Summer Lovin', having a blast

I love that Grease song!

We are having a fun summer so far and I love that Elsa is at the age to enjoy it.  But, I can not, for the life of me, imagine living in a climate where it is nice all year long.  I am going to need the calmness of winter.  I am exhausted cleaning floors from dirty feet, giving baths EVERY night due to sunscreen and sweat, keeping a toddler busy while at the same time not neglecting the baby, etc.

Elsa has Montessori three full days each week and it is the best thing in the world.  She is outside most of the morning.  She eats lunch and takes a nap and then they bus the kids to the Y for swimming in the afternoon!  It frees up Aaron a bit so he can focus on Chet.

Aaron is busy training for two triathalons, a half (or maybe even a full) marathon in Sept, and the Fall50 ( a 50 mile relay we are doing with our friends from Nebraska).  I signed up for a half marathon in Sept in anticipation/preparation of the fall 50.  We alternate doing our runs in the morning at 4:30-5 am with Aaron doing his long runs on Sat and me doing mine on Sunday.  I really want to do the Green Bay Marathon next May, but I think I should see how the half goes first!

Aaron did the Bellin run which is a 10k with our friends Ben and Lisa.  I took the kids down to cheer them on!

 Elsa not cooperating (demonstrating daily life in our household!!)

I helped Elsa make a sign that said "I love my fast daddy".  I had to laugh because one runner ran by and said to her running partner "Oh, gosh, I thought that said I love my first daddy".  No, ma'am only one daddy for this girl!

Then, the following week, I participated in a bowling charity event with the packers.  We each had a packer player or coach in our lane and got to have our bowling pins autographed by the team.  I was next in line to get Donald Driver's autograph, but his security posse had to wisk him away.

But, I did get a picture with one of my favorite packers, Jordy Nelson :)

Our trip to the zoo

I love Green Bay.  It is a great size town (150K-ish), with NO rush hour traffic, great options for eduction, and lots of activities for kids.  The NEW (NE wisconsin) zoo is a great example.  I took the kids there this weekend while Aaron was preparing for an upcoming triathalon.  It was not too large and there were not many people there when we went (right when it opened).  Elsa LOVED it!

She got to feed lambs and the giraffes

She was trying to get the goats interested in coming to her (they lost interest when they discovered we did not bring food).

The peacocks freaked her out a bit.  This one fluffed up its feathers right in front of us and she got so scared and started crying "NO NO NO, it is going to eat Chet"

 I don't know what was so fascinating with this crow, but she instisted on a picture

 Bison

I loved that it was not overwhelming like some large city zoos.  And, it was super cheap.  Only $10 for us to visit!

10 years of marital bless

A blog I read is appropriately titled "Marital Bless-it may not always be bliss but it is always a blessing"  I could not agree more!  In a time when many are getting divorce, I am so excited to say Happy 10 years!  I really think that marriages are more prone to failure when the focus is on bliss, rather than the blessing God created it to be.  And, when the focus is on ourselves rather than being a help meet to our spouse.  Aaron and I are on one team and our marriage is so much more blissful when I try to emulate Proverbs 31 (but fail miserably at in a lot of areas!).  I am so grateful for the man that God chose for me and for the fact that we keep Christ at the center (most of the time).   Its amazing he has put up with me for 10 years!  Through multiple moves, the stress of residency, the sorrow of losing three babies, the stress of having two kids, etc, we have stood by each others side and I hope to have another 10 years (four times over) of marriage to Aaron.

For our 10 year anniversary, we went to the place where it began:  Door County.  We went there for our honeymoon and thought it would be appropriate to go there for our 10 year.  The time of the year was perfect as it was not too busy because most schools were still in session;  the only down side was chilly and dreary weather for most days.  We stayed in the town of Egg Harbor at the Ashbrooke.  It was adults only so no screaming kids to wake up to.  Our room was great!  It had a double sided fireplace, a two person jacuzzi hot-tub, and was so quiet!  We slept until 8am the first morning!  We spent the four days hiking in state and county parks, biking, playing golf, dining on great food, shopping, meeting up with friends, wine and cheese tasting, and relaxing!  And, I better not forget to thank my MIL Peggy for watching our two tykes and making this trip possible!

We even drove around to find this spot where we took the exact same picture 10 years ago!  This was on Ellison Bluff!  I don't remember being as scared to walk out there 10 years ago.

Check out the roof!

 Aaron loves nature and enjoys finding unique wildflowers

 But, it drove him up the wall that I was the first to spot this one!

 Me biking at Penninsula State Park--it was a great ride with minimal traffic

 The Ephraim Fish Boil

 Golfing

Chet-5 months old

This has been a month of rapid development for our tank :)

He is now rolling over in both directions!  Yeah!  Now at least when he rolls over onto his stomach in the middle of the night, he can figure out how to roll back onto his back.

He is not a big fan of pears.  Maybe they were not ripe enough.  But, he is eating banana, apples, sweet potato, and rice cereal. He still has a little bit of the tongue thrust issue which makes meal times quite messy.

He has been having some issues sleeping at night.  I kept thinking it was teething, but nothing is poking through yet.   Something is going on because for the past two weeks he is waking frequently at night.

Wears Size 3 diapers

I really think there is more variation with infant clothes and sizes than with women's clothes!  He can wear any where from 6 months - 18 months depending on the brand.  I get most of his clothes from Once Upon a Child.  I take all of Elsa's clothes there and they buy some from me so I keep getting store credit.  I refuse to buy him (or Elsa) new clothes when they seem to outgrow them faster than I can blink!

Is entertained by absolutely anything Elsa does!  He just loves his sister to pieces.  She is always saying
"Chet, watch me" then will entertain him by either dancing, jumping, throwing balls, etc.

I don't remember Elsa ever grabbing my hair as much as he does!   And he has quite the grip!  He even grabbed onto Elsa's hair and she started screaming "Chet hurting me".  I had to tell her that he doesn't quite understand and that he doesn't mean to hurt you.

They say formula is digested slower than breast milk, but he still needs a bottle every 3-3.5 hours.  If I was still nursing, I think that is all I would be doing!  This has started to change a little bit now that we are introducing "solids"

He loves to grab on to anything in reach!  He loves to feel his stuffed animals and has a favorite "mini-blanket with fleece on one side and satin on the other.  He loves to fall to sleep with this.  He also loves to grab on to rattles, but often gets so excited he hits himself in the head.

Elsa's 3rd Birthday Party

We celebrated Elsa's 3rd birthday this past weekend!  She had a BLAST!  Although, next year, I won't plan it for memorial weekend as some of her friends were out of town.

 She has been talking about her "pricess par-ry" (princess party) for over a month now.  Every day we would show her on the calender when her party is.   When she woke up on the morning of her party, she wished each of us (including my sister and her kids) Happy Birthday.

Here is her birthday cake.  I tackled cake pops.  They are much easier than they look to make.  I had wanted to have a lot more on the cake, but had several cake pop casualties when frosting them.  Of course, I had to eat those :)  But, I will definitely not go into cake decroating.  With how long it took me to make the cake, I think I would only make about $3/hour.  On a side note, I made more cake pops the following week for her preschool class and it went MUCH better.

She had five friends here:  Kate, Sydney, Ava, Jackson, and Lauren.

The kids painted flower pots and we planted flower seeds.

Jackson was such a good sport with being the only boy.  He did insist on a non-princess plate for lunch.

Elsa got lots of presents and had so much fun opening them.

I love how she kept her helmet on for gift opening :)

The expression on her face when everyone sang her happy birthday was priceless.  She just got this huge bashful grin

Showing us her new bike

Poor chet was wiped out!  He fell asleep within 5 minutes in the swing. I may need to remember this for times when he fights his nap.

I am still so amazed at the girl she is becoming!  She can be quite the challenge as she tries to exert her independence.  We are definitely learning to pick our battles, but the "tantrums" have decreased.  Instead, it seems like she does the opposite of what we want her to do.  She will yell "NOOOO Thank you"  (I think the first time she said that Aaron and I chuckled and said "well, at least she was polite").

She loves watching Super-why's on PBS

She says the darndest things!  I came home from a run the other day and she was just waking up.  She asked "mom, you go running?"  I said "yes, mommy went running"  Then, she said "you run slow, not fast".  I had to laugh.  Then, when I took my running jacket off I said "momma's hot".  She then came over to me and said "I blow you off".

Her mind is a sponge.  I am constantly amazed at how intuitive she is at such a young age.  Although sometime it can be embarrassing.  She pulled a tampon out of my purse when we were eating out and said she wanted lipstick.  Of course, all the people at the nearby tables had to hear.  At least they got some free entertainment!

She is so polite.  Whenever we pass someone on the street or if they are waking by, she will greet them with a "hello" and inquire about what they are doing.

She loves anything involving princesses and she is obsessed with finding bugs (can you find two more opposite interests)

Her favorite songs to sing:  Row Row row your boat, God Bless America (which she belts out in a high pitch), you are my sunshine

Still loves her brother :)  It melts my heart.  She shares her toys with him and loves to explain how things work.

She has the most infectious smile and laugh and she does it often.

Potty training went much better than I thought it would.  She still wears pull ups at night, but for daytime (including naps) she wears underwear.  She has had a few accidents, but it is usually when she is busy playing and forgets that she has to go.  We try to remind her, and that seems to help....most of the time.  Poor Aaron was busy feeding Chet one day and she kept holding her crotch.  Aaron asked her no fewer than three times "Do you have to go to the bathroom?"  She replied no each time.  Then, she disappeared and he heard the water running in the bathroom.  He went to see what was going on and it was not pretty.  She had pooped her pants and had taken them off (which made a HUGE mess) and was trying to wash them out in the sink (at least she was TRYING to help).  Aaron quickly picked her up and put her on the toilet (with one hand since he still had Chet).  So, there was poop all down her leg, on the floor, in the sink, and all over the toilet.  Oh, and not to mention on her hands.  Gross.  He put Chet down, cleaned up the mess, and immediately put her in the bath.  Aaron is such a trooper!

She loves being outside playing in her park (her name for the play set we got for our backyard), riding her scooter, riding her bike, watering flowers, playing with her friends.

She is currently in the summer program at the Montessori and goes swimming three days a week.  She comes home absolutely exhausted from playing so hard.  This fall she starts preschool at the Wisconsin International School and will even start taking Mandarin!  I still think it is funny that she can hardly speak English and that they have 20 minutes of foreign language each day!

I can tell I need to update my blog more because I am always thinking of things to write and now I can't remember any of them.

I love being a mom

Even though it is more challenging than any of my previous endeavors, I find so much joy and contentment in realizing my true calling...motherhood