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Rivers and Puddles

We've had a lot of rain this spring.  It's pretty much been cold and wet all the time.  I took some pictures of the river that is in our back yard recently but it was raining so hard I had to take them from inside through a window.  Please excuse their quality.

There's normally no river there!

Esme loves running around in the puddles though. For her this seems to be great weather.

In this last picture I asked her if her feet were cold and she put her arms together and said Brrrr... but that no she wasn't cold.

Weight Watchers 5K

Molly and Mary and I did the WW 5K this year.  We got matching t-shirts and everything!  It was a pretty low key walk, raining and lots and lots of people there.  We had a great time visiting and I learned a lot from Miss Mary regarding my play area idea.

The guy that stopped to take our picture had lost 100.6 pounds!

And here is why we haven't lost 100 lbs.  Because after the walk, we went to Scusi for brunch.  Mary works for the company that owns this restaurant and so she suggested the menu.  It was fabulous to say the least.  We had ricotta pancakes, awesome sliders (mini burger tre), smoked gouda hash browns and a breakfast pizza.  We shared all of them and it was just the right amount of food to split.

 Thanks girls for a great morning!

Farmer's Market

Papa and Mamoo are here and Esme loves it.  This morning we went to the farmer's market in Minneapolis.  It's nice to go on a Friday because there aren't that many people there.  The bedding plants and hanging baskets are all there, but not all the other weekend stuff.  It's a lot more laid back.  AND we got to park super close!!!

Mamoo and Papa found some good stuff!

And afterwards there was licorice and relaxation.

Guess you can't guess what they're watching???

Tired girl

This weekend Esme was kind of a bear, ok she was really a bear.  I actually wrote on Facebook that she was officially terrible even though she's not officially two until next month.  Her nose was a little runny and I thought maybe that had something to do with it.  She also didn't have a nap for 2 days.  But really I think it's just her age.  Her emotions are so pure and unfiltered right now.  If you push her chair into the wrong place, she cries huge crocodile tears like you just took her best friend away.  But when I get home from work she runs across the yard to give me a great big hug and kiss.  Whatever she's feeling at the moment, she's going to let everyone know about it and not hold anything back.  I can't believe that I actually love it (for the most part, I'm not completely oblivious to the tantrums).  I never thought I would feel that way about any child throwing a tantrum or being a little snot.  I guess things change!

Anyway... bedtime is normally 7:30, but lately she pushes it and we usually leave her room between 8:00 and 8:30.  Last night I took her upstairs around 7pm and she was out cold by 7:30.  This morning was Monday so she got to sleep in a bit.  Around 8am I heard her talking and went to quickly take a shower before she was ready to get up.  When I got out of the shower I heard nothing from her room and when I peaked in she was snoring away.  I enjoyed the quiet morning for awhile and then I started to get nervous because she was still not making a sound.  I checked on her every half hour and she was completely out (but definitely breathing).  Then I finally decided it was time to go in and get her up.  It was 12:30 and my imagination started getting away from me and I decided  that when I'd been checking on her I was just looking into her room, but not really going in and that wasn't good enough.  What if she had a fever or something like that and I had been missing it.  So I went upstairs in a hurry all of a sudden, but when I got there she was sitting in her crib talking and playing.

Apparently she needed some sleep!  Once she finally got up, she was in a great mood.  She still wore her heart on her sleeve all day and I don't know that that's going to change any time soon.  But hopefully she'll be a little less crabby than she was this weekend.

Not quite...

Esme has two tricycles.  She hasn't quite figured out how to pedal yet.  I guess this works for now. :)

One extreme to the next

This MN weather is crazy!  We've had a completely cold and rainy spring but today it was super hot and muggy.  Just icky out.  When I was driving home from work my car said that it was 92 degrees!

Remember just a few short days ago?  Now look at Esme!

Sorry these are a little blurry (and this time they really are).  I'm still learning the camera.  But she's so dang cute!

It was hot enough and muggy enough weather that there was actually a tornado in St. Michael.  I was taking some pictures of the fabulous clouds and then after we went in and put Esme to bed the sirens went off.  We looked outside and decided not to wake Esme up to go to the basement.  But apparently when they blow the tornado siren, they're not kidding! :)  (I did already know that btw)

Welcome to summer????

Esme's first eye exam

Today I took Esme in for her first eye exam.  And no, I didn't do it myself.  There was no way I was going to put those nasty drops in her eyes.  Besides, I was too busy being a mom to be an optometrist!  Look how big she looks in the chair.  She's such a little girl now and I still think of her as my baby.

It turns out that the drops did not even phase her a bit.  No kidding, not one tear.  It must have been Melissa's great technique!  It also turns out that she's about plano OU right now.  So she should be a relatively boring myope like Mom and Dad.  Nothing wrong with that!

How sweet is this?

This evening was a quiet one at our house. After going to Annika's First Communion and spending the afternoon at the Erickson's house, Esme was beat.  She was taking a really late nap and was up in her crib sleeping and Aaron and I were laying around in the living room not doing much of anything when the doorbell rang.  When I got there, there was no one there.  But I looked down and found a note on the step.

It was so cute!  Nathan and Zac live next door and they had been playing with Esme a couple of days ago.  She and Nate had a lot of fun in particular chasing each other around the yard.  Turns out that he was the one who left the note.

We love our neighbors! <3

Noodles!

Once again, I'm cooking from a blog.  This time I decided to make homemade pasta.

I know, crazy?  In my head homemade pasta seemed right up there with croissants as something I would never, ever be able to make.  And besides, regular pasta from a box is so easy.  Furthermore there's really not a lot of taste to pasta anyway right?  Why bother?  So I could say I did it, that's why!

When I started, it was too overwhelming to even think about making a sauce for it.  One thing at a time please!  So I started slowly, by putting everything on the counter that I thought I would need, including coffee for energy, water in case I became dehydrated and ranunculus because if things really got ugly at least I would have something pretty to look at.

As nervous as I was, I kept thinking to myself that there are only three ingredients to this recipe so how hard could it be right?  Turns out - not hard at all.

Look at that color!  I've been getting eggs from a farm nearby and I'm always amazed at the taste and color of these eggs.  I will never buy eggs in a store again.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of myself rolling the pasta out.  I think I was so impressed that I was actually doing it that I couldn't possibly be slowed down to take a photo!  However, this is the final product.

Yaaaayyy!  I was so excited!  I put some of it in the freezer and cooked some.  I served it with roasted tomatoes and garlic, olive oil and parmesan cheese.  It was a-ma-zing.  And so tasty!

Thanks Laurie for yet another wonderful recipe.  I will definitely be making this one over and over again!

Yes it really is May 1st

I've been practicing taking pictures with Aaron's SLR camera.  The pictures are so much nicer than with my little point and shoot and I'm starting to really enjoy it.  Today we were playing outside and I decided to bring out the camera and play with it.  I'm not sure why these photos look kind of fuzzy on the blog because when I look at them on my computer they look clear (BTW if you click on them they are clearer too).

Despite Esme's attire, it really is May 1st in Minnesota.  It's been a crazy spring, not very warm.  I'm actually happy with a lot of these pictures.  Partly because I actually think they turned out pretty well, but also because Esme's really cute in a few of them.  It's getting harder and harder to get good pictures of her these days.  As soon as I bring the camera out, she heads the other direction and turns her back to me.  It appears that she might have a little of Grandma Pearl in her!