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!!

Museum Day

It has been a long time since se last went out to the museum, so this weekend we decided to take the girls out to do something "new".  It was Maddie's first time going when she could actually play with things....and she sure made the most of it!  We had an awesome time at the Imaginarium (kids area).  Super cool!  Since we do so much outside during the summer I almost completely forgot about how much fun it is to go to the museum.  With winter approaching (snow expected in a few days) we will definitely be going back soon!

There is a huge science wing.  Chloe is using a pulley system to simulate the force needed to create a tsunami. 

Peekaboo!  Looking out from a tree fort.

There is a huge lawn out front, and it was pretty cute to see the girls run all over together. 

VERY VERY FUN DAY!

Indoor fun

 You know when the kids are quiet....something is going on???  Well yesterday I was feeling way too comfortable and looked around.....Where is Chloe......

She was in the living room with a big bag of play dough.  I had told her playdough is never ever allowed on the carpet, so this was quite an interesting interpretation of my rules.  She was not on the carpet she explained- she was in a box.  Well I suppose that is true........and the more I thought about it, the more I started to like the idea!  So I added Madeline to the box, and also added parental supervision.  It was a good combo! Next time I will add a sheet under the box too.

 Yes a little went in the mouth, but it was mostly homemade, so there is (likely) no permanent damage!

Hopefully I will be able to come up with more creative indoor play ideas this winter!  I did join a cool outdoor play group that meets all winter, so the girls will get lots of outdoor time with lots of other kids too!  One group I joined even does a weekly hike!  How cool is that?!!  Answer: VERY COOL!  I am very excited for all that winter has in store for us!!

Let it Fall!

Friday night we got a cool surprise.  Snow!!!  We were headed up to bed when Maddie pointed up to  the skylight and clapped.  I looked up and whoa!  It was spotted with....snow?!  Of course I yelled down to Andrew in excitement, and sure enough when we turned on the outside lights we could see that it was snowing!  Bedtime was then delayed so Chloe could go outside.  We didn't think it would stick past morning so we wanted to make the most of it that night.  But to our shock, not only did the snow stick, but there was A LOT of it when we woke up Saturday Morning.  It was beautiful, and very very exciting for the girls (and us too!!).  Went went on a snow walk, but it took a while because Chloe kept diving in the snow at every possible opportunity.      

 Here I am brushing the snow off her face and neck so she can continue her snow quest.

Madeline was nice and toasty in the Chariot and took a crazy long nap in there.  I "had to" (got to) keep walking in loops around the neighborhood until she woke up, while Andrew took Chloe in to warm up.    Andrew decided we should celebrate the day by having an early Christmas.  We listened to Christmas music, and even had a Christmas dinner complete with (traeger smoked) turkey, stuffing, green beans, whipped sweet potatoes, and brown sugared acorn squash.  It was such a wonderful day.  I think Christmas at first snow will be a new tradition :)  The only thing we didn't do was presents but that is only because both girls crashed hard on the way to the toy store and slept like little rocks while we ran all of our errands.  Chloe only vaguely woke up to drop off a birthday card to "close-by Grandma" for her birthday.  I'll bet Donna didn't expect snow for her birthday, but it sure was a happy surprise for us!