Love, Love, Love

It has been a beautiful week with sunny days and cool nights. I asked the kids what they wanted to do for dinner and Peter came up with a picnic at Farmer's Park. That's exactly what we did.

FP3 from garrick holey on Vimeo.

We are SO blessed.

Farmers Park Morning

We did not spend as many days at Farmer's Park this year as I would have liked, but most of the days that we DID spend there were really good. We spent time splashing, catching sculpins, bugs and frogs in the creek, walking on the rocks and through the water, and climbing everything. That applied to Peter, Emelia and Elena. All of them have turned into climbers- Emi being a little more hesitant than the others. Pete has gotten into the show Ninja Warrior and watches the competitors for ideas on how to get himself around and has gotten pretty good at monkey bars, sliding long distances etc..

Winona County Fair

When Peter and Emi came back from their school trip and I asked Emelia what her favorite part was, she answered "The MONKEY!" I looked at Peter and he said that yeah that was his favorite part too. The random animal petting zoo was back again complete with said monkeys, camels, fainting goats etc... When they went with their classes, they got to ride on a bus to get there, go on a ride of their choice (Emi "said" that she got to do two), and see many of the animals and have a snack!

We went back that evening as a family and pretty much did the same thing over again. But added in a long visit to the row of tractors AND saw the llamas attempting the obstacle course. Llamas can be pretty stubborn animals so when a few of the young girls we trying to jerk their llamas over the steps or under the hoops Peter would start giggling and I had to bite my cheeks so I didn't laugh as well! You could see the kids glaring at their animals and thinking "You did this yesterday!! Come ON"

 After we went to the fair, we went to our friend Susan's house to play on her trampoline and tree fort, have dessert and hang out. That night when we went to bed, I asked Emi what her favorite part of the day was... her answer: "Petting Susan's cat Nali". Sometimes I just don't know what to say!

Emi Rides!

This is old news by now, but I haven't posted pictures or videos. Emi is pedaling her own bike. We had been helping her down to the corner and back all of March, she could do it a little on her own, but usually wanted to walk back. I had even told a friend that I didn't think she was going to want to learn this summer and that was okay.

Emi from garrick holey on Vimeo.

One day, she came to me and said, let's go bikin', I'm gonna ride my pedal bike. The next thing I knew, she was hopping on it and with a little help to get going, was on her way down to the corner and around the block! She really had no learning curve, just needed to decide on her own terms that she was going to do it!

Now, a few months later, she can pedal around the lake, all over campus at SMU, has completed MANY bike races around the block when our grown-up friends come over and bikes to school and back most of the time as well. She is more cautious than her brother, but I think it is because she doesn't have the coaster brakes mastered yet, so she is hesistant going down hills. Either way.... we are proud of our little biking babe!!

Strawberry delivery

Over my birthday weekend, Garrick was up north doing the bike race that he does each year, so we of course went south to the beach.

We also went strawberry picking, which I thought it seemed late in the year to pick, but there were lots of berries ready to pick, and then picked out some chocolate covered strawberries to bring to GQ in her new home.

 Lainey was our main concern, but she managed just fine. She plopped her booty down in a row and found plenty of berries to eat, and eat and eat.

 The big kids worked  hard, picking as many for the basket as they ate themselves.

The girls, still eating.

 And then we had a nice visit with Grandma in her new home and shared our treats that we brought. Everyone had a good laugh over Lainey and her stained face and shirt!

BK1K for the kids!

We had racing fever in our house for a few weekends- and it was Peter that was the racer! The week after Trinona, there is the BK5K for adults and then a 1 kilometer run for the kids to do. We drove down to check it out and both Peter and Emelia were up for the challenge! Emi needed a little more assistance and lined up with Shana (who was going to run with Claire) and Claire, but Peter had no issues with getting up there with the other 5/6 year olds and giving it his best shot.

After the run, Peter did tell me, "It was fun, but I still like biking more... you know??"

Visit to Madison

First day of summer, time to squeeze in as much as we can into one day! Kimberly was visiting with Quinn from Arizona, so we met up with them in the morning and then stopped into Matt's house for Jack's birthday.
Emelia asked Kim about 100 questions about Quinn. What does he eat. Does he like crackers, pineapple, lemonade, cheese. Does he talk? Walk? What does he do? Does he like me? Does he like Peter? Why does he? Does he like Lainey?  Over and over and over. She also made sure that she got to be the one holding her hand and showing her things at the zoo. We are lucky to have a good friend like that!

Group Photo

Riding on their own in the zoo train

Blowing kisses and laughing

The aftermath. 30 seconds after we started to drive

Finishing off the night with a fun Birthday celebration! 

Biking and Running

A lot of time this spring has been spent out running with the kids. Peter is much faster than I am this year and aside from a few days with a bad attitude (and days early in the spring that were super windy), he has had a lot of fun riding ahead of me this year. Our deal is that if we go fast enough that there is time to stop and play at the park of his choice both while I load up the bike and stroller and after that.

Lainey and Emi still love to go for stroller rides. Thankfully. I did upgrade to a double BOB jogging stroller this year to give them a little more room, I felt they were getting pretty cramped inside of the Chariot, and to be honest, was looking forward to a new toy!

Emi's thing this spring that she has started to do is go down all of the slides at any park. Even the big red ones at the Lake Park. She also loves to swing and go on the merry go rounds at the park. Additionally, there are a lot of questions while we run, "who is that? why are they walking? who is that kid? why are the ducks there? where are the baby ducks? why is there a bridge? WHAT IF THE BRIDGE FELL DOWN?" and so on. Sometimes, I put in my headphones... not always though!

Lainey loves the stroller, sees it and climbs up into it. She and Emi giggle in the stroller for most of the time and I can't think of a single time that she has cried running this year. At the park, she runs for the swings and the slides.

Children's Museum

We go on spurts of visiting the Children's Museum in LaCrosse a lot and then taking some time off. The kids still get excited each time that we go and our time is spent doing different things as they grow up.

This winter their favorite things to do were:

Lainey: Climb. On Everything. And anything. She also loved driving the boats and cars. 

Emi: Play in the Kwik Trip and make pretend pizzas. She loves pumping gas into the cars and taking "orders" and putting them in the ovens. 

Peter: The train tables and he was also up for the challenge of the rock wall this year. He consistently made it up to the ledge in that picture which is even with the first floor of the building. The wall starts in the basement. 

Valentine's Day

I don't get into the hype of many extra holidays, but for some reason, we have hooked onto Valentine's day and enjoy it! We did a lot of talking about love- how we love, who we love, why we love eachother... aside from the usual answers- I love granma and granpa-- Emi did tell me and Peter one night, "I love Peteh because he is ma best Friend!" which was especially sweet. And the general consensus was that we all love Lainey- She isn't causing too much trouble (yet).

 We decorated cookies with Mike and Julie .

 Made Valentines Cards.

And dressed up for school. (past years)

My Snow-bunnies

We have been downhill skiing a number of times this year and have plans for more. Emi has been getting the hang of it and enjoys going- she has even been on the chairlift a few times but needs quite a lot of help getting down the hill.

Peter has really taken off this year though, he has spent a little bit of time on the magic carpet, which he can now do on his own and lots of time on the small chair lift and a few triumphant trips on the big and fast chair lift. The first time he rode the chair lift, he looked at us all and said "I didn't know it was going to be this fast!" and now it is dubbed the 'bullet-train lift'. It was pretty windy at the top and I asked him if he was cold and he told me that no, he wasn't cold, he was too excited to be cold!

He doesn't need any help on the bunny hill anymore (except getting on the lift), he can get off of the lift, make turns down the hill and get back in the lift line on his own. It has been really fun watching him learn to ski this year.

Science Museum

We headed out to the Science Museum for a morning when we were visiting Greg and Linka for Christmas. I knew that Peter was getting to the age that he would love it, and that Emi would probably like running around. That was a good guess.

 Peter is semi-interested in dinosaurs-- so he liked seeing the skeletons and knew what types about half of them were. He also liked seeing the different sizes that they were.

 Emelia like anything that made noise or that should could play with and the musical steps. I think she may have thought that WAS the museum...  And of course, she asked a lot of questions- what is it? Why is the light there? All sorts of things. There was also a tow for a barge on the roof that both kids like driving and pretending that they were driving to our house in Winona.

 At this point, I think they both enjoy the Children's museum a little more but this was a fun new place to explore with our museum pass! I would also like to try out the History Center up there, but I'm not sure if our pass includes it or not?