Pump-It-Up

Today Madeline and Mommy met our Tuesday playgroup at Pump-It-Up in Eden Prairie. This place has tons of fun things to do! All kinds of huge bouncers to jump in, inflatable walls to climb and slides to go down. Mom remembered the camera but it was out of battery power :-( Good thing Birgitta remembered hers and captured a few shots with Madeline in them :-)
Here is one with Madeline and Kevin giving Michael a ride in a car... and here's another with Madeline & Michael throwing balls around inside one of the big jumpers. Despite the grumpy look on Madeline's face in these pictures she had a blast :-)

KidCreate Art Studio

Since cold weather has settled in here in the Great White North, Madeline and mommy have had to give up their park time and find other things to keep them active and entertained... One of our MeetUp.com* groups (The Mother's Connection Group) has a playgroup for kids Madeline's age and under that meets every Tuesday. We've went to story time at Barnes & Noble, goofed around at the indoor play area inside the Mall, attended Tot-Time and the Rec. Center and today we went to this great place called KidCreate Art Studio. Here the kids listened to stories about art and got to create all kinds of neat projects - and all the mess stayed there!!!

They always start of with storytime, then the kids wander around to different art stations..
Madeline made bubble art, painted with powder, dyed a coffee filter, got all full of glitter, and made some very pretty designs with bubble wrap and roller brushes. When everyone was done creating we cleaned up and listened to one more story. What a great way to spend the morning!

*We've found that MeetUp.com is a great place to find other groups of families that are getting out and doing all sorts of fun things. All you have to do is put in your zip code and do a search for Family, Moms, Dads or Kids. We've met all kinds of new people and explored all kinds of new places we never even knew were right outside our door! Check it out if you're looking for something new for the family to do :-)

http://www.meetup.com

Halloween at the Zoo!

Earlier this summer we became members of the Minnesota Zoo. They host a members only HallZOOween event and we decided that this would be great for us (since we are still living in an apartment and they weren't sponsoring any kind of Trick-or-Treating). It was perfect! Madeline absolutely LOVED wearing her Monkey costume and fit right in with all of the animals. We walked along the different indoor trails and collected treats along the way. Madeline even got to touch a few of the creatures they had on display :-) They only let 2000 people in and the whole event was indoors - except for the scarecrow viewing. We can't wait to come back next year!

Pumpkin Carving

Tonight we carved the pumpkin we got at Emma Krumbees. Mommy got it started and wanted Madeline to help her dig out all of the seeds. After one handful Madeline was done, claiming it was too "googly" in there! Instead she did a "googly" dance while mommy finished cleaning out the seeds. Daddy did the actual carving and Madeline helped him push in the cut out pieces. We had a ton of fun and were pretty proud of our finished pumpkin!!!

Landscaping and Pumpkin Picking!

We went to Grandma Judy's again today to help her with some landscaping. Madeline thought digging in the dirt and carrying rocks was so fun! We finished up a lot earlier than we expected to in the afternoon so we went to Emma Krumbees for their annual scarecrow festival. We saw all the scarecrows, fed the goats, went down the big green slide, played on all of the fun toys, rode a train, climbed a haystack, took a hayride, picked pumpkins and apples and played along with the band!So much to do!
We took a ton of pictures - the rest of our collection can be found on our Shutterfly account :-)

Fall at Grandma Judy's

Madeline and Mommy went down to spend a few days with Grandma Judy since Daddy was on a business trip and Grandma had a long weekend away from school. We were very fortunate to have yet another beautiful fall day. We had so much fun playing outside! Later on we drove down to Saint Peter to see Aunt Melanie at college and take her out for dinner. These two always have so much fun when they're together :-)

Painting at Grandma Judy's

Another trip to Grandma Judy's and this time Madeline broke out the paint pens she got from Dave. She had a blast and Grandma got lots of new art for her refrigerator :-)

Snack time!

Madeline and Mommy were sharing some crackers on the couch today and Daddy thought it would be a good time to snap a couple pictures...

Just Another Bath Picture...

It's been a while since we captured Madeline post bath, but her running around in her favorite froggy towel was just too cute to pass up this time :-)