Valentine's Day 2009


As soon as I knew that we would be raising 3 girls, I knew Valentine's Day would be a major day at the Karan house. After all, what girl doesn't love LOVE?


My girls do. So, it was a big love fest.


I had to do the overnight shift the night the night before, so didn't get home until 9:30 on Valentines Day. I (of course, being the planner I am) was all set ahead of time. I was sending Jeff off with the girls to their Saturday morning activities, so I could make my Valentines surprise.


Jeff had beat me to it. I walked to a beautifully set breakfast table!! Roses, firm and excellent quality (I learned this from the season I worked at Bachman's while in High School!)

There was a vase of 3 for me, and a vase for each of the girls, with a beautiful single rose in each. The girls loved their roses!

Along with the yummy breakfast: Mushroom and swiss omlettes, venison sausage (yuck, but A+ for the thought and effort!) Cinnamon rolls.... AND..... are you ready for this??

Mimosa's. Who would have thought Jeff would do this?? So great!! Romantic, and a reason to drink champange on a Saturday morning before 10am. Bless his heart!

We ate the lovely breakfast.... mostly at breakneck speed, because Maddie had to be at theater class, and Abby and Lily had to get into their leotards for gymnastics! But, soon enough I was left with the Mimosa's, peace and quiet, and a chance to get my Valentines lunch surprise ready!

We are on a very (very) tight budget right now, so this was a hand made, homemade with love kinda holiday! I have recently become obsessed with making bottle cap necklaces! Aren't they cute?! Each girl got 2.

Abby's are the first 2, then Maddie's, then Lily's.

I also made each of my Valentines a handmade (OK, it was from a kit I had... but I had to put them together)

The little Chinese take-out boxes with a few little cute thingies in them!

This is what their placemats looked like when they came home from morning activities! They were quite excited!

Jeff made each of the girls a necklace holder to hang all of their *bling* on!

Maddie unwrapping her bottlecap necklaces, which were in a little wooden box. Lily holding up her pink heart shaped rock that I have had forEver, waiting for a special moment to give them to my girls.

Abby reading her card (yes, I made hers upside down!!! It was very late when I was scrambling to finish all of this homemade stuff!)

A few of Lily... how cute is she??

Yep.... she's cute.










Still cute..... :)

Lily LOVED her Ming Ming (from the Wonder Pets) necklace!

Lunch is always better when served with love.... and mini corn dogs and Cherry 7up!







Jeff made these cards for the girls.... How cute are they??

I loved knowing how much he had to go through to hunt down the supplies in my less-than-organized craft room/office.

Una Chica

Dos Chica

Tres Chica

Maddie's

Abby's

Lily's

(yeah, we have been having potty issues)

My beautiful, sweet, gorgeous, wonderful, loving, lively, bright, shiny, and oh so wonderful girls.

My Valentines!

Self Portriats

I have been wanting to add these Self Potraits for ever. They are from last spring, at the end of the year school Art Show. I love them! I guesses which ones were my girls without even looking at the name! I love Abby's big lips! I always tell her she has her Mama's lips... clearly, she agrees!

THREE MONTHS????

Has it really been three months since I posted??? Wow. Bad blogger!! This would be the reason I hesitated to make my blog public! I am afraid the secret will be out. I am L A Z Y.!!!

The biggies are now back in school! They started Sept. 8th. Maddie is in 4th grade and Abby is now in 1st! When did that happen?!?! My little girls are getting so grown up!

Here they are, the morning of the first day: Lily insisted on having her own back pack.

Walking into school

Maddie unpacking her supplies. The girl sitting at the desk behind Maddie is Desha. Desha was one of Maddie's BFF's from Central Lutheran. Desha just started at St Anthony Elementary this year, her Grandma is the school secretary and "helped" them get into the same class!! Yay Desha's Grandma! Maddie is THRILLED to have her there. I asked Maddie for a kiss before I left. She said no (whhaaat?... uh uh. You are WAY too young to refuse to kiss your mother. You will always be too young to kiss your mother!") I kissed her anyway... of course.





Abby getting settled in. She has a real desk this year, and this was very exciting! There was a little bag of playdough on each desk for the kids to play with while everyone unloaded supplies and talked to Ms Holmgren.









Lily liked the desk right next to Lulu. I said good bye to my big 1st grader she was all smiles, and kissed AND hugged me willingly (enthusiastically, even!)

Then Lily and I headed home to deal with our emergency waiting for us. Maddie's Guinea Pig, Cali, was very very sick. We noticed there was something wrong with her the night before, and the morning of the first day of school, (yeah, thanks, God! Nice timing) Cali was laying on her side, struggling :( :( :(

Maddie was hysterical and made me promise to take her to the vet. So I did. Cali died. Maddie was very sad. Not a fun addition to back to school day.

Maddie did get a new piggie (Patches) just a few days ago. Scruffy (Abby's piggie) was so so happy to have a new cage mate! I have never witnessed such rodent jubilation! Jumping and purring and squealing... oh my! It was pretty fun to watch!

So, we are back into the routine here! Maddie started Theater classes at a local theater ( www.stagecoachmn.com ) on Saturday Mornings for 3 hours. They do vocal, dance and acting. An hour each. In December, they will put on a performance of The Lorax, then in winter semester they gear up for the big Spring production, which is Annie this year!! Jeff and I took Maddie to see Annie at the Chanhassen dinner theater when she was 4. She knows every word to every song! This is very exciting! I think theater is right up Maddie's ally!

Abby and Lily started gymnastics too. Lily and I are doing a Mommy and Me class, and the same time and in the same gym as Abby's class! Lily is LOVING this!! And Abby, I think, was made to be a gymnast. They are both little monkeys and strong too! Oh, to be young and flexible again.

So, this is what we are up too these days!



I have to send a shout out to Kailey and Jordan, my Connecticut nieces. LOOK at them!! They are young ladies!!! Again... when did this happen?!?! You two are beautiful! I miss you both a bunch, and really hope we can see you soon. You are too far away!! Waaaaaa!

Oops... Kamp Dels link!

I just read back, and realized I did not leave the link for Kamp Dels!

www.kampdels.com

Memorial Weekend camping trip!!

Ok! I am going waay over board on pictures here, but I love them all, and we had so much fun on our first camping trip in over THREE years!! I just have to share them all! And, because of my bloggin inexperience (well, and my laziness... because I know how to move them around, but it would take way too long!) I am just going to "narrate" in the order that they uploaded!

We camped up north of here, near Taylors Falls. The park is on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin. The hiking pictures are in Taylors Falls State park. We actually camped at a campground that was a few miles away... a pretty crappy campground, compared to the state park one... but what do you expect when you try to make camping reservations 3 days before Memorial weekend?! These are hiking pictures. The state park is Am-az-ing! Huge rock cliffs, right on the river. Paths to walk in between the rock.

Here, Maddie is reading a plaque about the rock formations. And Maddie and Lily in a "pot hole", a naturally created hole from erosion. Many were filled with slimy water, but this one was dry.

On this day, Jeff had taken Maddie and Lily hiking, while Abby and I went into "town" for some groceries and supplies to fix the leaky drain on our camper. So, all of these pictures were taken by Jeff on his camera phone. We all went back the next day for a day of hiking, but FORGOT THE CAMERA!!! These pictures are nice, but NOTHING like what we saw when we hiked through there. We are going to camp there (at the state park, not the crappy campground we stayed at this weekend) very soon, so I will have pictures. You will all want to come to Minnesota!

On our shopping trip, Abby and I picked up hats for all the girls. Here we are in our rainbow of hats!

Lily loved playing in the coolers! She mostly ate the ice, but also delivered beers and dumped the entire carton of eggs out. Amazingly, not one egg broke... and we had alot of beers (c'mon... could you say no to that face?!) Here is our camper. It is really pretty roomy! I did not get good (well, any) shots of the inside. I will do that next time. Maddie and Abby shared one bed, a king size... I hung a sheet down the pole on the middle of the bed, so they have "privacy"... they love this. Jeff and I have the other bed, and Lily in in the porta crib in "the kitchen" . In out old camper, the porta crib fit where the dinette table goes, but it doesn't fit in this one :( but, our dinette is a slide out, so it is not too bad.




Here is Abby, she spent a Loooong time rubbing sticks together

to start a fire! It kept her occupied!

Poor Sadie.

I do not think camping is the life for her. She wrapped her lead around the picnic table, the awning poles, the neighbors

camper wheels (whom, by the way... parked WAY in our site.

Like 8 feet into our site, grrrrrr. Jeff was complaining about it, and I just ignored it, until I realized just how far onto our site they were (and these were tiny sites to begin with) Me, being, well, me... did have to say something to them... no worries, I was polite.. kind of a "just so you know... %$^^$$)$$#@.... ;) They had a huge camper-of-my-dreams camper., so we weren't going to make them move, but it was a little annoying.

Back to our peaceful camping trip.

This was the afternoon after the hike Jeff took Lily and Maddie on. Lily was sooo tired. She would not lay in her porta crib, so I layed down with her, and practically had to wrestle her to get her to nap... not easy!!

How freaking cute is she, though! I laid with her for an hour or so... looking at her sweet face... she slept for 4 hours! Then she and Nina (her baby) had a snack.

Lily and Sadie dancing. She was giggling so hard! It was adorable. Her and Sadie are such buddies. They really do love eachother!

This is a shot I took when we picked Jeff and the girls up. They were WAY up on a cliff! Good zoom on that camera!

Can you see them up there?

Abby avoided falling asleep during actual nap time... but at dinner time, she couldn't stay awake anymore! This kid RUNS from sun up til sun down... makes me tired just watching her! You can see the divider sheet in this picture... this is Abby's side. It is really cozy! There is a shelf across the bed for "stuff". Good thing, because, as you can imagine, the girls have LOTS of "stuff"!

This is post nap Lulu... we had already eaten dinner (I think that picture is at the end!) I think i ended up bringing her dinner to her in this chair. After a good nap and some food... she was up until after midnight! Good thing we had a roaring campfire and many s'more fixins!

The girls (mostly Lily and Abby) loved scooping up rocks and putting them into pails, moving 6' , dumping bucket, and starting again. Maddie rode her bike in a big circle around our camp site, like a million times. We actually let her go to the play ground by herself (gulp... I hate that she is getting to the age where she wants "trust" and "independence".... HATE IT!!!) But she is a good kid... and I spied on her (shhhh) I love this picture of Lu... pure Joy, and a little nutso.









Jeff and Sadie. He growled at me when I took this picture of him loving Sadie, because the "official" word is, "this little worthless dog belongs to my wife" (but he really loves her... don't tell his brother's!)

Gotta get that fire started! Rub those sticks Lulu! Maddie was actually pretty good at the campfire teepee.

Yep... more bike riding and scooping tiny rocks into buckets. Really, alot of time was spent doing this!















This is Lily's bike trailor. Lily lovves her bike trailor. Jeff, the week before we went camping, bought a "tag-a-long" for Abby. It is a one-wheel bike that Jeff attatches to his bike. Abby can pedal, and NO training wheels. She Looooves that too. Maddie is a pro on her bike, so now we can go for family rides. I pull Lily (and Sadie in her little kennel, which Lily loves, in the cart. Jeff pulls Abby on her Tag-a-long!

So! This was our First Karan's camping trip in 3 years! The girls had a blast. We all agreed we love this, and Jeff, Abby, Lily and I are going camping next week! Maddie is going to South Dakota with Grandma Dette, Aunt Sandy, Will and Zoe (for 8 days! :( ) But Abby is looking foreward to ponies (you can rent them at the camp ground we are going to. The petting Zoo will thrill both of them and the small kids water park will be perfect for them! This is the link, if you want to check it out. We are off June 11-14.