June & July

We loved the hotel we got to wake up at on the first day of June. We LOVED getting to swim in the pool. Hannah really made progress in learning to swim and her love of the water. We got up and had a wonderful breakfast of fruit, waffles, toast, juice. It was great! We want to go back to La Quinta again soon! We got to play at the mall and have our hair cut before heading to our friends Monica & Paul's wedding. All of the Divas (mommy's volleyball team) were there. It was fun, though we had to leave early to get home and get to bed.

When we got home, our house smelled terrible! The guys who refinished our floors made them very pretty, but it made our whole house smell bad. We slept upstairs again for a few days. It smelled bad, but not as bad upstairs as it did downstairs.

Another highlight was our last day of school. We've LOVED kindergarten, but now we're ready for summer and then FIRST GRADE! Wow. Mom and Dad can hardly believe that we're going to be first graders.

We got to have a graduation ceremony where Mom & Dad and Grandma & Grandpa came. We wore graduation hats that we made and graduation gowns and got little certificates. After graduation, we went to Dairy Queen to celebrate.

We got good grades all year in school, too. As a reward, Mom & Dad bought us tennis rackets to congratulate us on our hard work.

Mom and Dad kept busy with all they had to get done on the house. We packed a lot of toys, which was disappointing. We'll be so excited to move to a new house and get our toys out of storage!

We were excited to be able to spend the summer at our old daycare again. All our friends are still there - Noah missed not seeing his best friend every day since we went to different schools. And, Hannah says he is her boyfriend. Noah & Hannah both say that Hannah is going to marry Grayson and live next door to Noah when they grow up.

We loved basketball over the winter, so we asked Mom & Dad to sign us up for Hoopstars again. Mr. Basketball is a great coach! This was a smaller group of basketball players, but we really loved getting more attention on our basketball skills.

The week of the fourth of July, our daycare was closed, so we got to go to Grandma & Grandpa's house. It was a fun week! We finally got to hang out with Cheyenne. We've missed her so much since she's been at Grandma & Grandpas. We hung out with Grandma & Grandpa in Madison for a few days, then went to the lake cabin and hung out there. Hannah really enjoyed getting to swim in the lake. Angie taught Noah how to do Sodoku puzzles, so he only wanted to hang out in the house and do puzzle books. We did get him outside to enjoy the lake, though his idea of being outside involved sitting in the shade by the lake doing puzzles.

Despite him telling us that he's an "indoor kid", we did get Noah out on the boat and in the water to have some fun.

While we were at Grandma & Grandpa's for the week, Mommy worked on packing up the house. She moved a lot of boxes to the storage trailer! Daddy was on a mission trip with the church in West Virginia.

We were very excited to welcome Daddy back from his trip to West Virginia! We met him at the church, gave him big hugs and let him know how much we missed him.

We got to enjoy the city pool in July. We love our pool! Noah still likes to hang out in the zero-depth kids area of the pool, but Hannah dared to go into the bigger pool (as long as Mom & Dad were with her.)

We were excited to get to go to Mommy's work picnic. Daddy picked us up and brought us downtown. There was food, golf, a dunk tank (Noah really wanted to do the dunk tank but he saw it too late - he saw it when he was walking out to go home.) We got to watch Mommy win a volleyball tournament against other Lifetouch players. (yay, mommy!) We also got to see a REAL Nascar car, play air hockey and play a little bit of volleyball with Mommy. It was fun!

We also started a new session of tennis. We LOVED our tennis class that we took in April. We love the sport and our coach was awesome! We were hoping that the same coach would be our coach again this time, but we weren't so lucky. There were too many kids in the class, and the coach wasn't very good at working with kids. We still like tennis, but we think a different coach would make it more fun.


Hannah got to go to a Twins game. The neighbors had 2 extra tickets to the Twins game in the TENTH ROW! Hannah went with Mom; Noah was happy to stay home and do puzzles. It was such a fun game! We were really close to Joe Mauer, and Hannah enjoyed being at the game with Griff.

After the game, Daddy picked us up at the field and brought us to a special building where we could watch FIREWORKS. They were REALLY awesome fireworks over the Mississippi river. Daddy brought us popcorn and we ate popcorn while we watched fireworks.

We also got to meet up with Daddy's uncle and cousin and her kids to go bowling one night. We had pizza and bowled with our friends. It was a fun night!

We had our cousins, Lauren & Ben at our house AGAIN this year. That's twice this year! It was a fun weekend since it was also Frolics weekend. We didn't get to see fireworks since we saw them the weekend before, but we loved hanging out with our cousins. We got to go to the firehouse and have waffles on Sunday before we checked out all the fire trucks. We found out Grandpa Mark used to be a fireman, so he showed us around the trucks a little bit.

We'd better run, but we'll try to fill you in about August & September soon! It's crazy how time flies when you are six!

Noah & Hannah

Apple Orchard photos

I know I'm WAY behind on posting blog updates. I hope to catch up soon!
It's been a busy summer - getting our home ready to sell, soccer, tennis, starting first grade.

I had to share our annual trip to the apple orchard photos now, though.

We have updated our photos that we have taken for the past 6 years over MEA weekend in our favorite spot:

Happy Fall!

April & May

It's been a busy few months!
In April, Mom & Dad started working on projects, packing and cleaning to try to sell our house so we can move into a new house. So, our summer has been really busy with projects around home. We've still managed to have some fun at home, despite how busy they've been.
April started out our spring break. We took a trip to the zoo for a day. We saw a lot of things - it was a chilly day, but really fun! We saw the farm babies, played on the playground, saw wolves, fish, monkeys and lots of other animals. We also got to ride the tram. We spent a few days at Sue's, and another day hanging out at home.

We also got a visit from our cousins. Lauren & Ben haven't been to our place in almost 2 years, so it was fun to play with them! Grandma & Grandpa had Lauren & Ben for the weekend and came up to help Mom & Dad on the house. So, we enjoyed getting to play with our cousins.

We also FINALLY learned to play Battleship. Noah has been wanting to play Battleship for a long time, so Daddy taught us to play. It was a fun game, though it was challenging and we still have a lot to learn.

Mommy went on a trip to Florida for work the last weekend of April, and while she was gone we got ANOTHER snowstorm! We had two or three big snowstorms in April when we were hoping to get some sun. We did enjoy our snow, though, despite being tired of all the snow we've had this year.

April also ended with Hannah's dance recital. Noah loved watching her dance, and Hannah loved dancing. It was a fun recital! We were proud of Hannah.

In April, we started tennis class. We had a small tennis class (only 4 of us!) but the teacher was great. And, we love tennis! It's a fun sport.

May was a busy month, with school programs, end of the year field trips, daddy's birthday and mother's day. We took field trips to 2 places: The Minnesota Zoo and the Children's Museum. They were so much fun!

Through the month, Mom & Dad took ALL the carpet out of the house on the main floor. It was so different! Then we packed up a bunch of the stuff in the house so someone could come in and redo the floor. Sadly, that meant Cheyenne couldn't stay here. We were so sad that Daddy had to bring Cheyenne to stay with Grandma & Grandpa while the floors were done. We're really going to miss our doggie! Poor Cheyenne.

Though we missed Cheyenne, we were looking forward to not staying in our rooms for a few days. When the guy came in to work on our floor, we had to clear out our bedroom. The night before we had to be out of our house, our room was cleared out and we stayed in the rompus room. It was really cool! And it was really strange to have NO FURNITURE in the bedrooms, hallway and living room.

Mom & Dad planned a night for us at our friends Trevor & Dylan's house, then they got us a hotel with a pool for one night. After the hotel, we got to sleep upstairs for a few days. We really looked forward to that.

April & May were busy...we'll write more soon about June, July, August & September.

Busy March

We had our FIRST SNOW DAY ever on March 5! It was a fun day. We got up to find out school was cancelled, and we got to hang out with daddy all day. He made plans with some of our friends who also didn't have school, so we went to eat pizza and then went sledding! It was a fun time. We were bummed that we missed a day of art, but Mommy assured us that Mr. Kehrer would work out our art lessons and our teachers would plan our lessons right for Wednesday.

The first Wednesday in March, we started something new. Science  Explorers. We are learning about blasting straw rockets. It's so cool! We both LOVE science explorers. We'll get to make 4 straw rockets, test them and then at the end of our class, we'll make a launcher for our rockets!

Friday, we went to fun night at the community center. We got to play on lots of inflatables. We fought in a fighting ring, bounced in bounce houese, did an obstacle course and played bingo! We lost at bingo but had fun bouncing! 

Our LAST week of basketball was fun, too. We were starting to get into the game, but unfortunately it was the end of basketball for a while. We beat the Maroon team twice on the last day! The coach did a good job of helping us to get involved in the game. At the end of the day, we took some time to take pictures with our team.

After basketball, Daddy brought us to Mommy's volleyball tournament so that we could hang out with her and all our Diva kids' friends. We were so good and had fun playing games, reading and running some energy off.

Daddy drove his sister's car to Missouri after he dropped us off. He got to see Grandpa Bob for a little while. He gave the car to Grandpa Bob and rode a bus home. I missed him all day long and was SO happy that he was home when I woke up on Sunday.

The next weekend was fun but sad.

Mommy's uncle died, so she went to a funeral with Grandma & Grandpa on Saturday. After the funeral, we took Cheyenne to Angie's and met them there. We read to Grandma & Grandpa, then went to supper. We went to a really crowded place! We ate peanuts and put the shells on the floor before we got our food. It was less crowded once we sat down at our table. Our food was really good! And, we got to dance with the waitresses. It was fun.

After supper, we left Cheyenne with Grandpa & Grandma. They promised to take care of her while we went to Duluth the following weekend. We were SOO excited about going to Duluth!

We got our report cards on Monday. Both of us got very good grades. The teachers expect us to be at "satisfactory" on all our requirements, but Noah and I were at "proficient" or "excels" in everything.

Mommy & Daddy talked to our teachers the next day. They said we're doing really well in all we do. Our teachers said the things we need to work on are 1st & 2nd grade concepts, so we're doing well. They met with a few other teachers who also said we did a good job.

Wednesday after Science Explorers, we had a family supper (as usual.) But, at supper, Mommy & Daddy told us they were so proud of us for doing such a great job in school. Because they were so proud, they got us gifts! I got a new Monster High Doll and Noah got a Lego Chima speeder. We were SO excited and proud of ourselves.

Thursday was my dance pictures! I got dressed up in my costume, mommy did my hair and I smiled pretty.

Friday after school we dropped off our bags at home and left for Duluth! I've been looking forward to this for weeks! I was so excited! We got to our hotel after our bedtime, and once we checked in, we were too excited to sleep. It was awesome! Noah & I got to sleep on a pullout couch in the living room (and watch TV before we went to bed). Mommy & Daddy's bedroom had a fridge, kitchen sink and a balcony. On the balcony, we looked right out on Lake Superior. The biggest lake in the world!

Mommy played volleyball on on Saturday, so Daddy took us to breakfast, then took us swimming and had Mac & Cheese for lunch. After lunch we went to the Railroad museum. Noah was tired, so we didn't get to stay long, but it was really cool!

When Mommy got done, we went out to eat with Anika, Piper & Deion and some of Mommy's teammates. It was a cool restaurant. We got to watch the cook make fire, and we sat by a window that looked over the lake.

Sunday morning, we were all really tired. But, we got to swim one more time before we had breakfast & checked out. Mommy & Daddy drove us across the big lift bridge and showed us some of the big ships close up. Wow. We saw some of those ships coming in to the harbor on Saturday and they were big.

We had a short week at school when we got back to school Monday. Friday we were off for a whole week of spring break! We're going to miss our school, but we get to go to daycare where our friend Grayson will be, too!

Friday, we hung out with Mommy & packed our suitcases for Easter weekend at Grandpa & Grandma's. When daddy got home from work, we packed up and left. We got to stop at Pizza Ranch on our way there. We sure LOVE pizza ranch - especially the cactus bread!

Although it has been a busy few weeks, we missed Cheyenne and were excited to see Cheyenne at Grandpa & Grandma's. She was happy to see us, too. Grandma said she knew we were coming because she kept looking out the window all day.

Saturday, we went to Great Grandma's house. Lauren & I did the dishes, and Grandma said she was so proud of us! Besides us and our cousins, there were just a couple of little kids there, so the egg hunt was quiet. We got a lot of candy & toys! Mommy painted our faces, we played some games and stayed quiet until supper. It was fun to hang out with our cousins all day.

Sunday we got up and found our Easter Baskets! I got a new purse and a Barbie from the Easter Bunny and Noah got 2 new Legos. The Easter Bunny also got us skittles, jellybeans and Pop Rocks. Mommy, Grandma & Aunt Dani got us Easter gifts, too. Our favorite was Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles from Grandma & Grandpa. But, we're excited about some science kits we get to play with, too!

Happy Easter!
Hannah (and Noah)

Grandma & Grandpa visit

This week was a good week at school. I've been doing much better lately at school with my behavior! I had a few weeks where my self control was worn out by Spanish class, but I have been able to control my blurting better lately.

We had a pretty normal week. Daddy went to volleyball on Monday night, Mommy played on Tuesday. Wednesday Daddy went on a church field trip so Mommy took us to Soo Bahk Do. We're getting tired of Soo Bahk Do again and don't want to do it anymore. I have a hard time controlling myself sometimes, but I really am good at it. Hannah is good at it, too. But, I REALLY want to do Science Explorers at school on Wednesdays instead.

After Soo Bahk Do, we made our own supper: Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches. AND it was a great day because we got mail. Mommy sent Hannah to get the mail and she found a letter for her and a letter for me from Angie! She sent me a froggie card - I love froggies and so does Angie! Hannah jumped up and down for 3 minutes because she was so excited, but I just opened mine and read it. We love Angie so much!

Thursday night, we got to see Mommy before AND after volleyball! But, we were so excited from a fun night that we had a hard time falling asleep. My brain didn't shut off until after 10 o'clock!

Friday, Mommy made us do our optional homework for school. She laughed at my paper. I'm not sure why, but Daddy smiled at my assignment, too. Mom said I didn't quite understand the last question - I don't understand what's wrong with my answer. I know 4+3 is 7 and so is 5+2. That's how I got my answers.

Shortly after homework was done, we were surprised when Grandma & Grandpa S. walked in the door! We were so happy to see them! We played Hangman with them  for a little while. (Hangman is our new favorite game. We play it in Spanish class.) Then we went out to a yummy restaurant! The had delicious bread to go with my Mac & Cheese; Hannah's spaghetti & meatballs. This place was so cool, we could draw on the table with crayons, and there was a guy walking around singing in Italian! He even came to our table and sang a song to us. Since we were kids, he sang a song and tried to get us to guess what movie it was from. Hannah and I needed a little help to remember it was Bella Notte from Lady &The Tramp. Bella Notte means BEAUTIFUL NIGHT.

Saturday morning Hannah went to Thomas tool with Grandpa before we had basketball. We played another game - this time against the yellow team. The score was close, but we won! Hannah and I are not the most aggressive players on the team, but we're learning. The coach is really helping us try to learn the rules of the game. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing - mostly with Grandma, but Grandpa quit working in the afternoon to play with us in the basement.

Today was a fun day in Sunday School. We made dirt pudding! It was messy, but really a fun way to learn about what the story of the sower is about. We SMASHED our cookies like Jesus SMASHES sin, put the cookies in some pudding to make dirt. Then, we put a candy heart in our dirt pudding to remember how God's word grows in our hearts. Then we got to EAT our dirt pudding while Daddy read our bible story  and Mommy drew our lesson on the board.

After Sunday School, we came home and read some books to Grandma & Grandpa. We were sad that they had to go. But, we are excited that tomorrow is back to school, and we're going to get more snow!

Have a great week!
Noah

our busy january

In January, we were VERY excited to get back to school and be with our friends again!

The first weekend of January, Mommy had a tournament and we got to go right away in the morning. Mom & Dad's friend, Diva Renee found out she had cancer and Mommy's team got new shirts for her and her whole family. We got new shirts, too! Mine was pink with pink writing (like Mommy's), so I LOVE it a LOT! Noah's is black (like daddy's) but he doesn't like it since it has pink on it. All our friends on the Diva team got some, too. We looked good!

The next day, I had another birthday party for a friend from school. I have gone to a lot of birthday parties; I really love my classmates! Noah has been invited to one, so he's kind of bummed his class doesn't have as many parties. This party was at a swimming pool - it was so much fun! While I was swimming, Daddy took Noah to LegoLand at the Mall of America. He had a lot of fun.

Then, after school on Tuesday that week, Daddy surprised us by taking us from the bus stop to Pump It Up Playtime to meet our friend Grayson and bounce on the bouncy-houses. It was so awesome! They were filming a commercial there, too, so we might even be on their TV commercial!

The third weekend in January was our first weekend of basketball. Noah has been looking forward to this for a REALLY long time! I wanted to do a cheerleading class instead of basketball, but mommy said there was only basketball. I have had fun at basketball since I started, though. We both got on the same team - we're the green team.

The fourth weekend in January started with a movie night at church. We watched Finding Nemo on the big screen downstairs with a bunch of our friends. We had fishy-shaped pizzas, popcorn, did coloring sheets, made jellyfish and Mommy even won a BIG jar of M&Ms!

When we got home, we found Grandma & Grandpa had come while we were gone! It was a fun weekend with them. They got to watch us play basketball, then came home and we helped Grandpa put a new light in the Rompus Room.

The last weekend in January was spirit week at school! We had to pay $2.50 to dress up during the week (the money was given to kids who have cancer to help them get better). Monday was pajama day. We have had pajama day in preschool and it was our favorite day! Though, they did have Twin Day, that we thought was all about us! Turns out that twin day/favorite sport day is a day we could dress like a friend or we could dress like a certain sport. We wore camo shirts so we could dress alike since we're twins. We also had future career day (we both dressed up like Lifetouch photographers), mismatched clothes & wacky hair day, decade day (we dressed up in our tie-dye shirts. Daddy said it was from the 60s - lots of our friends wore tie-dye shirts that day, too.)

mismatched clothes & wacky hair day

Aunt Dani sent Noah a new helicopter to replace the one that he got at Christmas. (The one he got for Christmas didn't work when he opened it.) We both got to fly it. It was really fun! Unfortunately, Noah broke it the first week he had it. We loved flying it, though! It was awesome!

One day after Sunday School, Mom & Dad took us to Ikea instead of going home. we were excited until we found out we had to go pick out a chair for our room and didn't get to play in the play area. First we ate in the restaurant, then we played in some of the fun kids' rooms and found the perfect chairs for our desks. I got pink (of course!) and Noah chose a green one. Then, as we were walking past the play area, Mommy & Daddy checked to see if there was room for us to play while they checked out. So, we got to play in the Ikea play area! The ballpit was closed, but we still had a fun time!

Noah picked out a new book from the library at school. He got the Wizard of Oz. He was so excited! It was a 200+ page book. He took about a week and a half to read it but he was very excited to finish it!

After our first week of school in February, Mommy & Daddy took us to the Sweetheart dance at the community center. It was fun, as usual. our friend, Eliza, from Sunday School was there, too, so I played with her. It wore us out, though! It was a great dance!

The very next day was a busy birthday party day! Noah had a birthday party in the morning His good friend, Ben, had a Lego birthday party. He was SO excited about the party! I went to basketball all by myself. I was really scared at first - REALLY nervous. But when I got there, the black team split up and a girl came on my team, so I had a friend to play with. And, we also got to play a game! We played against the red team, so that was so awesome! I had a great time.

After we picked up Noah and had lunch, we got ready to go to a Karate birthday party for one of my classmates. Noah came with me, since it was one of the boys in my class.  It was a fun party. We didn't do an obstacle course, but we did get to break a board! A REAL board (not the fake plastic boards that go back together after we break them in soo bahk do.) When we got home, Mommy had painted the wall around the sliding glass door. That has been unfinished for 3 years, so it's weird to see it painted!

Daddy helped me build a great fort in the backyard the next day. We used our snow block maker and made a strong wall in our backyard!

The next week was a busy one at school. We made Valentines bags and got to write valentines to all our friends. Both of us decided to give Valentines to everyone in both classes. I gave fun dip, Noah gave pixie stix. We spent Monday night writing all our Valentines to our friends. (Noah had to finish up on Tuesday night.)

Tuesday was exciting because it was the 100th day of school! We did a lot of 100 activities and games. We even got to dress up like we were 100 years old (though Noah didn't want to dress up like a 100 year old. He just wanted to wear his school uniform.)

I really was looking forward to Valentine's Day this year. Mommy came to my Valentines' Day party! She helped make candy jars love bugs with the class. We were excited to get dropped off at school (instead of riding the bus) and to get to show Mommy our classrooms! I loved having mommy at our Valentine's Day party.

The next weekend was a long weekend because we stayed home Monday & Tuesday. (It was President's Day and a teacher workshop day). We had some fun days with Daddy. We were REALLY excited for our first day back at school, though because Daddy volunteered at lunch! It's so awesome to have Mommy & Daddy come to our school.

This past weekend was a GREAT weekend! We had basketball on Saturday morning, then we went to the library for 2 hours. We checked out the tree in the middle of the library and the play area at Brookdale library, then explored their book collections. After we came home, we played in the snow for a while. I worked a little on my snowfort. We missed Mommy (she was at a volleyball tournament) but we had so much fun with Daddy!

Sunday was a busy day! We read some books before Sunday School. I finished a 6 chapter book!

Then we went to Sunday School and sang in church. After church, we had a soup dinner at church with our friends, then went home to get ready for sledding. We met some of our friends at the sledding hill and had SO MUCH FUN! It was so awesome. I started skating with mommy. I did a lot better than I did 2 years ago when I took lessons! But I had more fun sledding down the hill.

We were worn out after a long weekend!
Wishing you a great week!
Hannah