Team McPherson

Adventures in Appleton: Take Two

2012-02-11T21:24:00.000-08:00

After having such a rad time in Appleton last fall, we decided to get out of camp for the day and have another go at it. This time, we got to see the downtown farmer's market, which was amazing especially considering the season, the children's museum (again), the library (which happens to belong to the same network as our local library), and the YMCA (again). Kyle got to hit up the homebrew store and an affiliated brew pub and I got to stop at Tuesday Morning as well as the local natural market, so we all went home happy.

Sora enjoyed free samples throughout the farmer's market and natural market. Here she is enjoying her hummus. She also, of course, loved the escalators involved at the indoor farmer's market.

We went to the museum in October, but what a difference 4 months makes! This time, she was way more into the imaginative side and interacted more with strangers. Here she is in the water exhibit chasing "her" duck.

Usually, Kyle or I encourage her to dress up, but she wanted to do the whole fireman's outfit all on her own.

This is a little catwalk climb-y thing to the top lookout. It's way too small for me to do it with her. On her first attempt, she changed her mind. The bottom is made of the same material as the sides, and I think she could see the ground and got freaked out. Later, she tried again and she made it all the way. She even greeted some strangers (kids) coming down with a "hi" which is HUGE for Sora.

Cutting sushi for me.

Then baking some delicious cookies. Again, loving the dress up!

A little rock wall before we had to leave.

Sora and I enjoying the restaurant.

Sora is at such a fun and funny age. She is awesome when she wants to be. After we got home, we went to see some improv at the Father/Child weekend here at camp. Sora loved watching and even "got" much of the humor (although it was hard to tell since she was running and jumping laughing maniacally most of the time).

Happy Birthday Sora!

2012-02-04T19:13:00.000-08:00

So, while Sora's birthday is technically on Tuesday, we celebrated this weekend.

Sora started her celebration on Thursday, when her grandma and papa D came into town. Sora figured out that papa's name is Don and she thinks it's funny to call him that periodically. This week has been airport/airplane theme, so I kept telling her that we were going to the airport to watch the planes. She was very surprised to see her grandparents there! After we picked them up, we went to the fancy hair salon. I thought Sora would enjoy this fun treat, but of course my unpredictable daughter wouldn't let me put her down. She ended up getting her hair cut on my lap squirming and frowning the entire time while my mom danced around with a book to entertain and distracted her. Of course, as soon as she was done, she wanted to sit in the car. Seriously kid?!

Afterwards, we stopped by a favorite restaurant for dinner and Sora and grandma took advantage of a quick photo op next to the same ice bench that Sora and I took our picture on last weekend!

This morning, Sora woke up and got to open presents. She was very excited.

Sora got a lot of fun toys that her mama will love playing with! She also got an easel and new art supplies. This was one of the first times she played with just her papa since he got here, which was very exciting.

Of course, as soon as she was done with papa, she had to go give grandma lots of love.

All ready for her party in her fancy skirt and new birthday shirt. If you look very closely, you can see the 3 in the laces of the ice skate.

We played outside while Kyle made yummy popcorn on the fire.

Inside, the kids played with balloons, glow sticks, did "projects" (snowflakes and foam stickers), played with fake snow and water balls.

Of course, my favorite part was the hot chocolate and cupcakes! I made purple frosting, as per Sora's request, and we had chocolate ice cream.

After blowing out the three candles,

Sora thoroughly enjoyed eating the dessert.

Sora decided not to actually ice skate at her ice skating themed party, but she had a ton of fun with the kids playing random games they made up and that's what matters. As a bonus, after the party, we headed outside to watch the fireworks. I tried to convince Sora they were for her birthday, but she was too smart and knew it was for the Fish-o-rama, which we went to earlier in the day. Last year, we missed the fireworks, so we didn't know the best place to watch them. Next year, we'll be able to see them even better!

Ski Adventure

2012-02-01T06:44:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting way too long for enough snow to take Sora cross country skiing! Kyle and I went out on the lake last month with Sora, but it wasn't good enough snow for Sora to try skiing. We finally got another inch of snow this weekend, so we took advantage of the opportunity to break out the family skis.

We got these bad boys for Sora for $12. They strap on to her normal ski boots.

We didn't go very far, but Sora was a champ for her first time! Now we just need another foot of snow to have a decent winter before winter is over.

And of course, afterwards Sora chose to "warm up" with "ice cream" (frozen banana/avocado/milk concoction). A sweet tooth after my own heart!

Winterfest

2012-01-28T16:25:00.000-08:00

Dr. Kyle finally cleared Sora for outside activity since she's been sick. We were inside almost all week - finally venturing out for coffee on Thursday and outside briefly to ice skate on Friday. After much discussion, we decided that Sora's feeling slightly better and we could attempt our planned Winterfest outing today.

Sora's reaction to the news.

Kyle and I were a little underwhelmed with the "festival", but Sora got to decorate and eat a cookie, so she was a big fan.

There were also several ice sculptures in progress that would have been fascinating to watch, had it not been so windy and, well, wintery.

Sora was enthralled with the artist though, for the few minutes we watched them.

Sora was also enthralled by the musician, and was excited to dance (although in true Sora fashion mostly just watched). She decided she was done though when a little boy kept trying to hug her. Apparently he didn't understand the meaning of "I don't know you" like Sora does. She is very particular about who she talks to or plays with, and if she decides she doesn't know you, you don't make the cut. We've tried to discuss what it means to "know" someone, but that seems a bit too deep for an almost 3 year old to grasp.

The ice sculpture was about the coolest thing at the festival.

And, a few more pictures from our beauty school this week (for Grandma Barney):

Hopefully next week we'll all be feeling much better and it will be filled with pre-birthday fun!

Inside and out

2012-01-23T15:38:00.000-08:00

Well along with the whole McPherson clan Sora has been super sick. Here she is spending a bunch of time inside watching videos and being generally spoiled. At first it seemed like she was the least sick with the stomach bug but now she has a full blown chest cold on top of that. So she wins the most sick award especially with her fever that keeps coming and going.

In the mean time outside it is finally snowing hard in Wisconsin.

Our front yard is a winter wonderland. The sad thing is that it is amazing snowman snow really heavy and wet but everyone has been to sick to build a snowman.

Sora and Maleah did take a break from being sick to do some hair styling. Most of the time Sora will not let anyone do anything to her crazy hair.

Tacos!

2012-01-21T07:59:00.000-08:00

Sora has found that she is a big fan of the new tortilla press we got. Here she is enjoying some homemade tacos.

A Day in the Life

2012-01-16T16:02:00.000-08:00

While I realize that we haven't put pictures of our adorable child on the blog in a week, it's because we've been living a very (amazing) regular life at the moment. We stay home three days a week with an 17 month old boy, and our other two days are spent doing routine things like playgroup and swim lessons. During the winter, Kyle works more weekends, which means we stick around home more too. Here are some of the fun things we've been doing while at home over the past day or two.

Playing with a giant tube and some matchbox cars.

Playing with a straw discovery bin. Sora is putting the straws through holes in some netting which is attached to the tennis can.

Gluing foam shapes to the sliding glass doors (with water). This was so easy and fun - we'll be doing this more often!

Good old fashioned painting. I stayed out of the kid's ways and let them do whatever they wanted as long as they stayed at the table and didn't paint the wall. This was hard for me to do, but Sora loved painting herself (and cleanup really wasn't that bad)!

At the end of a long day, Sora gets to help make dinner (depending on the meal of course).

And then eat it (of course)! Loving food as much as Kyle does, it's awesome that Sora is such an amazing eater. After dinner, we took the extra nori sheets (seaweed for you non-sushi lovers) and toasted them with some salt in the oven. Sora loved them and gobbled them up!

That's about all that is going on here at Team Headquarters these days. We try to sneak in some outside time each day, but are still patiently waiting for the snow to really fall. We will be having some VIP visitors in the next few months, so most of our excitement is being reserved for them :).

Spring in January

2012-01-10T16:55:00.000-08:00

Our extra warm winter continues to mystify, disappoint, and delight me all at once. Sora is refusing to wear coats unless she really gets cold, so I continue to follow her around camp with her coat in my hand stumped at how she can remain so warm-blooded. It's warm out for a Wisconsin January, but it's still cold compared to a good Seattle winter day.

Enjoy some pictures from our front yard.

And yes, Sora does look extra grown up all of a sudden! I blame her new 3T wardrobe for making her look like a kid and no longer a toddler. Or maybe it's her impending 3rd birthday...

Budding Artist

2012-01-06T07:14:00.000-08:00

While Sora loves "projects", she usually doesn't like to draw all that much. Now that she can make lines and circles, she's starting to enjoy it more (plus, she needs to color a paper before I'll let her cut it, so that helps too). Here are her very first two drawings (both prompted by mommy).

Yellow snowman (look closely for 3 circles, 2 eyes, and 2 arms)

Her grandma ice skating with her at her upcoming birthday (I drew the skates and the little Sora)

I have a feeling these will be very valuable someday!

Hide Your Valuables

2012-01-04T06:25:00.000-08:00

Sora has discovered the joys of cutting and is now obsessed with finding new things to cut. Nothing is safe at our house! Luckily she has the safest safety scissors known to man although they do make cutting paper difficult too...

New Year's - New Perspective

2011-12-31T17:38:00.000-08:00

Here at Team McPherson, we don't really spend much time thinking about New Years. I've always been the kind of girl who was the first to crash out at a party, which means that even in our pre-Sora days, I would spend New Year's mentally calculating how close to midnight I could go to sleep without looking too lame. Now that we live in the middle of no where and have a daughter who really needs her beauty sleep, we are spending our evening at home as if it is a normal night. We also don't spend much time on resolutions. It seems like a concept doomed to fail: you wait all year doing "bad" things so that one day you can magically change things. Why not just do it when you think of it instead of planning for it so far in advance?

However, I have recently (in the past week or so) been reminded that I have a pretty great life and I haven't been stopping to smell the roses often enough. I begged Kyle to find a job to support me in the manner in which I wished to become accustomed to and so that I could stay home. After I had Sora and realized that staying at home could be a reality SOMEWHERE, it was all I could think of and what helped me get through working full time. Now that I have that amazing reality and now that it's become my "norm" for quite a while, I have realized that I am way more short and cranky with Sora than she deserves. I am taking our moments for granted, rather than soaking them in. So, while this isn't a New Year's Resolution, per say, it is a new year, and this happens to be my new resolution.

Here are some of our moments from the past few days.

Part of my misplaced stress is from watching a 17 mo. old boy 3 days a week. For some reason, that is really hard for me to relax and let life happen while he is here. It's hard to remember Sora at that age, just a year and a half ago, and remember what really is and isn't safe to let her do, rather than freak out at every minor detail. This will be the biggest area for me to work on my living in (and enjoying) the moment mentality. On Friday, the kids played with these water gel balls and had a great time. I've been busy in the past planning elaborate sensory bins and "projects" to entertain Sora when really, all it takes is a bowl full of water gel balls and some scissors and paper to keep her happy for an hour.

There still isn't enough snow to ski in on land, but amazingly, there is about an inch or so on the lake, which was just perfect for a morning ski today. Our first of the season! Sora loved the sled and I can't wait to find some more comfy shoes for our next ski outing later this weekend.

Christmas Day Excitement

2011-12-29T16:40:00.000-08:00

Most of these pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy a glimpse into our Christmas day.

(mesmerized by the musical nativity)

(mesmerized by the Lorax - the first time she watched this classic)

(mesmerized by the iPod with Sarah)

Christmas Eve Tradition

2011-12-26T18:39:00.000-08:00

A few great things happened this Christmas weekend. Sora actually took a few minutes from being mommy's shadow and latched on to Kyle's boss, his wife, and their 24 year old daughter! On previous visits to their house, Sora was pretty timid, but this time, she spent more time on Sarah's lap than on mine.

Sora also got to make her first pasta with daddy. This is a new Christmas Eve tradition (and hopefully other times of the year as well). Kyle made a super yummy pasta dinner, and he taught Sora how to make the dough. She took her "work" very seriously, as you can see below.

She was pretty upset that Kyle didn't actually turn her dough into pasta, so next time, she'll need to have "real" ingredients and maybe she'll be making "real" pasta in no time!

Sora's Latest Obsession

2011-12-24T10:32:00.000-08:00

Sora's first ice skating experience earlier this season was met with mixed reactions. She said she liked it, but only lasted a few minutes (less than 3 I think). Since then, she's gone 3 more times (in a week) and she's officially hooked! Luckily, we live on a frozen lake that is very smooth this year, so Sora can go skating almost every day!

Kyle's Latest Obsession

2011-12-24T07:24:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a very early Christmas gift (that wasn't intended to be opened early, but "accidentally" was), Kyle is now very very obsessed with home brewing. Check out his new blog: Krusty's Big Brews

Happy Solstice

2011-12-22T10:09:00.000-08:00

We decided to start a new family tradition and celebrated our first annual McPherson family Winter Solstice. It's a great excuse to spread out present season and focus on our tiny family.

We celebrated the sun and family by unplugging for the day. This included lights, phones, computers and most electronics (but not the heater or camera, thankfully). Sora and I made orange cinnamon rolls for breakfast and we all said good morning to the sun when it came up.

We decorated a tree outside with food for the birds and squirrels and pretty sun and star decorations.

Then we went for a walk to enjoy the beautiful day.

Of course, a walk in on solstice wouldn't be complete without a quick ice skating session. Sora is now officially addicted and even skated a few feet on her own this time. Last time we went, it must have been too cold, because this time, she didn't want to leave!

After our walk, we opened our presents to each other, and Sora helped me make cupcakes.

Kyle made a yummy seasonal meal (salmon with pumpkin soup) which Sora devoured of course.

Then, we added yellow frosting to the cupcakes and thanked the sun while blowing out the candles.

We all slept in the living room by the fire, and we played games before bedtime.

It was a great day, and amazing how much family time you can pack in without any distractions!

An Old Fashion Christmas

2011-12-17T19:38:00.000-08:00

We braved the cold, wet weather recently to enjoy a good old fashioned Christmas at Heritage Hill State Park in Green Bay. We missed out on this last year, and I have to say it is now on our holiday to do list for ever (or until we move)! It was the coolest place with all kinds of fun "new" (and very old) traditions to add to our holidays.

We saw many decorated trees. This one was the most modern. My favorite had dried orange and apple slices on it. We're decorating a tree outside on Solstice, and this is one of the "ornaments" that will be on our tree. Hopefully the deer and squirrels will enjoy them as much as I do.

Kyle and I feel at home so far this winter with such Seattle weather. Kyle's boss was complaining the other day about the drizzle and fog while Kyle was thinking it was such a nice day out. It is starting to get colder though, so a good Midwestern winter is just around the corner.

Sora couldn't be convinced to sit on this "good olde" Santa's lap any more than a more modern Santa. Kyle and I thought it was so cool that they portrayed him in this way, especially after we watched a fascinating documentary on the history of Santa recently. There was also a St. Nicholas which we avoided.

The park is filled with little buildings that have been moved from other areas of Green Bay to create a village, a farm, and a fort. We didn't get many indoors pictures, but there was circle dancing (which enthralled Sora), blacksmithing and printing (which enthralled Kyle), tours of old style "fancy" homes (which enthralled me) and a few different buildings baking Christmas dinner (which looked like a LOT of work). True to the era(s), most buildings didn't have any electricity, so they keep the park closed most of the winter. We'll be back on opening day in the spring!

That same evening, a nearby suburb was having their own Christmas celebration. We were too wet to pay for the horse wagon rides at the state park (which weren't covered), but were surprised to see these covered carriage rides being offered for free! Plus, we discovered a cloth diaper/babywearing store (which could be the only thing that could convince me to have more kids!).

No trip is complete without some finger licking food shots.

Or without a stop at Joann's to teach Sora the joy of shopping.

Inspired by our trip to Heritage Hill, we kept our tree very simple this year. There are 9 paper ball ornaments that I made along with a few other Maleah-made ornaments and the tree topper, paper garland and snowflakes made by Sora. Sora insisted on a "little tiny" tree this year. We actually love it and think we never want a big tree again!

Merry pre-Christmas celebrations to you too!

First Official Christmas Party of the Season

2011-12-13T19:09:00.000-08:00

In our tiny town, one of the local bars sponsors a big Christmas party for kids. It's invite only, and somehow we were lucky enough to get a coveted spot! There were 95 kids invited, so I think it was a wide net considering there's like 400 people in town (and only kids 10 and under were invited).

Anyway, this is the closest that Sora has gotten to Santa yet and it was very exciting!

She, of course, didn't talk to the poor guy, but not screaming or running was a big improvement. We've been talking up the whole "game" of Santa hoping that knowing it was just pretend would make it better, but I don't think it's working yet (she still thinks he's real, and she's still afraid of him).

Things at the party that were more exciting than Santa:

Presents! I can't blame her. Each kid got a paper grocery bag full of presents. Sora's included this doll, gloves, a hat, a book, a small pillow, and a small bag of candy.

The little boy we babysit was there too, and since he's currently like Sora's best friend (sad, since he's only 16 mo. old, but she doesn't see that many kids consistently apparently), Sora was thrilled to play with him and his mom.

Hopefully we'll be back next year (and maybe Sora will even sit on Santa's lap)!

Winter Wonderland

2011-12-10T19:18:00.001-08:00

While there isn't really snow yet here in Northeastern Wisconsin, it is very cold! This afternoon, we headed to a nearby community for their 4th Annual Winterfest. Last year, we tried to go but it was cancelled due to a blizzard (we missed the rescheduled event) - what a difference a year makes!

Sora enjoyed the cow at the living nativity scene. It was very vocal.

Maleah enjoyed skating with Sora. Sora's never skated before and Maleah loved skating as a kid. This was one of the things she was looking forward to about living in the Midwest.

Sora only lasted for a few minutes because it was bitterly cold and it was a little slippy for her (she only fell once, which was good). Although, when quizzed about her day, she said that skating was her favorite thing, so hopefully there will be more of this in our future this winter! Now if only Kyle could find skates that fit him, we could be a family of skaters.

Sora enjoying listening to Christmas carols prior to the big Christmas tree lighting.

After the lighting, Santa arrived via lighted fire truck. Sora, as leery as always of strangers, refuses to get within a 10 foot radius of Santa. We've been trying the "playing" approach - trying to get Sora to buy into the fact that everyone is playing/pretending Santa, which will save us from the big "santa isn't real" discussion later, while still getting to play along with the "game" in the meantime. I thought this approach might entice her a little more to play the game and not be afraid of Santa, but that is not the case.

Here we are discussing Santa and that it's okay if she doesn't want to "play the Santa game" right now. She does like to observe, so whenever she wasn't wolfing down the free food, she was checking on whatever Santa was doing.

The lighted trees behind Kyle.

Kyle recently joined a Jimmy Buffet fan club, which operates similarly to the Lions club with slightly younger members (to clarify, Kyle is not necessarily a fan of Jimmy Buffet, but is a fan of meeting people who like to drink and live in our community). After our afternoon of fun, we headed to the annual Christmas party of the club for some extra socialization. Many of the members were also at this Winter Wonderland event, so it was fun to know people at a community event for once!

For some reason, Maleah had this ridiculous idea that when we moved to a town of 500, people would be so excited to meet us and be inviting us to things left and right. This is not at all the case, but at least we're slowly meeting more people and trying to create our own type of community away from "home".

Random Sora Part 12

2011-12-05T17:12:00.001-08:00

Model in Training

2011-12-05T08:08:00.001-08:00

About a month ago, our camera started freaking out. It would focus and refocus and refocus and then just melt down. Luckily for us, my parents sent us their extra camera to borrow. Of course, it wasn't as nice as our camera, since it was older, and it made us hungry for a nicer camera. We had both been wanting a fancy camera and had blog envy (especially of the Dyk's blog), so we broke down and got a great post-Thanksgiving deal.

Here is our budding model helping us test out our new camera. Enjoy!

Crazy Kiddo

2011-12-02T19:04:00.001-08:00

Sora is becoming such a fun playmate lately. I'm so lucky that I get to spend so much time with her. Here is a glimpse into her world at the moment.

We have been watching a little boy who is 18 mo. younger than Sora since last winter one or two days a week. He is now 16 mo. and he and Sora are finally friends. Just recently we started watching him three days a week which means that I am more actively searching for ideas that don't involve things that are totally inappropriate for 16 mo. olds (like playdough and paint, for example). One of Sora's new favorite almost-daily activities is dance party. She requests to put on her fancy dancing dress and we listen to some Laurie Berkner band and go crazy. She loves it. The little boy loves to watch. I get in a tiny workout. Everyone wins!

She also loves games. She is starting to kind of understand them and there are a few she plays the "right" way. I've been stocking up on games from the thrift store, where for $.50, I don't care if they're missing a few pieces. Sora makes up her own rules to some of the games, like Candyland, which is hard for my control-freak mind to comprehend, but we're both working on accepting each others ideas of playing.

We finally had snow! Last year, it was never wet enough snow to make a snowball or a snowman with. This was very hard to explain to a less-than 2 year old since all she knew of snow was snowmen in books. Luckily, this first snow was very wet. It was a nice warm day and Sora had fun exploring the snow and helping me make our first snowman and snow angels.

She is such a funny little girl! She tells me and Kyle that we are her best friends all the time. She also tells me stories that are both fiction or non-fiction. The non-fiction stories are the funniest since they are so matter-of-fact and have funny eye expressions. For example, today Kyle took her grocery shopping. She had an accident in the car on the way home. Neither of these are funny, but Sora had me cracking up with her story. Something along the lines of: "Well, I went potty in my carseat. And daddy wrapped me in a warm blanket you know. And now it's wet. My pants are wet too. We went to two stores. No, maybe three. I went to three stores with my daddy. The lady was in the baby's hands at the store. I got a squeezie."

Thanksgiving Day Traditions

2011-11-26T15:44:00.001-08:00

In addition to our delicious food, we were very busy this weekend with our new McPherson traditions. Some are new this year, and others are from last year.

We had a "T is for Turkey" tot school theme this week, complete with dressing up like a pilgrim. There were some conflicting ideas on how pilgrims dressed, so we incorporated all of them by using the buckle style hat, shawl, bright clothes, and a skirt. I'm assuming they dressed a little warmer. We then did a short rendition of the "first" thanksgiving day in an adorable skit.

Sora played a lot this weekend! We watch a toddler 1-3 days a week and they are FINALLY getting along well and are friends. He loves to play ball, so Sora plays with him (mostly by throwing it over his head). They also got the privilege of playing with a big tub of dried oatmeal a few times this week which they both loved.

A new tradition this year was to open presents from my parents. My mom bought us some wintery stuff and it will be nice to have it a month early. Plus, Sora gets enough from her other generous grandparents at Christmas, so this way we'll have "new" toys longer.

She loves reading and I love Llama Llama books, so this was a perfect gift (notice the book behind her that we just read).

Sora also got a dollhouse. This is more of a toy for me, I'm sure, but hopefully it will keep her entertained as she gets more and more imaginative. Here she is "cleaning" the treadmill. The house and accessories were great, but it came with an obsessive amount of workout stuff and very strange looking dolls.

This is my favorite room in our house, so I'm trying to get Sora to love her own craft room (complete with ironing board, iron, clothes washer and sewing machine) as much as I love my craft room.

The dollhouse comes apart to create any combination. It is currently set up as two dollhouses (one for the Sora doll and one for the Grandma doll).

Another part of our traditions (this one is from last year so it's officially a tradition now) is our Thanksgiving walk. This year, it was really warm out (in the low 50s), so no snow or winter coats!

Even though it's been an unseasonably warm week, there is still a layer of ice on the pond already. Sora was exploring how thick it is.

One of Sora's favorite buildings at camp is the nature center because she loves playing on the chalkboard. She is currently obsessed with letters and likes to try to make her own. It's fun to see her little brain work. She has just started remembering similarities. For example, when we wrote Daddy and Mommy on the chalkboard per her request, she realized that daddy and Sora both have A's and mommy and Sora both have O's.

Although there wasn't any snow, there was plenty of puddles for puddle jumping!

And a very strange sight that we saw:

Look very closely. What is strange about the picture?

(hint: if you look closely, you can see 4 half-dead fish. We saw over 30 poor fish flopping around. We tried to save the first four, but then saw all the rest and realized it must be a part of the life cycle here at camp.)

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we are all patiently waiting for snow so that we can enjoy snowshoeing, cross country skiing, and sledding! And we need the snow to sled the Christmas tree to our house, so hopefully it comes by then!

BBQ Turkey, Yes please

2011-11-24T17:21:00.000-08:00

As most of you know by now my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. I love the food and the time with family as well as the football. It is a great day. I usually plan my Thanksgiving meal many weeks ahead of time. This year was no different. My theme this year was to do classic flavors with new techniques I had not tried before.

The first recipe I decided on was sweet potato ravioli made from scratch with our old school pasta machine. It is a fair amount of work to get the dough worked right but man it is good and fun. The fresh pasta cooks in like 1 minute and is really tasty.

I finished them off with a garlic cream sauce and they came out pretty awesome. Sora freaking loved them. Here she is with a crazy ravioli face.

Next I decided on taking on the challenge of cooking a turkey on the BBQ. Now I will say I went back and forth on this one. Finally I decided to go for it. I brined the turkey for 16 hours to ensure juiciness. Then I put on my secret turkey rub. Then between the skin and the breast meat I put in a layer of caramelized onions and a layer of thick cut double smoked bacon. Then I put a rough chopped onion and fresh thyme, sage, and rosemary inside the cavity. The herbs and onions inside really release a ton of flavor.

Here is the turkey just as it was set on the grill. The foil wings are to keep the wings from burning. I took them off about half way through. I also rubbed olive oil all over the skin to ensure an amazing crispiness.

A drip pan under the bird helped keep the air moist and the BBQ clean. I finished off the meal with a rye bread and rice sausage stuffing, a sweet potato cornmeal and herb "spoon bread" (kind of like a really creamy corn bread - pretty awesome), and green beans that I wrapped in bundles of five or six beans with some caramelized onions. I wrapped the bundles with a pancetta and baked them. Overall it was a hit. The best flavored turkey I have ever done and another great turkey day. I love this holiday.

Maleah was in charge of dessert. She burnt it, of course, but parts of it were delicious. Because it was burnt there were no pictures, but it was based on this recipe for cranberry custard with meringue and a gingerbread crust. Yum!

Holiday Parade - Take Two

2011-11-20T08:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we went to our second holiday parade of the year. Since this one was in Green Bay, it was a "real" parade that lasted over an hour. Luckily it was relatively warm and Sora loved it.

Her favorite part, of course was the candy. She also had extra fun since we sat with Kyle's boss and her three kids.

After the parade we went swimming at the Downtown Y.

We went to the mall to do some Christmas shopping. It was very crowded but Sora loved playing on the mall play area. We were trying to stick around for an evening holiday event at Lambeau field. Around 4, while Sora and I were in the Hobby Lobby, she mentioned that her tummy hurt. She ended up throwing up all over the store and then 8 more times on the very very long drive home. Luckily, we had 3 blankets and 2 towels, but it wasn't quite enough to clean up all the puke that we had to deal with. She's doing much better today and is back to her crazy self.

Eat Your (Italian) Heart Out

2011-11-15T15:49:00.000-08:00

So I had big plans for a Thanksgiving dinner with the traditional flavors but a super unique take on them. One of the big ideas I had was doing my own sweet potato ravioli. This I learned would require the purchase of a pasta machine. It came in the mail today. So of course I practiced right away.

It took some serious figuring out. At one point I was about to throw it against the wall. But happiness prevailed when I got it working.

Making the dough is a ton of work but it is interesting and fun. I made the bulk of the dough into some ravioli.

Along with the pasta machine I got a press that forms the ravioli. That part was super simple. Sora loved pulling the pasta apart to get to the awesome filling.

With the last bit of pasta we decided to make some actual noodles that we could hang up to dry.

Come on, you have to admit that is pretty cool. The pasta for the ravioli was perfect and cooks in like 1 minute. Super delicious.

Oh by the way I got my wisdom teeth ripped out today and it was not as bad as I thought. A little advil and beer and I am all good.

Oh, and also by the way, we are having some technical difficulties with our camera. This will mean a new camera soon, but in the meantime, please overlook the terrible quality of photos that our iPod Touch takes. It's the best we've got.

Kyle

Festive Friday

2011-11-12T20:24:00.001-08:00

Sora and I had a free Friday, since the baby we usually spend Fridays with was sick. We took full advantage by going to story time at the library. The fabulously talented children's librarian there, in addition to reading a mean story, planning great projects, and playing the guitar and singing with the kids, is also a balloon animal master. Here is Sora enjoying a snack at the coffee shop afterwards with her bunny and horse.

One thing we don't mention often is that Sora is becoming very very timid. She's exuberant and outgoing when she feels very comfortable, but it takes a long time for her to feel comfortable with people. She won't talk to anyone she doesn't really really like. Including the librarian (although another librarian she sees more regularly makes the cut). This often makes me the middle man. Sora will answer questions from others if I ask them, and will talk to me, but not to them. Later, she will tell me that she didn't talk to so and so. The balloon animals came from that type of interaction. The librarian set out the balloons, I asked Sora what color she wanted, she gave it to me, I gave it to the librarian and so on. I'm sure she'll grow out of this stage, but it's kind of funny to see such different sides of her so often.

Friday evening, we headed over to spend the night with Kyle's boss in his town about an hour from our place. There was a very short parade that Sora really liked, and we hung out at the bar while Sora drank hot cocoa and stayed warm.

Today, we went back downtown for some light shopping, a great breakfast, and a walk to the lighthouse (in reverse order). Here Sora is trying to talk me into buying fabric for her instead of her cousin.

Sora and her trusty doll, Casey.

We were going to take a ride on this carriage, but it was too crowded and we didn't want to wait.

Santa was also strolling the streets, after his arrival at the parade the day before. Sora totally gets the Santa concept and remembers him. She remembers that Santa came to our house last year but that she didn't talk to him (probably from our recounting of the story). Again, I was the middle man in this candy exchange. Sora has decided that she doesn't want to talk to Santa this year and doesn't want to see him again until Christmas. While I'm sure that won't be possible, I have assured her that it's totally fine not to talk to Santa this year and that he knows what she wants without her talking to him (which according to her right now is a pulling toy).

While it seems crazy to me to go to a Christmas parade on Nov. 11, it was nice enough weather and we really enjoyed our walk this morning, which probably won't happen in December as winter is quickly taking over here in Wisconsin.

First Snow

2011-11-10T06:54:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year already! Last year, it didn't snow until the day after Thanksgiving, but it was thick and dry. It snowed all day yesterday and only accumulated less than an inch. It was wet enough for snowballs, but of course I was way too cold to make a snowman after we were done with our walk.

In other news, Sora has gained a new level of skills and personality over the past few weeks, which is both good and bad. For example, she told me last night "I'm crying because dad is mean" after Kyle put her in bed for the 14th time (my fault for allowing a nap from 4-6). Today, she is dancing up a storm to the Laurie Berkner Band with a slightly different dance for each song. Today, she also rolled little play dough balls successfully for the first time. Fun times!

It's That Time Again: Shutterfly Ad

2011-11-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

Now that it's November, it's time to start thinking about Christmas cards!

Shutterfly stocked most of our Christmas cards and many of our gifts last year. We ended up getting a great deal on cards and made some super cute time line style cards which were perfect for our big year of change! We also got some desk calendars and even a few mugs for presents.

I'm really liking the 5x5 square cards this year. Too many to chose from! I really like these styles...

This year they have some great flat 5x7 cards that you can put photos on the front and back... I think that might be a winner for me!

I'm hoping this year they choose me to receive some of their cards for free for blogging about them, so that all of our biggest fans can continue getting great cards!

Adventures in Lower Michigan

2011-11-02T07:57:00.000-07:00

Sora had an amazing rebound from croup and was well enough to travel across the lake with Maleah to visit with her cousins, aunt, uncle and Grandma and Papa D this weekend.

We drove three hours to Milwaukee to catch the Lake Express ferry. It moved very quickly across the lake, but it still took 2.5 hours to get from Milwaukee to Muskegan.

Sora entertained herself pretty well with her games and videos on the iPod.

She also took a nap - she still had a touch of illness this weekend and was pretty tired.

We had a lot of fun running all over Holland with my parents and Kylie, Sora's oldest cousin. On Saturday, the girls all dressed up for Halloween after Kamryn's first birthday party.

Instead of trick or treating (which was after we left in Holland and while we were gone in Wisconsin), we went to a nature preserve which was having a Halloween event. It was perfect for Sora since she didn't understand the concept of not eating every single piece of candy as soon as she got it. After the first mega meltdown, I realized it wasn't worth it and let her eat a portion of every candy (which was only about 5 tootsie rolls total).

On Sunday, Sora and Kylie bounced their hearts out at the bounce planet. After their hour was up, they were both super hot and sweaty.

Grandma D even joined in on the fun.

We didn't carve any pumpkins since the girls are all too young, but it's a good thing. When we went to the grocery store on Sunday there was pretty slim pickings.

The ferry we were scheduled to take back to Milwaukee was canceled due to high waves on the lake. Since it was the last ferry of the year, we ended up taking the train on Monday from Holland to Milwaukee. It was actually really pleasant!

Sora decided every time the train whistled that she should stand on her head. She was in this position a lot of the trip.

The "layover" in Chicago went very quickly. Sora was engrossed in her Jamba Juice and we got to see the Great Hall before getting on our next train.

The trip was short, but sweet. Just the right amount of time for a 2 and 4 year old to spent together while remaining mostly happy!

Sora the Conqueror

2011-10-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

One of the worst things about living in such a remote area for a worrisome mother, is that the nearest hospital is 45 minutes away (and I've heard lots of awful things!). On Monday night, Sora's battle royal with croup began full force. She was pretty happy during the day, but became super clingy in the evening. She ended up falling asleep in the carrier at 6:15. The fact that she wanted to be in the carrier at all was a pretty big giveaway that she was sick. Anyway, we listened to her breathing all night long from two rooms away and I was pretty worried. Thanks to the magic of the internet, I had diagnosed her with croup, but most of it said there wasn't much the doctor could do. I called for an appointment anyway, since we have a big trip that I don't want Sora to miss this weekend.

The doctor looked at her for a minute and confirmed that she had croup (I'm a genius). She was having such difficulty breathing that the doctor was on the fence about whether to send us to the hospital. I told her how far away we lived, and that helped her make a decision. Thus began Sora's first overnight hospital journey (and mine too) since she was born.

Sora was a champ! She had three nebulizer treatments, which she hated, but the rest was pretty easy breasy. She was already sounding way better by 9 p.m. Overall, I'm sure she would have recovered on her own eventually, but it was SOOO nice to go to the hospital and make her feel better almost instantly.

You can see in the picture that Sora's Clifford came with us. One of her biggest annoyances at the hospital, other than the nebulizer, was the light attached to her toe. She got to take it off to go potty, so she was going very very frequently!

I know that we are so super lucky that this is the sickest she's really ever been. I can't imagine being a mom who has to spend any more time in the hospital, and I am so glad that I have such a healthy kid!

Sora has watched a ton of videos over the past few days, probably more than ever before (put together)! I just discovered that you can stream Mr. Rogers, so Sora has met a new friend. She has also slept a lot, going to bed yesterday at 5 p.m., and taking several naps. She seems almost completely back to normal today, so it looks like our weekend trip is still on. Yeah!

Not too sick to play

2011-10-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

So, our blog has been quiet this week which has pretty much reflected our life. Sora and I stayed home most days last week since the car was in the shop, and we had a very quiet weekend. We did a lot of tot school last week, which I've been blogging about on my craft blog, to spare you the details of our boring daily life. Sora is currently obsessed with play dough and pulls it out of the tot school trays on an hourly basis. She has play dough scissors that she is in love with, as well as rotating cookie cutters.

This morning, Sora woke up with a nasty flemmy voice and breath and cough. She still had fun at her play date, of course, in true Sora fashion. Hopefully she'll be better soon, but it's sweet to see her on days like this when she just wants to be held. After dinner, we went to go watch the kids here at camp, and Sora chose to be in the carrier rather than walk or stroller. We haven't used the carrier since we came home from our vacation this summer! We walked around for a while and by 6:15, she was out cold. We put her to bed around 6:45, and she's still asleep. Poor sick kiddo!

Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

Our play group went on their annual trip to Delzer's Pumpkin Farm this week! Sora was crazy excited and loved doing everything.

We went on a hay ride, complete with people popping out in scary masks to wave at us (they do a much scarier version on the weekends for the big kids). Sora was pretty leery of them. She was excited to see them and kept asking about them, but when they got too close, she wasn't happy.

She also got to go on a train ride.

And, we got a free pumpkin (with admission cost). I bought some extras to can, and Sora loved picking them out and pulling them in the wagon.

There was also a petting zoo, mini corn maze, real corn maze, haunted grainery (the only thing she didn't really like), and lots of kids she knows from playgroup to play with. To check out how much Sora has grown, here is our trip to Delzer's last year, and our trip to another farm the year before (and a trip when I was pregnant).

Fire Station Tour

2011-10-11T11:54:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, Sora loves fire trucks and hates firemen.

Adventures in Appleton

2011-10-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

Kyle decided that we should have an impromptu weekend away in Appleton. What a great idea! It is supposedly 1.5 hours away, but it seemed much faster than that. Of course, we had so much fun that we forgot to take many pictures. You'll have to believe me when I say, for example, how amazing the YMCA was. They had a "splash pad" room which was a large glass room with random warm water spraying around and a slide (which Sora was too short for). Kyle and Sora played there for a while while I worked out. She loved running around counting the water spouts, and apparently counted one spot with 14 spouts perfectly multiple times. That's my little math lover! While Kyle worked out, Sora and I played in a giant McDonalds-like play structure. Sora was the only one there, so she had it all to herself. The adults locker rooms at the Y each had their own cardio room, weight room, sauna, hot tub, and lounge area complete with attendant. Not to mention, the Y had 3 pools. Shmancy indeed. We'll definitely be back another time. Sora equates the Y with swimming, so whenever we mention going, she gets crazy excited.

After the Y, we headed to the kid's museum. Sora is in love with kids museums (who isn't?) and in most of the stories she tells, she and Annie Ring (and sometimes Charlie and a few other kids she knows) head to the children's museum which is sometimes closed and sometimes open. Anyway, since there isn't one in Green Bay, Sora only gets to go on vacation. We remembered our camera to document all the fun we had.

The traveling exhibit was all about being eco-friendly. It was super cute! Sora enjoyed shopping at the farmer's market, washing a Smart car, and picking apples from the tree.

She slid down the heart several times.

Here she is dressing up like an earth saving super hero.

Of course, washing dishes was her favorite, even with pretend water.

Shopping at the faux Goodwill. Since she shops at thrift stores so regularly, I'm not sure there was much novelty in this for her.

Fireman Sora (for Uncle Rick)

Of course, she also loved the water table area, which was the one thing she chose to revisit before we left. It was a very cool museum overall, and again we will definitely be back.

After a quick swim in our hotel pool, we went to sushi for dinner, where Sora devoured every roll we gave her. Kyle wanted to check out a local brewery, so we had desert there while Kyle enjoyed some good beer. This morning, after our hotel breakfast, we hit the mall, the second largest mall in the state (although not that big in reality).

Appleton, we'll be back soon! And we'll be armed with our camera next time!

Maleah's Big Announcement

2011-10-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

After much deliberation and hard work, I have finally opened an Etsy shop! Join the fun by getting in on the 20% off grand opening sale. Just use the code "GrandOpening" for the discount. If nothing else, go give me some love by becoming an admirer :).

Here is a sneak peek of items that are on sale at the shop:

Cranberry Fest

2011-10-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

Last year, we never really ventured more than an hour away from our home in Wisconsin, and there were so many places we still haven't seen! This year, it's our resolution to go a little further occasionally to make sure we see it all before we head off on some other adventure in a few years. Our first long day trip was to Eagle River, about 2 hours north, for their annual cranberry festival.

The highlight for Sora was riding around in the yellow bus (first a shuttle, then a tour). One of her favorite songs is Yellow Bus by Justin Roberts.

She was also fairly attentive and very well behaved during the tour itself. It took way longer than I had anticipated, but it was pretty fascinating to see the cranberry bogs in harvest. Because we went on Sunday, they weren't actually harvesting, but there were 36 bogs in various stages of harvest so we got a pretty good sense of it all.

Sora was even patient during the wine tour and tasting. It was the perfect winery for Maleah - all of their wines were semi-sweet or sweeter. We bought some cranberry wine for Thanksgiving.

The rest of the festival was filled with arts and crafts and a flee market. There were some cranberry foods (although less than we expected). Here is Sora enjoying a cranberry brat.

We also stopped at a great toy store and got some Christmas shopping done. And we learned a lot of fun cranberry facts that we can spout off in the future to look very smart. Something to look forward to, should our next conversation with you involve cranberries!

Happy Fall

2011-10-01T13:04:00.000-07:00

Sora and I celebrated the best season in the Northwoods by visiting the Mountain Fire Tower. Of course, I didn't get any pictures of the tower itself, but you can get a good idea on this site of what it is like. It's really really tall. I'm not sure how tall it is, but it's way up there.

Here is the beautiful fall view from the top (one for each direction):

I'm not sure how well the colors came out, but there were some beautiful greens, yellows, reds, oranges, and purples in the trees. The tower is a little freaky though, and I was scared Sora would fall down the stairs all the way to the bottom, so we didn't stop to smell the roses too long.

Here is Sora at the bottom. She's holding her new friend, Casey, and wearing mittens because it was only 40 degrees out this morning. Welcome to fall!

Random Sora

2011-09-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

Day Off

2011-09-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

Now I know I can't complain, since Kyle just had a 10 week vacation, but he has had to work every Saturday in September (including next Saturday as well). He's been crazy busy during the week with school groups, so we haven't seen much of him around here. He took today off (yeah) and we celebrated by letting him tag along on one of our weekly rituals.

We started going to a nearby "twin towns" (our term, no one else's) for a weekly story time and other errands on Wednesdays. It's about 45 minutes away, so it makes a full day for us. Since it's only Monday, we varied our routine a bit to include Kyle.

We started our day, of course, with a quick Clifford ride.

Then, before getting out of the car, Sora had to go swinging.

We stopped by our favorite thrift store (where Kyle had to buy a belt since he's so skinny these days). I love how cheap this store is, and it's full of stuff!

Afterwards, we stopped by the library for some puzzles and to replenish our book supply.

From here, we went to the Y. This is the part that Sora and I normally don't do on our own. Sora has become extremely timid and reserved around people she doesn't know, which is not translating well to things like Tot Watch at the Y while I work out (or basically anything that involves interacting with anyone besides me and Kyle). She is fascinated by other people (her favorite question is "What is her name?" or "What is she doing?", but of course all of these questions are directed to me and not anyone else). Anyway, with Kyle there she wasn't in Tot Watch for more than 10 minutes which made everyone relatively happy. She also got to swim, so that was great.

Afterwards, we tried out a new coffee cafe place that will definitely be in our rotation from now on. It was delicious (and cheap)!

(Sora took my picture since I was taking everyone else's).

Next, we went to my favorite toy store for a certain niece's birthday present.

Lastly, we hit up the grocery store for some gourmet goods before going home and having a delicious fish and risotto meal cooked by my fabulous husband. It was great to see Kyle for more than a few hours at a time, and to let him get a window into our new favorite rituals.

Sora's Camp

2011-09-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

Sora and I try to stay at camp two or three days during the week. Since everything is at least 40 min. away, for the most part, being gone a lot leaves us both exhausted (plus uses a lot of gas). So, when we need a break from our indoor play and tot school, we go for a walk outside.

There are certain things at camp that Sora loves doing. Here are a few of her favorite.

Playing Ga Ga. It's a game like dodgeball minus the pain plus a little arena. Sora mostly just likes kicking the soccer ball around the tiny arena yelling "ga ga". She can also successfully climb in and out by herself.

The "pit" near the dining hall has a little shed with hockey sticks and hockey balls and pucks. Sora loves playing with this, but mostly the balls are thrown with her hand, then she chases them with the stick.

"Counting the letters". Every time we pass by this sign, she wants to stop and point out which letters she knows. She's just started recognizing numbers as well.

"Catch something with a net". This is almost a daily request. She mostly catches weeds, pond scum, and snail shells. I can catch frogs, but neither of us have caught a turtle or fish yet. I doubt we will catch a fish, but Sora really wants to catch a turtle. I haven't seen many of them this fall, but hopefully we can catch one in the spring when they're so abundant.

There's also a tiny playground near Kyle's office that she likes playing on. She's working on getting onto the rope swing by herself.

She also loves watching the kids crossing the rope bridge and eating candy after dinner (neither of which she gets to do) and paddle boating (which we do together while Kyle is lifeguarding for all of the kids). Her other big obsession at camp is to feed the bunny. There is a camp bunny that lives in a hutch outside all summer. During the school year, in the past, he had been under the care of one of Kyle's staff members who passed away suddenly this summer. I have (foolishly?) volunteered to give the bunny a loving home this winter in our basement. He's neglected and not at all tamed, so we have a lot of work ahead of us, but Sora loves him and it's a convenient situation for us to have a pet without having to actually own a pet. Hopefully there will be pictures of the bunny snuggling with Sora in no time!

Our Week in Review

2011-09-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

So, we did go to the parade last week, but of course didn't get any good pictures.

Instead, we have other pictures from our week for you. Maleah and Sora joined some friends at the NEW Zoo on Tuesday. Sora has been up and down about how much she likes animals, so I was surprised to see pictures of her actually feeding the sheep. She loved feeding the animals and chasing her friend around the zoo. This zoo also has 2 playgrounds which the girls both liked.

Maleah and Sora were also busy this week with a day trip to a new (hopefully regular?) story time and other entertainment in a nearby town and they spent two days watching baby Walker, who is almost toddler Walker.

This weekend was the first of three consecutive Father Daughter weekends at camp. Sora loved watching all the girls, so we spent a lot of time walking around camp. She watched the girls playing capture the flag in the dark and joined them for a fun Father Daughter dance (we let Maleah come too). Here she is waiting in "jail" by the fire during the game.

Saturday, while I worked, Maleah took Sora to the rummage sales. For you Washingtonians, this is the same as garage sales. Where we live, people are very into city or town wide rummage sales, so they went to a nearby town and spent the day looking at other people's junk. Sora thinks that these are the best, since Maleah usually just buys stuff for her - of the $11 she spent, $10.50 was for Sora. The only thing they were actually looking for was a tricycle, and the last place they looked they found one for $8. Sora was so excited.

She has been riding it all over camp and we are trying to figure out the best way to help push or pull her in some of the sandier and rockier areas of camp.

It seems like every week we are marveling over how much Sora is growing and learning. This week, she's really starting to remember things and be able to explain what has happened in the past. An example of this is when she swallowed a coin earlier today. She refuses to show us which kind it was, but I'm sure she could if she wanted to! She's also totally understanding what people are saying and following along. I took her to the campfire last night and we watched the girls doing skits. Sora was really quiet and listening, but would say (super loud) things and ask questions when everyone else was quiet. One skit involved a girl saying something about seeing a cow and Sora yelled "Where's the cow?". She's in a pretty fun stage and it's awesome to be along for the ride (most of the time).

Fun on the 45th Parallel

2011-09-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

That is the slogan of our nearest town. Usually, not much fun is to be had there (unless you're really into ATVs). This weekend however is their one big celebration weekend of the year. In true McPherson form, I drug Kyle and Sora with me to the festivities.

We started with a fish boil at the local church. Below is a detailed picture of our food. Most was normal, but I couldn't get over the fact that they served me a boiled whole onion. To me this seemed rather bizarre.

Kyle ~~enjoyed~~ tolerated his meal, and our "neighbors" loved watching Sora eat everything!

Other festivities of the day included a water fight (assisted by firemen).

There were prizes involved which made very little sense to me when I was picturing a typical water fight in my head, but made much more sense when I realized they were shooting fire hoses at a common target, and was much more like tug of war.

Sora, tired of the paparazzi.

Sora and her new favorite doll, Marabelle. I made her yesterday for Sora from some old felted sweaters. She's kind of funny looking and has a giraffe neck, but Sora loves her.

The big draw for the day was the demolition derby. We watched for a while, and Sora was pretty into it until it started raining. We left just as the downpour began.

Tomorrow, there will be more festivities of course. So, if the weather is nice, look for more fun on the 45th.

We heart the Library

2011-08-31T08:03:00.000-07:00

So, even though we live in a town of 500, our library is linked up with a whole system comprised of several counties worth of libraries! Some of these libraries have amazing resources to check out. In all of my spare time, I'm scouring the library search engine looking for toys that I can check out (and not buy) for Sora. We get them for a month at a time, and they ship them to our library for us. Amazing! Tot school started for Sora last week, when Kyle went back to work. We're super organized this year and have monthly themes and everything. This month is zoo theme so I focused on zoo items at the library.

Here Sora and Kyle are playing with the Curious George kit. It comes with a felt storytelling toy with 5 different scenes and pieces to tell stories in each scene. Super cute. Sora's favorite is the ice cream shop theme (no surprise there). It also comes with 2 books (which are AWEFUL - I didn't realize how terrible the stories are of Curious George. One involves his capture from the jungle - and I hate the way he's called "naughty" when he's really just being curious - okay, end rant. Luckily for Sora, I can easily edit the stories to my liking without her realizing it) and a stuffed animal.

Here is the rest of our current library loot (not including books). 3 puzzles and a monkey themed kit.

Sora freaking loves the puzzles (the two floor puzzles at least) and does them 3-5 times per day. Of course she needs a lot of hand holding through each puzzle, so it's a mixed blessing for me and Kyle.

I love that Sora loves the library, going to the library (and our weekly play group) and totally understands the idea of returning things and doesn't get upset at all when she requests something that we already took back to the library (like after a week straight of reading the same book over and over and Kyle and I can't take it anymore)!

Missed Photo Opp

2011-08-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, we had a day camp come up for the day at camp. Sora and Maleah came to visit the kids and me at work while I was helping them catch frogs and turtles with nets. Sora wanted to get in on the action and she and Maleah caught a frog before they went home for lunch. Yesterday, Sora wanted to catch frogs and turtles again, so she and Maleah (and Walker, the baby that Maleah watches once a week, who is ironically a late walker) went for a walk to see what they could find. Maleah was holding Walker so she wasn't right next to Sora. Maleah said it was time to go and started to walk away thinking that Sora would follow. She heard a splash and Sora crying and turned around to see that Sora had fallen into the lagoon while trying to snag a large lilly pad! This is the first of what I'm sure will be many falls into the water around here. Luckily Sora recovered quickly and was ready to go back minutes later.

Back to Normal

2011-08-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

So, Kyle went back to work on Monday and Sora and I are settling into our normal routine. I love some parts (her projects, watching all the new things she can do and knows) and dislike some parts (like sitting by her bed for 30 minutes while she sings to herself instead of naps). We had a huge break through on the potty front as she now goes to the bathroom all by herself! We had a huge setback on nap time as she now insists that she's not tired (right before her 2 hour naps). Anyway, life is back to normal and is in no way exciting around here (which is a nice change for a while).

County Fair

2011-08-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting months to go to my first midwestern county fair! I grew up as a fair kid, heavily involved in 4-H and spent almost every hour of the fair week at the fair for years. I was excited to have Sora experience the magic. Of course, it was WAY different than the fair that I'm used to. Despite having a larger population (250,000 v. 200,000 people in the county), it was maybe 1/3 the size of my "home" fair, which was probably my biggest beef. Kyle's biggest beef was the total pro-milk propaganda, but I think that's true of most county fairs.

Sora jumped right into the pro-milk love by milking Addy the cow (not real, of course). She's milked other "cows" this summer, so she's a pro.

She also loved playing in the corn box. It was obviously a big hit.

Sora loved the parks display - they even had a frog catching pond set up!

We supported the FFA and 4-H booths while we enjoyed some BBQ sandwiches and moowiches.

The best part of the fair is that $10 paid for parking, admission, and unlimited rides! Sora and Kyle took advantage of the wristbands by going on at least 5 each.

Another great thing about the fair is the view! It's right on the river and I'm sure that the top of the ferris wheel was beautiful.

Kyle took Sora, so I'll have to take their word for it.

We still have at least 1 more county fair on the agenda this summer, so we'll see how it compares! Overall, Sora loved it, and Kyle and I liked it (and loved the prices). We were both spoiled with great fair memories as kids, so hopefully someday Sora will have a more stable fair experience as well so that she too can become a county fair snob.

Seattle Photos

2011-08-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

While we were in Seattle, we had our family pictures taken by the fabulously talented Carly of Carly Tee Photography at Seattle Center (near and dear to my heart after working at Pacific Science Center for 5 years). We had our pictures with her last summer as well in Ferndale and loved those results too! If you need a photographer in the Seattle area, I highly highly recommend her - super reasonable rates, sweet, great to work with, and does amazing work! Okay, end commercial. Here are a few of my favorites:

Hopefully for our next photo session, Sora will be a more willing participant and we will end up with even more amazing photos! Thanks again Carly!

Swimming in the Lake

2011-08-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

One of the many amazing things about living at a camp is that we get to do all of those fun camp things that you remember about summer camp whenever we'd like to! Okay, maybe not ALL of the fun things, but we are lucky to get to go swimming (or boating or hiking or lots of other things) whenever we feel like it! Which, if your a toddler, is often.

Sora loves climbing up and down these steps. Her favorite thing to do at the waterfront is to go up the steps to the dirt, get dirt all over her hands, toes, and hair, then wash it off in the lake.

She's a great camp kid and is lucky to have such a great camp dad who is willing to go swimming with all of those fishes with her!

Wildlife Sanctuary

2011-08-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

After spending two evenings working on the floor, Kyle and I realized our estimating skills are amazing! We estimated just 2 square feet off! Unfortunately, we were 2 square feet short. Sora and I made the trek to Green Bay to buy those two more tiles while Kyle worked yesterday. Attempting to make the trip fun and not just errands, Sora and I went to the amusement park afterwards. She rode 9 rides (1 with me) for $3. Amazing! Another reason to heart Green Bay. Afterwards, we went to see the animals at the wildlife sanctuary across the street.

Sora loved it! We saw river otters rolling in a log.

And red fox playing a mean game of tag.

And coyotes marking their territory.

Sora had a ton of fun, and I love that this is a free place to take her! After a full morning in Green Bay, including the tiles and a trip to Starbucks, I still had $1 left (from $10 I started with). I love days like that!

Handy Man

2011-08-14T08:24:00.000-07:00

We've been enjoying a relaxing week at home with perfect summer weather and lots of summer camp kids around to entertain Sora. After about 5 days at home, Kyle was ready to find another way to fill his time - he's decided that being a stay at home dad is a little dull. We took a trip to the hardware store and came home with several new projects to keep him busy. He's actually done most of them already - I'm impressed!

He built me some shelves in the closet.

Which I couldn't wait to fill with tot school stuff for Sora!

He put together his new grill - surprisingly, this came in a LOT of pieces! He's tried to grill a lot of things so far, but we haven't had brats or burgers yet.

He turned Sora's old crib into a compost bin. So far, no critters seem to have gotten in, which means Kyle did a great job! (Update: I just saw a chipmunk in said compost bin...)

He put up Sora's swing that we bought from Ikea. This picture doesn't show his system, but he had to create something to hang the swing from. Pretty impressive, and Sora loves it.

The biggest project so far has been redoing the floor in the dining room and kitchen. It looks amazing (and was super cheap)!

We still have some painting and decorating to do, but Kyle's gotten a lot accomplished in a short time. Yeah for having a motivated husband!

Epic Journey: The Final Leg

2011-08-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, so when we last left you, we were in Bozeman, MT, enjoying a mix of weather and a plush campground.

The next day, we headed to Eastern MT and enjoyed a more rugged landscape. We stopped at some caves to see cavemen drawings (which I am trying to explain and point out to Sora).

We camped in the Badlands of Eastern MT. I'm not sure why this description didn't make me realize how hot and dry it would be when I picked it, but it was very pretty and luckily not too hot or too dry.

Oh, and the bee sting I got on Monday? Well, my poor foot swelled up like a balloon. It was hard to walk, especially since I could only wear flip flops. I survived though.

Sora liked exploring the landscape with daddy while I sat on the sidelines.

And she has decided that "maybe an animal lives there" in every hole.

The next day, while still feeling sorry for my poor foot, we headed to Fargo, ND. We went to a children's museum, which Sora loved (while Kyle and I couldn't help but notice almost every single thing had something missing or broken - I wouldn't have been so annoyed if I hadn't read some brochure that billed them as in the top 25 children's museum in the nation or something - there must have been A LOT of cool stuff outside of the building we were in that we didn't see).

To celebrate our crabby attitudes and total disgust of bugs that we had dealt with lately, we decided to live it up and stay at a hotel. We ate with the aliens at the Space Alien's Grill and Bar. It was hard to explain the theme to Sora, but since they had fries, she didn't really care.

The hotel we were in had a tiny water park. Really it involved two slides and a lot of spraying, but Sora loved it. Kyle and I loved the free breakfast. Kyle kept count of how many times Sora did this slide before I took over. He was up to 53.

Our next destination was the Mall of America and Ikea. We bought Sora a new bed and managed to fit it, along with the mattress, lots of toys and some other Ikea "essentials" in our already crowded car. This meant I couldn't buy much at the MOA, but I was too picky so it worked out well.

Sora's favorite store was 77Kids by American Eagle. It was super interactive and full of little rocker clothes. Cute if you want your kid to look like a rock star at age two. I prefer my two year old looking like a crazy two year old.

Our car couldn't have been more stuffed on the way home. Instead of spending an extra night, we ended up driving straight home from the MOA, which cut an extra day off our trip. We also ended up not going to Glacier National Park this trip, since the overnight low was 29 and the main attraction we learned was this beautiful scenic drive that would take 2-3 hours. Somehow adding more driving to our trip, no matter how beautiful, and subjecting Sora to a freezing night in a tent didn't seem like the most responsible parenting move. This also cut a day off our trip, so we got home late Thursday night instead of Saturday!

This means we've been home for almost a week now without blogging. Sorry. We've been enjoying our house and Kyle's additional two weeks off. We have a lot of home improvement projects on the horizon, so I'm sure there will be good blogging soon. Also, there are still two more weeks of summer camp going on all around our house, which Sora is enthralled by. As soon as we walked into our house late Thursday night, Sora was happy to be home. We all miss our friends and family and our home state, but we are happy to be back at our house and to experience another year of our crazy midwestern life.

Camping (take 2)

2011-08-03T17:25:00.000-07:00

We are finally almost done with our extra long summer vacation and are driving back to Wisconsin. Before we left, we spent our last Washingtonian weekend camping with some friends from way back. It was great weather, a great campground, and Sora loved playing with so many kids, most of whom she had already seen once on the trip and remembered. For some reason, she could not remember one of the poor kiddos to save her life (I'm not sure if she was teasing or not, but she asked him his name over and over again). Maybe it's her first official flirting and she wasn't just being rude? As always, the best pictures were taken by Lori and Jeanette, and there are some great synopsis of the trip on their blogs (here and here).

The last time we saw the Rings, Sora was obsessed with Charlie. This time, however, she spread the love and was obsessed with Annie. She was a perfect little shadow.

Of course, she did terrorize Charlie some, who took it in great stride. What an amazing kid!

We got to go swimming all three days we were there. Lake Chelan was cold, but Sora had fun. She even got stung by a bee (almost in this exact spot) but only cried for a few minutes. What a trooper!

After we left Washington on Sunday morning, we headed east until we finally got to Coeur d'Alene. We camped on the east end of the lake at a small campground where Sora was disappointed to see that there were no other kids. She's finally at the stage where she thinks other kids want to play with her.

She did thoroughly enjoy her pasta dinner.

The next day, we drove to Bozeman, MT. We stopped for lunch in Missoula where we finally broke down and bought Sora a nice sleeping bag. She had been waking up for four nights in a row wanting to sleep in our bags and we thought maybe it was because we bought her the cheapest bag possible in the spring. This new sleeping bag tactic wasn't quite successful the first night, but was much better the following evening. We ate at a park where I stepped on a bee and got stung and we got lost getting back to the freeway, so Missoula didn't leave a positive impression.

We did like the campground, however, which wasn't really roughing it much.

Here, you can see our tent in the background (on the left), just feet from the "playground".

There was also a heated pool which we swam in, laundry facilities which we used, and spotty wifi.

In true McPherson luck, a thunderstorm rolled over us in the early evening. Here we are entertaining ourselves as we hunkered down.

And a beautiful sunset afterwards.

Ellensburg: Take Two

2011-07-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

We are nearing the end of our second tour of Washington and have spent the last few days in Ellensburg enjoying a little sun.

Sora is obsessed with fruit and red peppers and water play. Not surprising, I know.

Sora is also a big helper! Here she is helping grandma shuck the corn. There will be a lot more of this in Sora's future this fall.

Kyle, Sora and grandma Barney snuck away to the children's museum one afternoon. Sora and I went here with grandma and papa McPherson the last time we were in town, so it was nice to see that Kyle got to play there too.

The microwave here dings! It was an instant favorite of Sora's.

We had a great time in Ellensburg and are now finally packing all of our stuff back in the car. We're heading camping for the weekend before leaving on Sunday on our long car ride back to Wisconsin. It's been a great trip, but I think we are all ready for our own beds and shower and space and are excited to get a little "real" summer in before Kyle goes back to work.

Bellingham: Take Two

2011-07-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

We headed up for our second tour of Bellingham this past week. It was decent weather, and Sora instantly attached to her grandpa and grandma.

We took advantage of the sunny weekend by packing it full of activities! We took a tiny historic foot ferry across a tiny bay (I think we could have swam in 10 minutes - even Sora, but instead we took a 20 minute boat ride).

We saw a lot of seals on our short tour.

And our whole weekend was filled with beautiful views of Mt. Baker.

Sora practiced her polo skills.

And got right back on the horse after being thrown off a time or two.

She loved playing at the beach, and we even got to see a wedding (which was more fun for me and my mom of course).

Sora is such a grandma's girl. Almost the whole time we were there, she insisted that grandma help her with everything. It was great to have a break from being the chosen one all the time, but I'm sure that grandma was secretly exhausted!

We also toured the Tall ships, one of which is the official ship of Washington state. It was more interesting for Kyle than Sora, but she loved driving the boat!

Sora has finally made one of the most important list yet in her short life: the list of berries ranked by preference. So far, the list is "raspberries at the top, then blueberries, and strawberries at the bottom". Luckily, my mom's friend owns a raspberry farm so we got to see the pickers in full swing. This was one of my first jobs in high school, which brought back a lot of memories! Kyle loved learning all about the system, and Sora just loved stuffing her face with fresh raspberries. I think it's probably a good thing we live so far away, because I don't think a toddler can live on raspberries alone.

One of the highlights of my parents house is that Sora is learning to like animals. It's a slow process, but she (kind of) made friends with their dog by feeding him treats daily, and also helped papa put in the horses each night. She pet the horses, and even the neighbors pigs, on many occasions, and on our last night there, she even rode a horse! She was very excited about the helmet (who can blame a girl for loving accessories?).

It took a lot of watching papa and mommy ride Dakota first before finally deciding to join mommy.

It was a short ride, but it totally counts as her first horse ride! What a brave little kiddo!

Sora is lucky to be blessed with three sets of doting grandparents. All of whom will read to her at the drop of a hat. For example, here is her "Papa D" reading a book about hats with her while wearing his hat and having a hat for Sora on his lap. Too cute!

Thanks again Papa and Grandma D for all of the fun and hospitality! I wish I could call you guys to come over on all of Sora's cranky days (especially if you could bring the magic iPad with you)!

Summer of Craziness

2011-07-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

We had a fabulous time in Seattle trying to cram in a summers worth of fun and visiting in one week. We saw a lot of amazing wonderful people but managed to capture very little on film.

Sora and I went to the Everett Children's Museum while Kyle was in Portland for a few days at the Portland International Beer Festival. We went to the museum last year, but it was way cooler with a 2 year old. Also, we missed the rooftop adventure last year, which was one of the coolest parts!

When we were done, she got to do two things again. She chose to "milk" the cow (a watery mess of course) and to play in the water room again.

We also visited various parks, which Kyle sees as the main theme of our vacation.

In between visiting with friends, we managed to get in some good tourist attractions, including Pike's Place and Pacific Science Center.

All of our touring left Sora exhausted!

Sora also got to meet the Moose and Blitz, but of course they were WAY cooler when we were further away.

More Summer Pics

2011-07-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

Well we are getting ready to head down to Seattle. We had a great time relaxing in Bellingham. Sora had a major roller coaster week. All of the traveling may have caught up with her. One of the major positives was that she seems to have over come her fear of dogs.

A Week at the Lake

2011-07-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

After a week on the road and two weeks in Ellensburg, we were ready for a vacation (from our vacation)! Kyle went to Seattle to work for a beer festival while Sora and I relaxed in the sun at Lake Chelan with Sora's cousin Dylan, and the rest of Kyle's family.

Sora loved playing outside and getting wet and dirty.

She is finally starting to ham it up for the camera!

In true Sora fashion, she was not afraid to jump into the waves with her dress on.

We had great front row seats right outside the condo to the fireworks. They were really impressive for such a small town show.

Kyle finally joined us for the last few days. Sora loved swimming in the lake with daddy.

We left Lake Chelan on Thursday for Bellingham. We decided to drive the scenic route and went north over the North Cascades Highway. Sora slept through almost all of the North Cascades National Park, but she was awake when we went through Winthrop. She loved posing on the saddles (where Kyle and I had our engagement picture from our wedding invitation)!

We are now spending some time in Whatcom County with my parents before our next adventure.

Summer Fun!

2011-06-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Well we finally have gotten the summer heat that we wanted. Sora has been having a great few days playing with poppa and grandma McPherson.

Chasing bubbles in the backyard. She actually caught a bunch of them.

Crazy sprinkler fun. In true Sora fashion she was constantly running to mommy to give her wet hugs.

Sora is still officially addicted to swings. We went to a few playgrounds that had no swings and paid the price so here she is at Kiwanis park living it up.

So far the Ellensburg leg of the trip is going pretty well. Sora is dealing with the constant change in beds and houses fairly calmly. She has been a bit extra cranky but we think she may be growing and needing more food than normal because everytime she eats she is happy. That is also true for me and her mom and most people I suppose.

Take it easy

Kyle

Ellensburg Adventures

2011-06-25T10:05:00.000-07:00

Sora has been having a great time seeing grandparents and friends and neighbors and all kinds of people. My aunt Sherry built this little toddler sized picnic table for Sora and her cousin Dylan. Sora loves it.

Sora had fun meeting her great grandma Marry. She had more fun than this picture shows.

The most amazing part of the entire summer so far was the fact that Sora sat still for this face painting. She was fascinated by looking at herself in the mirror before this picture.

We are headed to the beautiful city of Wenatchee today and then back to Ellensburg for 4 more days.

Father's Day in Spokane

2011-06-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

We decided to crash the Ring family's Father's Day celebrations on our way through Spokane. There is an excellent synopsis with some great pictures on the Ring's blog.

Sora has been faring pretty well overall considering she's devoid of any routine or stability for the past week, but she's definitely had some less than happy moments.

She wasn't too impressed with the Spokane Falls...

She was too small to ride on the kiddie rides, but took that pretty well. And although she looks like she had fun on the slide, she also fell off pretty hard.

She cheered up a little for dinner, just after I took her on the world's fastest carousel which they stopped mid-ride to let Sora off of.

Her favorite part of Spokane was Annie and Charlie. She loved holding their hands, even when Annie wasn't really that excited about it. Thanks Ring kids for letting Sora get her way sometimes!

We spent Saturday and Sunday in Kellogg, ID with the Rings at a waterslide resort. Sora liked this a lot and so did everyone else.

Sora spent the huge majority of the time on this slide. It was perfect for her - she could easily climb up and slide down all by herself.

After a long weekend of watersliding. One tired but mostly happy little girl.

Sora with her new best friend Charlie. While both Ring kids were great with Sora, she LOVED Charlie. He is an amazing little kid who actually read Sora 4 books to help her fall asleep and didn't complain when she poked him in the ear for 30 minutes afterwards even though he was crazy tired.

Thanks Rings! We're excited to go camping later this summer with them as well. We're expecting a marriage proposal by the end of the summer.

The Big Trip: Part 4 (Cold Hands = Long Car Rides)

2011-06-17T09:08:00.001-07:00

After a very cold night, and a cold morning, Sora was ready to leave Yellowstone for good. We did get her to explore some animal scat.

And enjoy some pretty flowers on a short walk.

And explore the visitor's center.

And no trip to Yellowstone would be complete without seeing Old Faithful.

After a very cold morning though, Sora was ready to get back into the car and make the last leg of the journey to Washington. On our drive through Yellowstone, Sora got to see a coyote before falling asleep. We also ran into (not literally, but almost) some sheep outside of the park.

From Yellowstone, we drove to Spokane, only stopping for gas and a few coffees. This was by far the longest drive we had on our trip, and Sora was totally happy most of the time. She got to do "projects" with mom, watch a video with dad, finger paint, read stories, and do a lot of playing. We are now in Spokane for a few days with the Rings and have a lot of fun ahead of us watching Sora keep up with Charlie and Annie.

The Big Trip: Part 3 (From Dinos to Bison)

2011-06-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

After leaving Wall, we headed for Rapid City, South Dakota. I think this was one of my favorite stops. We had coffee at a great little shop downtown before heading up to the Dinosaur Park. Sora was much more excited about the idea of this park than the actual park, but it was located at the top of a big hill and had a great view of the area, in addition to massive dinosaurs.

Rapid City is also home to Storybrook Island (not an actual island of course). This park has a playground mixed in with 144 scenes from different stories. Here Sora is driving Engine 9.

And here she is talking to the three little pigs. Maybe she's telling them that brick is really the way to go and not to waste their time with sticks and straw.

The Cat in the Hat is very appropriate for this trip, since we have listened to several Dr. Seuss audiobooks on the drive. Sora's favorite is Green Eggs and Ham and quotes it often.

We spent the night in Ten Sleep, Wyoming. Not much to see or do, but we did stay in a campground located right by the rodeo grounds. There was a group of girls on horses taking some type of horse riding class and Sora was fascinated. She has decided that she wants to ride one of her Papa D's horses, but when given the chance to pet a horse, she declined, so I'm not sure that her dream will come to fruition on this trip.

The next day, we headed to Yellowstone. It was sunny and windy, with a lot of bison and hot water involved.

We were lucky enough to get a campsite in the first campground we tried, which was first come first serve and filled up in the early afternoon. Sora enjoyed her first ranger program, a campfire sans fire due to wind, that focused on some lesser known animals of Yellowstone. She was transfixed with the pictures he showed and was fascinated by his stories. After all that excitement, we were all ready for a good night sleep in our tent (which of course didn't happen since it was in the 30's at night).

The Big Trip: Part 2 (tourist traps)

2011-06-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

Today we spent our day driving across South Dakota. It is a sparsely populated state which needs to erect ridiculous attractions to get motorists passing through to stop. Luckily for them, we are such motorists.

I hear no trip to South Dakota is complete without a trip to the World's Only Corn Palace. Sora chased around the poor girl dressed as a corn for a while and we marveled that someone would waste $130,000 annually to cover a building in corn. Yes tat is correct almost all of the front of the building in the picture above is corn of one type or another. Crazy!

South Dakota definitely caters to the motorist. Here is an elaborate rest stop on I-90.

We drove through the Badlands National Park. Sora slept most of the way, but it was beautiful and the first interesting landscape we've seen so far on the trip.

Our final destination for the day was Wall, SD. World famous for Wall Drug - the world's largest tourist trap.

Yes - that was all pictures from Wall Drug. Apparently in the 30's some guy had a great idea to offer free ice water to tourists and this is what came of it 80 years later.

We had planned on camping near Wall in the national grasslands, but with high chance of thunderstorms for a second night in a row, we treated ourselves to a hotel room. This freed up our evening to go swimming at the Wall city pool and play in the playground.

The Big Trip: Part 1 (Goodbye Wisconsin)

2011-06-13T19:08:00.001-07:00

Here are few pics from the first few days of our trip across the country.

Ready to go leaving Wisconsin.

We stopped for lunch in Chippewah Falls. We couldn't find the falls, but we did find a great park to have lunch. There were like 10 birthday parties that day there, so everyone else in town had lunch with us.

The park has a free zoo and yes there are lions and tigers and bears oh my!

We stayed the first night with some old friends from Seattle who had relocated to Minnesota. Sora had tons of fun playing with their daughter who is one day younger than Sora. We swapped horror stories of life in the Midwest and it was great to have someone to commiserate with. It was also one of the first times Sora had a lot of fun playing with a little girl her own age. It was so much fun to see how similar and different they were - both amazingly smart and fun little girls!

The next day, we rolled in to South Dakota. We were surprised at the beautiful Sioux Falls.

Sora, unfortunately, was not impressed. Although we tried to explain that we were at a park, she could not fathom the idea that a park would exist without a playground.

Our super windy campground at Lake Vermillion South Dakota. Luckily, there was a playground here, so all was right with the world again after Sora got her swinging fix.

Sora loved the first night of tent camping and slept amazingly well. There was a thunderstorm at 4 a.m., which woke us up, but Sora slept through the whole thing. The park was great and had a little interpretive trail, a great playground, and was right on a lake. Sadly, it was the windiest night of our lives and that, coupled with all of the rain and thunder and lightening meant that Kyle and I didn't sleep very well. Judging by the high number of the wind-blocking covered-wagon-esque picnic tables tables we've seen so far in South Dakota, something tells me it was not the windiest night possible at Lake Vermillion...

Summer in the Northwoods

2011-06-06T06:21:00.000-07:00

This weekend was absolutely gorgeous outside! Kyle spent some of Saturday working with the dads and sons at Father/Son weekend, but when he wasn't busy running the zip line, he was enjoying the weather with us. It was in the low 80s both days and the perfect weather to be living on a lake.

Sora was so excited to try swimming in the lake. Although the weather has warmed up, the lake has not, so it was still too cold for her. She didn't get much further than this.

We took a paddle boat ride instead. Surprisingly, Sora did not say it was "too sunny" this time!

We went out with some summer camp staff in the pontoon boat over to the county park for some fishing. Sora and I went to the playground there earlier in the day, but everything was "too hot" to play with, so we went out to ice cream instead.

Kyle and Sora fishing. She wasn't patient enough to help him catch a fish, and she alternated between wanting more fishing and "all done fishing".

Kyle caught much larger fish, but I didn't get any other pictures. We threw all the fish back, so this is the only photo documentation that he actually caught any. There were a lot of fish where we were and the other fishermen with us caught a lot of fish.

Nature Girl

2011-06-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

Living at camp, Sora has an amazing opportunity to observe nature in a way that is simply not possible in the city. It's fun to point out things to her and discuss how nature works and what is happening.

For example, we came across these mushrooms in the backyard growing in a hollow tree. We also saw some slugs eating them. That evening, we looked again, and all of the mushrooms were gone! That picture is a little hard to see, but they all just look withered.

We've also come across several of these - I think they're tent worms or something? They're both totally cool and totally disgusting!

It has been interesting getting used to new wildlife and looking at it from a toddler's perspective!

Thrill Seeking Toddler

2011-05-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting to go to Bay Beach Amusement Park ever since we moved to Wisconsin in the fall. Today was finally my day! The park is run by the city parks department, so everything is super cheap instead of being run for profit. Most rides are 1-2 tickets with only 1 ride requiring 4 tickets and tickets are $.25 each. We spent $5 on tickets and rode all morning. Amazing! It is geared towards younger kids, which was perfect for us. I was very nervous as to how Sora would do in such a crazy environment, but she was a rock star.

We started off easy with a quick helicopter ride.

Next was the ferris wheel. This one worried me a bit, since it's so long to get off if Sora freaked out. She was a little upset at how sunny it became while we were on the ride (Kyle's convinced she's a vampire with how much she freaks out about the sun), and was ready to finally get off after some confusion about when they would get off, but most of the ride was spent in bliss. In fact, when I later asked which ride was her favorite, she said "the blue one with daddy". Before they went on the ride, she decided she wanted to ride in a blue car. Luckily, that's the way it turned out. Maybe she has some kind of ESP...

After she rocked the first two rides, she was ready to go it alone. She started with driving a ladybug.

Then, driving a boat.

Then, shooting someone (not sure who) on the airplane ride.

It's hard to see, but she chose to ride a chicken on the carousel. She looked all around and said (while pointing) "Horse. Horse. Horse. Horse. Sora has only chicken."

Sora's last ride of the day was the train ride. The wait was pretty long, but she enjoyed the trip.

Oh, and did I mention that Bay Beach is right on Green Bay? It was a pretty sight. The location used to be home to a for-profit amusement park with swimming, but the bay was closed to swimmers a long time ago because it's disgusting. Maybe it comes from all the toilet paper that Green Bay factories are famous for making. I read a story that they used to rent out swim suits for $.10 and demand was so high that they'd be wet when you rented them and filled with sand since they had no time to clean or rinse them first. Can you imagine renting a wet, sandy swimsuit? Yuck!

While Kyle rode the big roller coaster, Sora played in the adjacent park. She saw the swing rides and was obsessed with them, but she was too small to go on the junior swing ride, so she settled for the swings at the park instead. She loved it and totally forgot about the rides.

We did some shopping while in town too. Here is Sora filling up on some water at Target.

On the way home, we stopped at another park. This one has the largest playground in town. Sora loved it, but again spent a majority of her time on the swings.

A happy kiddo after a long, fun, exhausting day.

Terrible at Surprises

2011-05-24T06:20:00.000-07:00

Since marrying Kyle, I (we) have become increasingly terrible at opening presents on time. If there is a present in my house, I can smell it a mile away and must open it immediately. It's like not eating a box of girl scout cookies. Impossible. Having said that, now that Sora is getting older, I've been trying a little harder to wait until the actual holiday or gift-getting event to open my/our presents. I say all of this because I must admit to opening my present from my mom early. In my defense, it did last over 2 weeks in my house unopened. I used her adorable present to create a new dress for Sora (click here to read the post about the dress on my craft blog). Sorry mom (but thanks!!).

May Showers

2011-05-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

We have had a lot of crazy weather here the past week, with a lot of rain and thunderstorms. Luckily, it has been warm overall, and we are well prepared for rain. We have not been photo journaling very well lately, and you will have to trust me that we have taken Sora on a canoe and also a paddleboat to enjoy the warm weather (I'm sure we'll get pictures eventually).

The moments that make Kyle the most proud are days like this past Friday and Saturday where Sora would throw off her shoes the instant she was outside and run around barefoot all over camp.

I am trying to teach Sora names of flowers and trees so that she can be the youngest naturalist ever! She already has Trillium down pat! This pretty flower is in bloom all over camp. In the picture above, where Sora is exploring our tulips, you can see traces of trillium behind her.

I'm not sure if she is playing hide and seek here or just hugging a tree. Either way, you can see how much she loves being outside and you can see her bare little feet.

We had a very low key weekend, spent alternating between seeking shelter from the rain and running around at camp. Hopefully these thunderstorms (and terrible mosquitoes and ticks) are almost behind us so we can enjoy the few weeks we have left in Wisconsin before our big road trip!

Camping (take 1)

2011-05-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

Kyle and I are eagerly awaiting our road trip to Washington in less than a month and are trying to slowly prepare for it. One of the things on our list was to take Sora camping once to get used to sleeping in the tent. We went up to Door County for a work party day on Saturday and we thought that would be the perfect time to go camping. The only problem is that it was 45 and miserable all day. Luckily, we took advantage of the indoor space at Camp Wabansi and pretended we weren't inside. It worked really well!

Here is Sora enjoying her brat for dinner (because we are in Wisconsin after all):

And Kyle making Bananas Foster French Toast in the morning (super yummy!):

Sora did sleep most of the night in her sleeping bag and actually stayed on the sleeping pad for the most part too.

And just to prove we were really indoors:

This was the view from right outside the building. It seemed really strange to not smell salt water.

On Sunday it did warm up a little, so Sora got to enjoy a playground.

Kyle did too.

Unfortunately, I left my wallet at this playground and just received a phone call from the Door County sheriff a few hours ago that they found it. I am amazed that they were able to find me, but it made me think that I really should carry some type of contact info in my wallet, especially since I'm still using my Washington State Driver's license... Yeah for Door County! I can't wait to go back again when it's nicer out.

Mother's Day

2011-05-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

Kyle and Sora gave me the Mother's Day gift of sleeping in (and not having to get up in the middle of the night - but that was a gift more from Kyle than Sora). After I was well rested, we enjoyed the beautiful weather with a family bike ride to the county park. I haven't seen any other kids here before, so Sora rules the place.

Sora surprised us by climbing up a ladder all by herself. It's hard to see in this picture, but it's how she's getting to the top of the slide.

She still needed a little help on this one, but got to the top without any help - just needed help figuring out how to actually get to the play structure from there.

On the way back, we saw the largest turtle ever just chilling on the trail.

And of course there were Canadian Geese.

We had dinner outside. Here is Sora enjoying her avocado as an appetizer.

Cheddar brats from Starzer's Meats - my new favorite meat source. I made some homemade buns to go with them, and we also had some quinoa burritos (totally random, I know, but all was delicious).

And this guy joined us for dinner. Sora (and Kyle and I) love all of Kyle's staff and will miss them as they go on to other things. Phil is one of Sora's favorites and he apparently plays a mean game of backgammon. Sora and I also got to test out our semi-natural bug spray in the nice weather and it worked pretty well. Sora was running all over with her little bare feet and even "peed in the woods like daddy does" for the first time ever. Since we'll be doing a lot of camping this summer, this is a skill we want her to have well practiced!

Chicago

2011-05-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

Sora and I left Kyle behind to do some hard work at camp while we enjoyed the good life in Chicago with my family. My dad flew into Green Bay so that I wouldn't have to drive so far by myself, and we met my mom, brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces in Chicago. The last time we saw my brother and his family was at Christmas a year ago, so obviously Sora didn't remember the girls from that trip and was excited to "meet" them. We hadn't met baby Kamryn (6 mo old) yet either, so it was great to see her!

Sora freaking LOVED her cousin Kylie. She's 3 and a half, and the perfect playmate for Sora. They got along fabulously and would hold hands and walk around everywhere! We didn't take a ton of pictures during the five days, but here are some highlights:

We went to the best children's museum! Sora loved exploring and kept us on our toes. Here she is rock climbing with Papa.

She is trying to uncover some ancient dinosaur bones during a short archeological dig. She was surprisingly successful!

I don't think she really understood the concept of sound traveling through the tube instead of just the air.

Here she is riding on the kids town bus with grandma. She also got to drive the bus and make it play the wheels on the bus song (which she now is obsessed with).

Sora was a little Miss Mimic during the trip. She did everything Kylie did and anything funny that grandma did. Here she is in a laughing fit with Kylie and grandma.

I made the girls matching dresses for a photo shoot my mom arranged. We'll wait to see how successful it was, with two crabby toddlers, but here is Sora in her dress. My mom was smart to have some photos taken in the park where the girls were in their natural environment. Sora is addicted to slides and wanted to go again and again and again.

We also hit up the free zoo. Sora was very stylish, as always, but not really all too interested in the zoo itself. Just in the popcorn.

One of the highlights of the trip for Sora was the amazing jet bathtub which amplified Sora and Kylie's bubble baths. She is still asking to take another bath with cousin Kylie. I just hope the next time they get together they're not too old for a joint bath since Sora loved it so much!

We got back on Sunday night and Sora is still recovering from the trip. Sora was sick while we were there, complete with fever. Unfortunately, it spread fast and I got sick as well as everyone else there! It's too bad because I didn't get to hold the baby enough (I was trying to restrain myself since I was sick) and I'm not sure if she'll be a baby the next time I see her! She was the happiest, most easy going baby I've seen in a very long time. I hope Sora learned a thing or two from her baby cousin Kamryn (and from her cousin Kylie as well).

Long Easter Weekend

2011-04-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

It is officially spring here in the Northwoods, and we enjoyed our long weekend outside! Kyle took Friday off of work and we celebrated Earth Day by going to the nursery, where they convinced us to let them do the hard work of raising our baby plants for us for a few more weeks. Then, we went on a short hike nearby. We've been to Cathedral Pines before, but it was beautiful at this time of year! Plus, there are almost 100 Great Blue Heron nests there, and we didn't get to see any of these amazing birds in the fall. We saw at least 20 on our walk!

Unfortunately, I was a little poorly prepared for the brisk spring weather and Sora got really cold. We were lucky it was such a short hike.

Saturday, Kyle wasn't feeling well, so we didn't go to the Easter Egg hunt I had been planning on going to. We did run some errands, which included shopping at my favorite bulk and natural food store, my new favorite meat store, and a local farm for some onions. We also went to my favorite fabric and coffee stores! Busy day! We rewarded Sora for her patience by taking her to the best playground in the area. She is in love with slides lately, and there are 5 here, so it was a perfect fit!

For Easter, we ended up having a hunt for Sora in our back yard. I bought some little animals for her farm which fit perfectly in the eggs. She had a blast finding the eggs and trying to open them, plus, there was no competition!

We also went for a hike around camp. It was a super nice day and we saw turtles as well as dozens of snail shells. Sora is becoming very comfortable tromping around in the woods and loves exploring. As an added bonus for Sora (and for us too), we got to eat Easter dinner with some of Sora's favorite Wisconsinites! It was a great weekend and I wish it didn't have to end.

Camp Kid

2011-04-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Sora is turning into a great little camp mascot! She loves eating dinner with the "kids" and after she's finished with her meal, she will often pick a table to adopt her and will climb up on anyone's lap who will have her.

Today, she was sitting at her little table at home and started banging on it, yelling "to the box, to the box" which is how the kids end their meal at the dining hall. While I love that she loves eating there, something tells me this won't help her learn table manners very quickly.

Also, on our walk today, she was lagging behind. I was pushing the stroller with the baby in it up a big hill. When I turned around to ask what she was doing, she said "hugging a tree". She really wanted the baby to hug a tree too, but I had to turn her down. Maybe next time baby!

Easter Dress Rehearsal

2011-04-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

Sora received a package in the mail today from Grandma Barney that included a dress up outfit for Easter! The outfit was complete with glasses, hat, gloves, tights, shoes, dress and sweater. Grandma was really thoughtful and Sora loved putting it on and playing!

Thanks Debi - it is hilarious and adorable at the same time! The glasses and the gloves are the best! Plus, Sora loves pockets on her dresses and they will be perfect for putting Easter eggs into. Now I just need to find an Easter Egg hunt for Sora to go to this weekend and we'll be all set!

Sugar Overload

2011-04-18T19:20:00.000-07:00

Warning: Hypocritical anti-sugar rant ahead. Proceed with caution.

It seems like every where I go, people are offering sweets to Sora. Every time I go to the bank, the tellers are trying to give suckers to Sora. They also seem surprised when I say no. Sora does get sweets in moderation, and I know that I can't keep her away from suckers forever, but I feel like it's my job to be overprotective of my two year old, especially when it comes to what she eats. Her little body is growing so fast, and I want to make sure that it's full of good, healthy food. She doesn't know what suckers are, she doesn't get a myriad of other common toddler foods for their sugar content, and she's happy. She does know what cookies are and asks for them often, but accepts that they are a "sometimes" snack. At the candy store, she happily picks out her one candy (usually a Hershey's Kiss) and doesn't even think that she needs more than one (at least for now).

We usually go to two organized story times per week. She likes them both, and each has their ups and downs. However, one seems to declare every week a "special occasion". Last week, they served the kids vanilla wafers (which would be okay as a treat), smothered with frosting (there was literally more frosting than cookie), with juice and a GIANT marshmallow - seriously have you seen these? They were bigger than Sora's hand! Oh, and the marshmallow had frosting too. Seriously!? Luckily, Sora is still young enough that I could get away with telling her (and the host) that she would just stick with water and crackers, but it looks like we'll be finding an alternate weekly activity soon.

And to prove that I do allow Sora some fun, I made tapioca pudding from scratch. Yum!

End rant.

Really Wisconsin? Really!

2011-04-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

Winter will never end. I love the place we live it is beautiful and peaceful and perfect for Sora to learn but come on man. The snow will never leave. We had it all gone this week and then last night we had a hail storm and today it has snowed all day. It is not really piling up although it has built up much more than these pictures.

Spring Has Sprung! A Sunday Walk

2011-04-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

So we all put on our strolling wear today and spent an afternoon strolling through camp. It was the first day that it really felt like Spring. The birds are singing loudly and the sun was poking through the clouds here and there. It was the warmest it has been for literally five months. We had thunderstorms last night and more expected tonight but today was perfect.

Sora got some fantastic new mud boots that she loves. No puddle is safe from her powerful stomping now.

There are still some piles of snow here and there but overall it has melted. Kyle is incredibly happy about that.

Chute Pond is starting to melt. The ice fishing season is over but as you can see no one will be swimming any time soon.

This was the only puddle that was to big for Sora to tackle she decided that it was "to wet momma".

Look closely and you will see two geese. They put on a great show for Sora walking on the ice and singing. She was enthralled. This was definitely one of those moments that you would not get living in Seattle.

Sora was a mega trail blazer. She walked through bushes and under branches nothing bothered her. It was great to watch. She seemed to enjoy the most difficult route possible.

Our walk ended with her finding a worm crossing the road in front of our house. She had a great time playing with it. We taught her the idea of not squeezing and she then told that she was not squeezing about a hundred times while she held it. She also found some empty snail shells floating in the pond and had a great time carrying them in her pockets. It was a great walk.

Nature School

2011-04-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

This winter, Sora and I have been doing a lot of tot school inside. Now that it is finally starting to warm up to the 50s and we can head outside again, I'm hoping to replace some of our tot school "curriculum" with nature school. Sora loves being outside and I love seeing how excited she is about every stick and rock that she finds. She just got a pair of boots which have opened her world to enjoy the mud and puddles around camp.

Sora's walking stick

Looking for the perfect rock

Enjoying a great mud puddle

Using nature as "school". This video (and the pictures too) were taken on our new iPod, so I can't guarantee quality (just cuteness).

So expressive

2011-04-05T05:18:00.000-07:00

Funny Phases

2011-03-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

Sora is learning new things so quickly and is going through several funny phases, which I know will be gone and forgotten about soon. I wanted to share them so that I will remember them later!

Showers! For some reason, one night she requested a shower instead of her nightly bath and she hasn't taken a bath for over a week since. She showers with the curtain open and Kyle or I helping her (mostly Kyle). It has really helped with rinsing her hair, which had become a big battle.
Excuses! I love excuses because they help easily explain why she can't have what she wants. She has started to pick up on some common themes, so when she doesn't get her way, she usually knows it's because of: "library" (when she wants a book she can't have), "grocery shopping" (when she wants more food that she can't have), "daddy office" (when she wants to know where daddy is). It takes a lot of the tantrum out of her disappointments.
Camera - this one is less than adorable. She knows that you can see the pictures on the back of the camera, but doesn't fully understand that we have to take her picture first. This one has ended in many meltdowns. Here is one of said meltdowns.

Running! She loves this game she made up, but now somehow it involves her sitting while Kyle and I run. Not sure how that happened, and we'll be putting an end to that one soon!
Doing everything for herself! She can put on her own pants, socks, baby legs, and shirts. She's still working on shoes, but she has to try to do it herself for a while before deciding mom or dad can do it instead. This has trickled over (ha - potty pun!) into her potty training. We started last Monday and I think we're almost officially done. It was the perfect timing apparently since she is so independent these days. She has decided though that she would rather go on the toilet than in her potty chair, which makes sense since Kyle and I use the toilet and not the potty chair (sorry for the funny mental picture). Here she is studying up on the potty subject. I got a bunch of books from the library about it, but had to cut her off after Kyle and I were sick of reading the same potty books OVER and OVER.

Playing! She is getting more imaginative and fun with Kyle, as well as more sweet and loving to the baby we watch twice a week. She is getting more into her "projects" and has mastered several things already. What a smartie :). Here is Super Daddy, Super Sora, and Super Baby.

Video Star Part Six

2011-03-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

Because of this and this, we have spent a lot of time indoors at home this past week. While we have been staying busy with tot school and "projects", we don't have a lot of great pictures to show for it. We did get some great video for you to enjoy of Sora doing the dishes.

Growing Up So Fast!!

2011-03-21T18:36:00.000-07:00

Kyle and I take turns getting up with Sora on the weekends since her idea of sleeping in is not the same as ours. Sunday I woke up and came out to a super hero musical. Sora and Kyle were saving the living room from the evil cow (which you can see in the background below). Sora did a lot of dancing which led to the musical aspect of the super hero role play.

It was great to see them engaged in such fun, imaginative play! Over the past few weeks, it seems like Sora has grown up so much! She has learned how to put on her own pants and socks (but can't pull them up all the way quite yet). She is definitely right handed though because she struggles with one foot every time, but the other one is super easy for her to do.

Her hair is crazy lately so we've been trying to encourage pigtails ("conies") more often. They make her look so old! She is definitely in a "Sora do it" stage, which is great. On Sunday, when we came home from a birthday party, she chose to go pee on her "green potty" three times in a row! That was followed by three pees on the floor, but it kick started us into potty training mode. Today, she didn't wear diapers and didn't have any accidents! I had very low expectations, because I didn't want to be disappointed about when she potty trained, and I'm still skeptical (again, I'd rather be skeptical than pushy) but she had a great first day! She'll be going to college before we know it!