end.   One interesting note is that just 5 seconds after I crossed the finish line it started pouring rain.  Thankfully Mike could not find a parking spot so he missed me crossing the finish line but he was ready just two blocks up to pick me up and drive me straight to Starbucks for a much deserved Peppermint Mocha!

Build a Moose

As a special treat I took the kids to Build a Bear late Thursday afternoon. They had a fun time designing their own Christmas animals. Ben built "James" the reindeer/moose with Christmas lights intertwined around his antlers. Emily made a moose named Holly that has two hearts. If you have never been to build a bear there is this whole ceremony called the heart ceremony and you have to jump start the heart before you put it in the bear. The kids have to rub the hearts on their elbows, and blow on the hearts and then jump up and down. Emily enjoyed that part so much she wanted her moose to have two hearts. I was very impressed with the nice man at build a bear that helped us design our animals. He was great with the kids and since we were the only people there he took extra time with us and made it really fun for them. So maybe the down economy isn't such a bad thing after all? At least it makes for less people at Build a Bear. Ben picked out Christmas PJ's complete with red slippers for his moose to wear. Emily picked out a silver skirt and black sweater with sparkly red shoes. Actually all Em cared about were the sparkly red shoes, she wanted to wear them herself which is why the moose does not have them on in the photo! The big highlight for Emily was to push her moose in the doll stroller. She looked so adorable walking through the mall pushing her little stroller! She was so proud.
When we returned home Emily even shared her cookie with Holly the moose. And as Emily had on her favorite navy blue Mary Janes she allowed Holly to wear the sparkly red shoes.

Future pianists

The girl loves her shoes!

Emily loves shoes so much she spends the majority of her day putting shoes on and taking shoes off. This past week she has insisted on wearing shoes to bed! In this collage are 3 pictures taken just this last week of Emily in her pajamas with her shoes on.

Twilight

What could be better than a room full of teenage girls in hungry anticipation of the vampire love story Twilight? How about a room full of smart, beautiful, fun, thirty something Mom's AND the lust hungry teenage girls? I had so much fun last night attending opening night of Twilight with 10 lovely women. You can't beat opening night of a much anticipated movie especially when the audience if full of teenage girls who are infatuated with Edward the sultry vampire and Bella the "everyday" girl who falls in love with him. What girl doesn't want to be Bella? I thought the movie was fantastic as a whole but as with many movies created from books they can't quite capture it all. The opening night atmosphere just couldn't be topped. The screams as the movie started, as Edward made his first appearance, as Jacob make his first appearance, and of course for the first kiss were just priceless. Despite the fact that the ushers asked everyone not to scream, the girls did not disappoint! I will say if you have not read the book I can't imagine you would find the movie even the least bit tolerable. For the Twilight series enthusiasts out there I do not think they were disappointed in the least. I for one was not. And unlike all the teenage girls who had to go home to their slumber parties full of Mountain Dew and Oreas we were able to discuss the movie in a much more refined way over bruchetta and wine. I am very excited that I get to go see the movie again tonight! I know my SIL thinks I'm doing a favor for her going two nights in a row but not so secretly I couldn't be more thrilled to take a second 2 hour look at the beautiful vampires. I don't think you have seen the last of these vampires we still have 3 more books to go!

As for the lovely lady in the bear nightgown. Just know that it is a book club inside joke and we are all trying to figure out how we can possibly top showing up to the yummy vampire movie in the huggable bear nightgown! Grrrrr! (I especially love the photo where it looks like Edward is reaching around Catherine!)

Christmas socks

You can not really tell from the photos but the kids are each wearing a pair of light up Christmas socks. They were both so excited about the socks they had to put them on. Ben then suggested we take a picture and he even suggested that we have props. Am I rubbing off on them or what? And yes I realize it is not even Thanksgiving yet!

Life at the farm in November

Ben showing Grandma the Dora the explorer ice cream Grandpa dug out for him. One of my Dad's rental properties went broke leaving my Dad with yet another store to clean out and an excess of convenience store inventory, which if your a kid is great as it means you now have 562 ice cream treats and freezy pops to choose from.

Nothing stops these two from riding the horses at the farm. Emily thought she should not be wearing her hat, mittens, or coat. I drew the line at taking off the coat!

November 16, 2008 We were in Madison for the Wi/MN football game. It was a very close and cold game this year. I had a great time with my Father in law, husband, and father. We actually tailgated for 3 hours before the game. I'm not sure I ever tailgated that long even when I was in college! It was great to see many of my aunts and uncles at the tailgate party. Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me so there are no photos.

Car Naps

I love it when Emily crosses her feet when she sleeps in the car. I have taken a series of photos of her napping in the car for this blog post idea but of course at this time I can only find three of the photos. At least it's a start. She used to always put at least one hand behind her head when she was tired but as you can see she is only doing this in 1 of the 3 photos. I know there are several photos of her with both hands behind her head and her feet crossed. I'll find them someday.

Ear Mouses

For some unknown reason Ben calls head phones "Ear Mouses" he has been calling them this since he was 2. The name has stuck probably because it is such a cute name. I'm sure that Emily will never know the term head phones and will always know them to be Ear Mouses. Her first day of college should prove interesting when she asks her roommate to please use her ear mouses!

How GREEN is your 4 year old?

DON'T THROW THAT AWAY!
Will someone please tell me where this is coming from? Ben will not allow us to throw anything away! While some degree of concern for the garbage piling up in this world is great, this is a bit excessive. Ben questions everything we try to throw away and we certainly should not throw away any of his food away. He even has gone so far to save the little packets that fruit snacks come in. This past weekend we were staying at Grandma and Grandpa's house and he asked Grandma to hide the fruit snack pack in the drawer as he was afraid that Grandpa would throw it way! Obviously he doesn't know that it is Grandma who is the one that cleans off the counter and throws things away. His Uncle Mike and Aunt Cassie should be very proud. He saves every little plastic snack bag that he uses, promptly tucking them back into the drawer regardless if they are clean or not. Oh you mean that little bag had some pickles in it and is now covered in pickle juice? oops.


When asked why he doesn't want to throw anything away he says, "Because I don't like garbage." When prompted further he says he doesn't like the garbage man. Not sure what that is all about. If any has any ideas I would love to hear them. And if you have any ideas on what to do with empty fruit snack packs I would like to hear them as well.


In the meantime he is getting small portions of food as he will sit at the table for two hours to finish all his food just so we don't throw it away! Yes there are benefits to this but sometimes its a bit much. Like when we had just a few spaghetti noodles to throw away (not enough to save for leftovers) and he had a total meltdown! Yes, easy going Ben had a meltdown about throwing away spaghetti noodles.



Needless to say we are discussing recycling a lot in our house these days!


I guess I should take him on a tour of the bathrooms at Best Buy, they have GREEN toilets. Have you heard of a GREEN Toilet? I'm not talking about the 70's style avocado green color of porcelain. These are white toilets with a green handle that allows different levels of water flow through depending on your needs. The sign above the toilet reads, "Up for #1 and Down for #2", I'm not even kidding. You lift the green handle up for liquid waste and push the handle down for solid waste.

Third Annual Halloween Party

My niece Princess Sophia proudly displaying her pumpkin.
Mamas Bookclub kids Danny, Ameya and Thali

A group photo after a fun game of musical Gravestones.

The GIANT cake our neighbor Ann brought to contribute to the party.

The picture does not do it justice this was a FULL SHEET CAKE!

Emily trying very hard to play musical gravestones.

Third annual Dockerty Halloween Party.

November 1, 2008

Aaron and Levi

Rachel (sister of Ben's pre school friend James)

Peyton - Ben's pre school friend from last year.

It was very fun for the boys to see each other again!

As Peyton said, "It's just me, Peyton"

Red Cat and Mommy Cat - Thomas and Catherine

Lisa and nearly 8 month old Graydon

The guys enjoying the beautiful fall day.

Ben and his pre school friend James.

The treats!

Brothers Levi and Henry

Abigail and Emily

Our neighbor friend Jake.

Ben with some of his pre school friends James, Isaiah, and Zachary.

We had beautiful weather for our Halloween party this year, the kids played outside most the time. Not bad for November first!

Ben and Janae

The group watching the last survivors of Musical Tombstones.

What a snake says!

I have a huge phobia of snakes and wouldn't you know my son loves snakes. I have worked hard not to let my fear of snakes influence Ben. I tried so hard it made him love snakes! In high school my dear friend Rachel took my Biology book and paper clipped construction paper over all the pictures of snakes. Yes, it is that bad. I can't even look at a photo of a snake. But now we even have books in our house with pictures of real snakes in them. Now, I don't read those books to Ben but I did allow him to purchase it. He also has several little plastic snakes that are constantly on the floor of our kitchen. In fact I'm so used to seeing little red and green and yellow snakes in the house I'm fairly desensitized at least to the cute plastic looking ones that is. Ben does however have this large green and white snake that he got at the Como zoo that looks kind of real especially since it coils up all nicely. Ben likes to hang it in odd places around the house. The other night I came home from work late and expecting the kids and Paulette to be waiting for me (since I was so late) I flew into the house and got no response. Some lights were on and I could tell that people couldn't be far I started yelling for them and I ran upstairs and then I ran downstairs. As I came around the basement stairs there was Ben's snake hanging on the hand rail and I about jumped out the window! Turns out they were all at the library but the combination of me wondering what happened to them all and the unexpected snake had my heart racing!

And my point is......

I started this blog with the intention of saying that I find it ironic that Emily can tell you the sounds that three animals make. Dog, Cat, and yes a snake!

So the cat totally makes sense as we have two cats. Emily seems to love dogs and it can be really funny when she sees a dog or even a picture of one as she will say "Woof Woof" about a hundred times in a row. Tonight we were at Urgent Care (Emily has an ear infection) and Emily was digging in my purse she came across some coupons for the Target photo studio (big surprise there) and the picture on the coupon is of a dog. She immediately started saying "Woof Woof" marching around the Dr. office. Looking at the coupon with the picture of the dog can only be entertaining for 5 or so minutes so then we had to dig a bit deeper into Mom's purse. And that is when she found a little green lizard that looks a lot like the little green, red, yellow snakes I mentioned earlier (the lizards and the snakes actually came in a set together). So thinking the lizard was a snake she immediately started saying "sssss sssss". Just as a test I started asking her what a duck says, or a pig, or a sheep and she just looked at me. I then said what does a kitty say? and she says "Meow" and a dog? "Woof Woof" and a snake "ssss ssss". Great! I think I may need to get therapy for my phobia!

I can see the Whole World from here!

Where we live there is a bridge called the Mendota bridge that we drive across a lot. It is a bridge over the Mississippi river and it is a beautiful bridge both in terms of its structure and what you can see when you are on it. From this bridge you can see both the sky lines of downtown Minneapolis and downtown Saint Paul. You can also watch the airplanes as they come in to land and take off from the airport. One day on the way home from pre school Ben said to Nanny Paulette, "I can see the whole world from here!" I love that!

Neighborhood Trick or Treating and a Celebration of Life gathering

We had a lovely fall Saturday and after today's weather I am beginning to think it is the last nice day we will see for a long time. I believe the high was around 60 degrees on October 25th and today it hovered around 35 or so! It even snowed today. We wouldn't want to gradually adjust to winter we need to go for the gusto and go from sunny and beautiful to snowing sleeting and freezing rain overnight.

We enjoyed our beautiful fall day by participating in our local businesses trick or treating event. All of the shops and restaurants around Highland Park sponsor a trick or treating Saturday every year. This was our first year and it was great. We actually only made it to about 6 local businesses before our buckets were full! The main reason for that is the local Lunds grocery store has about 10 stations throughout the store and they give out a large variety of items from, Apples and carrots, to milk and chocolate chip cookies. We even ran into our neighbor friends Ann and Mikey and they were kind enough to trick or treat with us for a bit.

Ben and Mikey (Ben is carrying his sister's bucket he doesn't really have two)

Our day of trick or treating was following by a drive to Hudson, WI to attend a Celebration of Life party. My cousins Dan and Jackie had their baby girl Shaylee pass away last December at the very young age of 10 weeks old. Dan and Jackie have a 4 year old son named Tanner and they wanted to show him that when they speak of Shaylee that it can be positive and they can talk happily about the 72 days they did have with Shaylee. In a lovely tribute they had purchased 72 pink balloons that we released into the air in remembrance of the 72 days Shaylee was with them. It was truly a beautiful tribute.

Ben had a fantastic time playing with all the other kids there and Emily was quite entertained by the dogs. Both kids were really impressed by the GIANT swing set and GIANT bon fire my cousin Dan had set up. Living in the country does have its privileges. I don't have any pictures of the bon fire for you but it was the largest bon fire I have ever seen. I know Ben will be asking to go visit Tanner again soon as he loved playing on his swing set and playing with his toys. I believe Ben's exact words were, "I don't believe it!"

I was also able to meet my newest second cousin, Ellie Anna Faith. She was as sweet as could be sleeping happily in peoples arms as new babies tend to do.