A Twin Cities December Weekend with Chelsea and the Kids

Chelsea and her kids decided to come visit and be the last guests in this home.

Well, at least we think so.

She had a trick to finding out the gender of the baby by taking a piece of my hair and using a bobby pin as a weight. I had to place this over my wrist and see if it goes in a circle or a line. It started in a circle which means girl. She explained that it tells each kid in order first. I got too weirded and out and impatient by the hair to see the end. All I saw were circles.

Which might mean it's a girl.

 We first headed over to the Just Between Friends Sale. I was really hoping to get a maternity coat, but their maternity section was really slim. They did have a great selection of toys. We should have gotten those purple snowshoes for Meadow.

Meadow would love this.

I wish I had seen these before Halloween.

I like that Harvey fell asleep with his hand in a can cozie.

Just like his dad...I kid, I kid.

We stopped for lunch at Noodles before heading over to the Children's Museum. I didn't know they had kids meals. The kids can pick two sides. Meadow wanted a salad, but that wasn't an option. She chose broccoli and applesauce instead.

I had gotten Nolan and Harvey tickets to the Minnesota Children's Museum for their birthday last year. With the museum being closed for renovation for most the year they finally got to use their tickets.

Harvey was the only one who agreed to face painting.

This area lets kids put stickers wherever they want.

The carpet sledding hill was probably the kids favorite. My dad needs to build one in their basement.

Little climber.

Scott had taken Meadow to the museum back in August. She remembered the car wash area and couldn't wait to go back.

The new exhibits sure kept all three kids interested.

The kids were too scared for the big slide, but loved the shorter one. Meadow even went down head first. She's usually not a fan of slides.

Our last room was Chelsea and Meadow's favorite. I think they spent an hour in here. I even took Nolan to the Tinker Toy room for awhile.

Chelsea helped Meadow make a Christmas banner.

I had been at a business lunch with a fellow from Stillwater who helped create a historic walking tour app for the city. I planned on coming back to everyone, but they were all still at the children's museum.

The next morning I read books while Scott made breakfast.

We took the advice of Brooke's coworker and made french toast with the cinnamon streusel bread from Costco.

Harvey gave it his smile of approval.

It was pretty good. Meadow missed out because she wanted yogurt instead.

While in Minneapolis, Chelsea wanted to go to the basement store at the Salvation Army.

I was hoping to find a maternity coat, but again no luck. I just can't give in to paying full price for a coat that I will only wear for 2 months.

We took turns watching Meadow and Nolan while Chelsea kept Hurricane Harvey. After a while I decided to put them in the cart. They wanted me to go faster, faster.

Meadow really wants earmuffs, but her head is still a little too small.

After a couple of hours at the basement store, we were ready to go. Meadow had other ideas.

We're not much for lunch food, so I had to figure out something to make for everyone. Grilled Cheese it was.

Except Meadow, who only eats melted cheese if its mac and cheese. She had pb and jelly instead.

We had some time before it got dark. Meadow and Nolan played games and got into trouble while Scott and I packed for the big move and worked on the house.

Chelsea did a funny app by taking a photo of each of us and changing the photo to see what we looked like old, young, female, male etc.

What's really funny is Chelsea "old" looked just like our mom, the male version of me looked like a younger version of my dad and the boy version of Meadow looked just like a younger Blake. 

While they Snapchatted, I made some vegetarian tacos: pan fried queso blanco...

...with roasted cauliflower and corn. 

It was a hit with everyone.

Nolan thought it would be funny to shake his butt in my face.

But we had other plans.

We took the kids to Hollidazzle for some ice skating. This was Nolan's first time on the ice.

Hollidazzle was super packed. It took Scott 20 minutes to find a parking spot and we actually had to wait in line to get into the warming house.

There was a fireworks display. I missed it while riding in circles.

Meadow insisted on using the ice skating walker even though she was pretty good at the end of last winter.

She did pretty good, but was a little wobbly. She'll get the hang of it again.

I stayed back. I'm a little sad to miss out on skating this year. Harvey went out a few rounds, but wasn't having it. I stayed back with him and he did not like being away from Chelsea.

Once we were done with skating we walked around the market. By this time the crowds had thinned out.

Nolan and Meadow stopped at every single cut out character to get a picture taken.

They love it. 

While Brooke, Chelsea and Harvey went into one of the tents to check out the last booths, I watched Meadow and Nolan at the makeshift playground.

Meadow saw the climbing wall and asked to go over.

Watching two 4-year-olds in a dark park isn't something I want to do everyday.

At least they are cape-able of playing on their own.

One last photo op in the sleigh.

There was a moose and wolf interactive art display made of all recycled materials. On the wolf if you pull on the rope it made the head go up to look like it was howling.

The next morning Chelsea headed back home. Our next guests will be in our new place.