Krazy Kate

It feels like our life had been dominated lately by Kate and some of her "kraziness", specifically her sleeping habits. She'd been doing great at night and then things started to fall apart with her last cold. After a few nights of getting up once, she started getting up more and more, pretty much to just need the pacifier. I won't go into all of the details, but it culminated with a couple of nights where we had to get up with her many times requiring more and more work from us to get her to sleep again before we decided we needed to institute some "sleep training". We decided no more "replugging" in the middle of the night. Last night was rough, although not as bad as it could have been ... we'll see how tonight goes.

So Matt and I have been trying to survive on pretty big sleep deficits lately and have simply been working on maintaining the statis quo in our little family :)

But we have had some fun visits lately, too. My brother flew in from Colorado a few weekends back and stayed here, along with my parents. Anna was certainly in heaven being the absolute center of attention for the weekend. By the time everyone left, though, she was ready to have some alone time.

Last week Gretchen and Josh came over for a day. Both kids were excited to see each other and have changed so much since they last saw one another just a few months ago. There were a few more disagreements than before, mainly Anna saying "No, no, Josh, it's MY turn" or something along those lines. Gretchen and I had originally planned to make some applesauce that day, but the previous night was one of Kate's bad ones and so we cancelled those canning plans.


Anna actually took a nap while Josh was here, athough Josh didn't (understandably), but both kids were still exhausted by the end of the day. They goofed around on our guest bed for a bit and then wanted to just crash near one another :)



Despite Kate's goofy sleep stuff, she's such a fun baby. She's really gotten into giggling lately and literally can't keep her eyes off of Anna when Anna is around. Also, she can sit up! Not for very long and not with much stability, but still ... crazy strong kid.



Last news (can you tell that I'm a bit sleep deprived by the randomness of this entry?) ... Michal and Sam had their baby on Friday and Ruth Ella Needham will be baptized this coming weekend. Since we're sponsors for little Ruth, we're planning to head out to South Dakota for the weekend. Should be an adventure!

Our busy day

Today was our first day of music class this semester as well as Kate's 4 month check-up. First ... music class ... I can't say enough how much Anna loves this activity. It was incredible to see how much she'd changed and matured since we'd last gone in May. She was so comfortable and excited, even though there were different kids in the class and it was in a different building. She and her buddy, Henry, (who's from our church and was in class with her last spring) both were following most of Miss Debbie's directions and trying to imitate many of her actions, mostly with success. So much fun!

Kate, by the way, spent the morning with a neighbor who has a 6 month old son, Noah. Jen and I are going to trade off childcare this fall/winter so Anna and I can participate in Kindermusik together and so Jen can have a morning off to run errands and such. This way Kate gets to take a real nap in the morning when we're at class, she'll (hopefully) get used to having a regular "babysitter", AND she'll get to have a good buddy her age in the neighborhood.

After lunch and naps, we headed to the doctor's for flu shots for Anna and me and for Kate's check-up. I think this might have been our longest doctor's visit yet ... we got there before 3:30 and didn't leave until almost 5 ... yikes! Both girls did great, though. In fact, Anna didn't even cry for her flu shot; she was SO brave. Kate, on the other hand, screamed bloody murder for about 5 minutes after her shots. Poor kid. And we're going to have to go back in a few weeks for the other half of her shots. We opted to space out this round since Kate's getting over another minor cold.

Kate's stats are:
height: 25 inches (79%)
weight: 14 lb. 12 oz. (76%)
head: 42.5 cm (87%)

Overall she's doing well, even though this is her third cold in four months. I guess that's what happens when you're not the first-born and you have to be exposed to lots of big sister germs all the time. Oh, well. Only the first cold had any kind of fever; these other two were just runny noses and a little cough.

The other aspect that made our day busy was Kate's decision (albeit not conscious) to pee or poop while her diaper was being changed not once, not twice, but three separate times before 8:30 a.m.

Savoring the moments

We're trying to savor every last moment of summertime weather that we can. It seems that cold weather is just around the corner, so we're spending every possible moment outside. In fact, we've taken to bringing various "inside toys" outside, just so we can enjoy the sunshine and warmth while it lasts. Here's a few shots of our outside fun.

Kate was just hanging out on her blanket one afternoon last week while Anna was sleeping and a big, fuzzy caterpillar crawled onto her blanket. She didn't know quite what to make of it, so she just kept staring.

Anna and I made some leaf collages the other day by gluing leaves to paper (certainly simple, but very engaging for Anna). She thought it was great :) Then we had a conversation something like this ...

me: Let's find another leaf.
Anna: (looking up) The leaves are (pause) falling from the tree.
me: (thinking *teachable moment*) We call this time of year FALL because the leaves FALL from the trees.



A lot of our evening activities take place on our driveway. Kate goes between the baby tent, Daddy's arms, the bumbo, Mommy's arms, the blue rocking chair, Daddy's arms, Mommy's arms, etc. smiling most of the time. She's mainly happiest when she can see what her big sister is up to.




And finally, Matt thought it would be fun to spin Anna around in his arms. She LOVED it and kept asking for it until Matt finally told her that he would throw up if he "spinned" her one more time. Not only was the actual spinning hilarious, but watching Anna try to walk afterwards was pretty funny, too.

Weekend fun

We're finishing up a great weekend together as a family. I'll start with today and then work backwards through the weekend ...


We had a wonderful time this morning with friends from church at a picnic. Most of these people Matt and I got to know when we first moved to Madison 8 years ago. At the time there were a handful of single people and engaged or married couples, but only one child in the group. Now we're almost all married and there's about 15 kids amongst us. Needless to say, we had a bunch of fun playing at the park, having the picnic, and then playing around at the splash park. Anna was in heaven :)


Last night we had our first family campfire with Anna and Kate around our backyard fire pit. Kate managed to stay up for about a half hour before she was ready to crash while Anna probably would have stayed out there all night. She was so fired up (pun intended) and didn't sit still for more than about 5 seconds the whole time we were outside. We were able to get her inside to bed by telling her that Daddy had to put the fire to bed (by pouring water on it to put it out). Amazingly, that convinced her it was time for her to go to bed, too :)


Saturday was also a good day. Not only did I turn 30 (yikes!), but my mom came down for some of the day and for the evening so Matt and I could go out without the girls. Anna and I ran errands in the morning and then my mom helped Matt and I can 14 qts. of plums in the afternoon while the girls were sleeping. Matt and I went out to dinner and then to the Taste of Madison that night, although I was ready to come home and crash pretty early. The girls did great for my mom, but it seems Anna felt comfortable enough with Grandma to try all of her stalling techniques at bedtime :)


Last week was a good one, too. I've decided that Olbrich Gardens (a.k.a. the "flower park") is a great pit stop/incentive for Anna when we have things to do on that side of town. I needed to get both girls some shoes for the fall/winter among other things, but knew Kate would need to eat sometime and that Anna probably wouldn't be content for the entire experience so we spent about a half hour at Olbrich in the midst of the errands for Kate's feeding and Anna's squirminess. It worked.


We also managed to make it to the zoo on Friday morning after a play-date was cancelled at the last minute. I think this might have been the first time I'd been to the zoo without other adults along. Anna and I had a blast (with Kate tagging along, too, of course!). Anna fed the goats; we rode the carousel; and ran around looking at all kinds of animals. I love hanging out with these kids ... most days :)


By the way, we realized recently that we have a lot of pictures of Kate in her carseat or bouncy seat so Matt and I thought we should take some other ones of her, too :) Enjoy!

The last weeks of "summer"

Our summer is certainly odd these days. In addition to the incredibly cold summer we've been having (highs in the lower 60s this weekend!), it's not like Anna or Kate have a real summer holiday. Yet in a few weeks our regularly scheduled activities start up again ... story time, play group, music class, Bible Study, etc. So we're trying to make the most of the current "lack of schedule" by doing random fun things.

This past week Anna got to choose an activity three different mornings. Her choices were going to the "yibary, wif da fish" (the library with the fish tank and loads of creative toys), having a picnic at the park and going to the "fower park" (Olbrich Gardens). We almost didn't make the trip to Olbrich yesterday morning because it was drizzling and cold when we left, but as we got to the entrance the sun popped out and warmed us all up. We ended up staying for almost 2 hours, although the last 10 minutes or so were a bit challenging for Anna ...

On the other days (as well as this morning), I canned tomatoes, with some help. Who would have thought that with the tomato blight that has virtually killed our tomato plants (they're literally dried up without leaves), we'd still be harvesting buckets every few days?!?!

On both Wednesday and Thursday, Alexia, our wonderful mother's helper, came over in the mornings to help. Too bad she starts school again next week! On Thursday she also took charge of two more toddlers/preschoolers since their mom came over to help me can 28 quarts (!) of spaghetti sauce.

So in general, life is good. Kate is doing great and seems to have grown and mastered a lot in the past couple of weeks. She's reaching for and grabbing toys, bringing them to her mouth, rolling from her side to either her front or back, laughing/giggling (very fun!), and loving life most days. Here's a nice shot of her still bright blue eyes. (Okay, as I previewed the picture, they don't look as vibrantly blue as they originally did in the picture. But trust me, they're blue :) Looks like the second Mischnick daughter may be a blue-eyed girl, unlike big sister Anna.


Anna's also doing well these days, too. I think she's ready for the fall programs to start, but we're certainly still having fun. I've been gathering various dress-up clothes/accessories for her this summer and I believe she likes the high-heeled red shoes and the feather boa the best. She's actually pretty good at strutting around the basement in the shoes :)


Both Anna and Matt are napping right now so I think Kate and I will try to get a few things done outside for awhile. Better get out the jackets!

A week of Saturdays

Matt was home the whole week this past week ... hooray! It was like having an entire week of Saturdays :) I think we're all going to have a rude awakening tomorrow when real life begins again.

Some of the highlights included Mommy having a whole afternoon to herself (of course, part of that alone time included a trip to the grocery store and a visit to the doctor, but still ...), a trip to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum in Milwaukee (awesome, awesome, awesome!), canning 14 quarts of salsa, having a playdate with Abby and Jessica so Matt could have some "alone time", freezing the corn (around 120 cups!), cleaning out the garage, a handful of bike rides for everyone but Kate, and today we're canning 14 quarts of spaghetti sauce. Whew! All that and Matt was able to get a bunch of items crossed off on his "honey-do" list :)

There was also quite a bit of just plain hanging out around the house or outside in the yard. Anna was certainly in heaven having both parents around all week and I was definitely spoiled in terms of having help with all of the normal house stuff (diapers, dishes, dirty laundry, etc.)

It was hard to stop long enough to take many pictures this week, but here's a few that provide a snapshot of our lives.


As you can see here, Anna has no problems eating corn on the cob, as long as it's cool enough. She's getting much more efficient at it, too :) As a side note, while we were starting the corn process on Friday morning our creative daughter decided to play with the ears of corn that were too young to freeze. She kept herself busy with these for a good half hour ... putting them down the slide, placing them in a watering can, describing to them things in the yard, putting them in the basketball hoop, etc. :)



Kate loves sitting in her Bumbo (which is a perk we didn't have when Anna was younger). This way she can keep an eye on whatever is going on around her, as well as discover her feet! She still gets tired pretty fast in it, though; all that work to keep her crazy head up.



A great phrase Anna is becoming very adept at using is "Mommy, what is that?", although seen below I believe it was "Daddy, what is that?" We hear that often when we're someplace new, or even if there's something in the kitchen that wasn't there the last time she looked.

Anna was able to spend a bit of time with Matt in the garage over the past few days and I think Matt was asked the question a LOT.

Another phrase we've heard a lot from Anna recently is "I need ___________ right now!", often accompanied by tears and frustrated cries in the midst of a tantrum. Ahh ... being 2 ...

The only real downer for the week was that Kate and I contracted another cold. Kate seems to be handling it much better than me, but of course she gets to nap during the day. What a summer of colds we've had! Must be this crazy weather with 40 or 50degree temperature swings every week or so. Well, back to real life ...

Lounging around the pool(s)

What a fun few days we had last week! It was pretty warm and humid again so we set up the backyard kiddie pool on Wednesday afternoon for some good old fashioned summertime fun. Anna, Kate, and I spent the afternoons on Wednesday and Friday hanging out around our little pool, having smoothies or popsicles, and just plain enjoying summer. I even got Kate into Anna's swimsuit from last summer (yes, it was pretty big on her yet) so she could join us in the water for a bit.

Kate's favored activity outside still seems to be lying around and watching trees and leaves, which is certainly fine by us. We try to make sure that she's always in the shade and has a hat on, but she has still somehow managed to get a baby tan ... hmmm.

Anna really enjoys our little pool so we thought we'd do a family trip to a local public pool on Saturday afternoon. Anna was pretty hesitant at first, which didn't suprise me too much after realizing that this was her first trip to a big pool since last summer. Once I was able to get in the water with her and goof off, she had a bunch of fun. We even managed to get past the kiddie pool into the big pool for some fun. I think kicking and piggy-back rides were her favorite activities, especially if I made up a song to go along with them :)

Besides the pool, we've been enjoying lots of good food from out garden this past week ... tomatoes, zucchini, corn ... yum! Last night we had our first corn on the cob and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. We've been working with Anna on the concept of "ripe" so she doesn't pick green grapes, green tomatoes, etc. Last night after Anna devoured her ear of corn she said "We will pick more corn now? It is ripe!"

It's been a lot of fun lately listening to what is going on in Anna's head. When we were picking the corn yesterday she said "Here is an ear of corn; I will listen to it." So I got to explain how some words can mean different things and that the corn plants don't really have ears that listen :)


We're looking forward to a fun week with Matt being home. He's taking his second week of paternity leave since he wasn't able to take two weeks right away when Kate was born. We've got a lot of harvesting plans (corn and tomatoes mainly), but also have some fun trips planned, too! Should be fun :)