Our New House and a Fall Update

We moved into our new home in September. It's in a wonderful neighborhood and has a bit more space for the kiddos, including their own bedrooms.  We are only the second owners of the house, which was built in the 50s, so it does needs some updating. We plan to save major renovations (like bathrooms or kitchens) until the kids are a little older, but we have made some changes and are happy with the progress!

We removed a large awning from the front window, and Josh, Owen and Grandpa Dave took out some overgrown shrubs.  

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These green appliances have been replaced with white ones.  

I would take a picture, but I can't seem to find a time when my counter isn't covered in dishes!

We replaced the carpeting upstairs. 

And, the most fun part was decorating Owen's and Maren's new rooms.

Maren's - Before 

Maren's - After

 

Owen's - Before

Owen's - After 

 

Our favorite part of our new home is the eat-in kitchen.  Seriously, we love it!

 It's a great place to eat donuts with friends. 

And for our many art projects, like painting pumpkins. 

 

Speaking of pumpkins, Thomas and Percy were obsessed with Halloween this year!

They loved trick-or-treating and had a great time seeing where Josh works at the Starkey Halloween party.  At this party, we also got to see two very different approaches to cookie decorating. 

When were weren't dressed in our Halloween costumes, we enjoyed the warm fall by walking to our favorite bakery with our cousin. 

And jumping in giant piles of leaves. 

 Our new yard may be smaller, but there are still plenty of leaves!

A Long Overdue Update - Our Summer

I have a very good excuse for not posting since May.  Over the summer, we moved.  Getting our old home ready to list, keeping it clean and ready to show while it was on the market and preparing to move took up all of our time. However, all of the work was totally worth it.  I'll post more about our new home in the future. 

Our old house on closing day. 

Our new home!

I thought I would also include a few pictures from our summer since we did still manage to have some fun! 

June

Owen and Maren were obsessed with puddles this summer.  

The minute they saw rain, they were asking for their rain boots.  

July

We walked the Starkey 5K.  

The kids were pretty proud of their medals. 

We traveled to Duluth to see Thomas the Train! 

They were both a little shocked that they were actually riding on Thomas.  

After our train ride, they saw Lake Superior for the first time.  

I think they would have been perfectly happy just throwing rocks in the water all weekend.

Later that evening, we had to bring this little girl and her head-to-toe hives to the ER for an allergic reaction.  She is allergic to cashews, so we now avoid all tree nuts.  

Never a dull moment!

August

In August, we stayed close to home, spending lots of time at the park.

We also enjoyed our favorite smoothies at the Farmer's Market.  

A Busy Weekend

We had a busy, but very fun weekend.  It started with the Dew Drop Bop at St. Kate's, complete with a bounce house, bubbles and lots of treats! The weather was perfect, and Owen and Maren had a blast.  Maren liked to be where all the action was (music, rides and other activities), while Owen preferred walking around the pond and watching the ducks.  

Maren was pretty fired up over the bubbles!

Owen did a lot of running (and slept in the next morning)!

Maren's favorite treat right now is watermelon.  A few minutes after this picture was taken she tripped and dropped her melon.  It was tragic!

The next morning, we went to an open house at the Bloomington Public Works with our friends, Jack and Annalee.  The open house was fantastic.  There were big trucks and tractors to see and even sit in.  We were also able to ride in a snow plow, which Owen and Maren are still talking about.  

Checking out the trucks!

After the open house, we all went out to lunch, where Owen and Annalee bonded while watching cars out the window.  It was adorable!

Finally, on Sunday, Josh, Owen, Maren and I went to the Gluten-Free Food Fest to get some new ideas for Maren.  It was a great event.  Maren loved all of the samples and one-one-one time with mommy and daddy.  Owen was able to spend the morning playing and baking with Grandma Colleen.  

Miss Maren checking out a new cookie.  She generally doesn't like sweets, but she was impressed by Trader Joe's Snickerdoodles. 

Maren scored a free bag of chips!  

Do NOT ask her to share!

At some point over the weekend, we also tried out our new popsicle mold and walked to a park near our house.

Owen is going through a fun little phase in which he will only eat fruits and veggies in smoothies and, now, popsicles.  Whatever works!  

Both kiddos wanted to hold my hand while walking home from the park. It was pretty sweet!

And, finally, Uncle Eric threw a washcloth at Maren, and it was the funniest thing ever!

Toddlers Are Funny

Owen and Maren make us laugh every day.  Yes, they throw tantrums and whine every day, too, but at least they're funny!

Here are a few of the funny things I've remembered to write down:

Are you a twin?

Maren: “No, I’m a girl.”

Who is the prettiest girl in the world?

Maren: “Maren!”

Who is the smartest girl in the world?

Maren: “Owen!”

Maren screaming for her sunglasses in the car and finding out I can't reach them for her.

Maren: “But, I’m weawwwy bwiind!” (really blind)

Me attempting to make Owen earn his dessert by counting, "1 2 3 4. . . What comes next?"

Owen: Cookie!
Maren: No, 5! (shaking her head)

Me trying to distract two crabby kids, so I can change diapers and put their shoes on.

"Let’s get ready to go see Uncle Eric, or is it Uncle Poop, Uncle Toot (yes, bathroom humor works!)

Maren: (Looking at baby gate) Uncle Gate! (hysterical laughter)

Owen: Uncle Winow (Window) (more laughing - these two totally get each other,)

Owen mashing buttons on the remote control and glaring at the TV.

"Come ON, TV!" (I feel his pain!)

Maren is clearly a bigger talker than Owen.  Owen is generally too busy to sit and chat.  He has work to do!  This little man loves jobs, clearing the table, helping with dishes, cleaning up the yard with daddy, but his favorite is throwing laundry down the laundry chute.  He could do this for hours!

Little Miss Maren's favorite word the last couple of weeks is beautiful, and she has an adorable way of pronouncing it. I've been trying to get it on video for awhile, but every time she sees my phone, she wants to see pictures and videos of herself on my phone.

A Post All About Maren

Way back in March, we found out this cool little chick has some food allergies and sensitivities.  Since she's been about three weeks old, constipation has been a constant issue.  When it led to an emergency room visit complete with x-rays and an enema, we decided to have her tested for food allergies.  We had already reduced the amount of dairy in her diet and made sure she was eating a lot of fruit and fiber.  Clearly, we were missing something, and I was going to lose it if one more doctor mentioned feeding her fruits that start with "P."  Yep, we've tried that!  In the end, we found out Miss Maren is allergic to eggs, peanuts, cow's milk and sesame seeds. It turns out that this sounds a lot worse than it actually is. The peanut allergy is really mild and since she has never had a reaction to peanut butter, she is still able to have this.  She has always refused eggs in all forms, so this wasn't a big loss for her. We have, however, removed dairy from her diet and will obviously avoid introducing sesame seeds.  We were surprised to find that her tests also revealed a high sensitivity to wheat.  She is not allergic to wheat, but our pediatrician recommended we eliminate this from her diet, as well, since we had already significantly reduced the amount of dairy in her diet without any results.  

Maren has been doing really well with her dairy- and wheat-free diet.  She is a good little eater, who thankfully is willing to try new foods.  Her new diet (combined with Miralax) has her pooping daily.  Believe it or not, we tried Miralax before changing her diet, as well, and it didn't really produce results.  Our biggest obstacle now is getting this girl to drink!  She took the complete loss of milk the hardest and hasn't warmed up to any of the milk alternatives.   We are working on making water fun for her (new cups, straws, adding flavor) since that's all she will drink right now.   

It is recommended that we re-test in about a year.  Hopefully, with the elimination diet, we will see different results next time and be able to re-introduce some foods.  

In the meantime, Maren seems more comfortable and is happy with her new "special" foods, and we're just happy to have some answers and a plan moving forward.  

Easter

Easter this year was a quiet day at home.  The kids enjoyed finding their Easter Baskets and then hiding eggs filled with dog food for Cooper to find.  That was certainly Owen's favorite part of the day.  He would feed Cooper all day every day if we let him.  We had all planned to go play with some bunnies at an event near our home that afternoon, but Owen was a little under the weather and ended up taking a longer nap than expected.  Maren and Daddy were still able to visit the bunnies, though. 

Reading books from the Easter Bunny

This was supposed to be a picture of both kids with their Easter Baskets. 

The Easter Bunny also brought umbrellas. 

Maren and Daddy meeting some bunnies. (Thank you to Laura for the pictures!)

Late last week a cold hit our house, which resulted in a lot of this. . .  

The silver lining is that Owen and Maren tried popsicles for the first time and are big fans!