December Week 3

 I'm feeling much better this week and it felt great to get in a Monday swim. Beautiful sunrise on my drive home.  

Girls had their last swimming that evening.

Thomas was home sick on Monday and Tuesday so lots of couch time together. Monday I had to teach my barre class and I had a dermatology appointment to remove a mole on my back, so Thomas was alone for a bit of Monday. But Tuesday it was just him, me and Oakley. He was sad to miss swimming but we didn't want him to over do it. He was back to school on Wednesday. 

Oakley liked the snuggles. 

Emma spotted this opossum on our drive home from school. Crazy it was out at 4:30. We had to turn around and take a good look at it. 

Kyle's birthday was Wednesday. We had sushi Wednesday and then he took the girls shopping while I had my Spanish class call. We'll go out on a date night this weekend to celebrate. 

We had an oddly warm week after it's been freezing for most of December. But it all came tumbling down with crazy winds on Thursday and a little dusting of snow to cover us for a frigid Friday morning. 

Post-swim view Thursday. 

Thursday much of the same, swimming, volleyball, and snow. Today - Friday- kids have skiing after school so not sure what Thomas will do with Kyle and I. We'll have to think of something fun, or maybe just hang out at home and play video games, he'd LOVE that. 

December Week 2

 Must like the first we started off with girls swimming then rushing to volleyball practice. They are taking lessons in the same pool that I swim at in the mornings with the masters group. So I'm there at 6am and 6pm. But not this week because I was sick and barely holding on. No sick days from motherhood but I did take a break from workouts. 

Mary dancing in the SNOW! 

Tuesday night Thomas had swimming, it was pretty blizzard and the teachers were bringing in snow and putting it down the kids shirts, haha. He got a kick out of that. Also it was Isaac and Emma's go to get MRI's done at the children's hospital. I'd signed them all up for a research project that was looking at healthy hearts via MRI imagine. They each got paid and got to experience what I do at work every week (prepare kids for MRIs) Only pic I got of Emma. 

Wednesday was the other two's turn. 

On our drive home we spotted an OWL! just off the parkway from our house, we pulled over at watched him for a while. The photo does NO justice. It was pretty cool seeing him fly around. 

A little bit of lazy Oakley. 

Thursday night Mary had her first orchestra concert. We all had fun listening, it was quick I think only a 15 minutes concert! 

Friday the older kids had their first Ski club night. After school a bus takes them to highlands for 3 hours and they get to down hilll ski. Which meant it was a night with just me, Kyle, and Thomas. We did something special with him. He wanted a hamburger so we found this new to us place nearby called Le Burger - French take on burgers. It was delicious! 

Then we went to Dave and busters for some arcade play. 

Kids had fun at their ski club, no pics, but it was cold and they all came home happy and probably slept hard that evening. 

Some cookie baking over the weekend and no church because Thomas woke up with a terrible cough Sunday - he has what I had earlier in the week, but his accompanied a fever. 

December Week 1 {Isaac turns 14}

 October and November flew by, as is December. But it's not over yet and I'm getting a blog post done, woohoo! Activities have been manageable but still keep us busy. The girls started a 3 week swimming lesson, which also happen to be the same night as Mary's volleyball practice so they'd swim then we'd rush to change and get Mary to her practice at 7 (til 8:30 ugh late!). We tried a Minneapolis Community Ed swim lesson... which is a fraction of the price of the foss ones that Thomas is doing and there's a reason. But mainly I wanted the girls to gain experience in a full length pool and they did great. We will probably do more swimming when Mary is done with volleyball since she's also doing ice skating. 

Peak at Thomas during his after school programing time, enjoying the arcade.

My photo from a couple years ago made it in our local paper. Second page above the fold. 

Isaac's birthday was on a Thursday and we had lots of activities that evening so we did the main present on Wednesday evening...

Which was a phone! 

He knew, thanks to Emma spilling the beans, but I had wrapped up the empty box because the phone was upstairs charging and getting ready for data transfer... He thought we played a prank on him giving him an empty box. lol

We had cake Thursday night but not everyone was there. Thomas had swimming, Mary had volleyball, and Isaac had Tria. 

Wintery mess on Friday morning. But I did happen to capture these swans as I drove by on my way home from swimming. 

Saturday Mary had her final group ice skating lesson. She'll start private lessons over winter break and into the new year. She's excited to be out on the big ice and not this little rink anymore. 

Sunday we had brunch after church at Red Cow and they're all decorated for Christmas. 

And that evening Mary had a volleyball social gathering. Getting to know her teammates. 

November 2025

The day after Halloween Kyle and the boys headed south to give his dad a visit. Breakfast stop at McDonalds. 

Meanwhile the girls and I had a girls weekend of picking up round one of leaves! 

And candy bingo

Some beautiful fall views after my morning swims. Oh I had taken off Sept and Oct from swimming to focus on running since I did the 10 mile on October 5th... big mistake. The swimming was helping my aerobic and I missed it a LOT! It felt so great to be back. Even if it means waking up at 5am. 

 

November 4th the kids didn't have school. Thomas went to a friends for a playdate and I took the 3 bigs out to lunch at a pinball place. 

Much needed hair cut! 

My Fall 2025 GOTR team, I helped out over at Bryn Mawr Elementary, we had a great group of girls. I loved getting to know them. 

Emma and Mary are studying Minnesota history in Social Studies. Mary was doing a report on the Bdote so we paid a visit to Fort Snelling. The tour was mainly outside and it happened to be the first COLD weekend of winter... which means of course the kids did not listen when we said to dress warm. They froze, haha. 

November 8th was Thomas's Elementary's PTO PNO (lol PTO Parent Night Out Fundraiser) So we got to dress up all fancy for High Stakes and High Heels (Casino and Cocktail attire)

Came home to this sweet note. 

Sunday was the GOTR 5K and it was COLD! BRRR So cold I was so frozen by the end. Since I didn' have my girls to run with I stayed on the side lines and cheered on my team. 

Loved some of the signs out there

SO COLD! I had feet warmers and hand warmers and still was an ice cube at the end. 

Haven't shared these guys in a while but they are still flapping and yapping away. 

November 11th

Isaac had a band concert

We came home to visible Norther Lights! So cool! This was in our backyard. 

This one was on the way home from the concert over by Cedar Lake. 

Thomas has been watching lots of Mark Rober and when they talked about slime I said hey why don't we make some cuz I have all the stuff. They loved it. 

So many leaves! This was round 2 with Kyle and Thomas of collecting leaves. 

Isaac went to a fun birthday party - amazing race themed when they had a scavenger hunt all over the neighborhood. 

Beautiful morning views after a run and after a swim. 

Thomas broke his bottom retainer a few weeks prior, but good news at our check up he didn't need it anymore and they glued the top expander. He's getting his second expander in a week over Christmas break. 

 

Our school's High School made it to State! And won - football. We all attended the championship game at US Bank stadium. Attempting to take a pic of Isaac sitting over there in the student section. 

Morning run with a mid-way stop at the dog park for Oakley to burn more energy. 

Post swim fog. 

Thomas started a 4 week swim camp just before thanksgiving. 

A neighbor coordinated a neighborhood 5K run on Thanksgiving morning. Grateful because it was just the motivation I needed to get out. 

There were walkers and runners, I ran with this amazing group of mamas. 

Our thanksgiving meal. Make all requests from the kids, so basically everything. We cooked a ham and had sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cheddar biscuits, Hawaiian rolls, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and turkey gravy. Oh and apple and pumpkin pie! Kyle and I ate this for over a week. lol. 

Friday we went to see Cirque du Soli's 'Twas the Night show. It was SOOO good. Kids complained the whole way there, but they all ended up loving it and we've been listening to the soundtrack ever since. 

Saturday night we went to a movie

The rest of the weekend we decorated for Christmas, got the tree up and lights up outside. Last year at this time our front yard was taken over by the dormer remodel so we didn't do lights outside. This year we tried something new, Emma and I got them up.