Relaxing Thanksgiving

Today has been the most relaxing day considering it is Thanksgiving. Since my family and Hal's family are both out of town, we had Thanksgiving early at the end of October. It was really fun to celebrate early and have this day to ourselves.

We both got to workout this morning and then watched the Macy's parade with Sophia. I thought she would be really in to watching it, but she didn't seem to care much. While we watched the parade I made homemade cinnamon rolls from scratch. I was awfully impressed with myself! This was my first attempt ever and they turned out fantastic.

The rest of the day has been spent playing games, watching movies, and putting up the Christmas tree and decorations. We have had a non-traditional dinner of pizza fries for lunch and buffalo chicken dip for dinner.

The sights and sounds of Christmas are all around, yet today is supposed to be a day filled with turkeys!

I'm off in the morning with Sophia to hit the Black Friday sales. Can't wait to see what we find.......

Princess of the Week

This week Sophia got to be the Princess of the Week at dance. She was completely thrilled and was actually bashful.


They invite the parents in just for their dance. The Princess of the Week gets to pick a song and then they lead the ballet dance. The other dancers in the class then copy what the princess does.

Sophia had a hard time thinking of moves at first as I think she was a tad bit shy. Her dance teacher Miss Shelley was very patient with her and helped her think of a couple of moves. Once she got started she did a much better job. The hard part was the brand new tutu that kept her busy. She just couldn't get over it.


This will be a day I will never forget!

Tea with Beauty and the Beast

Yesterday I took Sophia to her first ever tea party. East Ridge High School which is right down the road from our house is putting on the musical Beauty and the Beast. This is their first ever play/musical so they are going all out. They are not only having two of the teas, but they are also having a huge opening night gala as well.



We arrived to the tea and all of the characters were wandering around the room. We were seated at our table with our friends/neighbors Amy and Ava Matza.

After welcoming us with songs, we were ready to eat and begin the tea party. The girls and the mommies loved the treats. We also just adored the cute table settings.


Throughout the tea they performed songs from the musical. It was really cute to watch Sophia sing along with them. Then in the end we were able to take pictures with all of the characters.

This was so well worth the money we spent. I was a bit nervous that it might be a bit lame, but it turned out to be one of the coolest days that I have spent mommy/Sophia in a long time.

To top it all off, Sophia and Ava were both dressed in their Belle dresses. What a wonderful way to end the weekend!

Happy Halloween!

Yesterday was a busy Halloween! Sophia started off her day by trick-or-treating at my parents house at 10am. It was awfully cute how she rang the doorbell. Sophia got some Scooby Doo action figures which she just adores!!

After heading across the street to my parents neighbors house where she got a little treat bag full of candy, it was off to the grocery store.

Of course she would not take her Scooby costume off, so if you saw a Scooby Doo yesterday at the Woodbury Cub Foods Store, that was my Sophia. People in the store were just oohing and aahing over her. It was pretty cute and she of course LOVED all of the attention the costume was getting her.

Then we made a quick pit stop at home for some lunch and headed to see Sophia's great gramma. Great Gramma was thrilled to see her and of course, she got some more treats.

After a short visit, we headed to pick up the pizzas at Papa Murphys where AGAIN she got candy!

Then it was home for a nap. She fell asleep instantly. While she napped I finished up laundry, got the house ready for our company, and got ready for the evening. Then our neighbors the Matzas came over with their kids for our tradition of pizza and trick-or-treating together. The kids just love hanging out with each other, and the adults always have a great time as well.

We finished up dinner and the Wickmans came over to join us for trick-or-treating.

The kids had a great time trick-or-treating on the street and then Hal came back and Sophia and I went on with Ava, Amy, and Roger. Abby and Bennett had called it quits and the Wickmans went home. We are excited to see them again on Friday though for dinner.

The girls had a blast together and lasted until almost 8:30. They sure did get a whole ton of candy. Sophia's overflows out of an ice cream pail. I would say she for surely has enough. To top all of that, one of the houses was giving away stuffed animals. Needless to say, after the girls got them, they were the highlight of the evening and they stopped caring about the candy so much.

All in all, it was a wonderful Halloween evening. We have another busy week with gymnastics, dance, the Y, and dinner with the Wickmans on Friday. Sophia has a playdate with her friend Peyton Collins on Saturday which she is really looking forward to. Then Sunday we are off to do a meet and greet for Beauty and the Beast and then a wedding shower.

Life doesn't slow down one bit in this house......I always stop though and make sure I cherish every moment. Don't let the little things slide by. One day your kids will be grown up before you know it.

Hallows Eve

Tonight we carved our pumpkins so they were ready for Halloween. We had a great time getting the pumpkin seeds. Sophia said she was going on a treasure hunt and putting them in the strainer. The pumpkins turned out really cute. Now we are ready for Halloween tomorrow.

Sophia and her pumpkin

Sophia and mommy with our pumpkins

Sophia and daddy with their pumpkins

In other news......
Sophia had her first real injury this week. While jumping up and down, she bit through her entire lip with her teeth. It bled quite a bit according to Corey our daycare provider. Then Hal went to get her and take her to get it fixed. They gave him the option of glue or stitches and our pediatrician told him the glue would leave less of a scar, so this is the option they took.

Her face is much better today, but still pretty red and scabby. She can't wash that part of her face until it heals which could take a while. She was quite the trooper and is not really phased by it.

Oh well, a pleasant start to an otherwise busy weekend. I ran the Monster Dash half marathon today as well, and PRd on the course. I was really happy!! The bad part about the race was that it was not organized at all, and we had to wait in the freezing cold for over two hours for a shuttle bus. Let me tell ya, people were NOT happy about this and several of us have already written to the company to get refunds.

I am excited to trick-or-treat tomorrow and I'm sure there will be many more pictures to come.

Zoo Boo at Como Zoo

On Friday, Sophia and I went to the Como Zoo for their annual Zoo Boo event. This is the third year we have attended this event. She loves it because it is a fun Halloween night with nothing scarry. I love it because I know that all of the money is going back to support the zoo we spend the entire summer going to. The major plus this year was that it was 70 degrees outside so it made the evening extremely enjoyable.


This year her friend Ava came with us. The girls had a great time going from station to station. There were more stops this year along the path which surprised me. It was fun to watch the girls wants their picture taken along the way.


When we got back to the inside part of the zoo, the girls got to see some real snakes and make a bat finger puppet with some paper, felt, and googly eyes. Then it was time to head home. The girls were at their limit. Hungry, tired, and ready for bed.


What a great night for Zoo Boo!

Monster Mash

Tonight we went to Monster Mash sponsored by 3M. The event is held each year at Tartan Park. As we made the short drive to Lake Elmo, we remember back to last year when the weather was a bit chillier. It is amazing that it is still 65 degrees outside and almost the middle of October. I hope this means that trick-or-treating will be promising this year.

When we got to the event, we decided to do the hay ride right away since the line gets long. This year they informed us they had two different tractors which helped speed things up drastically.

Sophia is Scooby Doo this year. So we used the couple of waiting minutes to take a picture in the tons of leaves that were on the ground.

After the hay ride, we went up to the pavilion and played games. Sophia did the fish pond and got a cute little prize.

Then we headed around to the trick-or-treating stations. She picked quite a few Starbursts this year which is funny. She doesn't really like the chewy fruity treats so much as the chocolate things.

From trick-or-treating we moved on to the cake walk. Sophia didn't win, but looked extremely adorable doing the walk with Hal.

Our last stop was decorating a sugar cookie. Sophia loved doing this and the end product was her favorite part!

All in all, such a fun event. We are so blessed that 3M offers this great events for families with children. Next I am looking forward to breakfast with Santa!