Happy Birthday, Noah & Hannah!

Our birthday was the last day of school for the year, so it was a big day!

After school, we headed to the Mall of America for our annual tradition of seeing Santa on our birthday. We got to eat in the food court - rice at PF Chang. We didn't like the chicken very much, but we love rice!!

Of course, mom made sure our smiles were ready while we waited in line to see Santa.

Then was time for the real thing. Santa quizzed us and made sure we were helping Mom & Dad, eating our vegetables (that was a stretch for us), brushing our teeth, cleaning our rooms (Mom & Dad said that was a stretch for us). And, we got to sit on his lap & tell him what we wanted and take our picture.

We've seen Santa on our birthday EVERY YEAR on December 19th for 9 years now!

December 19th: 2006 -2014

After seeing Santa, we got to check out Lego Land. 

After Legoland, Daddy checked out a store while Mommy took our picture in front of the big trees.

Seriously, those trees are HUGE!!

When we got home, it was time to open our cards & gifts. We got cards from Grandma Diane & Aunt Carolyn, and gifts from Mom & Dad. There were only 2 gifts. The first one was pajamas, but the second one we got to open was a Kindle HD Fire 6!

It was an exciting day, but we were ready for bed quickly so we could get up the next day to go see Grandma & Grandpa Schuelke for Christmas with them!

Second Grade Greek Fair

On December 18th, we got to do skits for our parents & present our own individual projects about ancient Greece (which we'd been learning about for a couple of weeks in school.)

Hannah was Ariadne in her skit.

Noah was Zeus in his skit.

He made a paper craft and did a report on the Trojan horse for his project.

And, Hannah created an entire game based on Ancient Greece, with the Gods & Goddesses as the pieces that move around the game board and questions about Greece to move you forward or backward spaces.

Both Hannah and Noah did a great job on their skits and their projects!

Cub Scout Pot Luck

Hannah loves to go to Target whenever mom or dad go. She's very helpful when shopping, but also likes to see all the new fun stuff at Target. She found a photo spot to sit with Bullseye, the Target dog, so mom had to take her picture.

The Cub Scout Pot Luck was the 11th of December. It's been a really busy month since then!

It was fun to have some food and a fun meeting with my den! Then we shared our collections (I forgot mine) and exchanged gifts! We did a game where we listened to a story & passed our gifts around. I ALMOST got my Angry Birds game, but the boy next to me ended up with it.

I was so excited. my gift was REALLY BIG! I opened it, and was even more excited. I got a rubber band gun!

Pretty awesome, right? Then, the den leader passed out our Pinewood Derby Cars. I can't wait to make mine!

We get to go make our cars in January. I am excited!

It's been a busy December with school, getting our Greek projects ready for school and packing up and getting ready for our birthday and Christmas!

Happy December!
Noah

Dec 1-7

We had a great Thanksgiving!

When we got back home, we got to extend our weekend with Monday off school. We hung out with Daddy, ran errands and got to spend some downtime at home. Hannah spent a lot of time starting to learn to play Jingle Bells on the Piano.

Friday after school, Mom & Dad brought us to Pump It Up for a fun night of jumping, bouncing, pizza and a craft project. It was a fun night.

Saturday, Noah & Dad ran some errands while Hannah & Mom ran errands. Dad took Noah to Menards then to Target to buy a Christmas gift for Hannah. Hannah & Mom went to Target to buy a gift for Noah.

When we got home, Noah & Dad finished his Cub Scout Napkin Holder and started his Cub Scout Gift Exchange Project.

Hannah started to learn to sew and sewed a pillow (with Mom's help) for her dole. Hannah cut out the fabric, pinned it, Mom sewed it on her machine & Hannah stuffed & finished the pillow by hand.

Hannah sewing a pillow for her doll.

Sunday, after Sunday School, we stopped by to visit our old neighborhood. We got to say hi to Roger but Sharon was working. So, we stopped by Griffin's house and played with him while Mom & Dad talked to Melissa for a little while. Then we ate at Pizza Ranch for lunch. Our favorite! But, we were so full.

Sunday afternoon, Hannah painted while Noah finished his Cut Scout gift exchange project.

Sunday afternoon - Noah finishing his Cub Scout gift and Hannah painting a picture

Tomorrow, Noah is excited to go with his Cub Scout Pack to the TV station for Toys for Tots. Hannah is jealous, but excited to see Noah on TV.

And, Noah is looking forward to his CubScout Gift exchange later this week.

The Angry Bird Game Noah made out of tin cans & a tennis ball

Have a good week!
Noah & Hannah

Thanksgiving week

With our tree up, we are getting into the Christmas spirit!

Mommy captured a picture of us admiring the Christmas tree on Monday morning.

The Christmas Tree is so magic to us!

Tuesday after school, we went to the History Museum with Noah's Cub Scout Den. It was fun. We love the History Museum!

Learning about the fur trade in Minnesota a couple of hundred years ago.

Checking out life on the prairie...The inside of a log cabin is kind of small!

Welcome to Minnesota!

Our Cub Scout in the Toy exhibit. It's decorated up for Christmas!

 

Wednesday, we were going to hang out with Daddy at work, but Noah was sick. He slept until 1 o'clock! Hannah was very quiet and respectful while Daddy worked at home in the morning and when Mommy worked from home in the afternoon. Noah felt better when he woke up and spent his afternoon working on his puzzle.

Wednesday night, Dad took Noah to Menards then to Michaels to get supplies for a Cub Scout wood working project. Hannah helped Mom with some shopping before leaving for Thanksgiving.

Thursday morning we got up, packed up and went to Grandma's for Thanksgiving! The whole family was there - Grandma, Grandpa, both our aunts, our uncle and our cousins. After dinner, Daddy helped Noah build a napkin holder in Grandpa's shop (to get his Woodworking requirements) while Hannah played with her cousins.

After supper, we set up our Bingo game and played a family Bingo Game. It was so fun!

Family Bingo Game. Can this become a new Thanksgiving tradition?

Friday we visited Santaland. It's our tradition to go into town and see Santa and Santaland.

The lights at the North Pole are beautiful!

We love to see Santa.

Santa with us and our cousins

Mrs. Santa's bakery was colorful and had some yummy looking treats

Grandma loved this snowflake

While we were waiting for Santa, Mommy saw a pink & blue tree and wanted us to take a picture with it. She said "Where was this tree 8 years ago?! Everything in my world was pink & blue 8 years ago."

Mom loved this pink & blue tree

Grandpa took the family to the Penguins of Madagascar Friday. We got candy, slushies and popcorn. AND we got to sit with our cousins. What a fun time!

Saturday we went to Great Grandma's house. We played games and hung out with our cousins & Mom's cousins' kids. It's always a fun day. Hannah met Mom's cousin who lives in Boston and lived in Washington DC this past summer. She was a little shy, but still anxious to talk to him about living in such a cool place! We even got our faces painted. Noah doesn't care to have his face painted, but Mom painted a bunch of other cousins' faces, so there was a butterfly, angel, lion, a puppy and a soldier playing with us.

Our puppy.

Happy boy after a fun but exhausting weekend.

When we left Great Grandma's, we went to ANOTHER movie. We thought Alexander and the Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day was hilarious! And, again, we got to go with our cousins, so it was even more awesome.

Sunday, we got to see our other Grandma for lunch. It was a nice way to finish the weekend! We had a long ride home, but were happy to be home Sunday night!

Have a great week!
Noah & Hannah

Decorating for Christmas

This week was an uneventful week.

Monday we had science explorers. We built rockets because this session of science explorers is all about Space! Noah had cub scouts on Tuesday. This time Hannah got to go with him, so she got to see the cool talk about fire safety from the fireman.

Saturday, we helped Daddy. We helped him bring things back to Menards and buy a few things he needs. Then we helped him shop for groceries at Sam's Club. He even bought us pizza at lunch for being good kids! Then we came home and cleaned our rooms. Clean rooms meant we got Christmas lights in our bedroom windows.

After cleaning our rooms and decorating our windows, we helped Daddy put up the Christmas tree. Mommy was at a tournament, so she was happy to see our tree up when she got home!

Today, we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and had a nice quiet morning at home. After lunch, we helped test the Christmas lights and put them up so we could decorate the tree!

We were so excited to put up ornaments, that we forgot the lights needed to go on the tree first. Here we are writing out the steps of how to decorate for Christmas so we know WHEN the ornament part happens.

It was a super fun day of listening to Christmas carols and decorating the tree. It's beautiful now! Dad and Mom both thought we did a great job.

Adding his Tow Mater ornament to the tree.

Adding an ornament to the tree.

The final product. Our tree!

We're looking forward to a short week at school, a cub scout outing and Thanksgiving with Grandma & Grandpa next week. We're looking forward to seeing our cousins, aunts, uncle and grandparents. We can't wait!

Have a happy Thanksgiving!
Noah & Hannah

November 10-17

Winter is truly here! We had enough snow & ice last year that we're not quite ready for the snow to be here yet. But it is!

Monday, we woke up to snow on the ground. Schools just a few miles north of us were cancelled because of the snow. We had school, but unfortunately, our first week of Science Explorers was cancelled due to the weather.

Hannah did get to enjoy some time playing in the snow and trying to build a snowman, but it was already too cold for the snow to stick together.

Hannah wanted to get out and play in the very first snow of the year

Mom & Dad told us that we could have our very own Christmas trees in our bedrooms IF we cleaned off our windowsills. So, we worked really hard to clear off our windowsills and clean up our bedrooms.

We also had to take the time to call our aunt Dani to wish her a happy birthday! 

We LOVE being able to have our own Christmas Tree in our room. We love the lights, the decorations and the Christmas spirit.

Hannah's Christmas tree in her bedroom

Noah and his Christmas tree

We only got a few inches of snow on Monday, so Tuesday & Wednesday were back to normal. Play outside for school, come home, homework, supper, etc.

We were excited to get ice cream sundaes on Wednesday night as our special treat. We had a lot of fun adding M&Ms, oreos & toppings to our sundaes.

Ice cream sundae time!

Ice cream sundaes and fun with his sister

Mom says it makes her heart smile when we laugh & joke and have fun together - as long as we don't make a big mess! :-)




Friday night was supposed to be the school carnival, but they had to cancel it because they didn't have enough volunteers to make it work. We were bummed, but Mom & Dad suggested we go to movie night at church! So, after a trip to Target (to buy a birthday gift for a party on Saturday), we got ready to go see "Planes: Fire & Rescue" It was a good movie. And, it's always fun to see our friends at church!


Saturday, Noah went to help daddy run errands in the morning while Mom & Hannah wrapped Hannah's best friend's birthday gift. After dinner, Hannah left for the birthday party while Noah put together yet ANOTHER puzzle. Yes, he LOVES puzzles!

While Hannah was watching Frozen, decorating cupcakes and making snowman crafts at her party, Noah was working with Daddy on his Cub Scout requirements. After working for 45 minutes on Cub Scout reading, he helped Daddy put plastic on the window while Mom drove through the snow to get Hannah.

We weren't home long after Hannah came back before going to Waconia for a surprise birthday party. Lots of friends we knew were there, and we weren't ready to go home at 9, but Dad knew the weather was bad so we needed to head home. Of course, he got us home safely and we were tired out after a busy day!

Sunday, we went to Sunday School, then Mom took us to Half Price Books. She gave us each money and a coupon so we could buy our own books. We each picked out an activity book and immediately came home and started reading them and working on them!

Typical scene after a trip to the library or bookstore...

After a lazy afternoon of reading, playing & puzzling, Hannah helped Mom get a start on Christmas cookies. They made one kind of cookies (our favorite kind - funfetti cookies). Mom thinks we're going to freeze them for Christmas - we're not sure they'll last long enough to be around at Christmas time!

Trying to get a head start on Christmas cookies this year.

We're looking forward to our last full week before Thanksgiving week. It's going to be cold - we're not looking forward to the cold. But, we're looking forward to seeing friends again at school this week.

Have a great week!
Noah & Hannah

November 3-9, 2014: Capitol Christmas Tree, Pump it Up and Space Aliens

Thursday night, daddy took us to Mommy's office to see the Capitol Christmas Tree. It had been cut down in the Chippewa National Forest the week before, and it stopped at Lifetouch on the way to Washington DC. Though the tree was on its side in a truck, we still felt privileged to see the tree before the President of the United States gets to see it and light it.

We signed the side of the truck, so our names will be on the side of the truck as it travels to Washington DC, too. And, we even got to meet Smokey the Bear and have some hot chocolate and Christmas cookies. It was a very fun night! Especially since we each got a book about the 50th Anniversary of the Capitol Christmas Tree and got to have Subway for supper.

We got to meet Smokey the Bear and a Forest Ranger.

Us in front of the Capitol Christmas Tree

Our whole family checking out the lit up Capitol Christmas Tree

Friday, we got the day off school. We helped Daddy run some errands, cleaned our room and then got to meet our friends at Pump it Up Playtime for a fun night! We got pizza, craft time and time to jump on the inflatables while Daddy & Mommy went out for dinner without us. It was so fun!
After they picked us up, we went home and our friends Zachary & Grayson went home with us. Though it was late and we all just went to sleep, we were excited to have friends over. We were so exhausted after a long day, that we fell asleep quickly!
Mom woke us up in time to leave for Lego Minecraft Engineering Class Saturday morning. It was the last class for Lego Minecraft Engineering - we loved the class! It was so fun.
After class, we got to go home and do some work around the house and get ready for the coming snow.
We were so helpful that we even had time to go to the library. It was our first time checking out the Plymouth Library. While we were excited about new fiction books, we were thrilled to check out the Wookie Cookie Star Wars cookbook and the Fairy Cookbook as well as the Narnia Cookbook. (Since we've been reading the Chronicles of Narnia, it's fun to see the meals that we JUST read about last night!)
Sunday morning, we went to Sunday School then sat quietly with our books while Mom & Dad went to a meeting afterwords. It was a long, boring meeting, but we were so good, daddy decided we deserved a treat: a trip to Space Aliens! It was AWESOME.

Space Aliens was a super cool restaurant!

We even got to meet a "REAL" Alien

We had some yummy food, met an alien, checked out the arcade and had a little tiny bit of room for dessert. (We BARELY had room for dessert, though!)

Playing Hammer Heads (like Wack-a-Mole, but SHARKS!)

Both kids realized the crane machines looked easier than they really are and will probably rip you off.

The Super Nova Sundae... But, the final verdict was that Alien Ears were our favorite dessert.

After we got home, we played a game of chess and cleared our windowsills off so we could have CHRISTMAS TREES in our rooms while Dad & Mom cleared the garage enough to move Daddy's motorcycle. We also had to make sure we found our snowpants and boots because we're getting a foot of snow tomorrow. We're kind of excited, though, mom & dad don't seem very excited.

Have a good week!
Noah & Hannah