School Conferences

We had our 1st school conferences for Andrew yesterday....he's doing great (but we already knew that)! It was nice to have his teacher confirm what we already suspected.....we've got a very smart little boy. She said that she loves how consistent he is (attitude wise), and enjoys seeing his big smile every day. He does awesome at following directions, and listening even when there are several steps he needs to follow. She shared some of the artwork that they've been doing in class, and it was neat to see his coloring change as the weeks progressed (from a little outside the lines, to in the lines, and from everything 1 color to using different colors). He's showing interest in reading so she's helping him develop those skills, and is doing great with math.
Bruce and I are so proud of him!

Boys day

Bruce and Andrew went down to the Winona area yesterday while Jenna and I went to daycare and work. The boys sound like they had a really good time walking around the woods and hanging Bruce's deer stand. Andrew is pretty funny when he talks about how big the hill was that he had to climb up, and at first described it as a mountain (it was a bluff). He even talked Bruce into taking him out for lunch at Godfathers (my favorite pizza place). Here are some pictures from yesterday:

Andrew decided he needed to bring a 'stick' home from the woods.....
They stopped at the apple orchard on the way home too. Here's Andrew enjoying his carmel apple:

All in all I think both of them had a fun day.

Sadie's 7!

Yep, our slightly neurotic, but awesome little white dog turn 7 last week. We celebrated by making her cupcakes:

After bath time, it was cupcake time. We even gave Sadie her very own cupcake:
Here's a picture of the birthday dog (she doesn't look 7 does she?):
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SADIE! We love you - even when you drive us slightly crazy with your barking and licking :) Thanks for being such a great dog.

tackle frisbee?

The kids were throwing a frisbee for Sadie yesterday afternoon, when they decided it was more fun to chase after it themselves. Jenna happened to reach the frisbee 1st, so she picked it up and started running.....only to be tackled by Andrew! When we asked Andrew why he did that his response was "She was running". Maybe he's been watching and playing football too much :)

Happy Halloween

We had fun in our neighborhood Halloween trick-or-treating parade again this year. You couldn't really tell what anyone was dressed up as due to having to be bundles up, but I think everyone still had fun, despite of the cold. After warming up, the kids dumped out their bags so they could check everything out:

Since Halloween fell on a Saturday this year, we decided to make some special trick-or-treating stops....here's the 1st one:

I think that Grandma was surprised to see us, but enjoyed having the kids visit, and the kids enjoyed seeing Grandma Dee.
Next we headed down to Owatonna:

The kids enjoyed their special trick-or-treat bags that Grandma & Grandpa gave them, and Andrew really liked helping hand out candy. Jenna enjoyed the special Halloween cupcakes that they gave us for dessert.

For the last stop we headed back to Faribo:

I don't know who Jenna was more excited to see, Grandma or Tigger. The kids helped Grandma hand out candy too. Andrew did a great job counting out the number of pieces to hand out. Jenna wasn't too sure of anyone that came to the door in a scarier costume, so she let Andrew pass the candy out to them. After all that fun, we headed home. Andrew fell asleep with in 10 minutes, but Jenna held out for at least a 1/2 hour. We hope that everyone had a great Halloween - we did!

Pre-Halloween festivities

We went to a couple of pre-halloween festivites this past weekend. The kids really enjoyed dressing up in their costumes.

On Saturday night we went to the state park in town with some friends. They had some games, face painting and then a story telling trail. The kids had fun, and it was nice to start out the Halloween fun w/ something that wasn't all about the candy. Here's the kids all lined up ready to go:

Here are Issac and Jenna feeding the baby bear puppet their glow sticks:

The next day after Andrew went to his friend Elijah's birthday party we went to the Y to meet up with Brady and Aiden for the Y Halloween party. The kids loved the bounce house, and the various gymanastics mats that they could climb on. Both of them were sporting red checks from all the running and bouncing shortly after we got there.

Sunday evening we carved our pumpkins....Andrew loved helping take the insides out, while Jenna just wanted to draw all over the pumpkins w/ her marker.

Today (Tuesday) they had their Halloween party at daycare. They were able to wear their costumes to daycare, and were the only ones that didn't take them off after their morning party....Jenna took hers off at nap time (becuase she had too), and Andrew didn't take his off until the end of the day.

One last picture (sorry there are a lot of them)....here's a picture of Jenna that I snapped from inside on Friday. After waiting all afternoon to go out in the snow to play, the 1st thing she did was go up on the deck and throw snow at the patio door....little stinker :)

Giggle Girl

Miss Jenna found a new way to entertain herself, and make her big brother laugh.

(you might want to turn your volume down, then slowly turn it up).

This took place on Friday (10/16) while she was supposed to be using the potty.