The Zoo!

One of our favorite things to do is visit the Minnesota Zoo. This spring, we've gone several times, and here are some highlights.

The tropics trail is always a nice spot to thaw out and enjoy lots of birds and flowers. Dad takes a gazillion pictures of the animals every time we go, but Mom likes the pictures of people best!

Here's Ethan and Mary Kate on the turtle statue.

Mom with her two favorite animals...

Mary Kate gets a shoulder ride from Daddy...

The bald eagle Dad loves to visit...

Ethan Turns Five!

After a three month hiatus from blogging, we're back! We have tons of pictures to share since our last post back in January, and we're happy to report the weather has warmed up considerably since then!

So, to catch you up on the happenings in the Grilz household, here we go! Ethan turned five on 1/30 and we hosted a birthday party at our house on 1/31. At preschool, the kids get to create a poster all about themselves around the time of their birthday and bring it to school. Here's E with his poster. He had so much fun choosing the pictures for his poster. It was a challenge to fit them all on!

His birthday was on a Friday, so we started off the day at our favorite bakery for donuts with Dad, then dropped him off at preschool.

After preschool, we headed out to the Mall of America where the kids built bears (or kitties, in Mary Kate's case). This is the special activity that Ethan chose for his birthday, and I have to say, it was a lot of fun for the kids and grown ups. The Build-A-Bear store wasn't very busy, so the kids got lots of attention from the staff. Ethan got a superhero mask and cape and Mary Kate and Laura got tiaras and wands.

Here are the kids giving their bears a bath before putting their bear outfits on. Ethan named his bear "Doctor Bear" and put a surgical scrubs outfit on him. Laura named her bear Honey and dressed her in a ballerina outfit. MK named her kitty Miss Kitty and also chose a ballerina outfit.

On Saturday, we celebrated with a horse/cowboy themed party at home. Ethan loved putting together this horse puzzle.

Whacking the cowboy boot pinata...

Blowing out the candles on the horse mountain cupcake cake...

A group shot of Ethan's friends who helped him celebrate. What a great party!

Surviving a Minnesota Winter...

The MN Climatology Working group is calling last week's weather "Extreme Cold." When natives use these words, it translates to "unsurvivable cold" to most mere mortals. According to these experts, "many Minnesota observers are reporting the coldest January since 1994. At least 8 Minnesota communities have seen temperatures of -40 degrees F or colder this month. "

And it appears there is no warm up in sight. If the Twin Cities stays below 32 degrees for the rest of the month, this will be the first time in thirty years where there hasn't been a January thaw and only the forth time this has happened since 1891.

But here, nothing really shuts down except for a handful of schools and people simply shrug and say, "What do you expect? It's Minnesota." Last week, the low temp on 1/15 was 21 below with -40 windchill. White Bear Lake did NOT close schools. Mahtomedi did, so preschool was cancelled on Friday.

The long weekend gaveus a chance to clean the house and start getting ready for Ethan's upcoming birthday party, which we are hosting at our house, at Ethan's request. The highlight will be the pinata, which has become a party favorite at our house. We got creative for this one (all part of Mom's master plan to prevent any more candy from taking up residence in our kitchen) and purchased larger non-candy items, which Ethan labeled for each child. So, come the 31st, we'll see how matchbox cars, stickers, pom pom socks and gum fare when the pinata cracks open. Hopefully, no one sustains any matchbox car head injuries.

So here's a recap of our month so far. After New Year's, we made our annual trip to the Wilderness Resort waterpark. This is a key trip for Mom, as we all get out of the house for 3 or 4 days and swim, play and expose our skin to some natural sunlight under the water dome.

Mary Kate is overjoyed to shed all her layers and soak up some sun.

3D Black light mini golf was a new activity the resort added...which was good, because it was too cold for snow tubing. Ethan wore his 3D glasses the whole time. I emerged from the golf experience fairly nauseous, despite removing my glasses after the 3rd hole.

After we got home from the waterpark, we attended a Sesame Street Live show called Elmo's Green Thumb. We got to the Target Center with lots of time to spare, so first we found our seats and were instantly bombarded with food vendor appeals. We got popcorn and Dad snapped a shot of the eager popcorn faced fans.

Then we took a walk down to the stage to check it out.

The show began and MK really got her groove on. She danced through 80% of the show. Ethan was looking really tired by 8pm, but did stay awake until the show ended at about 8:30. It was a quiet van ride home with both kids out cold before we maneuvered out of downtown Mpls.

Last week we completed Ethan's child of the week poster for preschool. Here's Ethan with the finished project, which is now proudly on display in his classroom.

I also started spring semester classes...Life Span Developmental Psychology and a chemistry class. Both are going well. I also finished up and submitted my application to St. Kate's Post-Baccalaureate Nursing program, which is a BSN program for people who already have a BS in another area of study. Getting in to this program is tough...St. Kate's accepted just 26 applicants last year out of a pool of over 150. So cross your fingers and toes for me!

Happy New Year, the Ice Fishing's Great!

Although we're a few days late, we'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year!

Ethan and John went ice fishing on New Year's Day with some friends. Mary Kate and I took a nap, then painted her nails.

Ethan was the only successful fisherman in the group of 5. He pulled in this Northern on Big Marine Lake. It was E's first ice fishing outing and he loved it. I have a feeling there will be a few more trips in store for the guys this winter.

Our Christmas Vacation

We've had a fantastic Christmas vacation. John used up some vacation days he had accumulated and was off work from Christmas Eve through today.

This year, we waited to put together the annual Gingerbread House until Dec. 23rd because Ethan really wanted to eat the house and we didn't want the kids eating one that was a month old. I think he got the idea from the bakery we visit on Sunday mornings...they were selling amazing houses this year and customers would come in and comment on how great the houses were...and how tasty their kids/grandkids said they were. We got a Wilton kit this year, it was the best one yet by far. Mary Kate decided she'd rather just eat the candy decorations instead of put them on the house first. We let them taste the house on Christmas Day after supper. They both each about 2 bites and then asked for cheesecake. Next year, I think we'll go back to making the house right after Thanksgiving.

On Christmas Eve, we celebrated at church and the kids opened up a few presents before leaving a note, milk, and cookies for Santa. This year, wrote his entire note by himself, with spelling help from us. He asked Santa if there are polar bears in his back yard.

On Christmas morning, Ethan was up at 6 am. He was thrilled by the guitar Santa brought and has been playing it a lot, accompanied by Mary Kate on ukelele. Santa brought MK a new vanity for her bedroom and she loves sitting at it and brushing her hair.

E on guitar...

MK takes her new scooter for a spin. Thanks, Uncle Jake!

MK received a play doh ice cream factory and the kids played with it for a couple of hours on Christmas day. Here they are showing off the tower of play doh cans they built together.

MK and Dad with her new twin babies from Nana. Thanks, Nana!

In keeping with his tradition for all of the grandkids, on the Christmas they are closest to age 3, Grandpa Grilz gave MK a Barbie Jeep this year. MK hit the jackpot, as Jeeps now come with real working radios. The kids jammed out to Christmas songs while Dad and Grandpa put the Jeep together.

Thanks so much to all of our friends and family for all of the wonderful gifts. It's been so much fun playing with new scooters, construction sets, games, babies, books and toys and enjoying Christmas treats.

And Happy New Year to everyone!!

Ethan Skates!

Before you read this post, please know that:

1. We are not crazy hockey parents (yet). We do enjoy a good hockey game, but neither of us played (Amy-none, John - more of a spectator outside a little neighborhood goalie work in elementary school). We must, however, reserve the right to evolve into crazy hockey parents if Ethan pursues this sport. If this does occur, we will be crazy hockey parents with good manners and a well-grounded perspective on recreational sports, we promise.

2. We are not pushing our children in the direction we think they should go based on our unrealized childhood dreams of sports greatness.

To be truthful, we must admit we have actually been a bit "slow footed..." excuse the pun... couldn't resist...getting Ethan to the rink. He's been asking to take ice skating lessons since last winter and has been playing garage floor/driveway hockey with an old stick and puck of John's that he found in Grandpa Grilz's garage in the summer of 2006.

After a trip to the legendary Strauss Skate shop in St. Paul to be outfitted with new skates, elbow pads and helmet, E's dreams of ice became a reality last Saturday when he started ice skating lessons.


For the first lesson, the kids learned how to fall down safely, then practiced getting up/falling down, then tried to skate along a line the coach drew, and fall down safely on the target spot.

Here he goes...in the orange pants with the blue stripe. The kids learn in groups of four, which is really great.




So far, so good. Watching the coach draw the fall down spot.


Getting the hang of it!

Balance looks pretty good...

Wipe out! Even falling down is fun.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Decorating the tree this year was especially fun, and refreshingly easy...we are loving the almost five and two and two-thirds age stage with the kids. Everyone was in good spirits, there were plenty of ornaments to go around, each child had his/her own box of special ornaments to put on the tree and we played lovely Christmas music to set the decorating mood.

Ethan was very precise in ornament placement. He also loved hearing all the stories behind his and Mary Kate's ornaments as well as those about Mom and Dad's, Grandma and Grandpa Grilz's and Papa and Nana Wheeler's. All those stories made for a fairly long afternoon of decorating, but we really enjoyed telling the stories. For the past couple weeks, Ethan has been retelling some of the stories he heard and it's been fun to listen to his versions.



Mary Kate focused on reaching as high as she could every time she put an ornament on. The paper chain in this picture was created by the kids using paint and glitter. It is very beautiful and they are extremely proud of it.



And Daddy gave each one a ride to the top of the tree to put an ornament way up high.