Karl's Quilt

Every Tuesday Karl has been going over to Pam and Fred's house to work on a Star Wars quilt with Oma. When Matt was a kid, he had a Star Wars-themed bedroom, and had Star Wars sheets attached to his walls like wallpaper. Pam still had those sheets, so she and Karl decided to make a quilt out of them.

Here is Karl last fall at the start of the project, holding a sample square.

Consulting the pattern...

Finally done!

Karl and Oma with the finished product (and matching pillow) in Karl's room. Karl even sleeps on Matt's old bed, so all of this is really blowing Matt's mind. (Or not. I like to think he's happy to have traded his Star Wars bedroom for one he shares with a girl.) The new quilt fits in very nicely with Karl's Star Wars-sports-science-space-flags theme he has going on. Nice work!

Fun with the Schneider Cousins

Laura and Karl spent a fun-filled day yesterday with Oma, Opa, Aly, and Emily. First they went to a carnival at Aly's school, and then they spent the afternoon at the Gayle Woods Farm. I always worry that the kids will get too silly and Pam and Fred will reconsider outings like these, but we got good reports all around, so it sounds like everyone had a good time.

Emily, Pam, Fred, Karl, Aly, Laura

Laura and Aly

Karl and Emily look at a dead fish.

Laura and Emily searching for four-leaf clovers

Deborah Meissner, R.N. ...again

Most of you know that I renewed my R.N. license this spring, after several months of feeling antsy (this feeling has happened to me a few times over the years while I was a stay-at-home-mom, but I could take only so many classes before they made me graduate, and joining committees and bookclubs can only go so far to make one feel productive). Well, I actually got a job! I'll be working every other weekend and every other Monday at the Villages in North Branch, which is a good way to see how I like things in the working world again. The best thing is that it will be the day shift, so I'll always be home for bedtimes and after school (which were big concerns of mine when deciding if I should work or not). It'll be nice to actually earn some money for once, instead of always paying to do things. What a strange concept! I'll be starting in the next few weeks, so I'll let everyone know how it's going once I start, but in the meantime I'm really excited!

Fun Fact: The main reason I majored in nursing at St. Olaf was to have an excuse to get one of these hats.

Hanging out with Colin and Justin

After Karl's guitar lesson on Thursday, we continued on to Angie and Jason's so Karl could play with Colin and Justin. Mom and Dad were staying there while Angie and Jason were away on a trip, and a visit from Karl was a great source of entertainment. The big plan was to have dinner at McDonald's, and it was a big hit!

This picture pretty much captures the mood of how these two act together...

We also discovered how much Justin likes french fries and chicken McNuggets!

The boys had a lot of fun playing together, but I bet Mom and Dad were not too sad to see us go home. Three boys can get pretty wild!

"I am a blur!!"

...exclaimed Laura, as she raced around the church parking lot on her bike. For the past several years, she's been perfectly content to leave the bike-riding business to her brother, and wasn't about to risk the inevitable falls just to learn to ride a bike. For the past couple weeks, though, she's been working hard to master biking skills, partly because she had a huge carrot dangling in front of her (a visit to Waterpark of America), but mostly because she found out how fun it is! And guess what? She never really fell! She remembered that we had made a video when Karl learned to ride his bike, so she made sure we had the video camera with whenever we went out to practice.

She wanted a grand blog post, and Matt came through with a very inspiring video:


Laura became an official bike rider on Friday. So where did we go on Saturday? Right on! The Waterpark of America! We spent the whole day climbing steps and going down waterslides (our favorite ride, the family raft ride, is ten-stories tall. We went down it at least a dozen times. I know I complain about all the stairs every time we go to a waterpark, but come on, can you blame me?). We met our waterpark buddies the Elliotts there, and we had a blast as usual. Here we are at the end of the family raft ride, minus Matt, Angie, and Justin.

The waterpark cousins: Colin, Justin, Karl, Laura

Congratulations Laura! You did it!

Happy Easter!

We had a bright and early Easter morning at our house, as we had to fit in the Easter basket and egg-finding festivities before 7:30 (Matt and I had to sing in the choir at the 8:00 service). The kids had no problem getting up, though, and headed straight for their baskets, filled with candy that I will be eating for the next few weeks.

Both kids do, however, love Reeses Pieces, especially when they're in packages resembling carrots. I will have to be fast to get in on those goodies (good thing I bought extra this year).

Here they are, ready to go, fueled up on Grandpa's cinnamon bread.

Later we went to Angie and Jason's to celebrate. We had our annual sunroom photo shoot.

The cousins: Laura, Karl, Colin, Justin

Mom and Dad

The whole group: Matt, Laura, Me, Karl, Colin, Jason, Angie, Justin, Dad, Mom, Jennifer, and Brian.

Hope everyone had a happy Easter!

Pre-Easter Fun

On Thursday the kids and I dyed Easter Eggs, and I always cook extra in anticipation of the ones that will break during the decorating (and then I get to make egg salad), but this year, none broke, and I shed another tear over my babies who keep growing up (I actually had to break a few eggs myself, because I was looking forward to an egg salad sandwich for lunch that day).

Laura makes sure they don't stay in the color too long, because she thinks they should be light and pastel instead of dark and bright. I think they look pretty springy indeed!

Today we went to St. Paul to an orchestra concert at the Ordway. Here we are in the mezzanine before the concert.

And it's now tradition that we eat at Pop!! after any St. Paul Chamber Orchestra show. Laura says it's the coolest restaurant in the world. My pictures didn't turn out there though, so you'll all just have to wait until I get my new camera...

Stay tuned for tomorrow's Easter pictures!