Previews: Bunnypalooza 2011

What a weekend it was!  Two days, three rabbits, and 26 children.  I'm still recovering.  Special thanks to Pleading Paws Pet Rescue for letting us enjoy their rabbits for the weekend.  Honey, Harley, and Bailey were the best bunny models I could have hoped for.  And a HUGE thanks to my assistant, Andrea Wiener, who wore many hats during our marathon of mini-sessions.  She was my rabbit wrangler and clown...and she was fantastic.  Here are some pictures from our first day of mini-sessions.  Enjoy!

Project 365: All Caught Up (Sort of...)

Alright.  I've been severely neglecting this blog lately and I apologize.  Especially as it relates to Project 365.  Let me give you the back story so I can try to redeem myself a little bit... In February I was hospitalized with a nasty kidney infection.  When I say nasty I mean four days in the hospital nasty.  No fun.  Tip of the day: Don't be a hero.  If something really hurts and then starts hurting worse, don't wait it out hoping it'll go away.  GO TO THE DOCTOR!  Then, when I got home I was welcomed by a house full of sick people.  Of course, as I've mentioned in previous blog posts, my immune system surrenders immediately to any and all of my children's colds.  It was a fun few weeks.  I was definitely reaching for my meds instead of my camera for a while.  But obviously others suffer far worse than my little stint, so I'm done playing the sympathy card.  Now on to the present and getting you up to speed...

We attended a karate graduation ceremony for Dominic Forte, owner of Forte's American Karate in Wyoming, back in February at the Minneapolis Convention Center.  He was graduating from a 5th degree to a 6th degree black belt.  It was a great ceremony and a fun show put on by other students and graduating black belts.  If anyone's ever been interested in taking karate classes these guys are the real deal.  Super dedicated and awesome instructors.  I left the ceremony wanting to try out a few moves.  It was also the Motorcycle Show that weekend though, so I have a feeling approaching anyone in that crowd wouldn't have ended well for me. 

    

Evie's first birthday party.  Longing for the days you could eat cake by the fistful!

Our one and only ice fishing outing this year.  Note to self: More ice fishing next year.  I love it and the kids love playing in the minnow bucket if nothing else.  Explanation on a couple of the pictures... Top right: Why yes, I do love fish that much. Bottom right: Ryan telling grandpa some fishing stories.

Our days of spelling out words in front of our children so they don't know what we're talking about are over.  That was a sad day when it officially ended.  Especially considering the word I had spelled in the presence of my daughter.  She brings home flashcards from school to work on word recognition.  One night she asked if we could do "princess words".  I asked her what that meant and she said, "it's working on words but I can wear my crown".  My little lady just needed to jazz it up a bit.  

Some randoms... my niece, Paige, enjoying the rare opportunity of having the toy room all to herself.  The hat was her idea.  Such a fashionista.  Sydney, following me around like the paparazzi, giving me a taste of my own medicine.  Both kids, watching cartoons from the comforts of their laundry baskets.  May their creativity always flourish!

We visited the train depot museum in Duluth, which houses a great railroad museum filled with old train cars and collections of railroad artifacts.  I'm not sure whether my kids or my husband were having more fun exploring the old train cars.  One of them was a mail car with rows and rows of mail slots, labeled by city.  One of the slots was labeled "Land of Oz" and wrapped just underneath it read Pine City, which I found fitting considering my mother-in-law is from Pine City and is a huge Wizard of Oz fan.  So this one's for her.

Every spring we have a temporary lake in our front yard while the snow is melting.  I love it for several reasons, 1. I can live out my dream of owning lakefront property, 2. it means the end of winter is in sight, and 3. I'm a kid at heart and will never tire of putting on my rubber boots, breaking up the brittle ice (what a fabulous sound that is!) and getting a little muddy.

Why wouldn't she wear a skirt four-wheeling around the yard?  Isn't that what girls do?   

For those of you keeping track, obviously I'm missing a day week or two between February and today.  That's alright with me.  At least I'm back in the game!

Easter Mini Sessions: April 2nd & 3rd

The bunnies are back! Space is limited so contact me right away for details and to schedule your session.  Sessions are 30 minutes for up to 3 children per family.   

Project 365: Day 26

After discovering pages of drawings submitted by kids in Puddler magazine (those of you with duck hunting husbands may be familiar with this...but probably not), Sydney had to get to work on her own masterpiece.  There will be a follow up to this entry if her "ducks swimming in a lake by a cabin on a mountain top" ends up gracing the pages of Puddler magazine.  I'm really proud of her "hey, I can do that" attitude!

  

Project 365: Day 25

Motorcross racing on Pokegama Lake in Pine City.  Doesn't that look fun?  Some members of Jesse's family race quads (a local newspaper article on them here) so we thought we'd go cheer them on.  This picture is not any of them, but he had a big lead and gave me this little nugget during his final lap.  For that, I thank him.  Jesse and the kids were able to watch the action from the warmth and comfort of the truck.  I, on the other hand, fell victim to the constant fogging up of my lens from using the truck as my warming house between races, so I sucked it up and enjoyed some bitter wind and sleet to get a few racing shots.  Aw, what we do for the things we love. :)  

Project 365: Day 24

The Backyardigan's Swing-Along ride at Mall of America's Nickelodeon Universe.  This was their Everest. 

Project 365ish: Day 23

I love a shop that has a daily brain teaser on a post-it in their drive thru.  The question of the day was "What kind of candy on a stick should last All Day?"  I half-heartedly guessed peppermint stick, but I felt like the answer was in the question.  It was.  He laughed and told me I was too young to know the answer.  That made me happy.  Well, the young part, maybe not the humor he found in my ignorance.  He didn't mean anything by it though.  The last time I was there it was a math question and I told him that I couldn't do math until I had caffeine.  That answer had amused him too.

For those of you dying to know and are as young as I am the answer is an All Day sucker.  The giant colorful suckers.  I am familiar with the suckers but was unaware of their formal name.  And the coffee shop is the Nesting Grounds in Wyoming.  Try the Toasted Snowflake.  It's gotta be 1,000 calories but it's winter, so you're wearing a lot of sweaters anyways.