Firsts

Well, it's happened.  That day that kids LOVE.  The day I mostly feared....and looked forward to.  We talked and talked about what it was going to be like.   Would he be excited? Or scared?  Would he make friends?  Would he like his teacher? Would I cry?

Turns out, I had no reason to fear this huge step. Because this is what I saw:

Pure excitement!

He wouldn't even let us walk him to his class! He ran up to the door, couldn't get it open, so came back and asked for Eric to open it up.  Eric said that once Tate got inside, he was off!  He wanted to take these steps on his own.  What an amazing moment for us! This, from our slow-to-warm-up, introverted son!  So so proud!

He completely and utterly loves school.  He is slowly making friends (which actually is easier than we thought, since 3 of the boys in his class are named Gavin!). He loves his teacher.  What an amazing blessing!  We all had a hard transition when we moved to MN.  We didn't want this transition to be as rough.  Turns out, God had some amazing plans for Tate and us in this transition!

And Quinn's first official day of preschool was also an amazing day!  She actually has been in the preschool classroom over the summer, but she is now an official preschooler! (Gotta love fall birthdays!)  Thankfully, she was excited to go "back to school" as well!  She was ready to see her buddies!

Here is her first day of preschool pic:

She wouldn't take a picture without her Bubba! :) 

Take care y'all! -Kristen

Baseball Heaven

 Nothing like training up the next generation of baseball fans.

Last time we were at a game at this place, it was for the greatest World Series game...ever. They won this game, too.

The Hill

 We always have our stops we have to make in St. Louis. One is Amighetti's.

 The Amighetti's 'Special.' For 'special' people.

STL Zoo

 We still love this zoo the best. Here are the hippos swimming by.

 Baby elephant in the background.

 Hangin' with Brody.

Last time these kids hung out, they were just starting to stand. They do a little more than that now.

Annie!

 One of our go-to babysitters moves to college today. Here are some pictures they took one night while we were out on the town.

Pretty sure if Tate was 13 years older, they'd be a couple.

Ron + Connie!

 Had a June visit from Ron and Connie. We live a little farther than a half mile away now, but even Quinn remembers them from visit to visit.

These are some special people in our kids' lives.

Time with Kenzie!

 We just got a few hours with her, but we were so glad we did!

Love seeing these kids together.

Thunder Up!

Okay, so I haven't found all the pictures we took from this game. Somewhere there's a really cute picture of Quinn in her Thunder dress. But this was the only picture that included both Tate and his favorite athlete in the whole wide world: Kevin Durant (you have to look kinda close).
Tate loves Kevin Durant. He loves his movie, Thunderstruck. He loves to watch him play on TV. And, of course, watching him in person at a NBA game is like sensory overload.
I can't wait to move in April and put up a basketball hoop in the driveway again. This kid loves his hoops.

snow, Snow, SNOW!!!

 (Bonus points if you read the post title to the tune from White Christmas.)
Our kids like snow. Tate's been praying for snow since he could talk, and now he has it. It's been here since the end of November, and it's only beginning to melt now as I write this on March 1. I hope he's happy.

 We have had lots of fun with it, though. We had the wet, sticky kind early in December, and that Saturday we made a family of Snowmen and Snowdogs, and 2 Snow Forts (because if you only  make one, how can you have a proper snowball fight?).

 We have also been ice skating on an outdoor lake quite a few times (they run a zamboni on it, so the ice is really nice), and have been sledding on the hills at church or by the middle school just as much. Guess which of the 2 lovely ladies in this picture is less excited about snow (hint: the taller one).

 But example after example has shown that Kristen has a little girl inside that can't help but come out and play on a regular basis.

 Quinn doesn't like sledding. We took her down the hill a few times, but she's not a fan. Yet.

 Tate, on the other hand, would sled all day. I get cold before he does. He has informed me, "I'm made for the cold." I would tend to agree.

Duluth with the Gerk's 2

 Here's our little family in front of one of the many steam engines (including one just like the Polar Express engine from the movie).

 And here's Tate telling Santa he wants something that he hadn't told any of us to that point, throwing a curveball to our Christmas shopping list. Ice skates. Kids, I tell ya.

And here we are with some of our favorite people and the reason we drove to Duluth in the first place: the Reverend and Mrs. Aaron Gehrke (isn't that how you refer to pastor's families?), and their not-bratty-at-all pastor's kid Hazel. We kinda like babies, especially when we like their parents, too.
(Not pictured: the game we invented at the hotel while the kids were sleeping, Playdough Wars, which is the best game ever.)

Duluth with the Gerk's

 This was our 2nd non-annual trip to Duluth to meet up with the Gehrke family. Last time we did, Quinn was a newborn and Hazel wasn't. Plus, we had made the trip from Oklahoma. This time we were a little closer.
These first two pictures are from Bentleyville, which is kind of a village of Christmas lights. It's actually pretty awesome and well worth the trip. Not convinced? They had free s'mores ingredients and fires set up at the halfway point of our loop, which is what Kristen and Tate were doing above. Bentleyville: 2 marshmallow-y thumbs up.

 They also had a lot of people dressed up in Christmas-y mascot costumes. Santa's reindeer, penguins, you name it. Very fun.

 And Duluth has a Christmas Train. Was it exactly like the Polar Express? In a word: no. It was more like a couple self-propelled old passenger cars that took us about a mile to a magical land called: The North Pole. Scratch that; it was the train museum.
But at the train museume, they gathered all the kids and did a theatrical-type reading of the Polar Express, which the kids loved.

There was a point where they needed to figure out an answer to a tricky question about how to get enough Christmas spirit, and our resident Jr. Elf, Tate, though normally shy in a group of strangers, shot his hand up in the air with a solution. So he got to come up to the front and be a sort of Christmas spirit cheerleader. That role was perfectly cast for Tate, and he was pretty proud of his success.
(More Duluth to come...)

The Annual Griswold Family Christmas Tree Hunt

 We had to find a new tree farm this year, but the good news is this one had snow to set the mood (a little, anyway). We didn't quite have the "lay of the land" at this one, though, and the actual tree part of it was a little less yuppified. I mention that, because we got the idea in our head (I blame Kristen, but it may have been my idea) to walk to find a tree. One LONG walk later, we finally got to one. A lot of the close trees had been attacked by deer, so they just said to "Look at the top parts of the tree, and if you like it, just chop it off 6 feet off the ground."
Uh, how about no.
But alas, we finally found the perfect tree. It was a little bit shorter than we (read: Kristen the Chirstmas Elf and her junior elves Tate and Quinn) were accustomed to due to our 8-foot ceilings in our rental house, but we found one that used up every last one of those 72 inches. And it was fat, because the Head Elf (Kristen) says a fat tree is a good tree.

And just to be Christmas-tree-hunting purists, I drug the sucker all the way back myself. So there. It was 5 miles if it was 1.

We Heart Baby Kenzie

We used to go to Texas to visit 2 of our favorite people. Now we go to Texas to visit 3 of our favorite people. (Not pictured: Scottsbluff, NE, where we met them for Kenzie's baptism a few weeks later.)

Leaves!

 So this is what it's like to live in a neighborhood with big trees instead of one where the oldest tree is 10 years old.

You don't have to teach a kid to react by jumping in when they see a pile of leaves; it's a law of nature, I think.

Aerial Shots

This kid makes me happy.

 A little bit sweet...

...and a little bit ornery. Just like her mom. What's not to love?

Birthday Party

Tate and Quinn had their birthday party together at the 'Holidome' pool area. Here's the group of kids - friends from church. (Adults not pictured - something about swimsuit photos on the internet?)

Quinn is 2?!

 Here's our princess with her birthday cupcakes.

 And yes, I know her birthday was November 2, and it's February 28 now. We're catching up.

 We got Quinn a yellow rocking chair. When you flip it over, it makes a good ladder.

Love these kids.