oh yeah, baby!

our mom LOVES us

Nori quotes Grandpa Steve with an "oh yeah, baby!" whenever there is something she likes such as the Wild Kratts or chocolate dipped strawberries. Speaking of dipped fruit, I am addicted to frozen chocolate covered bananas. I tried making my own but the store bought variety can't be beat! Henny has started to hum and sing...she can even carry a tune, unlike her old bat of a mother. New words include "all done", "baby" "up", "go" and "beer me". It is such a privilege to be the mom to these wonderful little creatures. I also enjoy being their 24 hour a day servant.

The girls & I shopped on Grand Ave on Friday looking for birthday gifts for our beloveds. It was a fun and productive girl date. On Saturday we went Alesso' Dance Studio on Grand to sign Nori up for ballet and tap lessons and buy the proper footwear. I am really excited for her to begin dancing! We then celebrated Makenna's 4th birthday with a a Sound of Music party complete with bratwurst and lots of doe a deer, a female deer music. It was also Gramsie Holly's 59th birthday on Saturday so the girls and I took her out to The Mall of America including Build A Bear, a carousel ride, and supper at Rainforest Cafe. Hmmm, sounds more like a kid than a gramsie birthday, huh? Welcome to my life.  We also baked her a chocolate cake which she frosted with her own special recipe chocolate frosting. It was really great to celebrate with my mom and have here with us! Jake spent most of the weekend a tennis tournament and I am (not) devastated to inform you they lost and will not advance to Nationals in Tuscon. Maybe next year (Lord, please no)! Funcle Charlie and his lady friend Sam stopped by to hang out today, too. Every Funcle needs a a good woman to keep him in line.

bubble butt

So you really fed my mom Taco John's every single night? That explains a lot.

Skelly can tap

Foosie Sue working on her blog

like the zoo, only more expensive

Happy Birthday Dear Gramsie....

feet are the best toy

I glow in the dark

"Oh my god, it looks like neon gecko stripper working at a theme restaurant on Mars" Michale Kors Project Runway

2nd visit ever to MoA

3 points and the old mom gets to ride free

Meet Violet Seltz

musical chairs Maria-style

We love you, KennaBear!

I don't know how clowns do it

at my house...

La-Z-Girl recliner

It says here that a Mama Chicken is also called a...HEN?!

there would have been more bubbles but the Dish Soap Ration Police intervened

playing mermaid in the suds

nudie booty book club

we smell like tent

my hobbies

Dear Public Diary,

Remember when people used to write down their private thoughts and detailed accounts of their days in a tiny notebook with the words DO NOT READ!!! written on the front and then locked it in a mental box and stashed it under their bed so no one would ever, ever read it? Just imagine how much juicier those entries must have been compared to all the boring crap I blog about today. I miss the good stuff.

Due to the threat of West Nile virus and general laziness, urban camping is making a comeback which explains why we grilled and camped in the backyard this weekend. It was pretty rustic so Baby Foose & I slept in the house like civilized ladies, but Jake & Nori roughed it on the air mattress in the tent all night. Sure, there were the regular challenges of trying to find enough kindling to start the fire with twigs from our lawn but lucky for us we never rake, so we made it happen. We told scary stories about a witch with spiders in her mouth and kept an eye out for coyotes.  Aunt Ellen visited on her break between camps.... she just got done with summer camp and will soon move out to Washington to work as a  Maverick at Holden Village (I once wanted to go Girl  Scout camp and stay in a tree house, but I would have had to sell one million boxes for cookies.  I probably would have cried and insisted on coming home after an hour anyway).  We also had friends over for coffee, breakfast burritos and pastries. We finally met Ross & Yesika's new baby boy, Octavio, and got caught up on the details of Justin & Sandi's upcoming wedding in Willamette Valley.  Nori was OBSESSED with the baby, which made it hard for his mom to feed him and get him to sleep. Henny preferred to play the drums on his head.  Have I mentioned she is very musically inclined?

finally, a padded room

wilderness weirdos

they have the same eyes

ferocious wild animal

you can prevent forest fires

on the trail

goofball

sisters vs. wild

little girl on the prairie

Tumblebees 2012 from Megan Seltz on Vimeo.

road warriors

just like on Gilligan's Island

Why yes, I am wearing sweatpants. And you? Are you loving the cooler temps and cotton luxuriousness of fleece all over your bottom half?  I am not really sure how it can possibly be Sunday already and how we can be expected to face another week. We had one of those way too busy weekends that leave you feeling depleted on Monday. By the way, I had an odd week at work... highlights include a drunk student and another student who wanted to meet at Muffaleta for lunch with his parents to create a "more relaxed environment"' and being filmed for an online commercial. 

On Friday I totally suppermommed my ass off. Cleaned house, laundered lovies, bathed daughters, grocery shopped with two kids ( this deserves its own paragraph, like how pushing a cart with rusty wheels with two kids in/on it adds about 75 pounds of drag and I bagged my own groceries after standing in line for 20 minutes), worked out, and got everyone ready for a party. We celebrated Jake's cousins Joe and Dominic (brothers, not twins) who both started U of M medical school this week with a BBQ at the Decker home. The girls got to play “don't touch the scalding hot grill or fall in the man-made pond" with their little cousins, Ava Joan and Isla, while we caught up with the family.  

On Saturday we spent way too many hours in the car. First of all, let me say I loathe driving and/or riding in the car. Second of all, if  we are going on a road trip we should at least end up somewhere cool, not just making laps around southern MN. We went to Fairmount to meet up with our birth father, Paul, at a park for our first visit in over a year. He moved back from Alaska and is living with brother doing some temp work for Dell. We had a nice visit and he brought both girls sweet gifts. Then we drove over to Austin to see Grandma Rosie's new condo and visit Grandpa Dick in the nursing home. It was hard to see Grandpa Dick so confused and Grandma so stressed out with all the changes, but I am glad Jake got to get there this weekend. We got stuck in construction traffic on the way back so we spent a grand total of 8 hours driving, but we never even got to see the Crazy Horse Monument!  The girls were champs; the only fussing and moaning came from my birthing hips in the front seat. 

Today we got caught up on household duties and attended neighbor friend Estelle's 5th birthday party. She had a bouncy house and a reptile show which is almost as cool as the time we had Gramsie do face painting on two kids. I made my first soup of the "fall"... it was lentil soup and no one was very excited about it, but it was yummy!  Jake kept offering to make buffalo chicken sandwiches instead.  I get lentils and legumes mixed up so originally I was making bean soup. Are lentils even beans? I think they are. My style of cooking is the pre-prepared-make-ahead-of-time kind... so if you want me to cook, it's going to be a soup or in a crockpot. But my crockpot sucks so it’s going to be a soup.

Ginger

diaper cover still  attached inside new dress, oops.

cousbos (found the diaper cover)

enjoying books on CD

vintage playground equipment

RoboHen: must never not stop moving

testing out the antiques at Great Grandma Rosie's

Moments later Grandma Rosie ate the entire apple core! true story!

Just an alligator, NBD

boa constrictor love

this girl loves to bounce!

Hey! That's my line!

this photo inspired by a bribe of chocolate chips

Henny is now a climber, she made her way up the step stool to the sink and was caught brushing her teeth all by herself. Um, baby you are only 14 months old. As the youngest child, she is a master of self-defense but also goes on the offense. If she is mad at you, she will literally scratch your eyes out while pulling your hair. Don't mess with Foose. We are trying to teach her to be gentle and kind and she gets Time Outs which are more for Nori's sake so she doesn’t think the brutality goes unpunished. Henny loves to kiss now, with a great big "mwah!" at the end. I asked Jake if he had made out with her yet and he gave me a weird look. I just meant she gives quality kisses and I enjoy it, mom to baby. Hen still loves to meet strange ladies and win them over with cuddles and hugs. She also loves to be funny so she will bonk her head and blow raspberries if she thinks you might laugh at her. I don't know where gets that from. She also says “pretty” when she sees flowers and “uh oh” when she intentionally drops stuff. 

total ham

I love her

Nori & I had a girl date at Caribou. She sipped her hot chocolate and we read a couple of chapters from A Little Princess before walking over to the BreadSmith to get Daddy a chocolate bobka roll. Oh, and we stopped by the St. Paul Cheese Shop to sample, too. I am going to cash in my 401K and spend it all on cheese. We enjoyed our little escape together and she reminded me how she can act so grown up when wants to. She uses words like “function" “process" "suspended animation" and “pollution".  This from the same girl that will have a tantrum when she feels "drinky". We have these weird sayings that evolve to become even weirder over time. For example, because Nor is also so slooooow to do anything, I am always saying "scoot your boot" to remind her to hurry up. Well, that turned in to "scoot your boot to the toot toot toot". Then when I would say, "scoot your boot", she would chime in with “to the toot toot toot", to which I would reply “Hey! That’s my line". So now, we both say, in unison, "scoot your boot to the toot toot toot!  Hey! That's my line". So far, not that weird right?  Then we stared in with other things like "tink your wink to the stink stink stink, Hey! That's my line" or "hop your top to the bop bop bop! Hey!  That’s my line". You can see how this continues to get more bizarre until we are speaking our own dysfunctional language. And we like it that way.

not pictured: rabid sister fight over LMNOP

this photo represents me with my two piglets climbing on me 24/7

Let’s face it, when you have kids you need do things or the time between wake-up to nap to bedtime or time goes really slow. Angie and I chaperoned a double date:  Nori & Liam, Henny & Graham ...we made salt-dough handprints which I somehow under baked (old dough habits die hard). The little couples are looking forward to their arranged marriages in 2032 and 2035 respectively. In the future, we will celebrate Christmases at the McIntyre’s and Pat will cook the meal. Life solved. Side note: I always wanted to marry someone whose last name started with Mc. You know, so I could be Megan McSomething, but that never happened so the year before my wedding I unofficially officially changed my name to Megan McBicki.

her future MIL

maybe a beach wedding...

just doing some fashion moves

Henley's easy chair

quit being so pretty!

baby's 1st ballet "lesson"

listen to teacher

You have to WANT it!

post lesson reflection

Happy 11 Year Anniversary to my main husband!!!  17 years ago we had our first date at TCBY and now look at us...still eating frozen treats hand in hand.  May we die together in the nursing home of heart disease while complaining how our kids never visit us despite all we did for them. Thanks for choosing me, I love you!

I locked that down

the former Miss McBicki

On Saturday we took the kids to the Highland Park Pool on a family date to celebrate our anniversary. Nori was so brave-- she climbed the steps all the way up to the big slide only to be rejected because she was too short. She.was.mortified. Seriously, do not ever mention it.  I was so happy she even tried, but then she went on a rant about she is NOT a baby and did NOT want to play in the baby parts of the pool. I am hoping she will channel some of that energy into her swimming lessons. We followed the pool up with deep dish at The Italian Pie Shoppe. Today, we walked up to Paws on Grand to pamper Dorothy. File that under things I never thought I would do. You should have seen the look on Jake's face when I mad him dip her paws in paint so she could create doggie art.

Good morning, sunshine!

even Dorth is embarrassed

Petting Barney. No, we can not "trade" Dorothy for him.

park  playmates

I am running out of time so I will not even mention how I got the best curly haircut ever from Brentt at Moxie on Grand nor how he used chopsticks to style it. If only they had fresh spring rolls, too. Finally, Grandma Liz and Grandpa Steve bought a house in Saint Paul!!! It is super cute and located on Woodlawn, just one block from the river. Can't wait till they make the big move up here in a couple years!