Practically A Year Overdue - Part Two

Another excuse for my lack of entries would be the fact that school started. Our lives have been extra busy ever since. I am truly thankful for the fact that Minnesota allows open enrollment, therefore giving Miss Doodle the opportunity to learn Mandarin Chinese. But I am also learning the challenges of living outside of her school district.

Our drive to her school is between fifteen and twenty minutes. She is only there for two and a half hours in the afternoon. To me it doesn't really make sense to drive all the way home while she is there. So Bug and I rarely come home. We usually stay near her school. We often enjoy the nearby library. We also make lots of trips to Eden Prairie Center or Ridgedale to play in their little play areas. Other days we get the grocery shopping done or visit with friends.

Fortunately over the months we've figured out how to make it work. And Bug is mostly done with naps now. That is unless she's really tired and falls asleep on the way home. But that seems to be happening less and less often.

Yay! Now I will share some nice photos from the last six months and then I will be all caught up until next year month. (I'm really, truly going to try and post at least once a month.)

Miss Doodle on her first day of Kindergarten:




We made our annual trip to the apple orchard last fall. (If you are interested in seeing how they've grown, here are the links to entries about our past trips to the orchard: October 2009, October 2008)

I couldn't resist adding this one. It makes me laugh every time I look at it. Miss Doodle obviously, really wanted her sister to look at and smile for the camera.


Can you find the needle in the haystack bug in the leaf pile?

Our neighbors have a huge Sycamore tree with ginormous leaves. Its branches overlap into our yard a bit. Its leaves made for an awesome pile to jump in!

Miss Doodle dressed up as Wednesday Addams. And Bug dressed up as her namesake.

Miss Doodle turned six. Yes, six! We had her party at Adventure Peak. (It's a really awesome indoor play structure.)

We visited our former neighbor. We really miss living close to her. She doesn't have any biological grandchildren so she kind of adopted us. And the girls' biological great grandmas (and great grandaddy*) live far away so it's nice to have her filling in.

We enjoyed a visit from my mom and sister. (You can also read about that visit in depth on my blog.)

Miss Doodle donated her hair to Locks of Love:

A clean and smiley bug:

A sleepy, dreaming bug:

Goofing off upstairs in the playroom:

A little fairy playing with Barbie:

Tag you're it!:

Joy on Christmas Eve:

Even more joy on Christmas Morning:

Bug had her first dental cleaning. You can tell she was prepared for it just by looking at her shirt. (Yep, that's a toothpaste stain all right.)

She did a great job of sitting nicely and opening wide. Just like her older sister. (Remember this post? It's the same dental office...different chair.) And those lucky girls were both declared cavity free.


Miss Doodle's school had a very fun Chinese New Year Celebration on February 11th. She even sang a couple of Happy New Year type songs in Chinese, along with her class, in front of a very packed gym. Here's a picture of her standing next to the rabbit she made. (It's the year of the rabbit, hence all of the rabbits.)


This was just last Wednesday. We made it to the awesome story time they have at the Ridgedale library. When that was done we had plenty of time to grab lunch at Chipotle, one of our favorites. Yum! After that we still had a few minutes to burn before it was time for Miss Doodle to go to school so I let them play for a bit.


Until next time:

*I had to throw that in for all of the Northerners who pick on me because we call him that instead of grandpa.