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.

Lunchtime Limits

Jayson tries to pack cold lunches for the girls every day. The hot lunches at our school are great, but just a little bit less healthy than how we eat at home. Jayson packed Lydia a tuna salad wrap on Wednesday. She decided at school that she did not like it, so she bought hot lunch. We explained to her that she can't do that because it's a waste of money and she would take that same tuna salad wrap the next day (which she loved, by the way). That night, after Jayson was gone, I told Lydia that I was going to "freeze her lunch account" and she would not be allowed to buy anything except for milk, so she shouldn't even try to.

On Friday, we were in desperate need of groceries, so Jayson decided to let the girls have hot lunch. He called me at school.

Jayson: Hi. Lydia is going to have hot lunch today, so she insisted I call you to have you unfreeze her account.
Me: Oh. Yeah. That was big fat lie.
Jayson: Yes, I understand that. But, that doesn't change the fact that I have to call you and have you unfreeze her account.
Me: Oooooooh! Yeah! Beep Beep Boop Beep. I just pushed the unfreeze button!
Jayson: Thank you.
Me: You're welcome.

Raising Strong Girls

In October of 2011, I ran the Milwaukee Marathon. I followed a training schedule and made sure I would be prepared for it. That meant giving up several long mornings to fit in 20-mile runs, which also left me pretty exhausted for the rest of the day. It was difficult balancing my family with my training. Months of preparation, both physically and mentally went into the run and I felt like it was a huge accomplishment. I was proud of myself. However, what made me the proudest was not that I finished for myself, or my husband, or the friends and kids on my cross country came who watched me run. It was seeing my three girls as I ran that last leg to the finish that brought tears to my eyes. Knowing that they saw their mom do something that a lot of people can't do and something that took determination and goals and literal blood, sweat and tears to do, made me feel like I accomplished something huge as a mom.

I often try to show my girls that women can do anything. I tell them they can be anything they want to be. They can be a doctor, a teacher, a firefighter, a waitress, or even the president. I make sure they know that I can do stuff around the house just like Daddy can and even though Daddy can run and bike faster than me, I still run and bike the hardest I can. This past week, I built a small brick wall by our patio and I had to chisel two bricks in half to complete it and Lydia told me there's no way I could cut a brick in half, but I made sure that once I did, she saw it and she knew that something she thought was impossible actually wasn't.

I let them choose to wear whatever they want. Audrey is a huge fan of dresses and skirts. For her birthday, she wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle T-shirt. When the grandma of one of the kids who came to Audrey's birthday party asked me for some gift ideas, I listed a bunch of things and kind of threw that in as an afterthought, "Oh, you know what else? She said she wants a Ninja Turtle T-shirt." I'm so glad that grandma got Audrey not one but TWO Ninja Turtle T-shirts that Audrey just loves to wear. Often with skirts.

I know it's not a new idea to try to raise strong girls, but I feel like I didn't become a very strong person until later in life. Not any fault of my own mother, but I was just a very quiet kid and not very outgoing. I was very self-conscious.  Team sports embarrassed me because I was never as good as the other kids on the team. Individual sports were absolutely terrifying. I rarely spoke up for myself and was fine not rocking the boat. That's not how my girls are, and I hope they continue to be strong in whatever they do. And I hope that years down the road, they will be grateful for my role in what they became. 

Latest Interviews

I like to interview the girls a couple of times a year just to document what's going on in their lives and what they're like. So, here are today's interviews. My favorite is the last one, which is Lydia interviewing Audrey while Charlie behaves like... well, Charlie.

Lydia's interview:

Audrey's interview:

Charlie's interview:

Lydia interviewing Audrey:

More From the Girl with the Camera

Lydia has been quite the shutterbug lately. Here are some more examples of her work.

I will spare you the following:

• Several pictures of her name on various pieces of paper from school.
• Several pictures of her room.
• 115 blurry pictures from the Prom grand march at my school. Most with people in them. In some, you can even tell who the people are. Also, a 27-second video. She did get some actual clear shots of the king and queen being crowned.
• Several pictures of TV shows on the TV. I'll include this one though, because I like Audrey's cameo.

Here are some she took with Charlie:

This video had me laughing until I cried. I have no words.

There's another one very similar to it that I can't post because Jayson is shirtless in the background and he would be pissed, but imagine almost the same video with him walking through in the background with no indication that he is aware of the weirdness our daughter is displaying other than one single confused glance in her direction and then he continues to go about his business. I'm pretty sure that will be his disposition 99% of the time when they're teenagers.

This instructional video of her letting the dog out. I know my phone number is at the end, so don't try anything fancy.

Let the Activities Begin

Our first full week of summer vacation and we hit the ground running. Lydia has baseball Monday through Thursday in the morning and games will be Thursday nights starting in a couple weeks. Audrey has tee ball every Wednesday night. Lydia and Audrey have swim lessons every day before lunch. Lydia has violin on Thursday mornings. Charlie comes along for the ride because by the third child we figured out that paying $75 to go in a pool with your kid and sing, "Look Who Came to Swim Today," isn't worth it when you can just go swimming by your dang self and toss her in the water.

I LOVE keeping the girls busy. They are occupied, they fight less, they don't get out every single toy we own and leave it in the front yard, and they are EXHAUSTED by bed time. Like, their head hits the pillow and they're out.

A few things that have happened this week:

• Lydia has Coach Nick for baseball again. Lydia LOOOOOOVES Coach Nick and Coach Nick has a soft spot for Lydia too. It's a good situation.
• Jayson and I have been taking turns biking to baseball with Lydia and then going on a ride while she has her practice. Biking with a child is not easy. Unless the road is completely flat. If it's uphill, her legs hurt. If it's downhill, she's scared. But, she's getting the hang of it. I'm amazed at how far she has come this spring.
• Audrey passed Lydia in swim lessons on the second day. When it happened, Lydia was OK with it and figured she would just pass to the next level the next day. She didn't. Audrey was in the deep end learning the freaking front crawl while Lydia was bobbing with her kick board. It was humbling for her. And heartbreaking for me. I wanted to tell Audrey how amazing it was that she passed a 7 year-old and was already in level 4, but it was hard to do when the 7 year-old was Lydia. It was a good opportunity for me to talk to Lydia about many things, including: Staying positive, not worrying about others, staying focused when she's supposed to be listening, and emphasizing her strengths. She asked me in tears, "Tell me again all the things I'm better at than Audrey."
• Audrey is a fish. She would wear her swim cap and goggles all day long if we let her.
• We have a playdate tomorrow with one of Audrey's friends. His mom told me that she thinks he would die if he had to go the whole summer without seeing Audrey. We can't let that happen. This kid is awesome and I can't wait to have him over. When Audrey had her birthday party, he was super into the water, so we're planning on a lot of water play again. Audrey wants to have a lot of playdates this summer, so I'm going to try to do one every week or so. 

Summer Vacation!

The girls and I had our last day of school last week Wednesday. Jayson and I are very, very fortunate to have jobs that allow us to be home with our girls all summer. We were so excited for this summer because the girls are finally at an age where we can plan activities with very few restrictions. No diapers, no nap times, no strollers. I have a whole list of things to do stored on my computer. Here is what we have done so far.

Wednesday: After school, I went out for a beer with my coworkers. We do it every last day of school and it's a nice kick-off to the summer. When I got home, the whole family went to Orange Leaf for a fundraiser for The Scenic Shore 150.

Thursday: I had to clean the house. I have a good dose of OCD and ADD in me and I simply cannot live in a good head space when my house is messy. Once I was able to finish cleaning, I felt like summer actually started. I ended the day with a meeting for the cross country team to kick-off our summer training.

Friday: Jayson had a doctors appointment in the morning, then we made a family run to Target. We took the girls out to lunch at one of their favorite pizza places.

Saturday: Audrey had a birthday party to go to, and then we went to a party at a friend's house. They do yard olympics. I had to miss it last year with my emergency appendectomy, but this year Jayson and I won! I also ran into a former student, who was a senior my first year teaching, and is now 24, out of college, and a real person, which is weird. The girls had so much fun at the party playing with the other kids, and again, Jayson and I were reminded of how nice it was for them to be old enough to go off on their own.

Sunday: Father's Day! The art museum had free admission and the girls' favorite band, Fox and Branch was playing. They had a lot of activities for kids and we had a blast. Then we went to the Third Ward to have lunch at the Ale House. The service was terrible and the kitchen was backed up. We waited forever. Luckily, the girls were still going strong and we didn't have any meltdowns.

And today... We began Lydia's baseball season. She got her favorite coach from last year, Coach Nick, and was absolutely ecstatic. Then we began a two-week swim lesson session for Lydia and Audrey. They are the only ones in their class! So, they got a lot of attention and had a blast. They can't wait to go back tomorrow. We had planned on using a Groupon that expired today for pizza and bowling, but the place was closed. A bit of a bummer, but we were close enough to Uncle Kyle's shop to stop by for a visit, then came home to play and mow the lawn.

The girls already are slightly bronzed and exhausted every night, which is how summer is supposed to be! After weeks of getting up at 6:00am, Charlie slept past 8:00 today.