Happy Halloween!

Leify McQueen

Amy & Aaron with Pumpkin Bjorn

Autumn at MN Zoo

No glorious fall color pics here, I'm afraid...just goats.

Oh yeah, and one cute boy posing nicely (!!) atop this sculpture of a dog/wolf-like animal that we passed by on the way back from the goats.

On these beautiful early fall days, we've hit the MN Zoo several times in the mid- to late afternoon, heading straight down there after Bjorn and I pick up Leif from preschool. Leif continues to be pretty disinterested in most of the animals at the zoo, but he does think buying the little pellets from the goat food dispensers and having the animals lap up the pellets from his open palm is lots of fun. Since the "farm" area where the goats are located is at the very far end of the zoo, I get a good workout by pushing both kids in the double stroller all the way there. Leif then happily walks on the way back and is motivated to keep moving by the promise of a stop at the playground once we make it back to the central plaza near the main building. I hope we can continue this pleasant outdoor autumn routine for at least another few zoo visits before we need to switch over to our indoor winter routine of sprinting around the Tropics Trail, pausing only to check out the various caves and tunnels along the route.

We *suspect* that Bjorn may actually have an interest in looking at the animals, although we have not been able to fully test this theory yet since there is always a pressing need to catch up to his older brother who is speeding on ahead. If we make it to the zoo as a family one of these months and can divide the kiddos (one child per parent), maybe Bjorn will finally get his chance to check out that cool looking pond full of ducks and flamingos for longer than 30 seconds!

Twin Cities Marathon

All right, so this was maybe not the photo you expected to see when you came to the post entitled "Twin Cities Marathon." Well, it was not the photo I expected to post, either! Sadly, though, we managed to somehow miss both Aaron and Sheila as they sped by Mile 18 (near my parents' house) despite having five of us (my parents, me, Leif, and Bjorn) out watching for them for over an hour, so I don't have any pics of running people to post here. They must have been going so fast they were just a blur as they went by us. Indeed, Sheila got her name in the paper for coming in ninth in her age group (WAY TO GO, GOCK!!) and Aaron broke 4 hours, so they must have been hustling!

Bjorn and Leif were both pretty wiped out by the time we walked back to Grandma and Grandpa B.'s house, so they sat on the kitchen floor and kicked back with a couple of cold ones. That really hit the spot.

Next time we are on marathon spectator duty, we're planning a giant sign complete with bells and balloons so the runners we are watching for can't miss us, even if we miss them!

Rochester

The boys and I took a road trip (can it be called a "road trip" if you only drive 90 minutes?? Well, we left the city, in any case!) to the exciting destination of <drumroll, please> ROCHESTER, MINNESOTA in late September. Aaron had some house projects that he needed time to work on without little people underfoot, and I thought it would be fun to take the kids on a 24-hour out-of-town adventure with Erik, Tami, and Vivian. My reasons for picking Rochester were: (1) it's just far enough away to feel like we're truly out of the giant sprawl that is the Twin Cities Greater Metropolitan Area these days, yet close enough that I could count on one or both boys sleeping for just about the entire drive; and (2) they have a Children's Museum there. Ironically, we did not even end up making it to the Children's Museum, but the boys still found the trip pretty darn exciting. After all, it did feature:

- an overnight stay in a hotel
- two, count 'em, TWO swims in the hotel pool
- dinner at Vivian's favorite restaurant (Perkins)
- visiting Erik, Tami, and Vivian in THEIR hotel room all the way at the other end of the very long hallway
- Bjorn getting to play in the bathtub for as looooong as he wanted to while his brother slept for another hour on Sunday morning
- a breakfast buffet at the hotel
- a stop at Gock and Grandpaw G.'s house on the way home, including Leif's first time riding on a horse with Grandpaw!

I did not get many pictures on the trip, but did manage a few at Perkins to prove we were there :-) .

Vivian & Tami

Bjorn, Erik & Leif

Bjorn, Amy, Leif, Vivian & Tami

Since the trip was a hit, we'll have to head down to Rochester again sometime -- next time with Aaron!

Little Cha-Cha

So there's this Sesame Street video called "Sleeping Beauty Dances" that features a character named Prince Cha-cha-cha-charming. Leif really likes this video and will occasionally exclaim with great gusto, totally out of the blue and just for the pleasure of saying it, "Cha-cha-cha-charMING!" It would of course be impolite of me not to reciprocate and say "Cha-cha-cha-charMING!" back to him with an equal (or as near to equal as I can muster) level of enthusiasm. As a result of Leif and me going around saying, "Cha-cha-cha-charMING!" to each other for no particular reason, Bjorn is focusing a surprising amount of energy for a 16-month-old with a tiny vocabulary on learning how to enunciate "cha cha cha!" He has also caught on to the fact that the phrase "cha cha cha" refers to dancing, so he will vigorously dance/stomp on the floor (or table, or couch) as he practices saying his cha-chas. This is, of course, extremely cute, and has led to me dubbing Bjorn "Little Cha-Cha." (Leif, by extension, is Big Cha-Cha.) Below is a photo of Little Cha-Cha practicing his moves on the coffee table. I'll try to catch it on video one of these days!

Doing some computing

Bjorn and Leif inherited this cool toy computer from their cousin Vivian a while back, and it looks like Bjorn has gotten the hang of how to use it!

Amy's birthday

A couple of pics of me and my little boys from my birthday in August....

Bjorn says, "Chocolate cake! Give it to me! NOW!!!" (Really, who needs words when your body language is this expressive?)

 Leif generously offered to blow out my candles for me. Since I used number candles in lieu of regular birthday candles, his task was actually *easier* this time than blowing out all the candles on his own cake back in February had been.

Thanks again to everyone for helping me celebrate, and especially to my parents for humoring me and driving all the way over to Grand Avenue to get the Café Latté turtle cake I had been craving!