Best Team Ever!

As mentioned in the previous post, Sara's Target team was amazing. At her happy hour on March 12th over 25 people showed up which according to one of her peer's was the highest turnouts she's seen. Sara doesn't count her success by the number of people who show up at happy hour but it did feel pretty good to see everyone out to support her!

On Sara's last day her team went out to lunch and fit in a quick Target run so Sara could use her discount one last time :) But at lunch they surprised her with going away gifts. Wow! First Sheila had crocheted her multiple washcloths and trivets that Sara has used already. Can't believe that she made them...for Sara! Double wow!

Her team knows her extremely well and presented her with a cupcake kit all contained within a Target lunchbox. Perfect, just perfect. Think some surprise cupcakes will need to be delivered to them before moving - complete with cool paper liners and damask boxes. Way cool!!!


The best part of the gift though was a card where each team member wrote a personalized note about Sara's leadership. Sara carries it in her purse to remind her of the great experience she had with this team and at Target :)

These thoughtful gifts were in addition to a printed 11x14 photo collage of the Channel team complete with thoughtful notes from each team member written on the back. This for sure has been viewed 100 times since Sara's last day. She loves stuff like this and they knew it.

Although Sara's last day was March 13 there hasn't been a day that has gone by that she hasn't thought of them. Matter of fact, she keeps hearing their voices in her head and she's sure they are talking about phone channel initiatives that were in the works. How silly is that?? But it's hard not to think of them when you wear the 'team bracelet' every day. Thanks so much Sheila for this trendy accessory!! Love the multi-colored one too!! And Trevor loves his too - thank you for that so Mommy didn't have to fight him every morning over hers :)

Zoo with Sammy

We headed to the Zoo after church on a beautiful day. We knew Sammy would be there with another one of his friends so we weren't sure we'd see them but once the boys saw each other their party of two became a party of three!

Trevor wanted to ride in his stroller for parts of the zoo. Here he was enthralled with the monkeys (the one animal he wanted to see at the zoo!)


The boys and Uncle Jim!


We headed outside to enjoy the beautiful day and Trevor found the baby bear. He had to have his hood up most of the day :)


Photo op with Sammy. Both boys are saying cheese!


Weeeeeeeee!


And the most precious moment captured on Mommy's iphone....they spontaneously just started holding hands. Mommy's.heart.melted

Arizona Bound

So we've had a bit of a hiatus from the blog because our world is a bit crazy right now because....we are moving to Arizona!! Crazy huh?? We're right with ya! Brian was contacted to interview for a Director of National Promotions position at PetSmart national headquarters in Phoenix in late January/early February and learned a lot about the position, the team, the culture and whatnot. It would be a great position for him - a big promotion and get him back into more of the marketing world which he loves (which by the way his background is exactly what they wanted - a mix of retail merchandising at Target and vendor marketing at 3M. Did you know he helped launch 3M's Pet Care line? Who knew that would come back to help further his career!) We'd also get to the warmer weather which we've been craving ever since meeting in graduate school!

But the timing was just a bit off because Sara was set to interview two days after Brian got his offer for a promotion of her own. She would be leading a new team from the team she was currently on at Target - a larger team needing strategic direction and with the promotion would be at a new leadership level. And thinking about leaving all of our MN friends and family and Trevor's school and everything else it really was a tough decision to make. In the end after talking all weekend, we decided Brian would take the position and we would move. Eek!!

So Sara told her manager right away Monday morning because she didn't feel comfortable going through the interviews knowing she wouldn't be at Target long enough to make an impact in the new role and not wanting to burn any bridges given that you never know what can happen in the future! Sara's announcement came as quite a shock, which you can imagine (heck Sara was still in shock as she was telling her) but her manager couldn't be more supportive. Sara will always appreciate her reaction and support from that moment on. We decided to wait for a while to tell the larger team because her manager now had to figure out a plan to fill two positions (Sara's current one and the one she was being promoted to). It was almost 3 weeks until we told the larger team but once we did it felt good. Sara hates keeping secrets especially given her close-knit team. Not sure she'll ever work with a better team. She's going to miss everyone so much!! There's an opportunity for Sara to work at Target Tempe in more of a call center role but for now she is going to focus on getting the family relocated and settled until making a decision on the next step of her career.

Back to Brian, he had to keep his leaving Target secret for a bit too because he wanted to be sure he left work in a good place given he was in the middle of busy season. He also knew that as soon as he told his manager they would basically escort him out because that is just Target's policy when you leave to go to a competitor. Although in Brian's case after he told his manager they were trying to find a way around the rule given their busy time, but his VP was unsuccessful. Brian's manager found him in a 4:30 meeting and walked him out, however not before he was able to tell his team what was going on. They had a nice happy hour for him a few days later and he'll for sure keep in touch with his colleagues and friends going forward!

And what does Trevor think all of this? Because we know that's what you all really care about :) When we told him he said 'Cactus? Pool?' and then proceeded to find his swimsuit and attempt to put it on. We think he's going to like his new home just fine :)

Winter or Spring?

We had a beautiful Spring-like day we had last Sunday. It was so nice out that even Mommy was ready to get out and enjoy the day. Luckily she had a willing partner with Trevor! He pulled out his motorcycle and away he went down the front sidewalk.


Away he did...just a little too fast. He went boomers!


That didn't keep him down long. Before you know it he was back up and zooming down the street.


He even says 'weeeeeeeee' the whole time!


Such a proud little biker:


Of course Trevor found a puddle and instead of going around it, he had to go right through it. Such a boy!


We enjoyed some time at the playground before heading home.

Trevor was having a grand ole time until a girl started eyeing up his motorcycle. She got quite the look - Trevor didn't say anything he just didn't take his eyes off of her until she moved away!

Mini Murph

Our sister-in-law Annie told us about these mini-pizza kits from Papa Murphy's so we tried it out for our 'Mini Murph' on Friday when we had our good friends over for pizza night. It's nice because they live just down the street so they bundle their almost 1 year old in the stroller and walk on down! During that time Trevor made his pizza!

He scooped out the pizza sauce and put it on his pizza:


He carefully put on the cheese:


He sampled the cheese:


Then finished putting on that layer of cheese before adding the pepperonis and the rest of the cheese:


Too bad we didn't get an after picture because boy it did look good. Mac and Trevor gave it 2 thumbs up! Mommy too :)

Happy Valentine's Day

What a wonderful start to the Valentine's week when Sara received a surprise gift of roses to work on Monday!! They were just beautiful and smelled so good! The best part though was the nice card that accompanied the flowers. What a wonderful husband she has :)


On Valentine's Day Trevor's school put on a special program during lunch and Daddy was able to go and watch our good boy sing and do actions. The video is priceless...we'll have to get that uploaded soon! No surprise that he's right by Miss Tina. They are best buds :)


Trevor was so excited to see Dada there. When they were 'released' Trevor knew right where to go!


After the program they enjoyed some Valentine goodies then the parents left. Trevor was a bit teary eyed but Miss Marcy reminded him (and the other kids) that they talked about the fact that parents were coming for the program but the parents would have to leave before nap so they should 'put their tears away' (love that! we use it at home too now) Miss Jillian said that after nap Trevor walked around proudly telling everyone that his Dada came to see him sing. Made Mommy sad that she missed it but glad that Dada could go!

Haircut #12!

Like we said in our last post, we decided it was finally time for Trevor to get a 'hairscut' :) We asked him if he wanted one and he said 'yes! then I get a sucker!' - not even joking one bit. This kid remembers everything!!! We went to a new Kids Hair and really liked the girl who did his hair. She was meticulous and understood his crazy hair!


Trevor was great during his cut - well, he is a master of them so we guess he should be! He was in a daze of sorts during the haircut. He just kept watching TV....he lit up a little bit when she was styling his new 'do'!


And the final look. He knew he looked good and he inspired the look for another boy in the salon. His parents saw Trevor and then told the stylist they wanted the same look for their kiddo!


And what's up with the Vikings shirt? Big boy picked it out all by himself. We had mentioned we were going to a Superbowl party and somehow he knew that was a football party?? In any case, Mommy told him the section of his closet to choose from (the 2T section) and he just kept flipping through clothes until he found his 'Vikings shirt' (as he proudly calls it) in the 3T section.

After his haircut we got 'Uncle Ronalds' and brought it home. Trevor has been sitting at the dining room table without issue but today he spilled his milk everywhere and Mommy said something to the effect of 'that's it, you sit in your high chair.' As she was cleaning up the mess Trevor went to get his step stool all by himself. He must have known Mommy was serious. Except she was serious about getting his high chair out. And when she did, he sat in it without complaint!


After his nap we had a lot of fun playing cars on the floor with our handsome boy!




Zoom!


Trevor is fascinated with tunnels so he really enjoyed it when Dada made a tunnel for the car to go through!


It's really too bad that he isn't very happy ;)

Zoo Day!

On Saturday morning we decided last minute to go out for breakfast and then go to the zoo. We had the most delicious breakfast at Jensen's Cafe in Burnsville. Their french toast was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. We'll need to go back, that's for sure.

Our first stop at the zoo was the penguins. Not sure what's up with the hood other than Trevor HAD to have it up!


A crawl through the tunnel:


Some fun with the fishies:


And then while watching the monkeys he must have gotten hot because off came the hood! And it was this picture that made us realize, yes, he needs a 'hairscut' :)


Such a Trevor look here...he's an observer like his Mommy!


And when the monkey was walking across the high rope, Trevor got a kick out of it!


Walking through the bamboo reeds lead to lots of laughs!


Gotta love a fast camera, almost too fast sometimes! Our little poser was waiting for the dolphin show. It was the one thing he wanted to see at the zoo - what a good memory he has!


We filled the wait time with some tickles from Dada. You can almost hear his little laugh in this picture!


Back to being an observer checking out the dolphin's tricks!


We got a lot of close-ups of Semo:


After the dolphin show we took Trevor on his first ride on the monorail. It was much too cold for us to walk outside!


See even the bison don't walk when it is so cold out!


Although cold, the frost from the night before sure made it kind of pretty....kind of being the key words.....


Have you seen frost up close? We hadn't before - we didn't realize how prickly it looked!

Lauren's Special Day

Our niece Leah is in the hospital with RSV :( so the big girls came over to our house for a bit Saturday night. It's always great to spend time with them, we only wish it was under different circumstances.

The girls and Trevor had SO much fun together! We can't even tell you how relatively easy it was to have two more kids in the house (which was nice for Sara because Brian was at work all day/evening)...but most of that is because Lauren is a little Mom and she takes such good care of everyone. One hit of the evening was Trevor's new train table.


Such concentration :) But this picture brings to mind a survey we need to hold - should Trevor get haircut #12 or should we keep it long? Ugh, decisions!


Lauren loved helping Brooke and Trevor shoot hoops!


Auntie Sara surprised them by making chocolate chip cookies - although we added some oatmeal to make them a little healthier since Uncle Jeff and Aunt Dawn didn't know cookies were being served. Oops! But, what are Aunt and Uncles for?? :)


They also played this game for a good 30 minutes where they would take turns being upstairs and downstairs and throw Brooke's fairy dolls down.


On Sunday we had already planned for Lauren's special day that we gave her for her 6th birthday last month. We picked her up and headed to Edina Grill for lunch. The wait was 25 or so minutes but Lauren didn't mind one bit. She showed us her mad memory skills on B's iphone.


After ordering we had fun playing the games on the kiddie menu. Who knew a game of word search could be so fun...and challenging!


After a very yummy lunch we headed to Paint a Plate for Lauren to make a special treasure. After much contemplation she decided on a princess jewelry holder. She also picked out all of the paint colors - pink, purple, yellow, red, and blue. She is a great painter!



Her masterpiece is really coming together!


And the final product!! She is so proud!!!


The colors are really dulled here but after they glaze it and put it in the oven, it should look awesome! We'll know for sure in a week!


Why the LRH? Lauren was adamant about putting her initials on it!!! And on the bottom of the holder she wanted a heart with SLB for Sara, Lauren, Brian. What a sweet niece we have!!

On the way home we stopped for an ice cream treat and brought one home for Trevor too. We thought we were going to have a malt with our lunch but Edina Grill doesn't have malts. Oh well, this worked out pretty good.

Total side note, but one for the memory book...before it was even time for Mommy and Daddy to leave the house Trevor said 'bye Mommy! you'll be back! love you!' and then blew kisses. No tears at all for our big boy!!!!