Raising Minnesota

This past weekend Q and I made it out to Medicine Lake for the Art Shanty Project. Since then I've been pondering getting involved next year and trying to build an ice shack of my own. I have no idea what I would do but you know it would be kid oriented.



You still have a little bit of time to make it out onto the ice to check out the wackiness for yourself. It all ends Feb. 14.

Arty Pants Revisited

For those of you that have been reading this blog for a while you'll know we used to hit Arty Pants at The Walker on a very regular basis. Then Q started preschool which, along with Ozzi's nap, created a bit of a scheduling conflict. Well, today I decided we would go right after picking Q up from school and get there for the latter half. I'm really glad we did. Not only did we get to spend some much needed extra time out of the house but Ellen from Art with Ellen was running the activities in the Art Lab.

We took classes with Ellen about two years ago and she still remembered Q's name. ELLEN IS AMAZING. If you are looking for a class for your little one, sign them up for an Art with Ellen class. You will not be disappointed. I have never in my life met anyone that is that consistently happy and energetic while teaching children. If you don't believe me, go to Arty Pants on Feb. 10th or the 24th. She'll be there... and hopefully so will we, even if we're a bit late.

Get Naked

Children's book author extraordinaire Mo Willems is on tour once again. This time he's promoting his hilarious new book, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed. He will be stopping by Wild Rumpus this Thursday, Jan. 22, at 3 pm. and Red Balloon on Saturday, Jan. 24, at 10:30 am.

The new book is fantastic and if you can find room, listening to Mo read his books to a shop full of kids is definitely worth the time. And while you're at it you may as well pick up Mo's latest Elephant and Piggy adventure, Are You Ready to Play Outside?.

Get Yo Green On

If you're looking for something to do this weekend and have some environmentally conscious individuals on your holiday shopping list, might I suggest the Green Gift Fair at Midtown Global Market. There will be several vendors hocking their earth friendly wares and even some live music. Of course, all the usual shops and restaurants will be open for your enjoyment and perusing as well.

If you have a little one still on the baby food, make sure you stop by the Sweet Cheeks stand and talk to Lori.

And if you want to have the best damn flan this side of Zihuatanejo stop by La Sirena Gorda. Mmmmmmm, flan.

The Green Gift Fair is this Saturday, Nov. 15 from 10 am - 5 pm.


Thanks to Lori from Sweet Cheeks for the heads up on this one.

ppppa ch pa pa ch ika ika ika

Here in the Twin Cities we have a seemingly endless supply of classes and activities for little kids. From art to ballroom dancing to music to Chinese, with just a little searching you can fill "_______ for kids" with most any subject that you want your child to get an early start on. Well, almost every subject. Despite Minneapolis/St. Paul being home to several music schools, I can not find a single Beatboxing for Kids class. What the hell yo? I thought the Minniapple was supposed to be all progressive and shit.

So MacPhail Center for Music, to help you get with the times I've compiled a short list of possible instructors for your new Beatboxing course:


Biz Markie, Nobody beats the Biz!



James Burchfield



Gregg Pattillo



or The Fat Boys might be looking for work these days.

Can I get an apple Red Bull with my apple cider, apple muffin, apple pie, apple donuts, apple...

We met some friends at Pine Tree Apple Orchard today. Pine Tree is definitely kid friendly, but I think their core audience is more the 70+ crowd. At least, that was the most heavily represented demographic when we were there. The hay-free "hayride" was a fun little tour of the orchard with some nice views of the surrounding area from "the highest hill in the county" and there was plenty of room for the kids to run wild. The highlight for Q was the close proximity of the train that went by.

In the end, the visit felt a bit too much like a factory tour and not enough like a visit to a family farm. I'm not saying it was a waist of time. The kids still enjoyed themselves and that's pretty much the whole point. It just wasn't what I was expecting I guess. Maybe it was just the surrounding skyline of McMansions that put me off. Or maybe I'm just crabby from not getting any sleep the last few nights because Ozzi is fighting off a little ear infection. He was feeling much better today thankfully.


...and I still think my guy at the St. Paul Farmers Market has the best damn Honey Crisp Apples out there.

For a good time call...

612-486-5800 and make dinner reservations at Nick and Eddie for your next date night. Nick and Eddie has very good food, a romantic ambiance, friendly waitstaff, and most importantly Absinthe.

After dinner, let the "little green fairy" guide you and your loved one over the bridge into the sculpture garden. Find an unoccupied spot of darkness (harder to find than you may think), duck into the shadows, and make-out like you were 16 again.

An unfair advantage

If the Minnesota State fair is a fair assessment of this fair state and nation, we're screwed! On the other hand, if the fair is an accurate sampling of the population at large, I am a much better looking individual, compared to the observed average, than my poor self-esteem allows me to believe. That same boost of confidence via the observed average fair-goer ends up being a bit of a trap for me. "I can totally have another deep fried candy bar. I have a long way to go before I look that bad."

Some other highlights of the fair:

Scoring an awesome Current t-shirt.

The best weather for the State Fair ever.

Crazy chickens.

Cooooooooookies!

Giant hunk of bacon on a stick. (to the right of the corndog)

The fine arts building. Awesome as always.

Our internet friend PumpkinGirl winning a crafty ribbon.

Watching Q go ape-shit watching the BMX and skateboard show. (ape-shitting not shown)

Some low points:

The couple that, at 9am, I could smell the booze on from 5 feet away in the livestock birthing building.

The 4H building slowly turning into the Nintendo Wii building. What the hell. 4H being dominated by video games is like the boy scouts being run by people that know nothing about outdoor survival.... oh wait.

We're screwed.

Things I've learned since last Thursday

1. Brackett Park in Minneapolis may have become our new favorite park in the Metro. With a super-cool modern playground, a fenced in wading pool, clean bathrooms, a fair amount of shade, and even a skatepark Brackett is hard to beat. Follow the link and read about the rocket.

2. The most direct route to Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park from St. Paul according to the DNR map online is not the best route. Turns out many "County Roads" are, in fact, gravel roads... and those gravel roads lead to a bridge closed to automobiles about 1 mile from our destination.

3. Digging for fossils can be a very fun activity provided you avoid the Wild Parsnip and you don't fall down the cliff of loose limestone. Amazingly we avoided both and found one good fossil. Some other little girl found a nice sized cephalopod fossil. I was jealous. Q was more interested in getting back to the campsite to "make fire".

4. Bringing a pack of 6 Cheddar Brats for the two of us left me with a comfortable margin of error that the slight pitch of the cooking grate took full advantage of.

5. Avoiding horse poop on the shared hiking trails turned a 3 mile hike into a 5 mile hike.

6. Q is not a big fan of bats.

7. Watching hundreds of fireflies just outside the tent window with a three year old is awesome.

Buying Locally in A Global Marketplace

When looking for events for the the whole family on the weekends, I've found that the best way to get K8 on board is to find something that bears possibility of her getting unique handmade earings. That was the case for the Stone Arch Arts Festival and is the case with Art in The Market at Midtown Global Market this Saturday.

Art in The Market has been happening once a month since March up through August 9th so we're jumping in at the tail end. The event showcases 10 local artists and their paintings, photographs, jewelry, etc that were all selected by a panel of judges.

If you've never been to the Midtown Global Market you should check it out this Saturday... or any other day if supporting the local art scene isn't your thing. If for nothing else go there sometime for lunch for the exotic array of food all under one roof.

Weird Science

The Science Museum of Minnesota, every Monday, has a poorly publicized event cleverly dubbed "Pre-school Playdates". Even less publicized is that if you're a Children's Museum member you can get into their playdate for free. The free admission doesn't get you into the special exhibits like the current Star Wars geekfest. But since Q has yet to see any of the Star Wars movies, I figured all that stuff might end up taking away from his experience of seeing the films for the first time anyway. The little extra playdate activities are certainly not anything special and most of the exhibits are a bit over the head of your average pre-schooler. But as long as it's free, then getting in to see the dinosaurs and to play with light 10,000 different ways is worth the occasional visit.

Update: Preschool Playdates has been moved to Tuesday.

Ants in my Arty Pants

I was just about to post about how this Tuesday is the day to go to Arty Pants at the Walker because of the two great exhibits in the Sculpture Gardens right now. But now that I check the Walkers schedule I realize that Design for the Other 90% doesn't open until 11am (same time the museum opens up) and the artist-designed mini golf is only open Wed. - Sun.

We'll probably still be going, partly so I can voice my opinion about the mini golf not being available before Arty Pants to some poor Walker employee that will obviously not give a shit.

If you happen to find me in the Sculpture Gardens before 11, I've got 2 free admission tickets for the museum.

Update: There were more people at Arty Pants today then I have ever seen. We made time to go through the Design for the Other 90% exhibit which was pretty cool and were able to at least explore the mini golf, albeit without balls. Here's some pictures to motivate some of you to go next time:

Ozzi vs The Octopus

Target Family Day at MIA was great. The highlight, making shadow puppets.

K8 made an Ozzi puppet:

I made an Octopus:

Q and Ozzi made it worthwhile:

MIA is for the kids

Not this MIA...

This MIA.

This Sunday from 11am - 5pm Minneapolis Institute of Art is hosting Target Family Day. The event is chock full of workshops and activities for the whole family. They are even having a family yoga class. It should be a good time as long as it isn't as packed as Rock the Cradle was. We intend to be at the door when they open. If painting live (nude!? probably not.) models and seeing me embarrass myself attempting some kiddie yoga isn't enough to get you there, the Alec Soth: Sleeping by the Mississippi exhibit should be.

Edit: I just noticed that at 2:52 on the MIA video Mike D and MCA of the Beastie Boys make a cameo.

Little Green Thumbs

After many revisions our play garden in the backyard is coming along. On Sunday I got the framework done for what will hence forth be known as Nature Fort, formerly know as The Gourd Fort. Turns out the growing season for Bird House Gourds is really long. But thanks to the great employees at Mother Earth Gardens I found some climbing beans and cherry tomatoes that should work great instead. I can see why the City Pages named them Best Garden Center of the Twin Cities.

In addition to Nature Fort, we've created a new area for perennials. I don't remember everything we planted in there but mostly it's poppies. For a path through the flowers I used some small logs I had and buried them half in the ground to make a path of "balancing posts". Q's kung-fu training has begun.


I'll post real pictures of everything on a more ambitious day. For now I just need to get to sleep so we can go run around in a proper garden, the sculpture gardens at the Walker, before we hit Arty Pants tomorrow.

Thanks Mo!

The City Pages was right. Wild Rumpus is the best children's bookstore of the Twin Cities. Everything about the store is great. If it wasn't such a pain in the ass to get to from St. Paul we would be there every other day.

Q got a pretty big kick out of Mo Willems and the new The Pigeon Wants a Puppy book, but at 3 years old, the animals managed to get more of Q's attention. Mo absolutely packed the place. We now have an autographed copy of There Is a Bird On Your Head. I only wish I could have gotten my copy of You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It Monsoons sign too.

My stalker skills need some work

I don't know how I missed it. Being Mo Willems unofficial Twin Cities pimp, you would think I would know when he is coming to town to make appearances at Wild Rumpus and The Red Balloon bookstores. I'm constantly extolling his books as the greatest children's books of our time on the web and on the playground and I check his blog and other websites on a semi-regular basis. So its pretty surprising that I didn't know about the visits until a mom in our ECFE class told us about it. I guess that's what I get for not signing up for the Red Balloon newsletter.

We've been meaning to check out Wild Rumpus for a long time now. This is definitely going to be the best reason to get over there that I'm going to find since I can't make the Red Balloon 7 pm appearance. With all the different animals running around, Wild Rumpus sounds like a blast. I'm a bit disappointed in myself for not taking Q there until now. But with the Red Balloon being a short walk from our house, its a little tough to justify loading up the car and driving across the river just to find another independent kids bookstore. For Mo though, we'll make the trip.

Ozzi's first visit to Mattocks Park is an exciting one.

It was finally nice enough outside today for Q, Ozzi, and I to reclaim residency at our fair weather second home, Mattocks Park. Our first visit of the season (first ever visit for Ozzi) was certainly not without excitement.

Shortly after our arrival, while Q is bouncing on the metal bouncy thing, I notice a small cylinder covered in duct tape attached to the bottom of it with two magnets. It looked like a miniature version of a pipe bomb. Very homemade. Very suspicious.

Now, I'm not a paranoid parent thinking danger is lurking around every corner. I could think of several, much more likely, things that this little cylinder could be. Ultimately though, I just couldn't ignore the voice in my head saying, "but what if it is, and you do nothing?" So, I called 911.

After a few minutes of quietly rapping the chorus of K8's favorite Public Enemy song in my head two cops showed up, shot the shit with me for a while, then agreed with my guess that it was a geocaching thing. Ignoring my understanding of procedure for suspicious packages, one of them pulled the little pipe off the playground equipment, shook it next to her ear, "Well, its not ticking." and opened it. Safety first. It was luckily, as we suspected, a piece of GPS dork treasure.

Though I'm obviously thankful it wasn't anything dangerous, I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed they didn't call in the bomb squad to remote detonate the thing with the cool robot. That would have been awesome!

The rest of my time was spent demoing the Phil & Teds for the small group of moms that were ogling it. Seriously, where the hell is my commission check?

The best/worst thing about owning a Phil & Ted's Stroller

Since Belinda and the Svenomenon are telling me that today would be the only day worth crawling out of our caves for I decided to double up on adventure with the boys. This morning we went to M.I.A., home for lunch and diaper changes, then off to the Minnesota Zoo for a few smelly hours.

At both locations, and on the other days that we've ventured outside this "spring" with our Phil & Teds Sport, I've noticed that it's a bit like driving an Aston Martin around town... in Roseau. All the Graco pushers we pass are pointing and staring at the stroller as though it was levitating. Several people have actually stopped us to ask us for autographs... ah, I mean, ask about the stroller. Now I know how Brad Pitt feels all the time.

All this attention can be a pain in the ass. Or, if your Omarosa-like ego hungers for reaffirmation that you are indeed cool, as is my case, the Phil & Teds was the best money we've ever spent. Never mind the fact that the stroller currently sits in the trunk of a car worth less than the actual stroller. You gotta have your priorities straight.

As a follow-up to an earlier post about Q's love for Van Gogh; As soon as we entered the Impressionists gallery, Q correctly pointed out the Van Gogh on the wall amongst all the other paintings.

Mark your calenders.

Here are a few upcoming dates and events worth remembering:

Thursday, April 24 - Dining Out For Life. Participating restaurants in more than 45 cities throughout the U.S. and Canada will donate a percentage of their profits for that day to help The Aliveness Project, a community center for people living with HIV/AIDS. There are 134 great Twin Cities restaurants on the list, so get a babysitter and make reservations.

Fri. & Sat., April 11-12 - Free Electronics Recycling. Find the closest of the 5 drop off sites in the Metro here and remember to show up early. Remember the lines at the Mall of America last time they had this? At least this time there are 5 sites instead of just the one.

Saturday, April 26 - St. Paul Farmers Market returns for another season of beautiful locally grown produce. Mmmm.

Sat. & Sun., May 3-4 - Living Green Expo. Huge showcase of all sorts of different ways to make your life a little, or a lot, more earth friendly. From electric cars to home improvement to C.S.A.'s, this show has got it all... and its free!

Saturday, May 10 - Pangea Day