Outdoor February Fun

Our biggest event for February was the Hot Air Affair held in Hudson, WI. It's the second year we've gone and although we're not really hot air balloon enthusiasts, we really enjoy it!

The fun starts with a fiery parade on Friday night. The balloonists (is that what they're called??) glide down the street, showing off their baskets and fire blowers (I'm sure that's their technical term in the hot air balloon community).

For the girls, this normally means sitting on someone's shoulders (Claire on Grandpa Rich's shoulders, above) and staring in wonderment (Abby, below).

The girls also got to swim in the pool at the hotel Grandma Gwen and Grandpa Rich were staying in, and spend the night there Friday night. Swimming is quite possibly their favorite thing in the world so the girls were in heaven.

On Saturday, we all met up again to cheer on Grandpa Rich as he ran a 5K. Then we headed to the balloon launch that afternoon. This again meant more time on shoulders for Claire (above on Mama's shoulders) and Abby (below with Daddy).

Because it was a pretty cloudy day, the balloons weren't able to launch but they did blow them up. It was pretty cool watching these huge balloons come to life. It's quite the process and takes a lot of people to help control the balloon.

There was also a snowy playground to play on, an arts and crafts fair to check out (inside, thank goodness) and lots of fair type food to be eaten. That night was one of my favorite parts of the event, the Moonglow. It's where the balloons all get blown up on the field and float into the air all lit up. Both years we've gone, it's been too poor conditions for them to go up, but the balloons stay on the field and light up for what turns out to be a pretty cool sight. It's also pretty fun to run around on the field between all these huge glowing orbs.

By this point, the girls were beyond tired and getting crabby so we decided to just to a slow drive by of the field. The above picture was taken through the car window so it doesn't quite give it justice, but you get the general idea. You can kind of see the orange and white balloon (second from left) which is actually shaped like Nemo. That was of course the girls' favorite one!

We'd had so much fun in Hudson that the next weekend we decided to get out and try more outdoor events. (I mean, what's more fun in MN that hanging outside in the snow for hours on end in the middle of February?) We headed to the Lake Hiawatha Heartwarmer in Minneapolis and luckily it was so fun we forgot about the cold.

There was a dj playing music by the skating pond, a bonfire, free hot dogs, cookies and cider, another snowy playground, a snowman building contest and free horse drawn hay rides (Abby, below, having a blast on the hay ride)! It was a great Saturday afternoon.

Hope you're also out enjoying the rest of our snowy wonderland! Spring will be here before we know it.

Eagles Nest Pics

Jumping...

... and sliding! Abby above and Claire below.

Snippets of January

January has been quite the exciting month! We started it off with a trip to the MN History Center. It was the History of Chocolate exhibit that we went for, but once we got there, I was reminded how incredibly much there is for kids there. Abby loved driving the classic Greyhound bus...

... and Claire had a blast in the Grainland play area.

Grandma Sharon and Granpda Wayne came for a visit the first weekend in January and we had our Christmas celebration with them. Abby and Claire were spoiled with there very own recliner chairs! Here's Abby testing hers out...

... and Claire snuggling in hers!

Thanks Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Wayne!

Two weekends later we had more visitors from Wisconsin - Amanda, Atticus and Sampson! Amanda's dogs came along too so we had 4 dogs, 4 kids (age 3 and under) and 3 adults in our small house. A little chaotic but so so so so much fun!

One highlight was a trip to the Transportation Museum in St Paul. They had model trains running plus a bunch of train tables for kids to play with (Atticus, above). We got to walk through trains that were over 100 years old and take a short ride on a more recent model.

All aboard!

Other than that we just played and played and had lots of fun - so much fun in fact that Abby fell asleep on the couch watching Toy Story.

That Sunday, the 23rd, was another exciting event - a 3rd Birthday Party with all our family for Claire...

Abby...

and Lily...

...complete with princess decorations and...

...a princess cake!

The spoiling continued with lots of very nice gifts for the three bday girls. I almost died when I saw one of the gifts my sister got my girls - a dress up Barbie lab coat! So perfect, considering my last post. Abby put hers on immediately and jumped up and down with excitement.

All three girls also got these cute dolls from Aunt Pat. The dolls have their names on them AND came with clothes homemade by Aunt Pat. So nice! Add to that the clothes, toys, personalized bags, robes, puzzles, and BIKES (from Papa Mike & Grandma Maggie) that they got from everyone, these were 3 very lucky princesses.

On our actual birthday this past Friday, the girls were treated to a bday lunch at Fridays, complete with singing and ice cream sundaes! Abby fluctuated between happy...

... and confused...

... while Claire just enjoyed the ice cream!

(We also went to the Eagle's Ridge indoor playground in the morning, but the pictures aren't posting right. I'll try a new post with them.)

With all this running around, I think we are all ready for a spa vacation. I mean, come one, we already have the robes for it and everything.

Hope your 2011 has also been so far full of fun!

Barbie 1, Feminism 0

Happy 2011 everyone! We had a GREAT new years celebration with both of our cousins (Lily and Alex) over to celebrate at the same time. Talk about fun! We even got to do a 9:00 New Years toast with sparkling grape juice where we ran around clinking plastic glasses and saying "Happy Ew Ear!" (My girls version of Happy New Year).

So, as most of you know, my girls absolutely love "pretty dresses." Every day I hear, "Mama, I wear pretty dress?" When they do get to wear a pretty dress, they start twirling around and showing it off the instant their arms are through the sleeves. See how happy they are in pretty dresses?? (Oh, and for those of you who didn't know, backpacks with pretty dresses are the latest in thing. So stylish!)

Also, they love Barbies. They got some for Christmas (mostly the ones that are like Disney Princesses, such as the Tangled doll below). They usually pretend the Barbies are talking to one another and more often than not the first question out of Barbie's mouth is "You like my pretty dress?"

Now, even though I'm a little concerned about the ideal Barbie portrays, it's not that I think Barbie is pure evil. Plus, the girls like to play with them which means I get some quiet time - that alone makes me love Barbie all the more. But I do want them, even at 2 1/2, to realize that there's more to life than pretty dresses. So when I am playing Barbie with them, I like to answer the pretty dress question with things like, "Yes, it's a very pretty dress, Barbie, but will anyone even see it under your lab coat?" or "I bet the judge liked your lawyering skills even more than that pretty dress!"

I can't tell yet if I'm having any impact with this yet, but if these two grow up to be doctors or lawyers, I think we'll know who to thank.

Twinkle, Twinkle

It feels like these girls have grown up so quickly these last couple months! They are very much their own little people now. This video showcases a few of our current favorite interests: wearing princess dresses, singing, eating and fighting with our sister. Enjoy!

On The Go

Life at the Lamberts has involved a lot of time in the car lately! We've been out of town the last four weekends and having a blast!!

Weekend #1: Somehow between my father-in-law Rich (a runner) and my best friend Amanda (a somewhat new runner), I was talked into running a 2 mile race called the Buckshot that Rich does ever year. I've been busy training since mid-July and have been surprisingly liking running! I'm not good or fast but I do like it. Amanda drove in to participate too so we got to run it together.

The girls came to cheer us on and also got to do some running as a part of the short kids run afterwards. They thought it was pretty fun running with Linda, Grandpa Rich and Daddy, and they loved the medals they got at the end of it too! Claire below is showing hers off.

The girls also got to do some dancing with Linda afterwards which they loved. All in all, it was a great first race!

Weekend #2: My second annual trip to Wabeno! This is a girls getaway scrapbooking weekend where I get to join Amanda and her family and pretty much the same group of about 16 women who've been going for I think 12 years now. We stay at The Crystal Bell bed and breakfast which has a ton of character and probably the best hospitality of any place I've ever been. I look forward to it every year!

Weekend #3: Sharon took me to a concert for my birthday of one of my favorite artists, Sara Groves! So it was back to Eastern Wisconsin to Green Bay for the concert and Little Chute for Grandpa Wayne and Grandma Sharon's house.

The concert was AMAZING and Sharon and I had a wonderful time. The girls loved spending time with their Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Scotty who also came along on this trip, and I loved seeing Amanda for the third weekend in a row! We got together to run a 5K in Appleton Saturday morning and then our families got to hang out for a bit during the day as well.

Mid-Week treat: On Wednesday of the next week, we got to have lots of fun visitors over! Our good friends Tim and Danielle Johnson had been in Eau Claire from Florida and came to the cities for a visit with their new baby Finley. The Shipmans also came over to play so of course, we had to take pictures! Below is Abby, Hailey Shipman, Zach Shipman, Finley Johnson and Claire.

Three two year olds and two young babies in the house plus six adults and one crazy Asterix was a little cramped but fun. We got some pizzas, had fondue dessert, and played like crazy.

Here are proud daddies Sean and Tim showing off the newest additions to their families.

Weekend #4: Hannah and Matt's wedding! We love Eau Claire weddings because it normally means all of Ryan's friends from high school get to finally get together and hang out. With Jon and Val living in Maryland and Tim and Danielle in Florida, hanging out all together is a rare treat. And of course, we were so excited to celebrate with Hannah, who made a very beautiful bride!

Claire and Abby got to sleepover at Grandpa Rich and Grandma Gwen's with cousin Alex which was an extra treat for both them and us - a night with no kids!

We also got to spend some time hanging out with the whole gang the day after the wedding. It's crazy to think that in a few short years we've gone from just two kids in the group to now eight between us all: Mason, Claire, Abby, Finley, Kendall, Hailey, Zacy and Bryn.

And here's all of us with our crazy kids!

We have had a ton of fun in September. Claire and Abby are sure to be bored next weekend when we actually stay home for once. Happy Fall everyone!