Miscellaneous...

Just some fun pictures:





Conner and Elmo having a stare-down with Artemis the cat from next door.

We had a slight mishap and Sleeping Beauty lost her head. No fear, a little crazy glue and she's pulled herself back together.

And finally, Dan has let Conner watch a little wrestling (it's usually until I come in and turn off the tv) - here's his big move. Honestly, our dog is a saint.

Is it Easter yet?

This morning we went down to Ebenezer Ridges for their annual Easter party for kids. Ebenezer is the long-term care arm of the organization I work for. The Ridges campus is a combo of nursing home, assisted living and apartments. This was my first time there and I can tell you the assisted living and apartment side is NICE!

The event was a trek through the facility giving the kids opportunities to see the Easter Bunny, play games, see animals and collect 6 plastic eggs. Once they got six eggs, they could select a prize to take home. And you could sign up to win a $75 gift certificate to the MN Zoo and got a free Abdullah chocolate bunny. I haven't decided if I'm giving that to Conner or not. It looks pretty tasty!

Here he is out front with the big pink bunny. Wasn't there a movie about a large pink bunny??

Below are pictures at the petting zoo. I don't think I've ever seen a real hedgehog before. It's crawling on the arm of the girl with the blue tank top....

It's the Easter Bunny's cousin - Lazy Bunny.

Chicken - oh, they had two HUGE roosters too. A woman I work with was there as well - we were both amazed the roosters just sat there and let the kids pet them. She thought they might have been drugged. A little valium in the grain maybe....

Here's Conner with the Easter Bunny - we have a polaroid with pretty much the same facial expression and him getting his face painted - a rainbow. He picked it out....

To make grandma and grandpa proud - mini-golf. I think he got a triple bogey on this one.
And then the egg and spoon race - clear spoon, if you look closely, you can see it.

Baby Shower

No - not for me!

We went to a baby shower for Dan's cousin today in Maple Lake. Lots and lots of Dan's relatives and their friends there. What a hoot!

We played two of the requisite games you play at baby showers - first, the lovely "guess the baby food" game. I lost big - only got 3 out of 14 right. I guessed bananas, pears and applesauce correctly. The rest I tanked on - good lord that "meat"-flavored baby food smells digusting! We never bought it for Conner....it all looked exactly the same to me, chicken, beef and ham. Brown, slimy and all with a distinctly BAD odor. What baby is dumb enough to eat that??

However, I kicked at the poopy diaper game! Remember that one? Melted candy bars in the diapers and you have to guess what kind of candy bar it is. Got all 8 right - although I'm not exactly sure that is something to be proud of - apparently I know my candy bars a little too well! Although I am proud to say I didn't taste any of them, as one of the other contestants did. Yuck!

It was down to another woman and me (I was up against "the taster"), so we had a sudden-death match. And, as at any self-respecting baby shower, the sudden-death involved who could put a baby diaper on a stuffed animal faster. My opponent (whose husband's name is also Dan Carlson - although related through the non-Becker side - how freaky is that???) has kids who are 8 and 9, so she hasn't changed a diaper in awhile. I, on the other hand, had just changed one within the last hour. So you can guess who walked away with the prize! If you ever need a diaper put on a stuffed horse, I'm your gal!

Note to anyone who attended my baby-shower over 3 years ago THANK YOU for not playing any of those games!!!!!

Playing in the snow

After the big snow storms last week, we got a very nice weekend - quite sunny and fairly warm.

I feel like I didn't accomplish much, but we did play outside a lot....

Here you can see the icicles on the back of our house. Probably not a good thing - I assume it means we have a lot of heat loss. I won't tell you what our latest heating bill is - SCARY!

Here's our backyard - decent amount of snow, eh? Yes - there is a doghouse hidden back there. Dan had to snowblow out a place for the dog to do his thing.....

And here's Conner playing King of the Snowpile. And a snowcave that Dan dug for him.

Bobby Flay in Ireland

I watched a show on Food Network last night that was quite enjoyable - Bobby Flay in Ireland. I found it interesting and fun because my husband and I took our honeymoon in Ireland and it was fabulous. If I could choose anywhere in the world to live, I would be hard pressed to choose between Hawaii and Ireland.

I was able to relive fond memories while I watched - since we visited the Jameson Whiskey factory and the Ballymoe cooking school (featured stops on the show). It's coming up again - so if you watch it, it will be like you were on our honeymoon with us! Wait, that's a little creepy.....

Anyway - watch it! Scooter - where else can you learn to make Dingle Pie???

March 10, 2007 5:00 PM ET/PT
March 11, 2007 6:00 PM ET/PT