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.