Days 8 - 14

OK, a whole week went by here... and I didn't post. Whoops! I'll try to remember as much as I can...

Day 8: Friday, June 20 -- The girls got their nail painted with Aunt Robyn for their birthday. It was their first real mani/pedi and they loved it. Afterwards, we went out for some ice cream at Yo Mama with Robyn and Mason.

Day 9: Saturday, June 21 -- We had family pictures in the morning with Jayson's side of the family, done by the fabulous Jenny Longlais. I can't wait to see them! After pictures, we went out for lunch. At night, I had a bachelorette party, so it was just Jayson and the girls.

Day 10: Sunday, June 22 -- We went out for breakfast at one of my favorite places, First Watch. As always, Audrey wanted pancakes and the waitress warned us they were huge, and as always, Audrey finished them! We also went to Dunham's to get Lydia a nice swimsuit because at the end of the summer she wants to try out for the swim team. She loved it so much and wouldn't take it off. In the afternoon, Jayson and I each got a bike ride in.

Day 11: Monday, June 23 -- Back to baseball and swim lessons!

Day 12: Tuesday, June 24 -- We added violin and cello lessons to the routine today. I guess I was a little too caught up in getting everywhere we needed to be... when we got to swimming lessons, the girls pointed out that I had two different shoes on. Lydia also had softball practice tonight and she's doing fantastic!

Day 13: Wednesday, June 25 -- We took the girls out for ice cream. Today in swim class, Audrey moved from level 4 to level 5, Charlie moved from level 3 to level 4, and yesterday Lydia moved from level 7 to level 8. I'm so proud of them! Charlie had tee-ball practice. Jayson is her coach and he does really well with the kids.

Day 14: Thursday, June 26 -- This afternoon we went to a magic show at the library. The girls returned some books and checked out new books. Lydia and Audrey are really into chapter books and have been cruising through them. We want to make sure they have several to keep them busy for vacation. At night, Lydia had a softball game and Audrey had a baseball game. Jayson went with Lydia and I went with Audrey. Audrey was really excited about the snack after the game, but there wasn't one! We went to Pick N Save and I let her pick something out.

Days 5, 6, and 7

Day 5: Tuesday, June 17

Day 5 started with a phone call at about 12:30am. It was my sister, Shannon, who lives in Madison. Normally, I would be terrified to see my sister calling me in the middle of the night, but I had been battling a terrible head cold that made me really groggy. "Hello?" I asked. "A tornado hit our house. Half of the house is gone. Get in your basement." What?! It took me a little while to figure out what she was saying, and I was still in shock. She also told me she couldn't get a hold of my mom, who lives a couple miles from her. I ran downstairs where Jayson was working and told him and we rushed to get the air mattress set up and all the kids in the basement. They thought it was great that they were going to sleep in the basement.

Once we got down there, we turned on the TV and I kept trying my mom's phone. I used Facebook to chat with my friend, Angie, who lives near my family. I told her what was happening and her husband, Phil, went to my mom's house to check on her. The power was out, so he had a hard time finding her house, but he found it and she was very confused about who he was and why he was there, but I was able to talk to her and am so grateful to Phil for doing that.

We spent a very uncomfortable night in the basement. Our power went out in the middle of the storm and we were worried about our sump pump. We planned to go to Madison in the morning to help out with the cleanup, but didn't want to leave our house until we had power. By late afternoon, we still had no power and more storms were expected. We decided we had to buy a generator. We couldn't risk having the basement flood. We got it set up and ran it to empty the water from the sump.

This is my sister's house on the news:

Day 6: Wednesday, June 18

Unfortunately, this day also started in the middle of the night, with our generator running out of propane in the middle of the night. I had Lydia and Charlie in bed with me because they were scared, and I didn't want to leave them. Jayson ran to get more propane in the middle of the storm and eventually got the generator and sump pump going again. Jayson had another uncomfortable night, this time on the couch. The power went on at 5:30am.

Charlie and Lydia in my bed:

We had Audrey's birthday party! We invited ten kids and three came. Poor summer birthday kid. We saw the Lego move and then went out for pizza. It was pretty low-key, but she had a great time. After the party, Lydia, Audrey, and I went to Madison to help my sister out. Jayson and Charlie stayed home because Charlie had her first tee-ball practice of the year and Jayson is the coach. We saw the damage, helped move some things, and were home at 10:00 at night.

Tornado damage. They're standing on what used to be the garage roof.

Day 7: Thursday, June 19

Today was back to normal. We went to the gym in the morning, then swim lessons. Charlie is pretty awesome to watch. She just loves swimming. Lydia and Audrey are also doing great and we're hoping Lydia can try out for the swim team soon. After lunch, the girls played while Jayson got some work done and I went to a team meeting for my Cross Country team. After dinner, Charlie came with me to the mall to get clothes for our family pictures this weekend and Jayson took the other two to Lydia's softball practice. Charlie did a great job shopping with me. She listened so well and didn't complain. I told her, "You are doing such a good job!" and she said, "Not really. Remember when I ran around in that store?" I told her that wasn't so bad. And really, it was only once. In one store, a guy was buying a pink shirt and she asked loudly, "Why would a boy want a pink shirt?! Boys don't like pretty things." Overall, it was a good trip.

Day 4

We started the summer on the move! First stop was Audrey's baseball practice. She plays on a co-ed team that practice three mornings a week and then has games on Thursday nights. She wasn't super excited about it like I had hoped, but she did a great job. She was especially excited about her outfit, of course.

Next stop was the music store to get Lydia the next size up violin. That wasn't very exciting. But from there we headed to swim lessons. Charlie was excited to finally be joining her sisters, but when we got there, she freaked out a little bit. She was afraid of the male teacher, but once he went to a different group, she was a little better. She sat down on the ledge as long as I sat next to her. Luckily, I had gone for a run during Audrey's practice, so I had on my running clothes that I didn't mind getting wet. She sat down next to another little girl who was also an energetic 4 year-old and they hit it off immediately and she let me go back to my seat within a few minutes. Then she did a fantastic job! It was a relief because we actually had to get a waiver for her to take the lessons because they usually only take kids once they're five. I explained that she jumps in by herself and goes under water with no fear, and they took her. 

After that, we came home for showers and lunch. Then we were off again! We headed to West Bend to pick up a projector I bought on Craigslist for watching movies outside. As long as we were up there, we decided to see if any local restaurants looked good and we found a place called Riverside Brewery Restaurant. They had outdoor seating right on the river in a little wooded area that was very peaceful and relaxing. Jayson and I shared a flight of beer. Kids eat free on Mondays and Tuesdays, so it wasn't too expensive. The food was good and the service was great.

Now we're home and Jayson and I are beat. The girls somehow still have energy and are outside running around. 

Favorite conversation of the day...

Audrey: There's another girl on my team!

Me: What's her name?

Audrey: I don't know.

Charlie: THAT'S A FUNNY NAME!

Love her little sense of humor...

Summer 2014

I am going to TRY to post about what we do every day this summer. I might skip some days and catch up later, but we'll see how long I last. Here we go...

Day 0: Thursday, June 12 -- This was the last day of school for the girls, and my last day with students. Here's a picture of the first day of school this year and the last day.

Midway through the day, I got a call from a friend of mine whose kids go to school with the girls to tell us they had rented a limo for us to ride in after school, along with another family we love hanging out with. Awesome! We rode around and took the kids to Orange Leaf and Greenfield Park.

Day 1: I had a teacher work day, so the girls and Jayson worked on cleaning up the house and the yard for our outdoor movie night. We had the two families over who had been on the limo ride with us and it worked out perfectly. The adults sat around the fire pit and the kids cuddled up on the patio and we watched The Sandlot. A perfect movie to kick off the summer with!

Day 2: I spent most of the day participating in the graduation ceremony, which I love doing. After I got home and relaxed, we went to Polish Fest. The girls loved the dancers the best.

Day 3: Father's Day! I made breakfast (Jayson made the coffee), and then we spent the whole day getting things done around the house. I cleaned and organized the girls' bedrooms, the playroom, and some of the basement. Jayson got our new rain barrels and compost bin set up. The girls ran around getting filthy dirty.

The Life of a Beard

At some point this winter, Jayson stopped shaving his beard. I am a fan of facial hair, and I liked it. At first, the girls didn't, especially Charlie, who told him flat out, "I hate it." They warmed up to it, though. Especially when he curled it.

He wasn't sure how long he was going to keep it, until this weekend when the weather started to warm up. He told me yesterday that he wasn't going to last much longer. Then today, he told me he couldn't last another day. He came outside and we took the "before" picture:

 The girls wanted to kiss his beard goodbye.

He started with just the mustache because he said he wanted to look Amish.

He let the girls help him with the rest.

And then it was gone!

The Latest Funny

My mom came to visit this weekend and she turns 60 next week. The girls were singing "Grandma is 59 going on 60," to the tune of 'Sixteen Going on Seventeen,' from The Sound of Music. Then they got silly and sang things like, "Grandma is 59 going on 100," and "Grandma is 59 going on 0," and then Audrey chimed in with, "Grandma is 59 going on DEAD." 

Jayson, "My mistake."

Charlie, "NO! I'ts NAM-a-STAY, Daddy!"

Audrey, "We got new groups in math."

Me, "What does that mean?"

Audrey, "I'm in the rhombus group."

Me, "But what does that mean?"

Audrey, "It's for kids who need a challenge. We're the only ones who use the tens rods. It's not even a challenge. Mrs. Boyd said, 'Paige has three snowballs and Audrey has five.' She said my NAME, Mommy. My NAME!" 

Snow Day! (Actually, Cold Day)

The girls and I did not have school today or yesterday due to extremely cold temperatures. We were in the negative teens and with windchill, we got close to negative 50 degrees. Too cold to go outside! The schools called off Monday on Friday afternoon and on Monday afternoon, they called off Tuesday as well. It was nice to have some notice.

I feel like these two days were such a nice surprise even though we just had winter break. We had winter break very planned out, with things to do every day, so it was nice to just be stuck at home and get to spend time together. The girls are at an age where they play together beautifully and it was so fun hearing them play and acting out whatever imaginary situation they were in. I think my favorite was when they were playing with their legos and that somehow turned into them pretending to be on talk shows and sharing their lego creations with the host.

So, what else did we do?

Lydia did an experiment where she put a temperature gauge in a cup of water and put the water outside and took measurements.

We knew we would go crazy if we didn't get some energy out. Luckily, Jayson and I have an elliptical in the basement. Jayson also has a 7-minute workout app he does with Charlie, so we all did it, and the girls got yoga mats and videos for Christmas so we did yoga too.

Of course we had to have hot chocolate.

And more experiments! We of course had to do the hot water thrown into the air, and we also froze a T-shirt.

Charlie got a slow start to yoga on the second day.

The girls also played games, we did manicures, watched movies, etc. It really was kind of a magical couple of days where Jayson and I both got work done, the girls played together without fighting (too much) or making a mess (too much), and everybody was happy. Just the rejuvenation we needed!

2014

I'm not usually one for New Year's resolutions. I've always been more of a "if you want to make a positive change, do it, and it doesn't have to be January 1st" kind of person. But, I had a hard time making positive changes this year. This has been by far my most difficult school year so far, with many added stresses this year and diminishing support. It has made it hard to focus on me and it has made it really hard to focus on my family. So, I've been mulling over a few resolutions and here is what I came up with:

1) More meaningful activities at night. Usually as soon as the girls are in bed, I do school work, and then I let myself go online until I fall asleep. I don't do any of my hobbies any more, like knitting, I haven't read a book since the summer, and I really have fallen into the habit of doing mindless things. It's a nice release, but it also makes me feel like I'm not spending my time as positively as I could. But, I also get anxiety about starting something I won't have time to finish. So, I'm going to make time. That also includes time for blogging.

2) Get to a yoga class at least once a week. I used to do yoga a little more frequently, but then started to focus much more on running. I got more concerned with how much I could sweat, how sore I could get, how far/fast I could run, and even, sadly, how many calories I could burn. With the added stress this year, Jayson really encouraged me to get back to my yoga practice, and I feel like I am benefiting from it much more than I ever did before. I do feel the change in my body, and I also feel that it puts me in a very good place mentally and spiritually. So, that's going to continue to happen on a more frequent basis.

3) Fewer chemicals. We have already moved to being more natural in what we clean with, what we eat, and what products we use. This is something I would also like to ramp up, especially with food. I think we often choose something that is low fat or fat free over something that is natural, and I'm going to work on choosing more natural. Too often the ingredients that are altered to make foods lower in fat are replaced with things that I can't even pronounce. That's not to say I'm cutting out junk food. It just means being a little more conscious of what's in our food and making a better choice when we can.

Also, I hate it when people get all public about how healthy they are and how what they do to stay healthy is the right thing for everybody, so I pretty much hate this post. But, I felt a need to write it all out and put it somewhere that will make me feel a little more responsible for sticking to it. So, sorry. More blogging about my crazy kids will happen soon. When I finish my game of Candy Crush and put down these Cheetos.