Beep Beep

Southdale's Grand Reopening

Southdale put on a great party for the kids for their grand reopening.  They had a great balloon artist, Curious George and Clifford, Radio Disney and of course a Bounce House.  Caswell had so much running all around.  As part go their updating they put in a wonderful indoor play area for kids.  

 Caswell ended up picking out a balloon crab.  

 Taking a snack break from all the fun

 On the go again

Giving Curious George a big hug

Playing at the Corn Maze 2013

What a beautiful day to hang out and play at Severs Corn Maze.  I was so excited that we met Cassie, Jr and B out there.  The boys had fun together.  They have so many activities to do and see.  Lucky for us Caswell still gets in for free.  

 Caswell blended in a little with the pumpkins. 

 Caswell and Brandon playing on the BIG tire mountain. 

Pulling on Babe the Blue Ox.  This set up was pretty cute.   

Fun time bouncing on the big pillows.  

Caswell had a great time jumping and running around in the corn pit.  I even joined him in there.  

Waiting for the piggies to race.  

Go piggies Go! 

Caswell crawled under then over the big rope Spider web and made it to the center. 

Caswell hit the bullseye on his first shot.  

I am not sure what these 2 were saying to each other but they on the same page over something.  

This was too cute.  You could only see the top of Caswell's head bouncing up and down as he ran thru this little hay maze. Daddy and Caswell ran and jumped around over the top.  

Getting lost in the big corn maze.  

Eeek!  Look what we found in the maze.  

Fun on the tractors!

Just love this picture.  A great way to capture the fall.  

The End - heading out w/Daddy.  

Caswell and I also went down the giant slide twice (no pics taken).  It was a blast at the maze today. 

Big Yellow School Bus Ride

Caswell and I recently joined an ECFE class w/the Bloomington/Richfield school district.  I heard about their Parent Advisory Council so attended their 1st meeting of the school year.  It is a great group.     I plan on joining and helping out as much as I can.  They were requesting volunteers to be in the Heritage Days Parade coming up.  ECFE was working with the transportation department and said we could ride on the school bus during the parade.  Caswell has been asking to ride a bus for a while now. When I told him we were going to go to school for a night every week he asked if he got to ride a bus to school.  He was bummed I told him he gets to ride with mama.  Of course the first night we pull up to school, there is a big bus in the parking lot and Caswell asked if that was there for him.  So of course I jumped at the opportunity to be in the parade and ride on the big yellow school bus.  

A little more about ECFE - Caswell's friend Axel has been going to an ECFE class with his mom since he was really little.  Kara has always talked really highly about the program and how much Axel likes it.  Since preschool is around the corner, I thought it would be a good idea for Caswell to get involved in something like this.  We go Monday nights to a Parent and Child class.  It is for a couple hours in the evening.  The nights usually start out playing outside in the park, then we go inside and the kids stay down in the classroom with the teachers and aides and the parents go to another room.  The kids get to have some structure play and snack.  It is super cute when we get back the kids are all sitting down around the little classroom tables eating snack.   Caswell always shouts out "Hi Mama" when I get back in the room.  The first night I was not sure how it was going to go when I told him I was going away for a little while and he turned to me and said "Bye Mama".  Of course it made me a little sad but was happy he was OK with it.   I am so darn proud him.  The parents talk about all different topics and of course get snack too.  After we join the kids again we typically have circle time (welcome song and singing) and then complete an activity they have planned for us.  Caswell has colored some pictures, made a ladybug and decorated an apple.  I will need to take pics of them to capture them.  After our activity we all go down to the muscle room (aka partially padded room so the kids can run and play, jump, slide and climb) and then it is time to go home.   We have been 3 nights so far and LOVE it.  

Here is Caswell waiting for the school bus to get here.  

It was fun to see the line up of all the parade floats. 

The other kids parents were off the bus and the kids were waving and yelling hi to them so Caswell told me I had to get off the bus (assuming so he could do the same).  I snapped a few pics of one of the only times he will be able to hang out of a buses window.

We had lots of fun on the parade.  Daddy rode his bike over there to wave hi to us.  Nana and Bumpa also came to see Caswell on the big yellow school bus.  We also got to see Caswell's friend Axel and his mom and dad.  Next year we plan on watching the parade.  The kids got TONS of loot.  It was a great fall day for a parade.  Caswell also made a new friend on the bus.  Hopefully we will see him at other ECFE events.  The next one is their Halloween party.

Fun in the Dells 2013

As always we had the best weekend in the Dells.  It goes by way too fast.  There is always so much to see and do.  We started out with our usual Friday night fish fry with a few of our cousins.   We hung out around the hotel on Saturday, played some games and went for a fun little hayride around the grounds.  We shopped at the outlet center and had a good lunch out.  That evening we went and played in the water park.  Sunday we made it to the parade and played again in the water park.  

Uncle Stevie and Caswell always have fun jumping and tumbling around the hotel room.  

 

Here is Caswell dunkin' w/"Uncle Todd" (mama's cousin).  

On Sunday we woke up to rain and I was just like a little kid and kept watching out the window hoping the rain would end.  It finally looked like it had stopped as people were not rushing to the cars anymore and dodging the rain.  We drove to the parade and parked back where the floats were all lining up.  We got a sneak peak up and close.

Here are the boys waiting for the parade to start.  We got front row seats.  It sprinkled very little.  I did not seem to care I was just excited we did not have to miss the parade.   

Caswell had fun waving at everyone.  

I laughed when I saw the side of this bands float.  I told everyone i'll put them on my blog to help make them famous.  

Ready, Set, Go - the sausages were about to race.  

After the parade we went to a place called knuckleheads which was like Chuck E Cheese on steroids.  Caswell had lots of fun running all around and even Daddy joined him.  

As you can see by the tickets we played LOTS of games.  

Caswell was pretty pooped out by the time we got back after the parade and playing around.