Mother's Day 2011

What a wonderful Mother's Day weekend we had!
The weekend started with the kindergarten Mother's Tea....with my "baby (girl)" Ava! She was so excited for the event. We had a our sitter come early and we went out on a lunch date to Noodles prior to kindergarten. Even the server at Noodles noticed that we were short a little person and asked Ava what the occasion was!

Then, off to kindergarten where the kids sang their hearts out, blessed the moms with gifts, and we all enjoyed yummy treats. Mrs. DeYoung even made my absolute favorite dessert, Raspberry Oatmeal Squares, which she had made and then found out they were my favorite! :)

To hear some of the precious songs, click here for:
I'll Never Give Up
I Love You (from Psalty the Singing Songbook!)
I Am Lovable (Learned the 1st day of kindergarten...they know this one WELL!)
I Love You This Much (they kiddos sign part of this book, it is precious!)

Then, on the actual Mother's Day, we headed up to:

Have we ever mentioned how much we love Door County? It was marvelous!
Of course, we made an early stop at Sweetie Pies....advertising compliments of Colin:

and had a blast enjoying the warm spring sunshine as we went to the candy store, a few "mom stores", and then to "Not Licked Yet" Ice Cream Shop to see the fish swim...(more on that later)

Andy was so sweet to happily stop at every "mom store" that I wanted to check out! One store even had this gigantic mural on the side of it for kids to color! Brilliant! The kids even had a blast while I shopped!

While we were browsing 1 of the stores, it got VERY quiet. I said to Andy "WHERE are the kids?"...and as we walked through the store, we found all 4 of them sitting watching a nature documentary! (upper left photo just below)

Colin played "hide in the hay" with Andy while we checked out a cute store...

The girls pondered what type of ice cream to order at Wilson's Ice Cream...

And we even got Andy to pose in the wooden creatures....

Below you will see a photo of the fish swimming against the current in Fish Creek! We were leaving Sweetie Pies and the owner came out and asked us if we saw the fish swim yet! It was very neat to see the fish trying to go against the current and there was a bonus...at this location, there was lots of sand (which Colin loved) and a huge jungle gym for the kids to burn off their energy before heading home. It was a beautiful day with the family.

We've been going to Door County for 5 years now...and have never heard of this "watch the fish swim upstream" thing. Among the many people watching the fish, no one seemed to know WHY they were doing it...and a quick google search indicated that numerous bodies of water in WI have this occur in the spring time when the fish spawn! You learn something every day...or every trip to Door County! :)

Last Minute Weekend Plans!

Did you know how much we love Door County?
This last weekend, we made an impromptu day trip to DC and had an amazing day. The weather was wonderful, Sweetie Pies had the "right" pie available, the girls got to swim in Lake Michigan and we made many great family memories.

Above is the picture from our 2nd stop....the 1st stop was to one of my favorite stores, The Lang Store in Sturgeon Bay. We ALL always go in to shop.... "OK girls...what are the rules? No running, no touching, stay by mommy and daddy...." and this time, guess what the clerk said when we were browsing the store?: "Are you the family from Appleton?!" I have no idea WHY they would remember our large family with 3 girls and 1 "poor" boy....

But back to the first picture: Ava is my pie girl...and I think the upper pictures tell it all--she was in heaven with her piece of cherry pie. The big girls? They were happy to just be out of the van and able to run around the Settlement Shops' grass.

Our original plan was this: Katie and Ava get out for pie; Andy feeds Colin his lunch in the van. Well....Katie and Ava were about 10 feet away from the van when we heard "Wait Mom! I'm coming too!" (Jayna) We made it another 10 feet and "Guys wait! I want to come too!" (Ellie) and then as we were getting our pie...."Girls, why don't you invite Daddy to feed Colin by us?!?!?!"....and hence, the photo sequence of Colin eating was created! Colin is quite obsessed with berries....I have no idea where that obsession comes from...

After our pie fix, we traveled into Fish Creek....another "given" when we go to DC: The Candy Store. However, as we parked the van, Jayna spotted these MASSIVE turtles....with a massive price tag as well! $900 for the lovely little yard ornament she is kneeling next to!

The girls by the geranium flowers was SUPPOSED to be all 4 children....instead, it was just the girls and Colin's displeasure with the photo shoot provided much entertainment to all who were hanging out near the candy store!

Colin fell in love with the Sesame Street stuffed characters in the candy store--we have no idea how he knows them--he's never seen the show! We did find ourselves caving and buying him his very own cuddly Grover....

We were also trying to find the sand dunes....again, we didn't really succeed. I guess we'll have to go back another day! We made our first water stop at the caves. This time, the water was still freezing, but it was enjoyable to be splashing down by the waves. It was very comical to see the big waves just appear at the girls' legs and see their reactions.

After the fun walking around the caves, we entered the state park...to find the dunes...we did find a beach, and we told the girls they could stand in the water. It was like ice cubes....freezing! The girls would try to stand in it and quickly run out. And all of a sudden, there was Jayna--WAY out standing in the Lake! (see upper left photo) The girls had a blast swimming in their clothes and making sand castles...what a memory!

On Sunday, after naps, we made our first trip to the Neenah fountains. Ellie woke up in the morning and said "Well....it's Sunday, and we ALWAYS go to the fountains on Sundays!" We went and enjoyed the water and had a (windy) picnic up on top of the pavilion. The girls mainly had the fountains to themselves and enjoyed running and splashing through the water.

After a couple of hours, Colin discovered another new love: crawling on cement. His legs look horrible and he is not fazed by the scraping of his skin. I think he is trying to set a record for "oldest crawler"....

And speaking of Colin....here he is experiencing the fountains for the first time--he didn't love it so much (left photo) but grew to love them (right photo). And how about his snazzy shirt?!?!??!

Memorial Day in Door County....

We took a day trip to Door County yesterday--it was supposed to be nice and warm(ish)....or so we thought looking at the weather forecast....more on THAT later!

All in all, it was a great day--we got up to Door County in a little over 1 hour--amazing record speed! And not speeding! Since we had last gone up, some new roads have been opened (we think!) and that minimized the 2 lane slow traffic! We started our stops at the Lang Store in Sturgeon Bay...Katie especially loves that store. Interestingly enough, the same nice ladies were working...and after they commented on the nice family we have (was that a nice way to say BIG family?!??!), the one lady came over to me and said "You really do have nice children--I remember you from the last time you were here!" In later pictures, you'll want to take notice of the girls' new shoes--from the Lang Store, of all places. They thought they were NOT getting new crocs this year....but we caved....

It seems that every trip we take now involves musical carseats! This time, we pulled over just outside of Green Bay to move Ava to the back and Jayna up by Colin. The music was too loud for Jayna in the back...and she enjoyed being able to play with and make Colin laugh for the rest of the trip! Thank goodness for booster seats that make for quick carseat switches!


It was so cute--I turned around at one point, only to catch Ellie and Ava holding hands! Ava was scared watching a certain part of Strawberry Shortcake and Ellie told her that she would hold her hand to make her not scared! Awwwww....

Our big "new" stop in Door County this time was Whitefish Dunes State Park, which is on the opposite side of the Door County Penninsula than the places we usually frequent. Our goal was to experience the caves as well as the sand dunes. Apparently the state park has the biggest sand dunes in Wisconsin! We never did find the sand dunes and we saw just a little of the 'caves'....because it was FREEZING!!!!!!!!!!!! We had left our jackets at home, thinking that a little sweatshirt would be FINE if the weather was around 60 degrees. Right. No so true on the coast of Lake Michigan! The wind was whipping, the water was ice cold...but it was BEAUTIFUL! Ellie actually forgot her sweatshirt, but thankfully "Always Prepared for Everything" Jayna had brought along her sweatshirt AND jacket...so Ellie enjoyed wearing the too small pink jacket for warmth!

This picture is of Andy and the girls standing up on the rocks--the literature we had read online mentioned to be very careful of young children at this park...the drop offs are very steep and slippery--I was paranoid about snapping a photo of just the children with the slippery rock and the whipping wind!


Here the children are a little lower, in an area that wasn't quite so windy. Colin obviously was not interested in the photo shoot!


The entire family!


Katie and children hiding behind the rock...hiding from the wind, that is!!!!


The girls found a part of a cave where they could 'hide'....and have an adventure!


Jayna, being a trooper---she was FREEZING and was ready to leave about 2 minutes into our stop at this location!


Ava.


3 girls walking back to the place where we could climb up to get to our warm van. Funny thing....our van was parked at the top of all of these rocks and it was actually warm outside our van--it was just on the water that it was so windy and cold! We ended up having a nice picnic lunch outside without shivering!


Ellie the adventure-loving girl. She actually got her feet wet, even though it was so cold!


3 girls peeking down at Lake Michigan--we decided that we'll come back to explore more on a sweltering hot day....it won't be so hot at Whitefish Dunes State Park!

After our experience there, we drove over to the other side of Door County and made 2 quick stops--the candy store and.....Sweetie Pies (of course!). It was a fun day!