Disney on Ice

The girls and I spent a fun afternoon with Dave's cousin Jenny and her daughter Grace.  We met up at the Excel to see Disney on Ice, and the girls loved it (especially Grace and Norah).  We had great seats on the main level, so could see everything really well.

After the show, we drove over to Punch Pizza to have dinner together and exchange Christmas presents. 

The girls can never get enough time with Grace!

For King & Country

Any opportunity that the girls and I have to spend time with our friends, the Clarks, always turns out to be an adventure.  This time, our adventure took us to downtown Minneapolis for a concert by our favorite Christian music group, For King & Country.  We stayed at a hotel connected to the Target Center through the skyway, and after checking in, the kids had some time to play and be silly.

For dinner, we ate right across from the Target Center at an Irish pub. 

The concert was amazing, and we had a blast! 

After the concert, we headed back to the hotel.  Our sleeping situation was...interesting, with only 1 king-size bed and a pull-out chair meant for 1 person, but we made it work.  At least the continental breakfast in the morning was yummy!

Halloween

A few days before Halloween, we carved some of the pumpkins that we had picked from my uncle Steve's field.  The girls were not very interested in scooping out the insides (as usual), but helped with the designing and some of the carving.

This year, my parents weren't able to come up for Halloween, since it was a weeknight during a week my dad was working in Atlanta.  Abby had heard that our neighbor, Jack, was going to be a police officer, so she thought it would be fun to join him for a theme costume.  I ordered a prisoner costume from Target, but Norah's donut costume was trickier.  There weren't any good (affordable) ones to order online, so I found a pattern on Pinterest and bought the materials to make one.  It turned out okay, but definitely would have looked better up close if I had sewn it instead of using the suggested hot glue. 

We trick-or-treated around the neighborhood with Jack and his mom, Melissa.  It was a little chilly, but we still stayed out for quite awhile, and of course ended up with more than enough candy!

Grandma's 91st birthday

Over MEA, the girls and I headed down to Iowa for my grandma's 91st birthday party.  Before the party, we were able to see my other grandma and meet my cousin Jessica's baby, Barrett. 

We were also able to stop by my uncle Steve's farm to pick out some pumpkins and gourds from his field.

The birthday party's theme was a tea party.  We had tea cakes, tea (of course), and little tea sandwiches.  We also had some tea trivia and later on, time to craft and play games.  It was a fun weekend, and so nice to have everyone together!

State fair

Abby won four tickets to the state fair at her awards ceremony at the Mall of America in August by answering a trivia question.  We don't typically go to the fair, but we couldn't pass up free tickets!  Dave wasn't interested in going on a weekend day, but my dad wanted to join the girls and me.  We met up at the Mall of America and rode the bus up.  The weather was perfect--cool enough for sweatshirts.  We started by riding the Skyliner (I think that's what it is called...whatever it is that takes you across the fair like a gondola).

We enjoyed walking through buildings, ate yummy fair foods, got lots of freebies, and managed to stay fairly dry when it started to downpour later on in the day.

We didn't stay too long into the afternoon, but made sure before we left to get some Sweet Martha's cookies.  YUM!