Happy 4th Birthday, Gus

On November 17th, Gus turned 4. He had an awesome day, and an awesome weekend. Here he is on his way out the door to preschool. He's carrying the Birthday Bag, which is like Ultimate Show and Tell. On their birthday, each child gets to fill up the Birthday Bag with all of their favorite items from home, to share with their class. Gus filled his bag with 3 shirts, 3 cars, about 5 photos, a basketball, and a Dr. Seuss book.

He paused for a rare photo opp with both his mom and dad before school. Smart kid - he knew gifts were an option later in the day, so he listened very well all morning. Coincidence? I think not.

On Friday, we got a room at the Holiday Inn, Gus' favorite pool in Fargo, and invited a few folks over to swim and eat cake. Here's Gus with his buddy/neighbor, Caleb. They warmed up for the pool by wearing their matching Cars swimming trunks and jumping from bed to bed until the parents finally put a stop to it (OK, so it was just me who told them to stop).

Family swim!

Nora was really into the pool this time.

The only person who loved the pool more than Nora, was Will.

Gus picked his theme: Race Cars.


His guests were Caleb, Jake, Taylor, and Will. The Mpls crew couldn't make it because the first snow of the year made for some slippery driving conditions. Also, the Johnson's were moving into their new beautiful home so they couldn't make it either. We missed you all. Next time, Gabs, Carson, and Ashton!

Gus got a set of remote control cars from his Uncle Josh and Aunt Christy. He was so moved by the gift, that he started handing out hugs. (Cars will do this to a 4 year old boy.)

Buddies! Who, by the way, share the same birthday. Caleb and Gus were both born on November 17th. Pretty neat!

Not to be outdone by anyone, Nora puked half way through the party, so she went topless the rest of the night. She wasn't ill, she's just got a wicked gag reflex.

But a little puke never slows this gal down. Onward! Stealing Gus' new toys.

Thank you to everyone who helped Gus celebrate his 4th b-day. 4 is going to be great.

The warm-up party

It's almost Gus' 4th birthday, so this weekend while his Gma Vickie and Gpa Dave were in town, they had the great idea of throwing a warm-up birthday party for Gus. Of course it was a hit.

Nice firetruck!


If you can't tell from the strangle-hold he has on his Grandpa, he was just a little excited about the firetruck.


He fought like 50 fires in our house yesterday and took care of every last one.


Nora got a gift, too, a Care Bear! (It's Cheer Bear for those of you who are my age and remember the Care Bears. This one sings when you squeeze her paw. OK, so the Care Bears have advanced since I had one.)

She then proceeded to walk around with the gift bag on her head. Aaand this is our Nora. This is what she does.
Cars!


After the kids finished up the birthday celebrations, they jumped right into their campaign for Christmas. It's almost like they know at a very early age who you should talk to about Christmas gifts.


Another great Grandparents weekend. Thanks, Vickie and Dave!

Halloween

Happy Halloween!  It was a beautiful day in Fargo for trick or treating.  The kids were excited, they loved it. 

 

 

After a trip around the block once, Gus ran into his BF from down the street, Caleb.  

It was so nice to not be freezing while walking around.  The streets were packed with kids.

Gus found a group of kids to jump in with for a few blocks.

 Nora enjoyed the view from way up high.

After a long night, Gus took inventory of his candy.  And we have enough.

Gabby's 3rd Birthday

We made another trip back to the cities to celebrate our God-daughter, Gabby's 3rd birthday.  It was a day full of partying and pizza.  And cake.  It was delicious.

Here's the b-day girl!

We headed to Chuck E Cheese at 10:30..A.M.  The kids lovvvved it.  Here's Gabby cashing out at the end of a long morning.

 Holly met us there and brought Gabs a cake. 

After Chuck E's, we headed home and put the tots down for a nap while we geared up for the main event, Gabby's real b-day party at a place called Pump It Up.  With a name like Pump It Up how can you go wrong?  Well, folks, you can't.   For example, here's our entire family zooming down a giant inflatable slide, going way faster than was safe for a 1-year might I add, but so fun.   Yaywhoo!  Pump. It. Up!

The Goin's went faster than we did.  Good stuff!

Here's us with the birthday girl, sitting in another inflatable.  Also, you'd think with all the soft inflatables it would be a guarantee that no child would get hurt.  Well, Gabby (sadly) was the exception to that rule.  During pizza she fell through the picnic bench and smashed her head on the ground.  ouch.  She was also OK.  These kids are troopers!

There was so much excitement going on that at one point, poor Jaime lost Ashton.  We can laugh about it now, but at the time, it was freaky.  Turns out he was stuck in one of the inflatable obstable courses and he was OK, phew. 

Happy Birthday, Gabby!  Thank you, Mike and Michelle for hosting a wonderful weekend of non-stop parties.  

PS - Did you notice the insane formatting of this post?  Somehow I have placed words inside boxes, and all sorts of  word-picture craziness. I have not spent enough time fiddling with the new blogger format so I'm just letting it go.  Thank you. 

Carve it

We moved the kitchen table, laid down some newspaper, and had a pumpkin carving party with the kids.  It was great for the first 10 minutes they were interested in it.  After they took off to play cars or watch a movie, Ross and I finished up the carving and called them back in for the cool part, the lighting of the jack-o-lanterns.

Nora wasn't too interested in the gunky parts, but she did try to eat a raw pumpkin seed. 

 

Gus thought the finished product was so cool! Oh, and you'll notice he is wearing his absolute scariest shirt ever in prep for Halloween.  Frightening!

Later, everyone cut loose and laughed (OK, maybe just Nora).  The guys took this app pretty seriously. 

Happy Early Halloween!

Orchards, patches, and farms

'Tis the season to hit up every apple orchard, pumpkin patch, and fall festival in the tri-state area.  And it's been so balmy we can't help but get out there and enjoy every second of these above average temperatures.

Gus I traveled to Mpls for a 2-day visit the last week of September.  He got to play with Gabby, and Michelle and I got to catch up, so a win-win obviously. On our way back to Fargo, we stopped at the lovely Deardorf Family Apple Orchard in Waconia, MN.  We met Erica and her kiddos there, too.  Here's Gabby, Grady, and Gus on the trailer ride out to the Honeycrisps. 

 It's times like this that we really miss Minnesota.  Look, trees!

Erica and Michelle smiled as they thought about all the baking that was about to go down.  Erica's from-scratch apple pie recipe is a blue ribbon winner, after all.  We didn't just hit up the apple orchard to kill time, people.  Erica needed the perfect apples and I think she got them.

 The weekend before our trip to Mpls, we attended Fargo's Fall Festival.  Nora is tall, but not quite tall enough.

 We met our friends, Jake and Taylor at the festival.  The kids decorated cookies in between playing games and winning prizes.

Finally, we made a family trip to a pumpkin patch just NW of Fargo.  Nora was interested in the petting zoo animals. Oh my gosh, is her dress too short?  Yes.  But she grows faster than most kids, plus it was 82 degrees that day so the leggings had to go.  Also, this dress is too cute to not be worn (thanks, Sofie!). Go with it!

 Gus liked torturing himself in the mini Haunted House (which wasn't very scary).

 Cousins in a super large chair. Just missing Hava!

 Children of the corn.  Cute.

 Christy, Will, and Josh made it through the corn maze with no problem.

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 Nora and Will are buddies.  We love it.

By the way, Grandpa Dave fixed our laptop so this blog is back in biz!  Thank you Gpa Dave.  We owe you.  I trust you more than I would the geek squad.  Our photos and videos are safe so now I have no excuse to not blog.  Dangit, kind of.  I mean, I must admit it was nice to not feel the pressure of an out of date blog.  It was so easy to blame my lack of postings on a faulty computer.  Well, that break is over so I'll get focused again and make this a priority.

Happy Fall everyone!