Summer's End

Every year the summer goes by so quickly! This year especially seemed fast, as the first part was spent waiting around and prepping for Norah to arrive and the rest of the summer was spent adjusting to life as a family of 5! 

I yam cute. Ha ha! Norah is wearing the onesie we used in the picture we took to announce that I was pregnant:

 A few weeks before summer was over, Adam decided it would be good to take his week of vacation. Yay!! So he took Aug 7-13 off. We hit the road and spent half the week in Des Moines and half the week in Orange City. That was a nice way to break up the road trip across Iowa (the drive home was loooong... and made even longer because we had to drive separate cars, thank you Pizza Ranch).

We had such fun in Des Moines seeing friends and going to some of our favorite places from when we lived there! We miss it so much!

Splash pad, swimming, playing at the park, trampoline jumping, playing with friends etc etc etc. So much fun!

We had a nice time with Adam's family, too in Orange City the second half of the week. 

Norah and I had a girls night out with 2 of my besties!

Norah needs to work on her selfie skills!

The kids had a blast playing with their cousins and also playing at the park by Grandpa and Grandma's house.

The freshest picked sweet corn- so good!!

We headed home on Sunday morning, and like I said, wow it felt like it took forever! I lost count of how many times we stopped but I know we stopped for coffee (hee hee, that was for me), feeding Norah, lunch for the other 2 kids, diaper changes, feeding Norah, Jeremiah potty stop, putting pacifier in Norah's mouth, and gas.... whew. It was good to finally be back home!

The 15th was J's last day of summer break, and coincided with Adam's day off. So we made it a special day and went to the John Deere Pavillion (J's favorite place in the world!) and Sonic for lunch.

In preparation for school, we said good-bye to J's mohawk. I wasn't too sad to see it go!

Wednesday the 16th was Jeremiah's first day of 2nd grade! So far he is loving it!

Hope still doesn't love dropping J off and letting him be at school all day. She obviously thinks she should stay, too! Her favorite part of the day is picking J up and playing on the school playground.

8 weeks old!

Saturday the 19th we went to the last Enviro-Kids for Jeremiah- it was at the Bickelhaupt Arboretum  which is such a lovely place right in the middle of Clinton! We had never been there so I'm glad we went- it was a gorgeous day to walk around there.

Monday the 21st, Norah turned 2 months old! Whaaaa!!!!! She is losing her newborn-ness! :(

She is so so smiley, especially in the mornings! She sleeps for a good 5 hour stretch at night and then after I feed her will sleep again for another few hours. She's such a good baby! 

On the 22nd she had her well baby check-up and first round of vaccines.

She has no idea what's to come. :(

She decided that the oral vaccine was not to her liking so she proceeded to vomit EVERYWHERE. Seriously I have never seen so much vomit come from such a small body! Yeesh. The nurse had to consult the Dr about what to do, and he wanted her to keep trying to get it down. So we sat her up and the nurse gave her tiny bits of it and finally she kept it down. Phew.  Can't wait to do that again at 4 months! She screamed for the shots, of course, and turned quite a shade of red. But thankfully she calmed down pretty quickly and fell asleep, poor baby.

At 2 months Norah weighs 12 lbs 3 oz and is 23 1/4 inches long. She has gone from our hugest newborn to our smallest baby!  At 2 months, Hope was 12 lbs 13 oz and 23 1/2 inches long. And our giant baby Jeremiah was 13 lbs 6 oz and 24 1/4 inches long (holy cow!!). And all 3 at 2 months, because I love comparing my children:

It's pretty obvious who's who, but just in case- Norah on the left, Hope and her insane hair on the top right, and chubby baby Jeremiah on the bottom right. :)

This past Saturday I took the kids to a Touch-A-Truck event- fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity out at the Clinton Municipal Airport. Of course Jeremiah was in his element, he LOVES this kind of thing!!

Seriously is she not just the cutest stinkin' thing ever?!?!?

She also is quite fond of her big brother and big sister and gives them lots of smiles!

Love!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

 
 

 

Summer Highlights

Obviously the main highlight for our family this summer was the arrival of our sweet Norah!

Her belly button cord thing fell off when she was 1 week old, so that meant she got her first real bath!

She didn't mind it. We just gave her a bath last night, and oh my goodness she looks so tiny here in comparison to now! She is growing way too fast!!

4th of July!!

Norah was almost 2 weeks old! Adam had a super busy day at work, getting pizzas down to the river front for the Clinton 4th of July Festival. So this would be my first major outing on my own with all 3 kids. Whew, that's tiring! The heat and humidity didn't help much either! 

We got some pizza at the festival and then watched the 4th of July parade.

Parade shmarade. But doesn't she look festive?

We gave our double stroller its inaugural spin! My wonderful friend Natasha gave this to us since she's done with it. It is SO nice to be able to corral the girls (well, Hope, basically) and J can walk. (And no, Hope is not naked, but she is shirtless because of a snowcone incident).

From July 6-10 we had family in town! Grandpa and Grandma Wiers came to Clinton, as well as Matt, Cheryl, Josie, and Evan (who were beginning their trek back to California). It was so fun to have them all here!!! And the cousins had such fun playing together! 

We went to the Sawmill Museum (Jeremiah's request).

Train ride!

4 cuties having ice cream at DQ

We spent a day at Malone Park, which is about as close to a beach as we could get. The kids didn't seem to mind that it wasn't a REAL beach!

Jeremiah and Josie spent a lot of time trying to catch a fish! Jeremiah was slightly obsessed with this and had a slight meltdown when we tried to explain that it might not happen.

Success!!!

I believe Uncle Matt was the hero of the day.

Fun with sparklers!!

Matt, Cheryl, Josie, and Evan had to continue on towards Cali on the 10th. It's always so sad to say good-bye!!

Thankfully we only had to be sad for about a day, then Auntie Abby came from Chicago for the day to meet Norah!

July 14- our 10th wedding anniversary!!!

And thanks to friends who watched J and H, we even got to go out on a date! (Our 3rd wheel came along, of course).

Trying to get out and enjoy our summer weather as often as possible, since it will be gone all too soon! And trying to get a bit of excercise, too (I should have very strong arm muscles after pushing these 2!).