A Birthday, A Burger, and A Bout

Saturday was a very special girls in my life's 7th birthday so we met up with her family and a few of her friends for a night of good food and RollerGirls.

We started a rainy, chilly Minnesota evening with dinner at Burger Moe's in Downtown St. Paul. Shawn and I like to order two different burgers, cut them in half, and trade. We had the Blue Sky Burger which is a beef patty smothered in blue cheese, mushrooms, and onions. It is one of my favorite blue cheese burgers in the area. We also had the Saute Fe Burger which is a beef patty with Monterey Jack cheese, a thick and spicy salsa, and fresh sliced avocado. It was amazing and now one of my new favorites. The service is decent, the food is good, the portions are huge, they have a full bar, and the prices are competitive. If you are looking for a good burger in the cities, I recommend Burger Moe's. I think they might even have a small parking lot next door.

For the main event of the evening we attended the Minnesota RollerGirls 9th Season Home Team Championship Bout and, as always, it was a blast. The season ended with the Garda Belts (Heidi's team of choice) ousting the Dagger Dolls for third place and the Atomic Bombshell's knocking the Rockits out of the Championship and landing the first place title, taking home the coveted Golden Skate.

If you have never been to a RollerGirls Bout I highly recommend it for a fun Saturday evening out. At the start of every evening the run through the rules with demo skaters so everyone knows what is going on. It's very easy to pick up as you start watching.

And, who doesn't want to see a bunch of girls on skates beat up on each other? I mean, really?

The first thing we do when we get to the Bout (not game, not match, but Bout!) is find the "Black Eye" booth. For $1 they will paint up your face to make it look like you were in a bar fight. Just tell people "you should have seen the other guy" if you catch them looking.

Heidi and Sophia are all ready to watch some RollerGirls!

 Next, stop for a picture with your favorite RollerGirl such as Roller Cat, a co-worker of the Birthday Girls Nanna. How cool is that?!

L to R: Piper (Birthday Girl!), Emma, RollerGirl whose name I am not sure of, RollerCat, Maddie, Sophia, and Heidi in front

 After all that you get to find your seats and watch a the first half of the derby.

Rockits are in Red and Atomic Bombshells are Orange

 And just when you think you can't be having any more fun it's half time so head down to the main floor and dance like no one is watching. But everyone is watching and you are on the big screen a million times.

I honestly took 10 pictures of them dancing and this was the best I got. These girls know how to have a good time!

Don't forget the air guitar!

And one last picture with RollerCat before she has to head back out and try to make up some point for her team.

Head back to your seats to watch the second half which is always packed with a lot of action as this is for all the marbles!

And finally celebrate when the Bout ends because you know you could never skate like these girls, while wearing the little outfits they wear (and somehow don't fall out of), and you really could never take a skate to the jaw with such grace. So no matter who won, you are still excited and want to cheer for the ladies who just spent the last 2.5 hours entertaining you and making your night one to remember.

Atomic Bombshells win the Championship and the Golden Skate!

Well, at least that's how the night goes down for Heidi and me!

Hugs and one last HAPPY BIRTHDAY wish sent out to Piper. I hope all your dreams come true and that 7 us your best year!!

Kara

U8 Hockey Jamboree

Heidi recently participated in a Hockey Jamboree for her Mite/U8 program. A Jamboree is basically a tournament where you keep playing win or lose. It is a super fun way to end the season and a huge fundraiser for the association.

We spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the arena watching and cheering Heidi through five games. She was exhausted by the end of the weekend but she left excited for the next year, even considering participating in the summer hockey program.

Heidi came a long way this season. She not only improved her stick and puck handling skills, she made a lot of really good friends who she looks forward to seeing each week. And as a mom, that's really all I can ask for!

Heidi looking like a hockey player in her new hat
 

Heidi is the second one from the door.

Night Sledding Deserves a Quiet Night

Yesterday had the makings of a crazy, go, go, go day but with the looming snow I put the stops on all that.

We could have delivered Girl Scout Cookies all over town, ran a bunch of errands, attended the RV show at the convention center, went to open skating at the ice arena.

Instead we were homebodies. Well, our version of homebodies which still meant leaving the house.

Heidi had early morning hockey practice then we made a stop at Target for Valentines Cards. This is the first time we have ever been completely ready for the school Valentines party more than the night before! YAY us!!

We headed home where I prepared my shopping list and threw in a load of laundry. The three of us made a quick trip to the grocery store then back home. Heidi had two of her BFF's over, Sophia and Piper, so they played while the snow fell outside.

I did laundry, cleaned my dining room turn mudroom in the winter, cleaned the kitchen, payed billed, filed my taxes. I cannot tell you how great I feel just having a clean dining room to come home to and knowing I am done with taxes for this year. Huge stress relief!

Shawn headed off to his hockey game at 5pm and I rounded up all the Kuykendall kids I could find, piled them in the van, and hauled them down to the sledding hill at the elementary school.

The new snow was perfect. It was a warm 30 degrees. And the kids, Cupcake included had a blast.

Heidi stopping just long enough for a picture

Makayla after a few trips up the hill.

Makayla helping Heidi get the snowboard on her feet.

Cupcake had a blast! She loved seeing all the kids, romping with another dog who also came sledding, and running around in the snow.

It's a pretty big hill!!

I didn't sled but I ran around with Cupcake, tried to take pictures (so hard with a crazy dog pulling on my arm), and cheered the kids on.

After about an hour and a half we piled back into the van and returned to our respectable housed (I had 6 kids who live in 2 houses) where Heidi and I crawled into my bed to finish the night watching the Grammy's.

Shawn won his hockey game and Cupcake slept like a rock.

All in all it was the perfect Sunday.

I will leave you with this little video of Heidi and Emily doing cartwheels down the sledding hill.  Heidi is on the left, Emily on the right.

Happy Monday!
Hugs,
Kara

I Heart the Superbowl!

I love the Superbowl for one reason. My friends Jenny and Matt host a party and I get to some of my favorite people.

These are people I have been friends with since High School. You know, the friends who know all of your secrets from way back when you were 16 and dumb.

These guys are like family. No matter where our lives take us we will always be connected.

Everyone brings something to share (so there is a ton of awesome food) so we eat until we cannot sit comfortably.

There are two TV's. One in the basement where the guys gather to actually watch the game.

And the one upstairs where the rest of us mostly have it on for background noise.

I don't see the game save for watching the scoreboard to see who is winning the numbers board.

I don't see the commercials because that's when the guys come up for more food and it's just to loud.

I do see the halftime show. And I generally love it every year.

But I do get to spend 4 hours with these people who I consider my extended family and their kids. And Heidi gets to play with kids who she really likes but doesn't see too often.

As an added bonus for Heidi, she got to sell Girl Scout cookies with a fellow Daisy, Maddie, to everyone at the party.

And as an added bonus for me, I finally got to meet Jenny and Matt's newest addition, Ryanne.

Happy Monday!
Hugs,
Kara

Craft: Headband Canister

If you have a little girl you have the same problem as me. Hair stuff everywhere. My daughter doesn't really do much with her hair but she loves to throw on a headband to hold her curls out of her face so we have a ton of headbands that we can never find.

While on vacation together last week we made these canisters to store her hair things so we can always find them.

Our Hair Stuff Canisters and Heidi giving a Llama!

We took Oatmeal canisters, taped construction paper around them to cover the labels, then decorated with stickers and markers. It was a lot of fun and only took about 20 minutes to complete.

Headbands wrap around the outside and everything else goes inside. What a fun way to store all that random hair stuff!

Hugs!
Kara

The Final Days of Vacation

I always take the last week or so off work to refresh before January rolls around. It is very slow around the office and my family is home so it's perfect. This year I took a span of 17 days which was one day more than my daughter and husbands winter break.

We spent the first 12 days celebrating Christmas which was a lot of fun but man am I happy I still had five days to wind down.

Yesterday Heidi had five of her favorite friends over for a day long play date. They played board games, ate lunch, and generally just ran around the house for five hours. They had a blast.

About an hour into the girls being over my brother called. He needed me to pick up my niece from daycare because her daycare provider, a good friend of ours, was going to the hospital to have her baby.

It was a great day all around! I got to hang out with five buck wild girls, watch my little niece, and we had enchiladas for dinner.

Heidi is hanging out with the same friends but this time over at another families house so Shawn and I are getting in a work out at the community center. 

A girl could get used to this vacation stuff! Four days left...

My niece Elie and her Mama. I was so busy with all those girls I didn't snap a single picture!

Our Third and Fourth Christmas Celebrations and an Egg Bake

We are still celebrating Christmas around here and I realized this morning it will overlap with our New Years celebrations but that's all good with me! You all know how much I love to be with my family. Heck, that's why there are two house fulls of them within a mile of my house!

On Christmas morning we woke up to one of the best gifts, the gift of Heidi not being sick any more.

She opened her gifts from Santa and from us before we headed over to my dad's house for brunch.

 Santa did good for a kid who asked for nothing. He got her a rolling hockey bag, a new stick, and a "Fuzzy Bear Ball" that she fell in love with at Cabela's a few months back.

 Heidi and I surprised Shawn with the knife he has been coveting for the last few months. To say he was happy would be an understatement.

Santa got Heidi the Moose version of the Bear Ball (which is actually called a Cuddly Buddies Pillow). She loves him so much. The only problem is Grandma and Grandpa got her the dog one so now her bed is more than full. I am really not sure where she sleeps!

Cupcake got a Kong and she loves it! This is her fourth Kong but I think this one will last awhile since Siri isn't here to eat it.

After we opened our gifts I chopped up these beautiful veggies to make an egg bake. We read a number of recipes while we were in Fargo and opted just to wing it. I was very pleased with how this turned out, I will make it again!

What you need:
12 eggs
1 medium yellow onion
1 green pepper
4 to 6 ounces mushrooms
8 ounces Deli Ham
1 large tomato - sliced thin
6 to 8 ounces mozzarella cheese

Dice the onion, green pepper, and mushrooms.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Heat a bit of oil in a skillet. When hot add the onion and saute about two minutes. Then add the green pepper and saute another two minutes. The onion should be starting to turn translucent. Add the mushrooms and saute another minute. Test the veggies for tenderness, when they are how you like them, remove them from the pan and place on the bottom of greased 9 by 13 baking dish.

In a medium bowl, beat 12 eggs.

Pour the eggs over the veggies. Place the thin tomato slices on top of the eggs then sprinkle the cheese over the tomatoes.

Bake for 25 minutes or until the eggs are cooked through.

This was a hit with my family and served 6 people when served with side dishes.

Enjoy, Hugs!!
Kara

Acts of Kindness Day 1, Vacation Day 1, and a Holiday Dinner

Yesterday was my first day in my mission to complete 26 Acts of Kindness. Small acts of kindness are very easy, it's really just being nice and helpful so I hope you all follow along and maybe get inspired to do these little things each and every day.

It was also my first day of vacation! I am off for 17 days, Shawn and Heidi are off for 16. I am really looking forward to all the family time we are going to have.

Heidi started her vacation with a fever and a headache so hopefully she isn't too sick and gets better soon.

In addition to yesterday being my first day of vacation it was also the first day of winter. I love the idea of celebrating the changes of the seasons!!

The day started with our friend kids, my carpool, coming to our house early so their parents could get to work early. The girls loved being together before school and their time with Cupcake.

(Act of Kindness 1 - helped out a friend)

You will just have to trust me when I say they were happy, all that bed head is telling a different story!

Being the last day of school before vacation and the first day of Winter I wanted to do something fun with the girls so we went out to breakfast.

Hot Cocoa and Muffins at Caribou - YUM!

Act of Kindness 2 - Surprised the kids with a special breakfast
Act of Kindness 3 - tipped my barista graciously. Do you tip your barista? I sure hope so! But I usually spend under $4 and just toss my change in the cup. Today it was a few bills. The look on the baristas face was so worth it!
Act of Kindness 4 - I cleaned up the table at Caribou so it looked like no one had sat there while the girls cleaned up the play area to make it nicer than they found it.

Act of Kindness 5 - gave Heidi's teacher a Thank You gift that made her cry. I felt a bit bad about that one!

Act of Kindness 6 - smiled, greeted and/or thanked each of the school staff members I encountered while in the building.

I spent the rest of my day running errands and wrapping gifts.

Act of Kindness 7 - Put a kart away for a woman with small kids already strapped into her car at Costco.

Act of Kindness 8 - ran two errands for my friend while she was at work.

Heidi came home from school about an hour early with a headache so I took a little nap with her. Cupcake joined us. It was delightful!

We ended our day with dinner at Paul and Erin's house. Erin served Lemon Chicken which was absolutely wonderful. Paul served beers (I may or may not have had three...). And the girls had a lot of fun playing and begging to open their gifts.

We had a little gift exchange where the girls gave each other popcorn poppers and before we knew it we were all exhausted, it was 10 pm, and time to go, bringing a great day full of my favorite people and seven Acts of Kindness to a close.

What Acts of Kindness did you do today? If you think hard I bet you did some without even realizing it!

Hugs!
Kara

Trying to Lift the Writers Block

These last few days I have had a special kind of writers block. It is the kind that comes during the process of reconciliation. And I know this time it is due to the elementary school shootings that happened last Friday.

The shooting are not something I even intended to write about. I try to keep current events off my blog but this one is effecting me so deeply. Being the mother of a seven year old, being the aunt of four 6 to 8 year olds, being the Girl Scout Troop leader to 15 girls ranging from 6 to 8, really having gotten to know my daughters friends from school. This is just way to close to home for me.

And this is the kind of think that usually would drive me away from the blog for a while and have me writing in a personal setting instead.

However, this time, I wasn’t writing at all.

I sort of stuck my head in the sand and ended up feeling extremely guilty for moving on with my life while these poor families were suffering this senseless tragedy.

Friday night we went to a parade in Downtown Minneapolis called Holidazle with the kids. It’s at night in the freezing cold. All of the floats and people in the parade are decked out with lights. It is a lot of fun. But I was overshadowed with a feeling that I should not be enjoying myself when this was all still going on. I should have been hugging the kids not getting down on myself.

Saturday morning I was home paying bills and creating our Holiday card while Shawn and Heidi were at the dentist. I broke down when it occurred to me these families would never be taking their child to the dentist again.

Sunday I spent the day shopping with Erin. Towards the end of our outing we finally let ourselves talk about how we were feeling. For me, it really is about feeling helpless. I am helpless to directly help these families and that’s not something I deal well very well.

I am a fixer and a doer. To be sitting at home without a way to help makes me feel horrible. In natural disasters I have joined up with groups who are collecting hygiene supplies, pick up a truck load of shampoo and diapers at the dollar store, and know they will help.

But these families don’t need shampoo. The need their child returned to them safely. I can’t make that happen.

I finally figured out what to do. It is coming in a few forms and I really hope it not only helps me but helps others.

I volunteered in my daughters classroom on Monday and was there to support the teacher however she needed. I played games with the kids and made their afternoon enjoyable plus I was able to have lunch with Heidi and her friends.

I thanked the support staff at the school for all their efforts in keeping our children safe. I have always appreciated them but even more so now because they really are doing the very best they can.

Last night our Girl Scout Troop made thank you cards for their favorite teacher or support staff at their school. We did not feel it was our place to talk to the girls specifically about what happened so we left it very high level with a “lets thank all the people at our school who help us every day.” The girls loved it and it warmed my heart.

For the future, I am going to focus on completing more random acts of kindness. I am going to smile at people more often. Really, I am just going to keep trying to be the best Kara I can be and I am going to keep pushing Heidi to be the best Heidi she can be. It is the best I can do at this point.

Hugs to you all and to your children. Thanks for stopping by the blog today, I do feel the writers block is lifting as I wrap this up.

Kara

Feeling Christmas

I didn't realize until this weekend that I have been lacking Holiday spirit the last two years. What made me realize it was having our friends and family over for our party and actually feeling it. I went Wow! Where has this feeling been?

Two years ago we were going through Chemo treatments with Daisy Mae, our amazing bullmastif.

Last year we lost our Bulldog Pig to intestinal cancer in a very short period of time.

But this year, and this is recent and I haven't really told you all about it yet, but we are a one healthy dog family. Yes, you know we have one healthy dog but you may have thought we had two. What happened to one of those dogs is s story for another day.

Today, I am feeling the Holiday spirit and I want to keep it that way!

Monday, the day after we became a one dog family, we made the trek through ice and snow, three miles away, to a local Christmas Tree Store.

The entire family went so that means Cupcake joined us.

This picture was taken just before Cupcake took a huge steamer in the snow that Shawn made me clean up. I could not find a garbage can so the bag containing the steamer may or may not have been forgotten in my van until the next morning.

 We wandered around the tree store for a while until we found the perfect tree.

Even Cupcake approved!!

Let me tell you, I was so impressed by how well behaved Cupcake was. I mean, besides the steamer incident. She didn't bother anyone and she didn't complain about it only being about 10 degrees outside.

We loaded the tree up and brought it home to thaw out.

Then on Tuesday we decorated it as a family. I have to say, it turned out to be a beautiful tree. I am so looking forward to filling it with presents for my amazing family in a few weeks!!

Happy holidays everyone!
Kara

A Little Pumpkin Fun

Happy Halloween everyone!!  I hope you are all as excited as I am to go Trick or Treating tonight!!

Over the weekend we had Ryan, Jess, and the kids over to carve pumpkins. I don't have much do say, the pictures already say it all.

Stay safe. Stay warm. Have fun. Happy Halloween!!

Windseaker? No Thanks!

I was just watching a story on the Today Show about a ride at Knots Berry Farm called the Windseaker. Yesterday this ride triggered a safety alarm and came to a halt leaving the riders stranded high up in the air for three hours.

They spoke briefly to a woman named Donna who went on the ride at the urging of her husband to help her with her fear of heights. She said the first 30 minutes were daunting but then, with the help of her husband, it got better.

This story brought me back to last summer when Erin and I took the kids to Valleyfair, the local amusement park in the Twin Cities. The girls wanted to go on rides that required adults to go with them.  I am NOT a ride person at all but there were four kids and two adults so I had to buck up and get on some of those rides.

The one that really sticks out in my memory was the Mouse Trap.

"Is it a roller coaster, because I DO NOT do roller coasters." I say.

"No! It's not a roller coaster" they assure me.

But guess what!! It most certainly was a roller coaster and by the time I figured it out there was nothing I could do but get on that ride.

It jerked.

It twisted.

It went really fast.

I hated it.

I screamed.

I might have cried a little bit.

I laughed hysterically (because that is what I do when I am freaked out).

It totally sucked.

Then I was told we would have to do it again with the other two kids.

I panicked.

But then I was saved. It started to rain and they shut the ride down. And it stayed that way until we left.

And I swore I will never get on that ride again. Because unlike Donna from the Windseaker, going on that godforsaken ROLLER COASTER did not help me beat my fears but sealed them as real fears for ever more.