Fall day with cousins

Last weekend we got to spend a couple of hours with Grace and Olivia before we left Decorah. The kids all wanted to jump in leaves so Grandpa Rog agreed and we got some pretty cute pictures! We live in a fairly new subdivision so it will be awhile before we have leaves to rake. Maybe by the time I have grandkids, we'll have some leaves for them to jump in:) Here are some pics!

I love this picture below. All of the neighbor boys around here are older than Max so sometimes I think he misses out on playing "little boy" stuff like trains, cars, trucks, dinosaurs, etc. I love that he's having fun pushing around a dump truck full of leaves:)

Rolling down the hill!

11 months on 10-11-12

Ivy is 11 months today! You know what that means...1 month until the big birthday. Time is flying by. Here's what she has been up to lately!

As I mentioned in the last post, she is now a walker! She can walk really well until she tries walking fast and then she always stumbles and eventually crawls because she needs to get where she's going NOW!! She is obsessed with many things these days. One is taking clothes out of drawers, baskets, bags, suitcases, etc. If I need a minute to do something in peace, I just plop her in front of her drawers and in minutes she has emptied the drawer and is happy as a clam. She is also obsessed with taking kleenex out of the box. This is one I usually don't do on purpose. If there happens to be a box within her reach, she can empty it in 2 minutes flat. The solution to that problem is to put the kleenex box up out of her reach, but then that means that Max and Mya can't reach it and we're constantly getting them kleenex!

She has turned the corner and is an awesome eater. She eats from all of the food groups (except dairy) and is especially loving meat these days. I'm all over it because my other two wanted nothing to do with meat for the longest time! In fact Mya is still kind of leery unless it's sesame chicken from HyVee Chinese! Bread and anything that resembles bread is also a favorite of hers. She stole a cookie out of our neighbor's hand (Audrey is going to be 2 next month) and boy you should have seen the fit she threw when I took it away!

Hasn't gotten any new teeth in the last month (which also means she hasn't had a cold or an ear infection in the last month:) and loves getting them brushed a.k.a. sucking on the tooth brush:) Unfortunately she has Mya's skin issues so we're starting to treat her eczema and will discuss what else to do at her 1 year appointment. We're working on some sign language and hopefully she will pick it up more and more this coming month. It just makes things so much easier when she can let us know what she wants! Max was great with sign language and we were too overwhelmed when Mya was ready for it so we never taught her!

One of the best parts of my day is seeing Ivy's face light up when Chris walks in the door. She usually crawls over to him as fast as she possibly can and will fight for him to pick her up even if he has 2 other kids in his arms! She doesn't care for Chris wrestling with Max and Mya. It's pretty funny how upset she gets and immediately stops when the wrestling stops! She is not sure if she likes to be thrown up in the air or not. Sometimes she laughs and other times she looks like she's scared to death! Her tickle spots are under her legs and on her tummy. She takes her socks off every chance she can get and absolutely despises getting put in he carseat. She is fine once she's buckled in, but it's crazy how much she hates getting buckled up! Until next month....

She wasn't too fond of the 11 month pictures today despite Mya and my best effort:) Maybe we'll give it another try tomorrow!

Lots of reasons to celebrate!

I'm not sure we could have fit one more thing into this weekend! Let me start out by wishing my in-laws a very happy 40th wedding anniversary! 40 years together is nothing to bat an eye at...it's something to be very proud of. I know they're feeling blessed tonight to have found each other and to have stayed together this long. Ever since my Grandpa Grady died I have always thought 40 year anniversaries were pretty special. He died 3 months before he and my Grandma would have celebrated 40 years. I wish David and Linda many many more happy, healthy years together!

Ivy decided to celebrate her Grandma and Grandpa's anniversary by officially starting to walk today! She has been taking steps for a few weeks, but today she went from mostly crawling to mostly walking! If she needs to get somewhere fast, she'll still crawl, but we definitely have a walker around here! And she seems so proud:) Max walked 3 weeks before he turned 1 and Mya walked 3 weeks after she turned 1, so Ivy is our first walker. Go figure.....slowest to crawl, fastest to walk! (video coming soon!)

Another celebration this weekend came Friday night. I have been working very hard on a volunteer board to put on a gala to benefit the Visiting Nurse Association of Dubuque. We raise money for many different parts of the VNA, but the one that I'm most proud of is the amount of money we raise for vaccinations for children who cannot afford them. Our numbers are not in yet, but we're thinking it will be another great year. Last year we were able to raise $52,000 and it looks like we're on track to do the same! I'm so happy that I was able to do this, but I'm also so happy it's over! I can get back to making meals for my family and watching TV at night with Chris instead of making spreadsheets, sending e-mails, double/triple checking reservations and table assignments, making phone calls for auction items, sponsorship, etc! The picture below is of some of my Dubuque friends who come to support this great event. (However, I'm not sure what we're all going to talk about now that our "mom-prom" is over!)

And lastly, the final celebration was my 10 year Luther homecoming! Chris and I drove up to Decorah Saturday morning and met all of my college roomomates at my parents house for the weekend! My parents graciously traded houses with us so that they could watch our kids and we could have a place to stay! We had an absolute blast catching up with everyone and seeing some old friends who we haven't seen in years, but after 2 minutes it feels like it's right back where it used to be! That's definitely the sign of a good friend:) I'm pretty tired tonight (can't imagine why??!??) so I'm going to close this blog. I hope everyone has a quite, uneventful week! (that's what I'm hoping for:)

5 1/2 years old!

One month ago today, Max celebrated his half birthday! I haven't written a post about him in awhile so here goes! He is loving school these days. It wasn't always the case, so I'm so happy to be able to write that now. I think it just took some getting used to for him. So much about kindergarten was brand new...being gone all day, eating lunch away from home, riding a bus, meeting new kids, wiping himself:), etc.

He is dong really well from what I can tell. He already knows 12 site words and loves pointing them out when we're reading before bed. He tells us so much throughout the night about what's going on at school. The other night he said (very matter of factly) that "every word that starts with q is usually followed by a u!" It was pretty cute. Tonight we were going for a walk and he asked me if he could pick a coniferous leaf off of a tree! I was pretty impressed. Oh and everything his teacher says is the truth no matter what! He eats hot lunch everyday though most days he chooses the peanut butter and jelly or the deli sandwich. The bus is still one of the top things he does each day. The bus comes around 8:15, but he insists on going out there at 8:00 to put his backpack down so he can be first to get on the bus when it comes! He drops off his backpack and then comes back home to shoot some baskets for a few minutes. Mya has officially taken his spot as the person to send the bus off and greet the bus each day. Lately she has been asking me to pick her up for preschool at the bus stop!

Max has also cried more in the past month than he has in the past year combined! I'm chalking it up to being overtired. He goes to bed early, but is not getting the best sleep each night. He has been ending up on our floor many nights. We just keep extra bedding under our bed and when he comes in, we just slide it out and we're back to sleep in less than 30 seconds. It's probably not a great habit to be in, but obviously something is bothering him because he never used to do this, so we're just hoping it kind of ends on its own! Another thing we're hoping kind of ends on its own is the fighting between him and Mya! This morning I made them say something nice about one another because I was beginning to think there wasn't one thing they liked about each other!

sibling similarities

Ivy has entered the stage where she doesn't want to be held or contained in a stroller, cart, high chair, etc. anymore. Instead she wants to get down and explore everything! I took a picture of her from one of our recent trips to HyVee and it reminded me of the same exact thing I posted a few years back. This picture was taken of Mya on May 13, 2009:




Here's Ivy in September 2012

Max had a fascination with the dishwasher. Every time it opened, he came crawling and wanted to climb! Ivy has taken to the dishwasher as well these days. I have to be really careful to get the knives out before she gets there! Of all the silverware in the slots, somehow she ALWAYS picks the knives first!

Fantastic Weekend!

We headed to Decorah this past weekend for a very fun weekend that we've been planning for months! My dad is on the Rotary in town and they put on the 1st annual loop de loop half marathon and 5K on the new trail that circles the city. It's a gorgeous trail and I recommend everyone tries it out if you're in town! Chris and my sister in law Amanda ran the half marathon while myself, Tara, and my brother in law Jeff ran the 5K! It was an early,windy, cold morning, but I'm happy to report that everyone survived and is still walking! Sometimes watching things like that motivate me to do something similar, but I didn't get those feelings watching the half marathon, so I'm pretty sure I'll be sticking to 5K's!

Chris's parents were able to come to town also to watch the race and to help celebrate another event going on that night which was my dad's surprise 60th birthday party! My mom did a fabulous job lining everything up and he was SHOCKED! With the race being that morning he never suspected anything with all the people who were in town. I love surprises and this one definitely didn't let me down. All of the kids were awesome..they basically ran the entire time and barely stopped to eat! We took Ivy home to a babysitter around 7 and that worked out perfectly as well. It was so great to catch up with family and friends who I don't get to see very often.

It was tough to get up and going this morning as we're all a little behind on sleep, but it was all worth it! So glad Chris's parents were able to make it and take a break from the campaign for a couple of days! Amanda's parents were also able to be there so it was fun to catch up a bit with them during the race and the party as well! Hope everyone has a good week! Enjoy a few pictures from the weekend. Thanks to Amanda for taking them!


Surprise!!

This is what they did for hours! Someone told me they thought the kiddos probably ran a 5K that night!

best buds Mya and Olivia

A "senior picture" of Max in Chris's suitcoat from 30 years ago:)

allergies take 2

Doesn't feel like it has been all that long ago that I wrote about Max's allergies and now we're going onto child #2!! Lately Mya has been really stuffy and had some crazy puffy, watery eyes, etc. So, last Thursday after she had been off of anti-histamines for 7 days I took her to the allergist to have her tested and to see what our plan for her should be. When I told the doctor that I wanted her tested for seasonal allergies he thought she was a little young to have seasonal allergies. Then I whipped out my phone and showed him the same picture I posted on the blog with her puffy eyes and he agreed that we definitely needed to test her.

Just as he was walking out the door, I asked that we test her for peanuts too. I had a suspicion that she was allergic, but was really hoping that she just hated peanuts. Every time she got something in her mouth that contained peanuts, she would stick her tongue out and freak out until I wiped her tongue off. She never had any reaction other than wanting them off of her tongue. He agreed to test her.

Here is a picture of her back less than 90 seconds from when they poked her with each substance. You can see that she reacted pretty quickly. Her allergies are dust mites, cats, dogs, ragweed, mold and unfortunately the P in the lower right is for peanuts:( She was very uncomfortable right away with crazy itchiness so they did not leave it on for the entire time. the picture below that is when they wiped off the marker. The big bump in the middle is ragweed which is at an all time high this year so that explains a lot.

We're pretty bummed about the peanuts. It's not something I was completely shocked by, but I was just really hopeful that it would be negative. At the elementary school that she will go to, kids who have peanut allergies have to sit at a separate table during lunch and I just hate the thought of her having to sit away from her class. I know it's best for her, but it's still not a fun thing to think about.

Luckily for us, she has such strong ill will towards peanuts that she already asks everyone before she accepts food or candy if it has peanuts in it. The allergist also said that he diagnoses a peanut allergy every single day. Crazy. I don't think I knew one kid who was allergic to peanuts growing up. Not sure why all of a sudden they are everywhere!

When Mya got up on the table for the exam, the doctor also pointed out that line on her nose. I can't remember what he called it, but basically he was saying that people with severe allergies have that line because they are constantly itching their nose and a line forms.

A positive thing to come out of this is with the proper treatment, Mya is sleeping like a baby. Chris has been checking on her at night and she's sleeping soundly and you can hardly hear if she's breathing or not which was not the case just a few days ago. Poor thing...wish we would have done this months ago!

10 months!

Ivy is 10 months old today! Mya is still super confused as to why Ivy keeps getting so much older, but she is only 4:) Here's a little bit of what she's up to these days.

If you're a facebook friend of mine, you may have seen the video of her that I posted last week showing everyone that she is very capable of saying no. She can shake her head very well and loves the feedback she gets from Max and Mya when she does it! We are starting to teach some sign language and so far can sign "all done" when she wants. When she doesn't want to, she just shakes her head:)She has 6 teeth...4 top and 2 bottom. She can stand up on her own and has taken a couple of steps. I don't think walking is too far away, but you never know with this girl. We thought she was going to roll over at 3 months and it was almost 2 months later when it finally happened! She is sleeping much better these days. Putting her down for either a nap or bedtime is a piece of cake. She's starting to show signs of being one of my kids in the car. She slept for about 20 minutes the entire way up to MN last weekend and pretty much complained the other 4 hours 40 minutes. She loves her soft purple blanket and her pacifier when it's time for bed, loves to look at books, but prefers them not be read to her because it takes too long in between pages, likes to swing and hates the flash of a camera and the sound of her high chair tray when I snap it onto her chair!

I've actually caught Mya and Ivy "playing" together a few times in the last couple of weeks. It's super cute and Ivy usually ends up screaming because Mya is trying to make her do something she doesn't want to do. Since I just have the girls home in the afternoons it's kind of nice that they are starting to play together. Here are a few pictures of my attempt to get some 10 month shots of her. She's anti-picture these days because it means sitting still and keeping her hands off the sticker on her shirt!

This is the view from here for much of the day:) I'm sure I'll miss this whole "crawling up my leg and whine until I pick her up" stage...or at least I'm telling myself that:)

Vote for my Grandpa!

This past weekend we went up to Minnesota to walk in a parade to support Chris's dad who is running for the House of Representatives! They had an absoulte blast. At first I was a little worried...Max was not happy that he wouldn't be collecting candy during this parade, but when he found out he was going to get to pass out freezie pops to all of the kids watching, he was super pumped! They both handed out freezies for 1.5 miles and then the last .5 mile when the freezies had run out they handed out magnets to other Grandmas and Grandpas:) The people watching the parade seemed to get a kick out of our "vote for my grampa" signs! Apparently there was quite a bit of footage on the evening news of Max, Mya and Ivy during the parade too! If my kiddos are responsible for a even few of his votes he gets on November 6th then the parade was totally worth it!

Way behind!!!

I need to get back into the swing of things with this blog! The weeks are just flying by around here and a blog stays on my list of things to do, but never gets crossed off! I'm going to do my best to recap the last couple of weeks....

Last weekend I went up to Decorah to play in the Luther Alumni Tennis meet. There hasn't been one since I graduated so it was really fun to get back on the courts at Luther and play with many of my former teammates! We had a wonderful weekend and I am so looking forward to my 10 year reunion at Homecoming in October! A highlight was when my friend Rachel and I beat the #1 team from Luther in doubles! (however..something tells me they're not #1 anymore:)

Max is doing really well with school. I'd say right now he doesn't love it, but he doesn't dislike it either. He gets up every morning and doesn't complain, but I'm 100% positive if I told him he didn't have to go, he'd jump for joy. We had 2 early outs last week because of the heat and I got to spend 3 hours in his classroom Friday morning so that helped to make the days go a little faster! Starting next week I'm going to go in every Tuesday morning and help with various things in the room. Ivy is going to a little daycare in the neighborhood and Mya will be at school. Below is a picture of Max all decked out in protective gear. He was playing football with the neighbor kids and was sick of missing the ball and getting hit all the time! You can frequently see him playing basketball with his bike helmet on as well these days for the same reason. I think it's pretty smart..:)

Mya started school last week. She goes 8:45-11:45 Monday-Thursday to the same school she went last year. So far she loves it despite having to deal with some pretty bad allergies. Her eyes were so puffy and watery, runny nose, sneezes, etc. all week. We have an appointment for her in a couple of weeks to figure out what we're going to do for her. This is the first time she has had to deal with these nasty allergies. (see puffy eyed picture below)

Ivy is entering a super fun stage. She is starting to want to be a part of everything including wrestling with daddy after dinner! She can get into trouble really quickly and if you start running towards her, she goes faster.(up the steps for example) Speaking of allergies...we've discovered she has some sort of dairy allergy. For awhile she was puking every time she had dairy (ice cream, yogurt, and formula) and then last week she broke out head to toe in hives (more like welts) after eating some macaroni and cheese. I've had some suspicions for awhile, but was kind of hoping it would go away???!?? If I remember right, my niece Olivia had this too, but grew out of it by the time she was 1, Hopefully that's the case with Ivy too.

Chris and I just got back from a quick trip to Chicago. We really needed to get away for a weekend even though it's not an easy task leaving 3 kiddos....one of whom is attached to me at the hip. My parents didn't have any plans for the weekend so they were able to come down here and watch the kids. Everything went well for them and Ivy did fabulous. We're pretty sure she figured out that if she can't get me in the night, she might as well just keep sleeping!

I hadn't really ever done the whole Chicago tourist thing, so we managed to fit lots and lots into 2 days! We went with our neighbors who lived in Chicago for 10 years. 7 in the city and 3 in the suburbs. Basically we got a private tour of the city from some locals who knew where all the hot spots were. We ate, shopped, walked, walked and walked some more, ate some more and saw tons. I feel like I have a really good grasp on the city and we think we'll take the kids there next summer!