Cousin Fun

Last Sunday my brother drove down with his two girls Olivia and Grace to spend some time with us! (and to give his wife Amanda some time to finish up grading before the school year finished!) I've been wanting to take his girls to Jumpin Janes for awhile now. It was rainy and cold, which made it a perfect day to bounce out their energy! The kids had a great time and I'm pretty sure the adults did too...at one point I saw Brian racing Max on an obstacle course and he was giving it his all in order to beat the little guy:)



After we got home, the kids watched a movie for a bit and I found Gracie like this when I went to check on them:)



Despite the rain/mist, we still managed to have a driveway fire too! Brian brought down some wood that he couldn't get to burn. He wanted to have the pyro Chris try and sure enough, we ended the night putting the fire out with a hose because it was burning so well!



In the 24 hours they were here, the girls had every single dress up outfit we own on at least 5 times each. I think I put a sparkly tutu dress on Livi 15 times. Maybe more. By Sunday morning they were even putting on Batman and Spiderman outfits. Oh the fun these guys have together....I just wish I could bottle it up and save it for years to come. Zero fights and very few tears. (just once when Livi wouldn't give Grace the batman costume...I just had to laugh:) The girls did not want to leave when it was time. Brian threatened Grace that she would have to stay here and he and Olivia would leave and Grace didn't care at all! Eventually he got them in the car and hopefully they slept the whole way. Brian and Max bonded over basketball, Wii and a farm game on the iPad. Max was in heaven. So glad they came!

Washington DC

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to go to Washington DC to watch my soon to be brother-in-law graduate from Marine officer school. We were only in DC for 48 hours, but we accomplished a lot! I'll start from the beginning....

Tuesday my parents and I flew out of Madison and after what could have been long delay, the weather cleared and we ended up getting out of there only 45 minutes later than we were expected. Tony's parents drove out to DC from Decorah and they picked us up at the airport basically right as we walked out! The timing could not have been better. After checking into the hotel, we met up with Tony and Tara and all went out to eat in Old Town Alexandria. My sister made sure we all had a wonderful time and I ate the best crabcake ever!



Wednesday morning while Tara and Tony cleaned out his room at the base, the rest of us went to Mount Vernon for the morning. It was really neat to see George Washington's home and tour the acreage. I learned a lot of history and the views over the Potomac River were breathtaking.

the slave quarters


After getting back into DC we switched hotels to be closer to downtown and then headed down to Quantico to the Marine Base to watch the graduation. On our way we stopped at the Marine Museum and looked around for awhile and spent some time at the gift shop. The museum was awesome and I learned so much about the Marines. It made me very proud to have a family member be a part of that.

the museum was constructed to look like the Marines raising up the flag at Iwo Jima.

This was my favorite quote of my trip...gave me chills reading it.

My dad "trying on" the pack from basic training

The flag from Iwo Jima


The graduation itself was amazing. It would have been amazing no matter what rank Tony had gotten in the class, but the fact that he got 2nd out of 193 officers was pretty cool. Seeing all of the Marines in their "blues" and hearing the graduation speech gave me goose bumps.




After graduation we headed back into DC to change out of our fancy clothes (well...it was mostly because the shoes were giving us all blisters!) and headed to an Irish Pub in Pentagon Row. We shared lots of laughs and it was nice to see Tony relax after 5 months of pretty intense school. (if you want to read a little more about his time at school, you can at their blog: thebrownfamilyupdate.blogspot.com or just click on "tara and tony's blog" on my sidebar.)



Thursday morning we woke up early to see the city. We got on a big bus tour and spent the day hopping on and off the bus at various stops trying to see as much as we could. We got off the bus for the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial, The White House, and Arlington National Cemetery. The rest we saw from the bus. Even the stuff we saw from the bus was pretty cool...from the Washington and Jefferson memorials to the alley that John Wilkes Booth escaped to after shooting Lincoln. I can't wait to go back to this city. I was impressed all around from its cleanliness to friendliness. I wouldn't mind at all if Tara and Tony were stationed in that area someday!

my parents from inside the Lincoln Memorial looking out at the reflecting pool and the Washington Memorial

The Korean War Memorial

The tomb of the unknown soldier. We were able to witness the changing of the guard which was really neat and also saw an army unit placing the flags on each tombstone for Memorial Day


The way home was a semi-disaster with flight delays and such. We were supposed to get into Madison at 9pm and instead got in at 2:30am. So we ended up spending the night in Madison and going home early Friday morning. Other than that...the trip was spectacular . A few thank yous....one to my sister for organizing the whole trip and making sure we were all having fun the entire time. And to Chris's mom and dad for taking time off of work to come down here to stay with the kids and drive them to their activities so I could do this. I really appreciate it!!

Max David

I haven't written a post about Max in quite awhile so it's definitely time for an update! As I go through the pictures on my camera and my phone I realize I don't have too many of him. With him gone every day I take most of my pictures of the girls! How sad...it's going to be hard having two kiddos gone all day next year.

Kindergarten is coming to an end...he loves it, but is really ready to be done. Since they got to the 100th day of school, they have been counting backwards to the end. It's down to 12 now. He is doing really well...is quite the little participator, loves reading and math, favorite times of the day are centers, specials (art, music and PE) and recess! He loves his reading group (could be because it's with 5 other girls and him) and the other day he came home and told me that Emma (a girl in his group) asked Ms. O'hare why they had to read all of the hard books. Ms. O'hare said it was because they were so smart. Max thought it was pretty funny to tell me that.

For awhile he was taking his lunch from home about 50% of the time. Then, a couple of weeks ago when the weather finally started being decent, he was taking lunch at school every day. After an entire school year of packing lunch on the "pancake on a stick" day, he chose to take it at school. I asked him why and he responded that if you eat lunch at school you sit in a different table and that table is dismissed for recess first:) He's a smart boy! We looked ahead at next week's lunch and he's back to taking it from home. I think a couple weeks of not eating much for lunch has changed his mind about the 1 extra minute of recess!

He is on his 3rd pair of tennis shoes and backpack for the year. He grew out of one pair and ruined the other one. Both zippers on the backpacks have broken. I think I'll spend more than $10 on next year's backpack! Max loves to go out to the bus stop really early and set his backpack down to save his spot in line. He runs home after he gets off the bus in the afternoon and can't wait to get his drink of orange juice and tell me about his day. His top teeth are gone right now which brings his total to 6 teeth lost. His other two top teeth are currently loose so I'm guessing they'll be out soon.



Here's Max and his friend Mylee after their performance of "The Cow who Clucked" at the Bell Tower Theater. He had a great time with this theater class this spring.


Love this little guy...can't wait to have him home all summer!

Mother's Day and 5 years as a SAHM

I realize this is week late, but I wanted to share a few pictures from Mother's Day last weekend. I had a wonderful day hanging out with my kiddos and Chris. They detailed my van for me and made an awesome video of our time at Disney World. Chris is becoming quite the "techy" with his video making so I'm looking forward to lots more in the future! We went on a long walk and then took the kids miniature golfing. Chris did all of the laundry and I took a long nap! Can't get much better than that:)




I was thinking the other day that I have been a stay at home mom for as many years as I was a teacher. It's hard to believe. I remember my teaching days like they were yesterday, but when I realize my first set of 8th graders at Pleasant Valley are now college grads, I know I'm old! I'm not sure I'll ever go back to teaching unfortunately. I loved it and thought I was pretty decent at it, but I don't know if the schedule would work for our family. If I were able to find a part time teaching position, I'd be all over it, but I know those are few and far between. Thankfully, I get to use some of my teaching skills both on the tennis court and at home with my favorite students.

5 years later, I'm so happy I wrote that letter to Chris detailing all of the reasons I wanted to stay home. I was having a really hard time verbalizing it and it was hard for him to imagine going to one income. I'm still very thankful that it all worked out the way it did. I honestly have the best job in the world and despite the fact that I get no paycheck, no sick days, not a lot of "job well dones" and wear mostly yoga pants, I couldn't be happier:) I'm thankful for the group of moms that I hang out with that keep me sane, car pool, tell me about activities I need to do, watch my kids for me and always have a pot of coffee brewing when I go to their houses!

18 months old!

Ivy turned 18 months on Saturday. Holy cow...a year and a half already! She had kind of a tough week last week so I'll start there, but then add some things about what she's up to!

This past Thursday Chris decided to work from home for the first time in 6 months. He has been going to Davenport every day for the past three weeks and had a little bit of a break in the action so he took advantage and stayed home to work. So we went out to lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. When we got home we had barely walked in the door and Ivy took a major spill. She fell in the kitchen and hit the door. There was a lot of blood and we weren't sure all of her teeth were intact. So we called our dentist and she met us at her office. (she left an OB appointment to meet us) Ivy completely severed the little thingy that attaches her gums to her lip and her two front teeth were knocked loose. One was worse than the other. She was a trooper and by the end of the appointment, she was standing on the chair in the waiting room. We are having to keep her on soft food for 72 hours and no pacifier which is proving to be the worst part of this whole deal. It's absolutely killing me not giving it to her. She asks for it all the time and then starts looking around the house for it..behind her bed, on the table, etc. It's heartbreaking. So...her naps have been very bad and each night Chris has had to go in after a long time crying and rock her to sleep. Thankfully she has slept through the night. So from here we just wait and see if her teeth turn gray and then in 3 months we'll go back for an x-ray to make sure there was no nerve damage. if there was, they will have to pull her teeth (root and all) and she will be without her two top teeth until she gets her permanent ones. Kind of a bummer, but could have been worse. I was so thankful that Chris was home...it was not a one parent type of thing. I don't think I could have dealt with the amount of blood on my own.

my last picture of her with her beloved paci:)


Okay...onto the more fun stuff! She is totally crazy. Being upside down is her favorite position to be in these days! She loves to run with the big kids, go down the slide by herself, climb on anything and everything (retaining walls are her favorite) She turns heads at church with her singing. When the congregation is singing, she just starts up on her own with a high pitch song of her own and everyone around us cracks up. She repeats everything and is starting to know lots of names. She has all of our family figured out (although when we show her Brian's picture she says Amanda:) Clearly we need to spend a little more time with Brian! She is a little bit of an instigator. She knows what to do to push Max and Mya's buttons and the grin on her face is a little concerning when she runs away with one of their prized possessions!



Prior to giving up the pacifier, she was still taking 2 naps a day. A short one in the morning and a slightly longer one in the afternoon. It was working out perfectly because she could stay awake during the preschool run at noon and then we could stop at a park for a picnic before she melted down. She has been doing great with the no dairy thing. She's at 90% unsweetened almond milk and 10% dark chocolate almond milk. Max and Mya are figuring out that they can have ice cream only when she's sleeping. It's just too hard to tell her no in the summer to ice cream!



She wears size 5 shoes, 18-24 month clothes, refuses to wear hats, does not have enough hair for a pony, but once in awhile we can get a little clip in there without her noticing. She loves shoes (hers and everyone else's) She is a total bird chaser...you can't take your eyes off of her or she'll be 4 houses down chasing birds! She still loves her books and the ones with animals in them are her favorite. Has not noticed the TV yet, loves to build with her blocks and wrap her babies up in blankets. She is starting to play in the sand box a little bit, but usually ends up dumping all of the sand out of the box. That's all I can think of for now! 18 month appt. in a couple of weeks so I'll update her other stats then.

swing jumping

Chris took these pictures last week of Max and Mya jumping off the swings. He e-mailed them to me yesterday and I thought they deserved a post! Such fun pictures. I used to love to jump off the swings, but ever since our neighbor Sam jumped off of our swings and broke his foot, I've been a little hesitant to let the kids jump! I wasn't outside this time, so that's probably why he got such good pictures:)



Ivy is becoming quite the little swing set fan these days as well. She can manage the big slides at the park all by herself as well which makes me (and other randoms at the park) pretty nervous, but she insists! Yesterday morning I set her down in the garage to load up the van and before I turned around, she was already running to the backyard to go down the slide...jammies, binkie and all!

May Day

Happy May Day everyone! It's a beautiful day here...72 and sunny and very little wind! I understand tomorrow may not be anything like this, but I'm just trying to enjoy today while it lasts. This morning my kiddos delivered May baskets to the neighbors. They were kind of a last minute thought...leftover Easter candy, and chocolate chip cookies that I made last night, but I'm guessing they were hits with the neighbors. Here are a couple of pictures I took of the kids from the deck. They were so excited to ring the door bells and run!