Birthday Twins!

It's actually Christmas day that I'm typing this.  I had a semi-quiet moment since everyone is playing with their new toys.  So I thought I might as well work on my blog!

November 11th.
Happy Birthday Isak and Kira!!!  We have SIX year olds!!
The night before, we read them their birth story from our blog.  It was fun to remember it and share it with them.

Noah woke up at 6 a.m.  So I blew up balloons and hung up a birthday banner.  Nels made pancakes for breakfast.  We opened gifts.

We gave them each a card with $6 and we wrote 6 things we love about them in the card.

We gave Isak 2 lego sets and a coloring set.  We gave Kira 1 lego set and a Shopkin's house and a coloring set.

Here's the pirate lego set Isak built and you can see the Shopkin house in the background.

It was Sunday.  So I pampered Kira.  We painted her nails and curled her hair.  She got to wear a new dress and adorable black boots.  I even got to take a quick selfie in the freezing cold with them.

Here's our new six year olds!!

Sofie hopped in one too.

They got a birthday necklace and hat at school.

And even though it's their birthday they still have sad moments...

Church was good and the primary sang to Isak and Kira.  They were so cute.  They just loved the attention.  For dinner...Kira waned quesadillas and Isak wanted a meat and cheese sandwich.  Super easy.  They also wanted rice krispy treats.  So I made them into cakes with frosting and sprinkles.  6 candles on top.

We sang to them and then everyone took turns blowing out the candles.

Even Noah got into it!

Silly kids.  They put their fingers in the frosting and licked their fingers.  They did it over and over.  Haha.  They liked the frosting the most!

I think they had a fun birthday.

Kira loves to read, dance around and make up songs, play the piano, draw/color and build with legos, magna tiles and duplos.

Isak looooooves legos.  He enjoys reading and playing with Kira.  He is a great helper and always wants to do things the right way.  He likes to play his Kindle too.

They are just learning and growing.  It's so fun to be apart of it.

Morton Arboretum

An adventure day.

Nels received free tickets to the Morton Arboretum through his work.   We decided we better hurry and go before it's too cold or snowy.  So November 3 we loaded everyone up to go visit the Arboretum.  When we arrived there was a loooooong line of cars waiting to get in.  We almost left!  But I'm glad we stuck it out.  While we waited in line, I fed the kids lunch in the car.  We finally got parked and were able to explore this cool place.  

It was bring your dog day.  So many dogs.  We counted the dogs.  We officially counted about 60, but we probably saw close to 100!  It was fun to see all the different doggies.  I like them from a distance.  😀

We went to the children's play area first.  There was an awesome maze, some unique children's playground stuff - like climbing on top of an acorn, over tree roots, log houses and musical flowers.

Here's Kira and Sofie running through the maze.

Nels and Noah trailed behind.

Here's a view of the maze.

There was a tree you could climb up so you could look out over the maze and find your way.

That's the lookout tree.

The kids liked the maze.

Here's Kira with the giant water can.  There were just cool things like this scattered throughout the area.

Sofie and Noah fought over this toy.  They did not want to take turns turning it.  Noah was a little possessive.

Just thought this was pretty.

Kira does a pretty good job of watching out and helping Sofie.  

The giant acorn.

Sofie threw two tantrums and was so mad...I don't remember why.

I got a picture with Isak.

Nels "resting."

After the children's area, we went to the visitor center and a person helped us figure out what to do next.  We went to the souvenir shop. I bought a magnet.  I splurged and bought a fancy silver leaf Christmas ornament.  Then we got in the car and drove around the park to find trolls.

We found 3 huge trolls and the troll's hideout.  Here's one of the trolls.

The trolls are huge!

We put all four in the trolls mouth.  I love this pic.  I think it's so funny.

Here's troll number two that we saw.

And troll number 3.

Nels and Noah walking to find the trolls.

We took a short hike to find the troll hideout.

Pretty fun place with a big pot, big house, big spoon and a game and big baskets.

Mmmm, three kids for dinner.  haha.

Isak with the big spoon.

Noah checking out some of the stuff.

Here's the house.  There was a big drum for the kids to bang on.

Here's the story of how the trolls came to be.

Ah! Me and Kira are for dinner.

Then we drove around the loop of the park.  We enjoyed the gorgeous gold leaves!  So perfect.  Some leaves were gently fluttering down.  I loved it.

I'm so glad we got out enjoyed the beauty of the earth.  There was some whining...maybe more than I care to remember, but overall I enjoyed our time out.  Thankfully, the whining and complaining fade to the background of the memory so I remember the beauty and the fun of the adventure.

I think it was a fun place to explore and I would definitely go back to visit again.