MICAH'S FIRST TWINS GAME

Micah was really excited to go to his first Minnesota Twins game...needless to say Dad was pretty excited too. Here is a picture of Micah outside the dome.


The first thing he asked for was a hot dog and popcorn. So we each got a hot dog and Micah got a bag of popcorn that he almost finished all by himself. Here is Micah enjoying his first ball park hot dog.


And here he is watching the game and eating some popcorn and more popcorn and more popcorn and more, well you get the idea.



Here we are on our way back to the car. He was tired and wanted me to give him a ride on my shoulders the entire walk back to the car (3/4 of a mile while it was 87 degrees and humid) but he was happy!
When a pitcher goes 6 innings in baseball they call it a quality start. I was shocked that we made it to the 6th inning but Micah made his first quality start and we left at the top of the 7th.

Free, free, free!

So we love free stuff at our house. AJ, the kids, and I ran some errands this morning and realized on the way home that we had not spent a penny on our outing (except, of course, gas money which adds up fast nowadays!). Our first stop was at the Twins Pro Shop to purchase tickets for AJ and Micah to go the Twins game on Sunday. We had coupons for 2 free tickets from a previous meal-deal at Applebee's, so our out-of-pocket cost for the tickets was a whopping $0.
Next we went to Northwestern Bookstore where the kids are a part of the Summer Reading Program. They each were able to pick out several prizes from the prize bucket for the books that we have read so far this summer. They were very excited about their new trinkets. We looked around at NW Bookstore for a while, but again our total cost was $0.
Our final stop was at the Verizon store. AJ had some phone questions and a coupon for a free car charger for his phone. Again, no cost to us! Now some would say that it was a little silly, but we really got a kick out of our FREE outing. Anyway, I'm not sure if or when that will happen again, but it was fun.
And one more free thing to throw in there for good measure...we won 4 free tickets to Charlotte's Web at the Old Log Theater for tomorrow morning. AJ and I will take Micah and his friend Amara to see the show while Ellie stays home with great-grandma (a FREE baby-sitter).
OK, enough already.

Signs of summer...

Here are some signs of summer...

Corn on the cob...or corn on the cobcakes, as the case may be. I saw this idea in a Family Fun mag and thought it was so cute, so I gave it a shot. It's cupcakes with white frosting and jelly beans. You can actually melt and shape a yellow starburst to look like a pat of butter on top, but I didn't have any starbursts. Micah liked this way better than the real corn on the cob!

A summer garden update-we have red, edible raspberries! Micah got one yesterday and we picked 3 more today. The bushes have lots of berries on them, so if nothing else eats them first we should get a handful a day or so. Yea!
Micah, Ellie and the neighbor girls waiting for AJ to put on the big fireworks show. We bought just a few "legal in MN" fireworks and lit them off before bedtime tonight. Good thing the kids know nothing of what real fireworks are like or this just wouldn't cut it. However, they loved what we had and thought the sparkles and popping were great.

The B-I-B-L-E

The most requested bedtime song is The B-i-b-l-e. Usually we sing one time through just the regular version, then the 2nd time through we sing the song as quiet as possible and yell Bible! at the end as loud as possible. Here are the kiddos singing for us:

Ready for the pool...

Here's Ellie, all ready for a swim. She loves to get all her accessories together and show them off. Earlier today she insisted on bringing her purse with her to the corner grocery store. She slings it up onto her shoulder and away she goes. Several people at the store commented on her pretty purse and she gave them big smiles. She is developing quite the personality (with a bit of the terrible two's coming on!).