Category Archives: events

Vegas! With Kids!

May 23, 2018

I am on a whole nother stratosphere of crazy with this trip! But, I managed Vegas and airports and flying with 3 kids! And they had a TON OF FUN. The pools were incredible, the sun was shining, and the naps weren’t happening! :) It was an experience for sure!

My sister had a conference in Vegas, so my other sister and her two kids and our Mom all decided to join her last minute and booked a trip to Vegas! My sister’s husband and my husband were both on the same bachelor party trips, so we were solo anyways! What fun to meet up in Vegas – book the tickets and worry about everything later, right?! Basically!! EEEK!

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Circus!

April 22, 2018

Circus time!!!! I LOVE the Circus! The wild animals, the sloppy snow cones, the sticky (yet delicious) cotton candy, the death-defying acts, the crazy clowns, and all the flashing lights! It’s so much fun. Brings back such memories of being a kid and I love every second of it! This was the best year yet. All the acts were amazing!

Not sure Leo likes the clowns (haha), but Ivy does!!! :)

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Happy Halloween

October 31, 2017

Happy Halloweeeeeeeen! Hope you all had a spooky night and had fun trick-or-treating! We had a BLAST and the kids were like crazy lunatics going from house to house! Leo ESPECIALLY loved it. He was all over the place! Mostly dodging scary werewolves and other freaky creatures, but when there wasn’t something spooky in his way, he was running for candy. Kinda loving this age. So young and still scared, but enamored with all things festive and excited about Halloween and trick-or-treating! So much fun with these little goblins! Faye stayed nice and warm snuggling with Emmie and Papa Koch while we were out with the other two. She will be cruising with them next year!

Ivy’s pose, LOL. She’s got that princess thing down! Ivy wanted to be Belle this year so that was easy!

Leo struggled with his costume. I showed him about 57 different costumes he might like, took him to Target AND the halloween store, and he would NOT pick one out! He kept saying he wanted to be “nothing” and would never pick one out, uhhhh! The only one he liked was a DIY bulldozer one I found, but yeah right, never got around to that, NOR am I crafty enough for that to turn out right! So we finally found a Blaze (Nickelodeon show) costume with inflatable tires which was awesome because he’s obsessed with all things trucks, but one of the tires got a hole in it this weekend while we were at a Halloween party. Shoot! So, we had this pumpkin in their costume closet and he was happy to be it! All worked out! WHEW.

Me and mah girls!!!

A vampire and his witch. John even did his own makeup, good job!!!!

Koch Kiddos! Love those three little goblins

Now let the trick-or-treating begin!

Such a blast! Now time to dive into their candy buckets and steal all their sugar and anything sour! I don’t like chocolate (I know I’m weird!)! Nerds and fun-dips please!

How many stomach aches are we going to have in the next few days?! :)

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Apple Orchard // 2017

October 19, 2017

I feel like this fall has already gotten away from me! WHERE did September go. And now practically October! Between starting school, Ivy’s birthday, and trying to get Faye on a schedule, it’s flown by. But with this indian summer this week (loving these 70’s temps!!!), we finally made it out to the apple/pumpkin orchard (twice!)! Gimme all the caramel apples!

We usually go to one of the three festivals each year so that the kids can ride the ponies and choo choo train, but since those somehow got away from me, I just brought them on a random day, and we LOVED it. Having the place to ourselves was a miracle and I didn’t have to give in to buying unnecessary pumpkins and treats just to dodge a complete hysterical meltdown from one of the kids in front of hundreds of people. So nice having the place to ourselves and the kids running amok (amok! amok! amok!) all over the pumpkin patch. And Leo loved that the train was there. He was climbing all over it! Had it all to himself.

The kids would run from pumpkin to pumpkin trying to pick up which one they wanted. Ivy kept asking which one was a magic pumpkin that would turn into a carriage like Cinderella! Loving her imagination lately!

Went on to the apples and Leo devoured about 8 of them! Ivy’s style is more like wanting to find a “baby apple” (aka a little teeny apple) taking one bite, throwing it on the ground with the 57 other apples under each tree, then asking for another baby apple.

Yes. That’s a rock she’s carrying. No idea.

Must make a stop at the ponies and goats, and apple orchard complete!

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A Trip to the Stensland Farm

May 31, 2017

Today we took a trip to the Stensland Farm and the kids had a blast! The farm just opened up an ice cream shop in Sioux Falls, which is BEYOND delicious, so we have been anxious to go see the whole process and take a tour of the farm. Stensland Family Farms was established in 1915, and is a family owned and operated, multi-generational farm located near Larchwood, Iowa. They have almost 200+ cows and they also farm 1500 acres of organic cropland. All of the forage the cows eat, comes from the non-GMO crops they grow! Read more about the farm here and see more on their facebook page here.

Today was so nice to take my mind off of things with this baby coming! I’ve just been keeping busy keeping these kids busy… just waiting for baby! So this was a perfect opportunity to get outside and walk around hoping to induce some labor! :) Due on Sunday, June 4th! EEEK!

Leo could be a total farm boy after seeing him out there today! He loved to see all the cows, tractors, and there were tons rocks to throw around to keep him busy. He had so much fun! The kids got to pet and feed the baby cows a bottle of milk, so cute!

The tour also took us to see the cows getting milked, all by machines, which was crazy! The cows just go in there on their own when they want to be milked (I hear ya on relieving that pressure!!). The machine puts a collar on the cow and it begins sending information straight to the farm’s computer. The collar identifies each cow and relays weight, temperature, activity, and rumination. So high tech! Then it cleans the utters and uses lasers to find the utters to milk them! So neat! Each cow produces about 9 gallons of milk each time! Wow!

Then we got to also see the cheese making factory. Cheese production wasn’t taking place at the time, but neat to watch the video, and I LOVE CHEESE! The curds are amazing!

Lastly, they brought us through to see where all the mama cows hang out. They lay on water beds and are very well taken care of with a self-grooming station in there too! The kids loved to try to feed them and get close!

At the end we got to go have samples of their milk, cheese curds, and ice cream! Their chocolate milk was amazing! And I don’t even like chocolate OR milk really!! Leo had three cups, haha. It was the perfect way to end the tour.

I think Leo would have preferred if I would have left him there! :) He LOVED it! Thank you for the great day Stensland!

Here’s a video to see more of the farm

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