Milestone Mania!

We reached two big milestones: Tommy is walking (well running by this point) and Maggie no longer has training wheels on her bike.  Tommy officially joined the 2-legged club back in October, right before his 13 month birthday.  Fast forward to now and he is fast on his feet.  Loves to run with items in his hands and loves to get chased.  He no longer wants to ride in carts at the store which can be very frustrating for both of us.  He looks like such a little man when he walks.  These video were taken a long time ago when he was first figuring it out.



 

 

I am so proud of Maggie!  I swear I never pushed her to learn to ride at bike a such a young age, just merely gave her the tools to do so and encouraged her to practice.  This spring/summer I bought her a pink strider balance bike.  At first she would ride it in the hallway of our house maybe a couple times a week.  Then she kind of got over it and went back to riding her bike with training wheels.  Sometime mid-late summer she found an interest in her “pink bike” (the strider again) and we started going for real long bike rides but on the balance bike.  So that meant she was pushing and gliding with her little legs for 2 miles.  This fall after moving into our rental house in Hudson we started riding the balance bike to the park almost every day after school.  It was like her balance “clicked” one day and all of a sudden she was pushing and gliding a full city block at a time.  That in itself made me very proud.  Then on December 1^st, which happened to be one of the last bearable days before the snow and cold rolled in full time, Maggie woke up, ate breakfast and said to me,  “let’s take the training wheels off my blue bike”.  I have taken the training wheels of several times in the past and it usually lasted for 2 minutes.  So once Tommy went down for a nap we went out and took her training wheels off and I literally held onto her for 3 seconds and she was off and doing it by herself.  I am pretty sure I was screaming.  I was so proud of her.  She instantly had it all figured out.  It took maybe 10 times of going straight up and down the block to get brave enough to try and turn but she eventually did it and it became second nature to her.  That evening we let her ride her bike to the park for the first time ever without training wheels.  Now that the ground is covered with snow, I only hope she doesn’t forget how to do it when spring comes.  Maggie makes us so happy and proud each and every day. 

Earrings!

She did it!  About two weeks ago, I picked Maggie up from school and out of the blue she said,  “I am ready to get my ears pierced.  Can we go get real earrings?”  At first I was skeptical we have been in piercing places several times and not been able to close the deal.  I think it was a Thursday night and we would normally never venture out a work/school night but she seemed pretty serious so I thought we should strike while the coals were hot.  We dropped Tommy off at home with mommy Susie and headed to Claire’s in Woodbury.  I was giving her pep talks the whole way and reminding her how proud I was of her.  Once we arrived, she picked out the earrings she wanted and climbed in the chair.  She seemed nervous but stayed strong.  They gave her a bear to squeeze and did both ears at the same time.  Maggie didn’t even shed a tear.  I am pretty sure I made a worse face then she did.  It looked pretty painful.  I let her pick out several pairs of earnings and she got to bring home the bear.  She has since named her Curly Shirley.  The first few days of cleaning and turning them were a battle with lots of tears.  Just recently she willing lets us clean them and touch them.   The bummer is she lost an earring on Thanksgiving and by the next morning when we realized one was missing, the hole had already closed.  We ran back over to Claire’s hoping they could pop it back in but they said the hole had closed completely.  So she has to wait a week and get it re-pierced.  I hope she is just as brave the second time around.  J

Iron Kids

Each year Trinity Academy puts on an Iron Kids event, it is an Olympic themed physical fitness program.  The program teaches them about eating healthy and exercising.  They “train” during the school days for several weeks leading up to the event.  Maggie was really into it .  She talked about it almost every day after school and about how strong she was getting, it was really cute to see her so excited about it.  The day of the actual “competition” did not disappoint.  There were opening ceremonies, complete with an athlete parade around the gym.  They rotated stations participating in various sports and physical challenges.  In the end each athlete was awarded a medal on stage—they were called up one by one and had their photos taken on the medal stand.  Maggie was smiling ear to ear.  She was so proud of her medal and literally did not take it off morning or night for the first 4 days and anywhere we went she had to tell someone about it.    

Obstacle course

Maggie is standing on stage against the wall--proud as a peacock



Trick or Treat

Maggie missed out on the cousin Halloween tradition because of her brothers chicken pox—I didn’t have the heart to tell her.  But her and Tommy could have both still been carriers/contagious and neither Evelyn or Fiona have been vaccinated yet.  She still had fun decorating and filling treat bags for her cousins and then I took her and Tommy to 3^rd street in Hudson trick or treating.  She had a blast and was so brave and independent.  It was a joy to watch.  Tommy happily sat in the stroller and took it all in.  Susie stayed home and handed out candy at our house.  I heard she had a pretty steady rush for about 30 minutes…. J

Sea Turtle Tom

I had fun watching him get around with his big shell

Wardrobe change

The dinosaur/alligator fit better and this is what he ended up wearing out.  Leyton wore it around the same age too.

This is the first year that Maggie knew exactly what she wanted to be.  Ariel of course!

I love her red hair, almost looks natural.

Tommy fueling up before the long night

Maggie walked up to each house all by herself while Tommy and I waited on the sidewalk. She said "trick or treat and thank you" so loud and clear.  It made me happy.

There were lots of spooky houses but Maggie said she was brave because she is 3

 I thought this was one of the scarier houses but it didn't bother Maggie.  What got Maggie later was a regular old house with no decorations but the guy handing out candy had a big Ernie head on (as in Bert and Ernie).  As soon as he said hi she turned and bolted.  :)

 

Tom’s Spots

Susie and I got a call at work on the 30^th saying we need to come pick Tommy up—that they suspected he might have chicken pox.  I didn’t really believe he could really have the pox...but I had to take him to the doctor before he would be allowed to return to school.  Dr. Montague could not believe it.  Tommy really DID have chicken pox!  A few doctors all came in for a look because they are so rare these days—ever since the vaccine was introduced they hardly ever see any kids in the clinic with chicken pox.  I had to rearrange my work schedule for a few days and spend some quality time with Tommy until all the spots had scabbed over and were no longer contagious.  So far two of Tommy’s friends have come down with the chicken pox too.  He was the first one in the school diagnosed with them, we have no idea where he would have got them.  Oh and yes, we do vaccinate ours kids, but the chicken pox vaccine isn’t given until 15 months and Tommy is only 13 months.

 He was moodier than usual but didn’t really try to scratch them.  There were a few body flinging meltdowns--where I thought maybe he was attempting to scratch them on the carpet but who knows--he does this when he doesn't have the pox too... :)  I think it helped that they were mainly limited to his torso and upper arms—with the exception of two on his face. 

He's always happy in the tub, chicken pox or not

The first night of his diagnosis, Maggie had her Halloween party for dance.   There are so many little kids there, there was no way I could bring him with.  Luckily, all of the Mansell's have either already had the chicken pox or have been vaccinated, so they agreed to watch him.  Here Grace and Lucy are trying to turn Tommy into a male cheerleader. 

Our Little Pumpkins

My friend Jason, from work, grows pumpkins and always drops a few off each year for the kids.  Maggie was super excited to find pumpkins on our steps one afternoon.  She kept asking when we could dig the guts out--that is clearly her favorite part.  Tommy enjoyed licking and taking bites out of the tops, it was making me gag watching him.  We went with simple shape faces this year.  Now that Maggie know all her shapes she was very adamant about which one got circle eyes or a triangle nose, etc.  Thanks for the pumpkins Jason!

I made her clean out all 3 pumpkins, I have hated the guts since I was about her age

She was proud of her big bag of guts afterwards

All business

The little pumpkin top stealer

He took several bites out of each top

Maggie was so proud to bring them all to the front steps and line them up

Next best part to cleaning them out?  Taking their tops off over and over again



Legal

Susie and I decided to get legally married in Minnesota.  Since we already had our wedding with family and friends back in 2007, the purposes of this was for legal protection, tax implications, health insurance, and for the kids.  This blog is primarily for the kids and their memories but I felt the need to share such a big event in mine and Susie’s life.  We officially joined the ranks of legally wed people on October 13^th (which happens to be Susie’s birthday also).  We had the ceremony at the Washington County courthouse in Stillwater, MN.  We used some of our same vows from 2007 with a few minor tweaks.  Our good friends Lance and Melissa served as our witnesses.  It was nice to share the day with them.  It was also nice that Maggie and Tommy could be present. 

Flashback to August 4th 2007

October 13th 2013

Happy Family!

Maggie served as ring bearer for about 3 minutes until she got bored

Our vows

We both think we are pretty funny, apparently Lance does too!

Our vows were good in 2007 and even better in 2013.  The Judge even thought they were pretty cute!  Notice Tommy escaping in the background?

Melissa signing her life away :)

And Lance signing his life away

Maggie taking notes outside the courthouse

Susie and Melissa

Me and my best man

5 out of the 6 looking stellar

Group shot

 Our perfect little family

Lance and Melissa--thanks for celebrating our big day with us!