Amazing Thanksgiving Weekend

We had the MOST WONDERFUL Thanksgiving weekend this year!  We had a delicious and always fun dinner with Andrew's parents and the Haugen's up at their amazing home.  I have some super cute pictures to post but unfortunately this site says I have reached my photo limit....... I have also reached my wakefulness limit and am not going to try to figure it out tonight.  Maddie has been up since 5 two days in a row, and I am staring at a pile of laundry up to my waist in need of folding--this is not a Maddie friendly activity as she thinks it is super fun to pull everything down onto the floor!  Why does my "me time" seem to be dominated by cleaning and folding...not cool.  On the bright side this phase will hopefully only last another year :)

On Friday morning after Thanksgiving we packed up all of our gear and headed out to Girdwood to stay at Chuck and Farah's cabin for the weekend.  Again I have tons of great pics.....hopefully I will get this figured out soon (maybe Maddie will take a long nap tomorrow??).  It was a thoroughly relaxing weekend filled with sledding, snow, sitting by the fire, jenga, dominos, card games, forts, baking cookies, pretend and everything else non-digital.  Although the house is equipped with wi-fi, TVs, and a huge dvd collection we decided to have an electronic free weekend.  We even missed the civil war game which was a little bit rough but worth it.  The relaxation we got from really unplugging and getting away was wonderful.  Andrew did have to work some of the time, but for the most part we were just spending lots and lots of quality time together.  Chloe loved it so much she wants to live there and was not very happy to find out that we would not be moving in at the end of the weekend.  Ah it would sure be nice to have our own place out there!

We are so lucky to have such amazing friends who let us use their cabin.  Thank you SO MUCH Farah!!!!!!

Weekend activities

Weekends are wonderful!  Here is Chloe in her "chef hat" helping Andrew with the pancakes.  She likes to be Chef Chloe and we are known as Chef Daddy and Chef Mommy. 

 Madeline gave the pancakes and berries two thumbs up!

 Next up:  Baking.  Not cookies, but Christmas ornaments.  We made a big batch of salt dough which to Maddie's surprise does not taste like cookie dough (1 cup flour, 1 cup salt and about 1/2 c of water or more until dough is soft but not sticky).  We just baked it in the oven at the lowest temp we could (170F) for a really long time (4+hours) and the ornaments come out hard and sturdy, and ready to be painted.  We don't have any finished products yet because around here the painting process takes weeks on end!

 I even had a little time to fit in a baby photo shoot, while Andrew had Chloe outside.  Maddie kept catapulting herself off the bed onto me, so although she was super happy, capturing a still photo was a challenge/miracle.   

 While we were inside this is what Chloe was doing with Andrew outside!!  Skiing!  She loved it.  Andrew taught her how to sidestep up the hill and to ski down.  She is a natural!

 Falling down was even part of the fun for her.  She loved that she could get up again all on her own!

 Too cute!  We love the weekends!

VOTE!!

Don't forget to vote!!

 Our new poling place was great!  the line went super fast and the election official there was awesome.      He gave Chloe her own ballot (sample ballot) so that she could vote too.  She LOVED it.  She got to put my ballot in the box, and then got an "I voted toady!" sticker.  

Then it was off to gymnastics class.  Could this day get any better?  I suppose we will have to wait to see who wins the election for that answer..... :)

Pirate Treasure Hunt

What do we do when it is cold and snowy outside?  We meet up with other kids and parents for a pirate treasure hunt of course!!  Although it was chilly we still had a great time!  One of the Moms set up this awesome scavenger hunt that was super easy for kids to do.  It was an intro to orienteering, and Chloe fully embraced it!

The map took us through a big park, and even into the "ghost forest".  Chloe is into all things spooky so we stayed at the ghost forest for quite a while.  Maddie loves spooky stuff too!  Where did these girls come from?! I cant even watch scary movies!!

 At the end of the hunt was a pirate treasure chest!  And boy was it loaded with some awesome treasure!!  All of the kids kept coming back over and over switching out the the treasure they wanted to take home.  Too cute!!

Jewels!

There was also a playground at the end, so the kids were extra happy!  Poor Maddie is still so little, and it was hard for her to maneuver well in her big puffy snow suit.

She made the best of it though and had just as much fun rolling around in the snow as running in it.

 We stayed about an hour and when it was over I was chilly!!  The girls did so well I wanted to give them a treat so we went to starbucks for some kids hot chocolate.  Maddie fell asleep on the way there so Chloe got the whole thing to herself.  Notice this before picture my daughter.  She is clean and well groomed.... 

 And after.... it looks like we neither bathe or do laundry at our house.  

Nobody can say she doesn't enjoy her hot chocolate!  We are excited for our next outdoor playdate!  I think I will be recreating this scavenger hunt idea for at home activities as well.  Such a hit!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was great again this year!  This post contains everything from the last week that was halloween related.  Madeline is all about the computer lately, typing on the keyboard, changing settings and aspect ratios and generally messing up the computer in any obscure way possible.  Because of this I have had a very hard time getting a minute to upload, edit and write the posts as I now have to keep the mouse and keyboard up on the bookshelf :)  

Back to Halloween.  Of course I did home made costumes again this year!!  We were a super hero family!  It was dark and snowy again this year so we took all of our photos inside.  Chloe was TOTALLY into halloween this year and wanted to keep going and going and going!  We even had to stop by the house halfway through to get the charriot for Madeline!  The houses in our neighborhood are pretty far apart so we were probably out for about an hour or so.  If Chloe had it her way we would have been out all night!

One of our wonderful neighbors gave Chloe a glow stick.  You can also see how red her little cheeks got after being outside.  You may also be able to detect the crazy in her, aka candy!!!!!  She loves the stuff!

Madeline did not really know what was going on so much with the trick or treating but she did go up to the door with Chloe and got some loot of her own.  We didn't think she really even knew about candy but right when we got home she ran right for her bag and dumped it out and held out candy for me to open for her.  Next year we will really be in for it with two candy crazed girls.  We will have to pick some sort of crazy warm outfits in preparation for the sure to be endless night of trick or treating in years to come!

We also did trick or treat street this year.  All of the downtown businesses get together and do a daytime trick or treating event on the weekend.  We went business to business collecting candy :)

One of the favorites was definitely the firetruck.  The firefighters were lined up along the street and were handing out candy.  Chloe must have been especially charming because she got to sit in the fire truck.  Too cool!

Maddie enjoyed running around exploring and touching everything.  She didn't trick or treat, but was definitely along for the ride!

The cape detail.  We designed logos both for the front of the sweatshirts and for the back of the cape.  I even had to design the font especially for this.  If you can't tell it is an R with a lightning bolt.  Hopefully they will use the capes for years to come.

Right before Halloween it snowed again.  Wohoo!!  Fun in the snow!

 And lastly our pumpkin carving pictures.  The girls LOVED the pumpkins.  It was so much fun we ended up buying more pumpkins after this! 

Chloe wanted spooky, so I tried my best to draw the spooky faces.  Thank you internet for the ideas!  Hope everyone had a great halloween!!