Morgan & Natalie Archives - Erin's Middle Niche

Weekend Wrapup

We kicked off the weekend with a night at the Bureau County Fair. The girls were pumped to ride some rides and get cotton candy. I have never seen the appeal of cotton candy, but it’s their fair food of choice. Brandon likes corn dogs, and I personally go for the elephant ears. After moving to Macomb, I realized those are regional because I couldn’t find them at any carnival in that area. If I had been thinking, I would have started an Elephant Ear food truck because who doesn’t like fried dough with cinnamon sugar and a glaze of icing?!

It had been way too long. One of my favorite memories from the fair is going to the Queen contest as a kid with my parents and getting an elephant ear on the way out of the fairgrounds.

The girls rode rides until 10pm and there were still tears when it was time to go. Natalie had one meltdown when we stopped ever so briefly for French fries. It was unavoidable because she would have melted down later from lack of food. Morgan met up with a friend from her class to ride a few rides. I was happy to see that because she has bouts of homesickness missing her friends in Macomb. All in all it was a great night and they got our money’s worth of the armbands.

They rode this Dragon “roller coaster” at least a dozen times. Natalie is a dare devil with rides. She was incredibly bummed to not be tall enough for the big ship that swings way up and down.

Morgan still enjoys the younger rides but is starting to prefer the bigger rides. She gets motion sickness in the car (and bumpy plane rides) but the rides are okay for now. She wears bands on her wrists and goes for it. The last ride she went on was the Tilt a Whirl and I was holding my breath she didn’t hurl all over her new friend.

And this is what happens on a Saturday afternoon after a late night at the fair.

The rest of Saturday was spent on cleaning out the basement. While Brandon worked out clearing out some stuff, Morgan and I worked on ridding the basement of cobwebs.

It’s a good thing I’m not afraid of spiders. Morgan’s not a big fan but she stuck with this project.

This is the area Brandon was concentrating on so he could have a place for all the tools that were in the dining room. We needed to get those cleared out so we could start on the floors. See that big blue tank on the floor? He tried to attached that to my car and pull it up the stairs. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. 🙂 We will need to enlist my dad and his tractor to help out with that and all the other HUGE things that need to get out.

All the tools in the basement! The girls liked helping out with this project. Natalie sat at the top of the stairs and handed Brandon the tools Morgan brought her. I just had to help out with the heavier stuff. One step closer to refinishing the floors.

On Sunday we headed to the fair to watch Blake and Lauren show their pigs. They did a great job and the girls had a good time with their cousins.

I grew up showing pigs and have attempted to explain the whole thing to non-farming people, but I think it still comes across as a little odd.

The girls even talked us into one more ride. Lauren was nice enough to ride with them. Natalie loved the Tilt a Whirl on Friday night, but was less impressed on Sunday. She must have been on a rider’s high on Friday.

One more week off for me before I start the new job. I still have a few things I want to get done this week, so I’m going to do my best to be productive.

Friday Favorites

Just a few favorites to wrap up our week. I might make this a regular post to keep people in touch with what is going on with all of us. It will probably be picture heavy.

One of our walks along the canal after a picnic. What kid doesn’t love throwing walnuts and rocks in to water?

Throwing walnuts led Morgan and Brandon down the rabbit hole of harvesting walnuts. Now, Morgan thinks we are going to forage pounds of walnuts. Their method of cracking them will have to be more efficient. 🙂

And about 20 selfies by a 3 year old are always entertaining.

New bedding made their rooms extra fun and bright. Thanks Grandma Debbie, Aunt Jacque and Aunt Sheri!

Both girls wanted rainbows for their rooms. Makes it fun to add pops of color. I’m working on a fun art project for their walls. Hopefully it will work and I’ll share soon.

Turns out we are fitting in a lot of activities these first couple of weeks. I’m sure it will slow down once I get back to work, but for now it’s easy to fill up a post with highlights from the week. I left out the trip to Starved Rock, but it deserves a post of it’s own soon. 🙂

Moving: Part 1 of ???

We were able to move the girls’ clothes, some toys, dressers, Morgan’s mattress and box spring, and Natalie’s bed along with a few other things up to the new place last Sunday.

I think it took about an hour to get things loaded in my dad’s truck and then add the other mattress.

It went pretty smoothly except we forgot the mattress to Natalie’s bed until we had the other mattress and box spring already strapped down on my car. It was a relatively easy add though those things kept me from going my usual speed. 😉

Unloading was pretty easy too. The hardest part was reassembling Morgan’s old/Natalie’s new bed. It’s the IKEA Hemnes Daybed which is great for the storage. Brandon assembled it the first time and was surprised it went smoothly after hearing the horror stories of IKEA instructions. This time, we were tired and ready to be done so it took a bit longer than it probably should have. I was in charge of the instructions and didn’t know there were no words in IKEA instructions. It took me a hot minute to figure out the instructions, but I managed and the bed hasn’t collapsed yet.

She’s done better than I thought she would sleeping in a new bed in a new room at a new house upstairs away from mom and dad.

Brandon headed back to Macomb for three more weeks of work, but he will be back for long weekends. He will bring a few things along with him each time, but the majority of the rest of things will be moved once the floors downstairs get done.

The girls and I wanted to squeeze in some fun before school started on Wednesday. We checked out some local parks and the Hennepin Canal trail. I love to ride bikes and walk the trail. The girls like the “waterfalls” and throwing walnuts and rocks into the water.

I feel like this is one of the last ones you can actually drive over. Brandon and I took a wedding photo on one of the old bridges a few locks down and it had not been open to cars for years.

Morgan started school on Wednesday. Natalie will start a bit later because the program needed more documentation to start her in the program. Morgan was a bit nervous but I was sure she would have a great first day. She is so outgoing and makes friends everywhere she goes. She did love her first day and every day since, so that does make moving easier for her.

Natalie is very excited to start her preschool, mainly because there is a bunny in her room. Natalie’s comment was “it’s too big to for Clarence to kill.” I’m hoping she will start in the next few days since she asks every day to go to preschool.

So we will keep on getting things settled here and working on little projects. I’ll keep you up-to-date on those as they happen. We are trying to mix in some fun along with work since we are more “moved” now than we have been.