Visiting Old Papa

We had such a great weekend up in Grand Forks, visiting Henry's Old Papa - Phil's Grandpa, and his Great Uncle Matt.  We can't say Thank You enough to Grandpa and Uncle Matt for the wonderful hospitality and phenomenal grilled meat, of course!  There's never a shortage of good eats when visiting those two :)

There was lots of "elk" talk going on all weekend (and well after we got back home too).....

.....first up, checking out pictures of the big elk hunt

.....and finally, getting close enough the pet the big 'ol elk that Grandpa has mounted on his wall.  What a site for Henry!  He had to eat his lunches/snacks facing the elk, couldn't get enough!

This guy really is amazing!  Who has an Old Papa that still gets on the floor to play?!  Old Papa even sent Henry home with a few toys, a new CAT bulldozer (which he played with non-stop, inside and out, all weekend) and the choo-choo train that you see here, too kind of him!

Cheers!  (or Prost!, whichever you choose)  

I have to say, Henry really was a good little boy for his Old Papa, busy yes, but very sweet.  He would stop dead in his running tracks to give his Old Papa and Great Uncle Matt lots of hugs throughout the weekend (ok, so after one hug, he maybe looked like he was going to try to snap Old Papa's suspenders, luckily we were there to intervene, the boy just couldn't resist I guess).

Henry and I had to make a few stops on campus (to stock up on Sioux gear), oh how I miss Grand Forks, I really did love going to school there.  

Mama spent "too many" (in Henry's words) hours studying in this building over the years. 

What's that Henry, you're a Sioux fan now?  I always knew you would be!  

Can you believe we even talked Daddy, the MN Gopher, into getting a Sioux shirt?  Can't wait for him to sport that!

Minnesota Zoo

Henry and I, along with Auntie Sonja, made our first trip to the Minnesota Zoo last week.  It was a hot one out there, but we got there right when they opened and left before lunch time, not too terribly busy at all, good times!

Oooohhh, the big buffalo, just like in J-town, right?! 

Not sure what we're looking at here, in fact, wasn't really sure what we were looking at 90% of the time, just some neat looking animals!

Penguins (of some sort), I do know this!

The aquarium was my favorite part, the bright colors were just beautiful, very pretty to look at!

Who wouldn't want to ride on a fox?!

And the highlight of the day.....a tractor, LOVED it!

Woah, up close and personal with the goats.  Yes, we scrubbed our shoes really good when we got home after visiting the goats :)

Like I said, it was a hot one out there, so unfortunately some of the animals were hiding in the shade.  Henry did manage to fake some people out, though, with his "animal sightings."  When there would be a group of people standing around trying to find one of the lions, or horses, or something else, Henry would say he saw it "way, way, way over dare" and everybody would look that way, hoping to catch a glimpse :)  

Let the games begin!

The Red Balloon

Henry and Owen had an intellectual play-date last week when we went to check out The Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul!  We had plans to be there for toddler story-time, but unfortunately it was cancelled because the girl who leads story-time was ill, bummer :(  We still managed to have a fun morning, and snuck over to Bread & Chocolate for a treat beforehand, (a freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookie with icing, yes, still warm, mmmmmm, delicious)!

reading up on our construction books.....

.....and waving our red balloons around :)

(As we were trying to get a picture of the two of them here, Owen's Mommy, Lisa, said, "I wish I could get a picture that wasn't so blurry."  Geez, I have no idea how a picture of the wild man would be blurry, do you?)

"I see man working way, way, way over dare"

I hear this come out of his mouth many, many, many times a day 

(pointing towards the construction site across the street)!

Henry's matchbox cars are getting awfully dirty, as he plays with them non-stop!  So, we had a car wash outside to clean them up.

The car wash soon became a tractor wash and a trailer wash and pretty much an anything-with-wheels wash :) 

Clean enough, now onto hauling rocks.

Aaaahhhh, what a pretty site.....a construction site, that is!

As 5pm was nearing, the "men working" started driving away one by one.  At first, Henry was waving at each one with a big smile on his face, being oh so polite as usual.  Unfortunately, this smile turned into one big frown when the last car took off for the day :(   

"More lummer (lumber), more pouning (pounding), more dumpin dirt!"  Poor baby was so sad when their work was done for the day :(  Thank goodness they'll be back tomorrow for another day at work: ) 

Happy Sunday!

rainy day = indoor play

Once again, I was perusing Pinterest and found an activity for a rainy day - bathtub paint made of shaving cream and food coloring!  We had to bust this one out when we couldn't head outside to play, per our usual AM protocol :)

We had a slip-n-slide going by the time we were done!

The final product, isn't it so pretty?!

Family Fun Night (Blaine Style)

The Blaine Parks & Rec Department sure put on one heck of a Family Fun Night, Henny was pumped for "fun night" (in a really loud voice) all day!  The night was complete with fire trucks, big inflatables, games, food, and don't forget the hot & steamy weather!  

He was all business on the fire truck, but did manage to sneak in a smile here (let's hope the sign right next to Henry that read "Electrocution Hazard - Keep Clear" is just a scare tactic)!

Next up, the slide.  Henry didn't really know how to do this one at first.  We kept telling him to follow the other little boy in front of him.  So, he managed to crawl up the ladder all by himself, but was NOT a happy camper once he got to the top :(

Mama had to crawl up there and send him down, and of course once he got to the bottom, "more, more."  

The games reminded us all of a Jamestown event as we were reminiscing :)  

The Cat in the Hat  

Plinko

The sucker game

Onto the main event for Henry, the inflatable obstacle course.  He had to go through this one 3 times, couldn't get enough!  

Thank goodness Oma was there to catch him as he came sprinting out at the end!

The hot dog he got for dinner there just wasn't enough, and we all had to stop at McDonald's on the way home for a "hamabur and fa-fies" to top off a super fun Family Fun Night!

"Henny do it"

"Henny (aka Henry) do it" is a phrase I've been hearing quite a bit from my Mr. Independent little 2-year-old lately!  Here we are at the library the other day,  Henny has to check out his own books now!  They have this cute step-stool there for all the little Henny's to do it themselves :)

Along with many trips to the beach lately, we've also been lucky enough to get some good pool-swimming in (I do love a good pool date, as then I'm not cleaning sand out of every crevasse imaginable on my little wild man).  Our good friend, Miss Meghann had us over last week and today we headed down to Eagan to swim in Auntie Sonja's pool.   

"Henny do it" - did NOT want any help from Mama when jumping in the pool today!

Funny story.....

This boy has some specific music tastes lately.  On our way down to Sonja's pool today, as I was flipping through the radio stations, KDWB was playing "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" by The Backstreet Boys!  Not really sure why they were playing it, but man was I pumped!  As I was singing along, probably doing the actions too, and reminiscing back to my college days (yes, my girlfriends and I tye-dyed shirts for their Black & Blue Tour, and I'm pretty sure we bedazzled them somehow too), the boy in the back seat was not a fan one bit, saying "no, no, no, no" in disagreement.  NOT a fan of the Backstreet Boys, his Daddy would be so happy.  Phil would like to think Henry's a Pearl Jam fan, but I think he has a little thing for country music, just like his Mama!

"I play outside"

Henry, what do you want to do today?  "I play outside" is the response I get every single time.  The boy loves the great outdoors.  

We had another fun play-date with Henry's buddy, "Oweeeeee", this week.  First, we busted out the water table.  Fill and dump and fill and dump!  They also worked on rescuing those animals from the ice block again.  

As a side note, later that same day, Henry played in the water table for 2 straight hours (while the Krump/Richter adults enjoyed Happy Hour on the deck), barely stopping to grab a bite of a snack every now and then.  I've never seen him work on one activity for that long, ever!  Sooooo busy, really interested in spinning that water mill now :)  

As another side note (related to the spinning), he was opening and closing all the drawers in our bathroom when I was getting ready the other morning when he noticed the track that the drawer sits on and turns as the drawer moves in and out.  Well, he was very interested in figuring out how that thingamajig worked, saying "turn and turn and turn" as he watched it move.  The boy loves to figure out the mechanics of it all!

  After drying off, it was time to make some Jello Jigglers (thank you to Oma for her recipe circa 1990 - I didn't know you needed a special recipe to make the jello jiggle, I thought all jello would jiggle, where have I been?).

Today, I had some colored ice cubes ready to go (surprise, it's hot out again).  Unfortunately, the only food coloring I've been able to find in my cupboard lately has been yellow, green, and blue (where did the red go, it's driving me crazy), so as we all know that yellow + blue = green, everything ends up being green!  Luckily, we picked up some neon food coloring today at Target, so we can spice up the colors of our projects!  

This was way fun.....chucking the ice cubes into the pool and making them splatter!

We literally walked into the garage to grab this little scooper for Henry, came out and the pool was gone, I couldn't find it anywhere.  We were literally in the garage for 10 seconds!  With a little bit of breeze, the pool flew up in the air, across the street, and got stuck in the middle of the empty lot.  Henry didn't like that too much :(

Looks appetizing apparently, must taste it too!

Like every activity we do outside, our attention goes to the dump truck in the end!