Summer!!

I can’t believe we’re about 1 month into summer vacation already! The days seem to be flying by, with the exception of the days when the kids fight and drive each other crazy. Those days drag. But for the most part, they are flying! 😬

In late May, Jeremiah’s school had a night at a Clinton Lumberkings game, which was lots of fun! The students even sang the national anthem, and J was asked to do a throwing game on the field between innings. It was a fun time! Extra fun that Adam could actually join us, too.

J had a field trip to the Niabi Zoo the last week of school, and I decided to take the girls and meet up with them there. Unfortunately our summer weather decided to take a break that day, and it was cool and rainy. But the kids still had fun!

May 25- goodbye 2nd grade!

First day, last day- I can’t believe we have a 3rd grader!

This girl is loving summer time and playing outside ☀️

Big deal over here— bunk beds for J and H!!!

New sleeping g arrangements for all- J in the top bunk, H in the bottom bunk (first time in a big girl bed for her!), and N finally moved to the crib in H’s room. Sleeping is going fairly well. N still wakes in the night, but she goes back to sleep pretty well now that she knows mommy isn’t right next to her.  Bedtime with the big kids is a new adventure now that they share a room, but things are improving. It really goes well if H falls asleep before J goes to bed. But if she naps during the day, then that doesn’t happen. She’s just at that age when sometimes she needs a nap, sometimes she doesn’t. Sad to see regular nap time go away. 😢 Also by the way, we got these sturdy metal bunk beds at a garage sale for $25! Woohoo!

I set up a “mud kitchen” in a corner of the backyard for the kids (hoping to encourage outside play and siblings playing nicely together!). The clean up after they play out there isn’t always my favorite, but if it means they played nicely together outside then I’ll take it.

We signed J up for Enviro Kids again this year. He missed the first one (at the dump!) because it was the day we picked up the bunk beds, but the next week it was at the Izaak Walton League, so we all went along to enjoy the morning there.

J had been dying to catch a fish since he went last year, so he wasn’t too thrilled that he did not even get a nibble but Hope (and Daddy) caught a fish! 🎣

Just me and my BFF cooking dinner.

Library- We try to go every week!

J did a 3 day Art Camp with his Art teacher at school. He loved it, and came home with such great stuff that he made!

Also he made a cute little campfire with a real flickering light.

June 16- Felix Adler Day 2018. It was SO HOT and I was SO glad to not be 9 months pregnant this year!!

June 17- Happy Fathers Day to Adam, the best Daddy ever!

We are so enjoying having him around in the evenings and on weekends! ❤️ His new job at John Deere is going great- it is a perfect fit for him and such an awesome company. We are so thankful for the opportunities he has there!

June 21, 2018- Happy 1st birthday to Norah! 

How was this just 365 days ago??? 😭

We had a fun day celebrating our sweet girl! We had a play date with friends in the morning, then in the afternoon Grandma and Grandpa Wiers came from WI. We did presents, had dinner at Steam Anchor, and came home for cupcakes.

She’s ONE! 

Her brother and sister even let her help open her own presents. 🤣

She got a new car! (From G & G Wiers)

I think she would ride in this thing all day if we let her.

Cupcakes by mommy, sprinkles by brother and sister 

Turns out she actually hated eating the cake and frosting! But she did enjoy playing in it. 😊

We love you so much, Norah Lynn!

This week we are busy with VBS at our church. Both J and H are going, and they love it! The theme is “Polar Blast” ❄️❄️❄️

I’m helping with the snow making activity, so I got some pics when they were at my station. My son 🤦🏼‍♀️

She has enough hair for a little ponytail, and how cute are those overalls?! 😍

This afternoon Norah had her 1 year check up and vaccinations. She weighs 21 lbs 14.5 oz which is about 78%ile (comparison time! At age 1, J was 25 lbs 2 oz and H was 21 lbs 15 oz). So N and H are very close to the same! J was in a league of his own. 😂 Norah is 29.75 inches long which is again about 78%ile (J was 31.5 inches and H was 30.25 inches). Still no walking for our sweet baby, and that was the only issue the Dr thought might be concerning, but seeing how much progress she’s made in the last couple weeks with pulling up, walking along furniture, and walking behind a push toy, I have no doubt she’ll be walking soon. Yikes! She says a few words too- “uh-oh” when she drops something, “mah mah mah mah mah” (repeatedly!) when she wants more food, “goggy”(doggy), and my personal favorite- “MOM!” Yeah she doesn’t say mama, or mommy, or anything like that. I think she has been learning from her older siblings and just yells out “MOM! “MOM!” “MOM!”

So this is my life 🤣

We have lots to look forward to in July! Independence Day 🇺🇸, then a week at the lake house with the Wiers side of the family! Happy summer! ☀️

We Made It!

Wow, just a little more than a month ago it was still winter!! We are SO thankful that the spring/summer weather has finally arrived! 🙌🏻 That was a loooooong winter, but we made it through. And hopefully 🤞🏻 we’ve also made it through that terrible germ season- we’ve all been healthy and happy 🤣 since my last post.

In mid-April Jeremiah’s class did their Talent Chapel, where each child displays one of the talents that God has given them. It’s not always easy for J to figure out which talent to go with, but this year he really wanted to do scooter riding. But when he started talking about balance beams and ramps, I knew we weren’t going to be able to make that happen. (Also, he’s never ridden his scooter on a ramp or balance beam, so I’m assuming it would not have turned out well!) So on to a Plan B, which was making (with help from Dad) and flying different types of paper airplanes.

Cutest photo-bomber ever back there!

Norah continued to be the most difficult baby food eater EVER. What the heck. So after getting the spoon batted out of our hands constantly, we gave up. Baby won that battle! 😑 We moved on to table food and she has not looked back! Her first favorite was baby cheese puffs- so healthy.

Not surprisingly, she’ll eat any kind of bread. 😬 But also likes shredded cheese, blueberries, freeze-dried fruit..... we keep working on expanding what she eats, but this girl is a tough one. I’m sure I get the blame for that.

One more freezing cold miserable soccer practice in April!

Because who wouldn’t want to play soccer all bundled up in your winter coat? Why do we even live here?!?!

And then spring arrived. 🌷🌳🌼

And we all crawled out of our winter hibernation to rejoice and enjoy the sunshine and warmth!! Norah had her first swing ride, which she obviously loved. 😄

Some time after Easter (I don’t remember exactly when, because she’s the 3rd child and all), Norah went from army crawling to all 4’s crawling. Very fast.

This is our view, a lot. This was her 10 month picture on April 21! Next week she’ll be 11 months (WHAT!) and I’m sure that picture will be SO much better. 

She has been pulling up on low things on her knees (dishwasher, laundry basket) for awhile, but hasn’t really done much pulling up on her feet. Just this last week she pulled up to stand by the coffee table a couple times and that’s about it.

Let’s keep talking about Norah! She’s so darn cute, and apparently she’s the one I take pictures of the most right now. Sorry other kids.

She started making this funny face, then she laughs at herself! Seriously so cute.

Our tulips finally decided it was safe to come up (well, one bunch did. We planted 3 different groups, and 1 group came up, 1 group is stalled half-way up, and the last group never came up at all! ☹️ Sad, but can’t really blame them when winter lasts forever).

So some pretty big news for us is that as of April 27, Adam is done working as the GM for the Pizza Ranch. It was becoming more and more clear to both of us that him working there was just not what was right for him or for our family, and he felt it was time to be done there. We know God has big plans for him, but the Pizza Ranch just was not the right fit for his gifts and talents. And as of May 14, he is now an Engineer Tech at John Deere! We were so happy this opportunity came along and definitely feel that Adam will do great things there, with lots of opportunities for him to move up within the company in the future. He really has enjoyed it so far!

We are all pretty proud of this guy. The kids (and I!) are so happy to have daddy home in the evenings and on weekends again! He can come to programs and soccer games, and be the awesome involved Daddy that he is and wants to be. ❤️

Oh hey! More Norah pictures!

Check out this beach bod 💪🏻

The first weekend in May was Dutch Days! 🌷So on Saturday J walked in the parade with his class, and then we walked around downtown Fulton for a bit. It was a beautiful day! ☀️

J has been involved in Cadets at the CRC in Fulton, and he has LOVED it so much! The big finale was the Pinewood Derby race and it was really fun for us to see him race his car!

Unfortunately, no trophies this year, and I know he already has big plans for how he’s going to design next year’s car. I don’t think he had any idea he was building the car for a race, I think he thought he just got to build a vehicle, because he had all kinds of great ideas for how he was going to make his race car into an army tank! But that probably would not have been very fast. 🤣

Let us not forget about Hope! She has been doing so much “pretend play” and it’s so fun to see her use her imagination and creativity. Often she likes to “be the mom” and then “daddy you can be the dad, and mommy you can be the sweetie.” 😂😂😂 I don’t mind being the sweetie, because sweetie has to take a nap sometimes. 😬

And then sometimes she plays with her dolls and puts them down for a nap and/or gives them screen time. 😂

This past weekend we took a quick trip to WI and Chicago! We drove to WI after Jeremiah’s soccer game, and arrived in the afternoon. My parents watched the kids for us that evening so that Adam and I could go on a date- It was so nice!! (Thank you Mom and Dad!)

We were able to have conversations without being interrupted 5 million times. It was nice. 🤗

We spent the night at my parents house and then were up bright and early (thanks, NORAH) to head down to Chicago for my nephew Duncan’s baptism! 

It was a lovely Mother’s Day- made even better by spending time with my family! And it brought back memories of Jeremiah’s baptism which was also on Mother’s Day 8 years ago.

We are starting to get into a groove now with Adam at his new job and working regular day hours, and then next week Friday is Jeremiah’s last day of 2nd grade (how is this possible??). So then we’ll be getting into a summer routine- yay! Lots of fun and good things to look forward to! 😊

Still Waiting for Spring!!

Well, what better way to pass the time between doing loads of puke laundry than to update the old blog! 😩 I am so over this winter, germs, sickness, “my tummy hurts,” ugh!!! And the 1-3 inches of snow we’re supposed to get tomorrow and Monday really isn’t helping. I’m longing for warmer weather so I can throw open the windows and air out this germy house! 😷

So besides sickness, what have we been up to? Not much. Earlier in March was when Norah had the mystery illness with high white blood cell count and high fever. Thankfully there has been no more of that! But a couple weeks after that, Adam got a sinus infection which he generously shared with the rest of us over the course of a couple weeks. Antibiotics for 3/5 of the family with that one! Then this past Thursday J was down with a stomach bug (bad mom, I totally blamed it on these stomach migraine things he gets sometimes). He was fine by Friday morning so I thought all was good. But now this afternoon and evening H has been throwing up, so apparently it’s a stomach bug but hopefully it’ll be just a quick 24 hour thing like it was for J. And HOPEFULLY the rest of us stay healthy (if I had to choose a phrase that represented this winter for us, that would be it 🤣)!

This girl continues to be a challenge with baby food! 

Take a bite, make a face, gag. Repeat.

She loves feeding herself puffs and yogurt melts, though. They even make it in her mouth sometimes!

We must have had a decent day earlier in March because we walked to the park!

Norah turned 9 months old!

She’s so fun right now!

She had her 9 month check-up (no shots yay!). She weighed in at 19 lbs 11 oz and is 28.5 inches long. She’s not so much our little peanut anymore! 😭 At this age Hope was 19 lbs 11.5 oz and 27.75 inches long- so she was smaller! And of course neither of our girls will ever compare to J in this department.  At 9 months he was 22 lbs 13 oz and 29.5 inches long. What a chunk he was! 😍 At 9 months, N isn’t doing quite as much as her big siblings were at this age. No crawling on all 4s consistently, no pulling up yet. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I’m okay with it! She gets on all 4s all the time but goes backwards, and to go forward she army crawls (and she is getting fast! Especially on the hardwood floor!). She talks and jabbers so much, I just love it! Love her so much! 💗

Had to do this side-by-side pic:

J on the left, N on the right

Jeremiah had his spring concert at school on March 23! His class (and really the whole K-2 group) are such great singers, singing with all their hearts! I have a video of them singing “Awesome God” but had trouble uploading it to YouTube. I’ll try again and put it here if I can get it to work!

Ready for the concert!

The next day was J’s first day of spring break, aaaaaand we got dumped on by a foot of snow. 😩😩😩

Fun.

But J tried his best to enjoy it!

I wonder if these sisters playing with the “Frozen” dolls are to blame for this eternal winter?! 🤔

We tried to keep busy over spring break! Adam took J out to lunch, shopping for cleats, and out to a movie on Monday so that was nice for them to have some guy time. 😊

Hope wanted to try on and wear her Easter dress and shoes for awhile. 🤣

Can’t take a pic without striking a pose!

We dyed Easter eggs! This is big for me, since I HATE all things having to do with eggs. 🥚🤢 But I powered through, all for the children!

By Wednesday our crazy foot of snow was melted and J had his first soccer practice!

Thursday we had a play date with friends from Jeremiah’s class, and Friday morning we met friends at the Discovery Center to see their baby chicks! 🐣

Then Friday after Adam got home from work, we hit the road to WI to spend Easter weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Wiers!

Hope really had fun playing with the old Little People stuff!

Classic toys right there.

We also made Resurrection Rolls for the first time!

Such a fun little project to see the empty rolls after they bake, and wow those rolls are yummy! I’m kind of sorry we haven’t made them till now! Definitely will be making them again next Easter!

On Easter Sunday the kids found their Easter baskets and a few eggs I hid in the living room. Of course it was too cold for anything outside!

All dressed up for church!

We enjoyed a nice church service at my parents’ church and then went home for a ham dinner. Yum! Jeremiah was especially happy to have “Grandma’s delicious ham”!

We headed back to Iowa in the late afternoon, and Monday was J’s last day of spring break. He had another freezing cold soccer practice!

Maybe some day we’ll venture outside the car to watch the practice. 😒

Thursday the kids finished up swimming lessons!

J had to miss because he was sick. ☹️ But this girl was all smiles and loved every lesson! J really did a good job too and is getting much more comfortable in the water.

And now here we are, waiting out this stomach bug. 😫 I’m praying Hope feels better when she wakes up in the morning and that no one else gets this! And I’m praying that the forecasted 60 degree temps for later this week will actually happen!! 🙏🏻