Birthday, Birthday and Swimming!

 On Nov 3rd Sophia was so excited to attend the birthday party for one of her old Academy friends, Penelope. It was so fun to see our old Academy friends! They had the party at this great indoor playground in Fargo (my VT friends would be reminded of DZ Discovery Zone)... HUGE facility. I just snapped these 2 pics of the girls sharing a seat and a slice of cake... I was too busy during the playground time to get any pics! Kaia is ALL OVER the place now!

 I took this pic for my VT friends too... this is a pile of sugarbeets. If you don't buy cane sugar then this is where your sugar comes from! It's BIG business out here. This pic doesn't really demonstrate how massive these two piles are. This is the staging area just for our bitty little town of Glyndon... there are loads of these staging areas all over. It's been fun during the last month to watch the lines of trucks hauling the beets to the pile, and to watch the machine shoot the beets up! We pass this every day on the way to Sophia's school!

On Friday the 8th Mandy came over with Lily and Miles (Ella and Joe were out looking for deer) and we had pizza. And Sophia and Lily tackled Travis.

 Then on Saturday the 9th we headed up to Grand Forks for Great Grandma Mary's 92nd birthday! This is Grandpa Ralph with Kaia and cousin Ava...

 And Grandma Mary :)

 Kiddie Pile!

 Kaia with her Grandma Carmen :) (I happen to think that Kaia resembles her Grandma Carmen... does anyone else see a resemblance??)

 Kaia with Aunt Lindsey (who is insanely photogenic!)

 BABIES!!! Travis's cousin Maura's son Jonas on the far left, then cousins Ava and Gunner, then Travis' cousin Renae's son and Kaia. All babies from 2012 except for Ava (2011)!!

 Getting Kaia to look at the camera was super challenging...

 And then she stuck out her tongue!

 That one was pretty cute :)

 ...and they're off!

 The big cousins always put on a little show at these gatherings, and Sophia is starting to really participate.

 My girls with their Great Grandma Mary :) We are so lucky to have her in our lives... she is the most gentle, loving mom/grandma/great grandma a person could hope for.

 Family pic turned out a bit blurry, but still special

Mairi and Sophia (2nd cousins) hanging upside down! They are one year apart, and are starting to take notice of each other and play together :)

 On Sunday Sophia (legitimately!) helped Travis install a new floor in our horse trailer. She was in charge of putting washers and bolts together, hammering things down, and handing tools to daddy (even a heavy mallet!). After her work there was done she and I went for a long, wonderful ride on Pepper and Sunny together :) Another crazy busy and wonderful weekend flew by!

 Sophia is taking swimming lessons on Mondays right now. Here she's swimming with a floatie barbell thing. I only do 1 activity at a time! (Plus 4-H, which is year-round). We had gymnastics Sept-Oct, and now swimming Nov-Dec, and then we'll have ballet Jan-June (and then swimming and soccer in the summer). On the first week of every school month I have swimming on Monday, PTA meeting Tuesday, and 4-H on Thursday... it gets to be a bit much.

 Kaia has to be surrounded by food and toys or she is bee-lining for the pool!

Life is busy, but good!