Fun Filled Week!

Well, it's been a while since we blogged. The kids went to the Zoo last weekend to see Santa. It was great because Santa actually comes around to each of the tables and visits with the kids. Ollie was asked what he wanted and he asked for a "star" which I found odd, but Santa reached into his pocket and pulled out a glowing Star...maybe he really was Santa! The kids did not want to sit on his lap, but it seemed OK to sit on Mom and Dad and they could sit on Santa's lap.




We also went sledding for the first time with the kids. We have pulled them around the yard before, but ye olde Yak Dad gets pretty tired much to fast for their liking. So there is a very small hill in the park by the house and they got to slide down on their own. The first run was a bit rough, a very slow wipeout,


but subsequent runs were fabulous. Tons of smiles an happiness.

Even Peg got in on the action!



This weekend was tough. Ollie got sick on Friday and couldn't keep anything down. That was horrible, but in true twin fashion, Hazel would not let him go it alone and she got sick on Saturday. Jerry and Geri were gracious enough to drive up from New Ulm so that Peggy and I could meet the Sisters and Brother in Laws for dinner and then actually drove back home. So 4 hours of driving and 3 hours or so of baby sitting. It was very nice of them to be so helpful. Dinner was pretty excellent and it's going to be hard to top that event.



Tonight we decided to make our Ginger Bread house. Having never done one before, I leaned on Peg and her strong creative skills and bountiful experience in building said homes. Peg has done Habitat for Humanity, so I knew she could build a Ginger Bread Home. Her memories hearkened back to early childhood when her father and the girls would hot glue the house together. I would say that bit of info was a savior for putting up a solid foundation for the sticky frosting and candy that went on after. It was very fun and the kids didn't even fight over the candy...well...much. Ollie's hoarding mentality kind of gets the best of him...but I would say they did an excellent job!



We are nervous about the "Snownami" coming over Christmas. We are hoping it will still be drivable as we have much traveling to do that day.

Hope all is going wonderful to everyone.

Snow!

Well, we finally got some snow yesterday. It has become brutally cold, but when I got home last night it was still tolerable and we decided to garb up the kids and tromp around in the snow. While Peg and I shoveled the drive, the kids ran around trying to make snowballs for their snowball fight! It was very cute. Eventually we showed them how to make snow angels. Might have been one of the funniest things ever to see the kids flailing around in the yard. I bet the Haze made 10 of them.



"one more angel Daddy" she kept telling me as I tried to get her in the house.

After we got in we decided to have a fire. This would be our third fire since Peg and I have been married. That's actually less than one per year. Pretty paltry, but I think we are finally going to start making it a weekly endeavor.



The evening was fun because we invited the McCullough's over for games....but really we just gabbed a bit and had a few drinks in the red room by the fire. Very relaxing and a wonderful evening.

I actually lost the pictures we took in the snow, but was able to find a software on the internets, thanks to the google, and was able to recover the deleted pictures from my flash drive. That really made the night.

Happy Holidays

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we are well into our Christmas season. We have trimmed the tree and we even put some lights on the bushes outside the house this year....they are fairly paltry but we are working on beefing them up. It's finally gotten cold and so it feels more like the winter season. We have been shopping for gifts and even sent a few out to relatives out of town. We feel very efficient this year. Peg and the kids have been to 8th floor Macy's and we plan to take the kids to their first Holidazzle down on Nicollet Avenue in the "big city".

The kids are going to be more ready for Christmas this year than in previous years and that is really exciting. They were jazzed to help put decorations on the tree. Sure, only two branches 1 foot off the ground got all of the ornaments, but it was very cute to see them excited and entertained by the whole endeavor. They understand that when a present is wrapped, that there is something exciting inside now, which will make for a great Christmas day!

New Kitchen!

Well, it's been a really long time since we blogged Lots has happened since the I last mentioned the basement. It's just about completely done now. The kids are playing down there regularly and we just have a few minor details to finish up. I am very happy to be done. We also had our kitchen refaced. We had that done the week before Thanksgiving. So after that was completed, Peg and Jerry put up the tile backsplash. They did a fabulous job and now all that is left is for Peggy to put a new color on the walls and we are finally done with our fall projects. You can see that from the old view to the new our kitchen has really brightened up!

Basement Progress

Well, we finally got most of the drywall up. Peggy and the kids went down to New Ulm for the weekend and I spent several late nights working on the basement. It thought I would put up a few photos so that you can see what has been happening.

Fall or Winter?

We have had a really fun fall. The season started out super warm, which allowed us lots of time outdoors. Pat and I were invited to go to a Gopher's football game in September with Eric's parents. We were so very excited to go and honored that they would think to invite us. The Gophers lost in the 4th quarter, but it was a great game until then!

In the end of September we celebrated Pat's birthday! Hard to believe such a young thing just turned 40! The party was fun and it was great to hang out with family and friends.

Sticking with the fall theme, we took the kids to Bachman's to build a scarecrow. We think they had fun, though they were more interested in running around then building the scarecrow. Neither have any interest in posing for a picture with the little dude, but I guess the experience is always good. I took the kids to meet some friends at Emma Krumbee's Apple Orchard also. It was a chilly morning, but we all had a good time. We took this same picture last year, and it is fun to see how much bigger they are this year!


On Saturday, October 10th, the kids woke up to SNOW!! Oliver kept saying, "It is a snowy day Daddy!" So, at 7:30 a.m. we bundled up and went outside to play in the dusting of snow. They were very excited and wanted to make snow angels. By the afternoon the snow was gone, and we had a couple sad kids. Although, nothing a trip to the swimming pool didn't cure. :)

Summer has come to an end.

Greetings all. As usual, summer went way too fast! The kids and I had fun hanging out with my teacher friends at parks, beaches, and pools. But, they are back in school, and I guess we are too!
The kids started an ECFC class on Monday and had a lot of fun! It is different than the other classes we've taken as this one involves seperating. For a short time the parents leave and have a discussion and the kids stay to play and do activities. It didn't go so well for a lot of the kids this week, but Hazel and Oliver didn't seem to notice I had left; too many new toys to play with!

On Thursday we started our new session of Kindermusik. While they both enjoy it, Hazel was being Hazel and walked around saying, "My no want to dance..." Oh, she is a feisty one at times! On our drive home, Oliver laid his head back in his car seat and said, "Mama, I am tired!" We danced until we couldn't I guess.

We continue to work on the basement project. I don't think it will ever get done!!
Tomorrow Pat and I get to go to the Gopher's football game in the new stadium! We are SO excited!! Go Gophs!

Long time comin'!

Well, a lot has happened to this family since the last blog. How to start...well, we took the kids down to Colorado for Peg's Peace Corps reunion. It was fantastic! We spent several days just outside of Winter Park at the YMCA Snow Mountain Ranch. We took my niece Bridget with us to help with the kids and she was fantastic. We flew into Denver and drove up to Winter Park. We got a free upgrade on the car and ended up with an SUV. What a great upgrade considering we had 5 people in the car and two were in car seats.

Our time at the ranch was fantastic. We spent our first day, July 4th, in Granby for the 4th of July parade. It was great. The kids had their first lollipops and we got to see a VERY large flag. The kids were pretty enthralled by the whole thing. They stayed near the curb and just watched the flurry of activity every time someone threw candy at the crowd. Luckily they had cousin Bridget because she took care to make sure they got their share of the candy.

The kids played their first round of mini-golf, we rode horses around the ranch.
We rode the chair lift to the top of the mountain at Winter Park Ski resort. We drove up to Grand Lake and spent a day there as well. We had a fantastic time. Peg's Peace Corps friends are about as nice a group of people as anyone could meet.

We then drove down the mountain and spent time with Margaret, Matt, Bridget and Aiden...oh, and Jet! We had an extremely relaxing fun time hanging out with them and sleeping in their extravagant basement. :-)

Matt and I played golf at Arrowhead one day. What a fantastic course! Matt had a spectacular round and I played my highly erratic self.

The trip was everything we had hoped it would be and the flight home was completely uneventful with the kids.

Like I said, it's been busy. Last weekend we traveled down so New Ulm to hang out with Peg's family. It was Heritage Fest and it was pretty minimally attended from what we could tell. We did spend one night out and visited with Lumpy for the first time in a very long time. It was nice to see Lumpy.

Eric's family came into town also. We ate out at the Keiserhof for dinner one night and spent the afternoon on the Schells Brewery Tour. Overall a very good weekend.

This weekend we plan to head down to Owatonna for an evening with Peg's friends from Chicago how are in town for the weekend. Pehaps more to come after this weekend!

Pat.

We've been a little busy......

One rainy day, though haven't been many, we decided it was time to paint. It turned into a finger painting extravaganza, and we ended up with a really cool hand print of each. Hazel is on the left, and Ollie is on the right.

We had a string of pretty hot days and decided it was time to play in the water. Here Oliver and Hazel are running through the new hose. It is pretty fun with all the little hoses squiggling and wiggling. Just last weekend we had an opportunity to go to a friend's family farm! It was so much fun! The kids got to pet little baby calves, chase some big cows, have a wagon ride, see horses both old and brand new, and we had a picnic! It was a fabulous day until Oliver fell off his seat at the picnic table onto the cement patio. OUCH!! But, he handled it pretty well, and was back to normal by the time we got home. We were lucky enough to have our niece Bridget staying with us for a couple days. It was really fun to have her here to go to parks, beaches, and swimming pools!

On Friday we are off for Colorado. I have a Peace Corps reunion in Winter Park for a few days, and then we are going to spend some time with Pat's sister and her family near Denver. We are so excited about the trip, and I am soooo excited to flying and not driving!!

Fun weekend

We had a busy weekend in the Eiden household. Friday Pat and I went to a bbq for his work. While I got ready for it, Pat fed the kids dinner, and when I returned to the kitchen, Hazel pointed at me and yelled, "Mama, blue ears!" I had put in earrings with little blue balls. Oliver then turned around and looked me up and down and said, " Mama cute!" Oh melt my heart! Apparently nothing gets by these two!
Saturday we walked over to the Richfield Farmer's market and park. We only bought a cinnamon roll, but the kids loved it! They enjoyed the park too. In the afternoon we went up to Lino Lakes for Pat's niece's graduation party. It was fun to see and visit with family, and the kids were so excited to see Bama and Bapa, and BoomBoom Matt!

Sunday we ventured over to Afton Alps. A little late for skiing, so instead we watched Uncle Eric compete in a mountain bike race. It was so very cool to watch! We only wish we had half the motivation to start biking like that!!

A great weekend!

We were busy, but had a lot of fun this past weekend. Friday afternoon we had our NICU follow-up appointment, and it went really well. Our kids participated in the Bayley Test, and they both scored really well. Basically it means they are developing as they should! We were told to stress less about Hazel's weight, and not make a big deal over what she doesn't eat. I have to say, that was music to my ears!

Saturday we headed to Mello Glaze for some much needed doughnuts, and then off to Linder's to get our garden started! We have decided to try the theory of "Square Foot Gardening" and built our little garden plot Sat. afternoon. We will be trying our hands at green peppers, carrots, onions, beans, peas, and a few other items. Of course, our kids "helped" us plant, so who knows what will and won't grow.

Sunday afternoon, we had some friends over to help celebrate the weekend. We were so happy to see all the folks who showed up, and Oliver and Hazel were very excited to have a party at the house! Pat was super excited to use the old charcoal grill for the first time in five years! I must say, he was quite successful!

Monday morning we met Peg's parents in Belle Plain for breakfast and to play at the park for a bit. The kids were so excited when we told them we were going to see Bama and Bapa! The rest of the day was for relaxing and hanging out at home.

We hope you all had a great weekend too!
peg

Summer already?

Our trip to the Dells was fantastic! Oliver and Haz had a lot fun in the waterpark, and much to our surprise, there was no fear of the water or the slides. Obviously we stayed mostly in the kiddy pool, but we also did the Lazy River. I think we may have two little fish on our hands! Pat and I each had opportunities to try out the big kid slides, and they were highly entertaining! We stayed at Chula Vista and really had no reason to leave the resort. I imagine in the summer it is even more fun with the added options of outdoor fun.

It would seem we returned to MN SUMMER!! Yesterday was so hot I let the kids play in the water outside. We "watered" the flowers for over an hour after naps! The kids were very content to fill up a plastic cup, walk over to a flower or tree, dump it, and repeat. Easy entertainment on my part!!

On Friday we return the U of M NICU follow-up clinic for our "two year corrected age" evaluation. We did this a year ago and we thought it was super interesting. The kids will participate in tests to give the doctors a snapshot of how they are doing right now cognitively and developmentaly. Wish us luck! :)

As for the rest of Memorial Day weekend, not much planned. We are hoping to get our garden started. We haven't done veggies before, so we are heading out on a new adventure. We'll let you know if we have crops to share!!

Enjoy the long weekend!
Oh! Today is our 4th anniversary!! I was about 30 degress cooler that day!
peg

Together again

I am home from Costa Rica, and I had a great time! I love traveling there and I can't wait to bring my family some day! Hopefully sooner rather than later! Pat and the kids came to greet me at the airport which was fantastic! They were on their way to hug me when there was a slight distraction.... the luggage! It came shooting out and on to the carousel. This was apparently more interesting than Mom!

I think we are getting back into the swing of things, although Oliver and Hazel both have colds. They have been a little cranky. But today they seem to feel better as there haven't been as many melt-downs! They "helped" me plant some flowers and hang a bird feeder this morning. I am not sure how many of those flowers will survive, but here's hoping!!!

Thursday afternoon we are leaving for Wisconsin Dells. I have never been there before, so I am looking forward to a little adventure. We are meeting a couple other families with kids, so I am sure we will all have a great time!
Peg

Tired

Well, tomorrow Peggy comes back. I am really looking forward too it. Had a tough afternoon today.

The kids went to Danial Zilka's birthday party this morning at 10am. They had a great time! I forgot the camera so have no pictures. They had a room full of slides and climbing things for little kids and then we spent time in the gym on 'bikles and scooters. The kids were absolutely angels. They even held each others hands on the way back to the car. Couldn't ask for anything better.

The had Cake and grapes for lunch. Maybe this is why neither of them napped today. I was able to get a 2 mile run in during naps (Geri and Jerry left after the kids woke up from naps). That was really nice to get out and excercise a bit. Hazel slept maybe an hour and Ollie about 90 minutes or so this afternoon was pretty cranky.

Hazel has become quite stubborn, constantly pushing the boundaries. Maybe she misses her mother. I know I do.

I moved a few plants around this evening. Hostas and some Day Lillies as well as a few Asiatic lillies. I hope this is to Peggy's liking.

Som flowers are starting to bloom to I attached a photo for Peg to see before she comes home tomorrow night at 5:45pm.

Pat.

Swine Flu?

Well, I thought it would be valuable to make sure that everyone knew that we have figured out how to avoid the swine flu. See Picture. :-)


The kids are doing great, I think they are finding it interesting to have a new caretaker on a semi-daily basis. They have been happy and fun for the most part. Ollie was telling Hazel she was being "naughty" when she would not eat anything but blueberries at dinner last night. That made Bama Eiden laugh when she heard him say that.

I think the sitters are surprised when they see the kids climb up the front of their highchairs as if they have been scaling rock walls their whole lives. The first reaction seems to be to want to help, but boy howdy! those kids don't want any help. The independence streak is really coming out.

Mom said they enjoyed Music class on Thursday. She mentioned that she had a bout of "I do it!" from Hazel. I told her after a bit of time you just deal with the tantrum and you dress her (she feels she can put her own clothes on now). She typically tries to put her pants on backwards and takes an inordinate amount of time to trying and won't ask for help.

As the Droll's call it, Hazel has "Attention Surplus Disorder", she can sit and focus on getting dressed for 30 minutes if you let her. Mostly we don't have time for that.

Pat.

Call from Peggy!

Well, I finally got to talk to Peggy today. She called three times before getting ahold of me. Thank goodness for persistence! She called this morning while I was in the shower and again when I didn't have my phone on me. But she is having a really fun time. They did some great zip line activities today where they were actually above the forest. Peg said it was tremendous. Tomorrow they are going on a Crocodile safari. That sounds totally fabulous.

The kids were with my Mom today. She tells me they had a great day. Ollie has a minor melt down over sippie cups...and I didn't give my mother enough info about all of the "right" sippies for Ollie. They got it figured out eventually. I have to tell you about the "food" choices my mom made today. It made me laugh. They had waffles for breakfast, but I didn't give my mom any ideas for lunch. They were too busy for snack so about 11 am the kids fished out some yogurt raisens from the pantry drawer and started with those, they also noticed "chips" in there at this time. Mom asked them what they wanted from the fridge and Ollie pulled out everything with a blue lid. He does like blue. :-) So that was not super successful.

They continued to ask mom about the chips so they had chips with sun butter (tortilla chips and peanut butter from sunflower seeds). That made me laugh. But if the kids were happy, then perhaps I need to make different choices for the kids when I make them lunch!

Anyway, Dad helped me with the new dishwasher and we made a mess and eventually found out that the current hookups are too tall for the new washer and will need some plumbing help before we install the new one. So who knows when it will actually get done.

Pat.

A day with the kids.

Well, I had PTO today to hang with the kids. This was by far the hardest so far. Mostly because I really miss Peg. Life is a lot better when she is around.

I was cutting some canteloup this morning for the kids and Hazel all of the sudden points and says "O, Oliver". She was pointing at the hallowed out canteloup, which I must say looked very much like an "O". They are really getting into their letters.

We went to Home Depot and wandered around. We watched a fork lift driver for a while. They just kept saying "Man! Man!". Not really anything you can say to that. :-)

We spent a good 90 minutes at Veterans Park. The kids really enjoyed that. We finished up with 5 minutes of pulling as many dandelions as possible. Those kids really like to pick "flowers".

After lunch Oliver pushed his milk sippie on the floor. I gave him a disapproving look and he says "Olive eat it". Too much time with the Reeves I guess.

Ollie is getting very good at riding the Red Rider trike he got for Christmas. He was riding around me in the driveway and saying "Circles". It was pretty great. Hazy still needs a little longer legs to get it working. She tries SO hard.

We had hamburgers (on the grill) for dinner. I was feeling adventurous. The kids ate great! Almost all of the hamburger was gone...but the "dip dip" is getting to be a problem. Hazel just painted herself with it and Oliver was dipping green beans and then striping his face. Dinner was a success but a major mess.

Well so ends my day. I am very tired. 13,000 steps so far today. Big day for me.

Day 3 w/o Peggy

I worked most of the day today. Kids were up at 6:30 and Anna and Eric made them breakfast as I got ready for work. As I was getting ready to leave Oliver saw I had my jacket on this morning (40 degrees) and I got the "jacket off! daddy, jacket off!" so I let him know I had to work today and that I would wave to him as I left.

Anna and Eric took them to IHOP for their snack (breakfast for the Rochester group, snacks for the kids). Ollie an Haze had waffles at home and pancakes at IHOP.

They toured MOA and Sears and then came home for naps and had a fairly un-eventful afternoon of playing at home.

Ollie let me know they went to IHOP when I got home for dinner. Eric and Anna were asking what they did today and he remembered that. We couldn't get anything else out of him though.

We bathed and ran around a bit and it was off to bed. I am currently waiting on Peg to see if she will IM me tonight. She has been emailing and tried me at work, but I was not at my desk so missed her.

The Eiden family missed their Mommy and I miss having Peggy here.

Tomorrow is supposed to be nice, so I plan to have the kids outside a big chunk of the day.

Day 2 w/o Peggy

Day two. It rained most of the day. We tried to get out early and beat the showers, but just as we got outside and into the garage to grab toys, it began to rain. Ollie and I stood in the door as Hazel sat on her scooter in the rain. Eventually I asked Hazel to join us and she did. It lightninged and eventually thundered. The low rolling thunder of spring. I told the kids. Hey! Thunder! Listen! Ollie was much more aware of it the Hazel seemed to be (she was chomping at the bit to get out of the garage).

Ollie asked if he could "see it? see thunder?" But I had to tell him it was only for listening. It was very cute. Eventually the drain spout began to shoot out water. "I touch it?" Ollie asked. Sure I told him. That was fine with me. Hazel watched and ALMOST got off her scooter when she asked me if she could touch it also. I said "sure". She scooted over behind Ollie. It was pretty great. No chance she was giving Oliver a shot at sitting on that scooter.

The Rochester Kokesch's came just before noon. The kids were pretty jazzed to see the whole group. Anna went to her friends and Eric and I put the kids to nap. Ollie for 3 hours, Hazel for almost 90 minutes. Hazel spent some time with Olive during that afternoon. A couple of pictures on my picasa.

They asked about "MaMa?" during hte day, but we were able to distract pretty well. We ate at Champps andOllie seemed to want to watch all of the TV's in the room simultaneously! It was a hoot to see him so focused. Hazel played with her Crayons and ate almost everything on her plate! She was the Champ! :-) We had fries (waffle) and grill cheese for the kids. Ollie ate the fries. Almost no sandwich.

That was pretty much our day. Anna and Eric have the kids on Monday.

Day 1 w/o Peggy

Peggy left for Costa Rica today. They had a tough start and ended up missing their connection in Atlanta. They are expected to be 9 hours behind schedule which is a huge bummer as they had today mostly to themselves once they got to Costa Rica.

The kids were good. They asked about Peggy (mama <- in a whine) many times but I just worked on deflecting them and we had a nice day. We made a trip to Target and the Home Depot early and then spent some time in the back yard. Jerry and Geri stopped by and the kids and I hung out with our Neighbor Joe (he even brought out some sidewalk chalk and drew with the kids. It was pretty great).

They were a little crazy at dinner, and we had watermelon so I decided to do baths. Ollie said he had to poop when we got him nene, so I sat him on the potty. He did go potty and immediately wanted to get off. I thought I was in the clear. After everyone all clean and the kids were just spashing in the water, Ollie turns to me and say's "Oh Oh" and he's holding a turd. I froze...then told him to hang on (I almost took it from him, but that would have been soooo gross) and reached for some toilet paper. But when I turned back, he had let go and I noticed there were several others in the water as well.

We quickly pulled the kids out and there was much angst that there was poo in the bath, but we washed up Ollie's hands and put on some diapers and then chlorine bleached the bath and the toys so clean them up. Ollie was pretty funny, he was telling Hazel we had to clean the bath. I think he knew he had done something wrong.

We played the rest of the night and they were just happy all the way up to bed time. Ollie collected his "snugglies" and the Haze and I went and grabbed hers from the pack and play.

They went to bed quickly and quietly. I have great kids.

Already we miss Peggy.

Pat.

Easter!

Well, we are a little behind, but we had an excellent Easter in New Ulm. We spent the weekend with Peg's family. The Seilers and the Reeves were in attendance as well. The kids participated in a city egg hunt, more of an egg pick up actually, and we visited multiple parks over the weekend. We colored eggs and bama and bapa, along with some help from the easter bunny, had eggs for the kids on easter morning.

The kids helped bapa get his garden ready for spring. Digging and sifting and generally making a grand mess. Check out the web album for more pictures of the weekend!

Egg Hunting!

The Eiden's went over to the Droll's and joined the Zilka's, Haala's and the Savageau's for dinner, egg hunting and then egg coloring! The kids have never really spent any time looking for things like the eggs before. It was pretty great. Once they understood they needed to look for the plastic eggs (that were literally everywhere) they ran around the yard with the other kids with the sheer happiness only a two year old can elicit. The night was great to hang out with the other families and gab a bit, but the egg hunt was definitely the highlight of the evening.

Here are a few pictures of our evening. The kids playing in the Droll's playroom, and then a couple from the hunt!

Going to the New Zoo!

We went to the zoo with the Zilka's on Sunday. It was pretty cold, so we didn't get out of the main building. But this was the first time for me with the kids where they could really experience the zoo. They loved the Dolphins. The dolphins did not put on a show, but they were swimming around and having a pretty good time. We also spent time watching the fish and checking out the birds and the monkeys. It was a really fun day.

Peggy and I are starting something new. Bloggin' is not really something we saw ourselves doing, but perhaps there are some friends out there that would like to see pictures of the kids or see other things we are doing. You know just...keep up. Peggy and I are not on Facebook yet, so how are people to know what we are doing? :-)

Our first picture. The kids this spring took to raking out back yard. They were very helpful and after raking we had them help us bag! Who knew that two year old's could be so useful when chores need to be done!