Making the most of it

We're down to our last week of summer and are trying our best to make the most of it, especially considering that we have all been fighting some kind of cold.  Kate was the first to catch it (that's what we get for being part of music camp last week!), then I got it, then Anna, then Matt.  It hasn't been too bad, but we're all ready for it to be past.

Besides catching this cold at music camp, the girls had a wonderful time.  Our church family is such a blessing to us.  I helped out in Anna's group on Tuesday and Thursday and was EXHAUSTED by the end of each morning, but I guess that 16 five-through-seven year olds can to that to a pregnant lady :)  Maybe it was also because I was starting to come down with the cold.  Oh, well.  It was fun to see Anna be a part of the group, as well as spend time with some of the other kids that age at church.  Most of the kids I've known since they were babies or toddlers so it was pretty fun to get to see them as these young kids participating in music.

I've realized that these last few weeks are certainly the end of a phase in our lives and am trying to soak it all in, despite being hot, tired, and pregnant.  Starting in one week, our sweet Anna will be in kindergarten.  It's kind of hard to believe, but I think we're all ready for it, or as ready as we can be.

In trying to make the most of these last days, the girls and I are doing lots of intentional activities.  Last Friday after we had a leisurely morning, we decided to pack up a picnic lunch and head to one of our favorite parks for awhile.  It was wonderful.

Saturday Matt and I did a bunch of work in the morning and then we were able to play in the pool as a family in the afternoon - probably the first time in a month or so that we've all been out there together!

Sunday was rainy, and cruddy, with several people in the family feeling ill so we just laid low most of the day.

Anna and Kate listening to music together with Mommy's mp3 player.

Yesterday the girls and I took a trip to the zoo, since Anna had been wanting to go all summer and I promised her that we would make sure we did a trip before school started.  We had a nice time and Anna would probably have kept going, but Kate and I were ready to be done by about lunchtime.  So we had our picnic and headed home for a relaxing afternoon together.

I'm hoping to do a field trip somewhere later this week, but we'll have to see how the weather cooperates before we decide if it's an indoor or outdoor one.

Like I said, we're trying to savor the moments this week because I know that we'll be undergoing some big transitions, positive and negative, once school starts for our family.

Our beautiful summer!

It's taken Wisconsin about 2 months to get its act in gear, but finally we're experiencing a beautiful end to an otherwise oppressive summer.  Last week we had a front go through on Thursday and since then, it's been absolutely gorgeous.  Of course that means it's been too cool to play in the pool, but that's okay at this point :)

A few highlights of last week ... the girls and I toured a working dairy farm with some neighbors on Wednesday.  Anna, Kate, and I all got to experience handmilking a cow, go for a hayride, see some newborn calves, bottle feed baby goats, feed the other goats their feed, ask lots of questions, and learn lots of good things about farm life.  Anna just absorbed the entire morning, and proceeded to build a farm with blocks and little animals during her quiet time, and then pretended to be a farmer later in the day while taking care of a few stuffed animal cows.  Kate like the cats and kittens that followed us around at the farm best :)

Thursday we spent the morning finishing up school shopping and then part of the afternoon visiting with some friends and their new baby.  Kate and Anna thoroughly enjoyed playing at Audrey and Carson's house with other people and other people's toys, while I enjoyed having some good friendship time with Mary and baby Jillian.

Friday we invited some other friends over to spend the morning with us while I canned spaghetti sauce ... 28 quarts of it.  That's a lot.  And there were still tomatoes left at the end of the day.  So Monday I made 20 pints of pizza sauce.  And picked another bucket full or so of more tomatoes which are sitting on the counter waiting to be canned.  I think we can say officially that this is a good year for our tomato plants :)

My kitchen helpers liked the squeezo strainer again this season :)

Back to Friday ... Rachel and I didn't hear a peep out of our four kids for most of the three hours they were here.  The only problem was when Kate tripped outside and skinned her knee.  Otherwise the kids all played SO well together and didn't need any intervention on our part ... hooray!  Our favorite moment was after they'd been all playing in Anna's room for awhile, we see Shadow come tearing through the kitchen with a frightened look, followed close behind by two 5-year-olds and two 3-year-olds screeching at the top of their lungs about how they should shoo the cat downstairs :)  Maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty funny for us.

Saturday and Sunday were some of the most beautiful weekend days we've had all summer.  We took advantage of the weather on Saturday afternoon to go for a family bike ride on one of the local trails.  The girls had a wonderful time, and Matt enjoyed it as well.  I did great, until the last quarter.  Then my body finally started protesting to the fact that I was doing all this stuff while being 23 weeks pregnant.  So I came down with "something" on Saturday night and Sunday.  Could have been a migraine, could have been the stomach bug, who knows at this point.  Whatever it was, I was miserable.

Thankfully I have an amazing husband.  Matt dealt with a cranky Anna on Sunday morning and managed to get the girls to early church just in time, only to have Kate have an accident towards the end of the service and not have any spare clothes along.  After bringing everyone home, he decided to take the girls to a state park for a picnic and the afternoon so I could rest in peace.  They were gone for 5 hours!  I slept, rested, and was able to get over most of whatever was bugging me ... hooray!  Probably the only good part of Sunday for me was that because I was lying around most of the day, I got to feel our little guy moving, kicking, rolling, punching, etc. :)

Hiking away with Daddy.  Kate is holding their "bug barn" filled with all of their treasures.

Peek-a-boo!

This week the girls are participating in our church's music camp/VBS and are just loving it.  We are incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful church family.

 Whew!  Only a few more weeks of summer and then school starts!  What a transition that will be!

Summertime Harvest

Whew!  We did it!  In 10 short (or actually pretty long) days, we canned 30 quarts of salsa, froze 15 more pints of green beans, froze another 10 pints of shredded zucchini, another 10 pints of squash puree, dried 5 pints of cherry tomatoes, froze 7 pints of carrots, harvested and froze about 75 pints of sweet corn, and ate lots and lots of delicious food :)  Now we can relax a bit.  We're down to mostly just tomatoes right now, with a few cucumbers, beans, and corn for eating.  In a month or so, we'll have more potatoes to dig and the butternut squash and pumpkins to pick, but the freezer is about as full as we can get it, so that means we HAVE to be done with some things :)

Anyway, the rest of life last week was about surviving the garden storm.  The girls finished up their swimming lessons, so that was enough to keep them happy for a few days.  Then my mom came down on Thursday to help entertain Kate and Anna while Matt took a "harvest day" in the morning to help with the corn.  Then the real fun came on Friday.

My mom took Anna up to Camp Luther in Northern Wisconsin for a grandparents' camp weekend.  They had a great time.  As my mom said, they were exercised physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  It sounds like Anna did wonderfully on this first "summer camp" experience, although sleeping was a bit challenging, understandably.  Some of their activities included archery, canoeing, kayaking, swimming, arts and crafts, hiking, campfire time, worship time, land olympics, minnow racing, and making new friends.  I'll try and post some pictures of this adventure soon.

Anna trying archery for the first time

Anna and her special minnow

Minnow races!

Anna and her counselors, Fresh and Bass

A fun part of this weekend for Anna was learning some camp songs.  Little did she realize that I already knew quite a few of them :)  The look on her face was priceless when I started singing "I just wanna be a sheep" with her.

Kate also got to have a special weekend being the only child for more than 48 hours.  At first she simply loved being able to play on her own wherever she wanted, with whatever she wanted.  But I think by Sunday she missed her sister buddy.  We asked Kate if there was anything special she wanted to do with us over the course of the weekend and she voted for going to the zoo.  So Saturday afternoon (after canning 16 quarts of salsa, processing the carrots, and drying some cherry tomatoes) we went to the zoo just the three of us.  Kate had a wonderful time.  We just let her set the pace (which often doesn't happen when you're not the oldest) and ended up spending about 40 minutes checking out the hands-on exhibits about insects and amphibians and then another 20 minutes watching the prairie dogs.  We were so involved with everything else that we even missed riding the train!

Sunday evening and yesterday were definitely days of transition here, but today we seem to have started off on a better foot.  We may even end up in the pool this afternoon, although the weather seems to have finally shifted and since we turned off the air last Wednesday, we haven't had to turn it back on!  So I'm not sure that the pool is going to be quite warm enough ...

Garden gone wild

We've officially reached the point in the summer at which the garden is out of the control.  I decided to do a few things different this year to make life more manageable (mainly cutting back the cucumber plants so that we'll only get a couple of cukes a day, and pulling up most of the zucchini plants this past weekend, since we have PLENTY of it already frozen), but it still feels a bit crazy sometimes.

 Also, since we'll be up to our ears in corn (hahaha ...) this weekend and dealing with tomatoes for the next several weeks, I've offered up our green beans to anyone who wants to come out to pick them.  I don't want to pull up the plants just yet, but we simply don't have the time/energy to deal with the beans right now, and we already have about 75 pints in the freezer.

  So ... our days are about a delicate balance between things that need to get done to preserve our harvest, and meeting the various needs of all four (and a half?) of our family members.  At least I have some really good helpers in the kitchen!

Enough about that.  Here's a few silly stories to give a glimpse of our daily lives.

During a meal recently Anna was telling us all of the things she'd like to do when she grows up (visit the Arctic, work at GE, work for Moyer's - the landscaping company that recently put in our patio, etc.).  We asked Kate what she'd like to be when she grew up.  Her response was "I'd like to be Anna."

I took the girls on a hike last Friday morning at our favorite loop (the White Oak Nature Trail at Lake Kegonsa State Park).  We only managed to go about 100 yards in the first 15 minutes because the girls were too excited to investigate every nut, tree, leaf, flower, insect, etc.  I convinced them to move a little faster by challenging them to get to the next sign before I did.  Anna caught on to that idea really well and proceeded to run from sign to sign for at least half of the hike.  Kate did her best to keep up, but after awhile she flat out told Anna "No, I don't want to run.  I'm too tired."

I bashed my thumb the other day and in an effort to comfort me Kate said, "Sometimes my baby tells me when I get hurt, sometimes these things happen, and sometimes they don't."  She tries so hard to put things into words, but I think she's at a point where parts of her brain are moving faster than the speaking parts :)

 
We (I) messed up with a dairy farm tour we were hoping to go on this past Sunday.  (I thought we could just show up, when it turns out you had to make reservations.)  After everyone getting excited and then being disappointed, the girls comforted me by saying "It's okay, Mommy.  Everyone makes mistakes."  Then we went for a family outing at a county park where Matt used to mountain bike and ended up at Culver's for some ice cream.  All's well that end's well.

It's a boy!

Monday morning was our 20 week ultrasound.  Not only did we find out that baby is growing and developing wonderfully normally, but we also learned that he is definitely a boy :)  Life will certainly be different when this little guy joins our family, but we already feel blessed to know that he's on his way.

Baby was very active and very cooperative with all that the technician needed to see.  We were in and our in less than an hour!  (That's pretty good for this kind of ultrasound.)  The girls came along, behaved themselves very well, and had a pretty good time, we think.  After about 30 minutes, they started getting a little antsy, so Matt took them for a mini-tour around the first floor of the hospital. 

Here's some of the photos we got of our little guy.  Pretty amazing technology, huh?

Profile

3-D look of his face with his arm raised, the umbilical cord is between his arm and his face

Little legs and feet

Someone was already trying to suck on his fist

In other news, we have enjoyed some more rain in the past week or so, to the point that Matt finally had to mow the lawn this weekend after a two month vacation from that chore.  It will probably need it again within the week.

Most of our rain has come overnight, but one day last week we had showers in the afternoon.  The girls were thrilled to be able to play outside in the rain again :)

The garden is producing pretty well these days.  We've had green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, edemame cherry tomatoes, and our first real tomatoes.  The squash appears to be doing well, as does our second variety of potatoes.  The corn, however, may have had trouble because of the really hot weather we had a few weeks back.  Either the pollen was deactivated because of the extreme and prolonged temperatures and we will get NO sweet corn this year (sad, sad idea) or it was maybe pollinated later after the hot weather had passed.  Either way, we'll know within a week or so.

In other news, the girls are doing swimming lessons in McFarland this session for the first time in two years.  Anna is in one of the 5 year old classes while Kate is in the 3's and 4's class.  Anna is doing great and enjoys showing me in the afternoon swimming time outside what her teachers want her to work on.  Kate has had a rough start.  She's never done swimming without Matt or me, so doing it with a stranger is a little tough.  She's made it through both classes, but has had some tears midway through the class.  She's been able both times, however, to get herself back together on her own and laugh and have fun again.  For both kids I think it's been a good experience so far.

Here's a few good summertime shots of our goofy girls.

I think that's about it for now!

Off to Grandpa and Grandma's!

Last week we had a full week of Safety Town for Anna in the mornings, Mommy-Kate dates in the mornings, resting in the afternoons, plus playing in the pool or taking care of other "stuff".  Anna had a good time at the camp, learning some new safety information as well as having much of what she already knew be reinforced by the police officers and firefighters who ran the camp.  Kate and I did a bunch of errands on Monday, came home for some down time on Tuesday, met some friends at the zoo on Wednesday, and went to the eye doctor on Thursday.  The week involved a lot of driving for us girls since the camp was on the other side of town :(

Thursday afternoon my mom stopped by on her way through town and then after picking Anna up from Safety Town on Friday, she took the girls up to their place for the weekend.  Woohoo!  Matt and I were blessed to have our second kid free weekend and were reminded of just how much we can get accomplished without the girls around :)  Our activities included some quality garden time for me during which I finally was able to clean things up a bit out there, a bike ride into town for some ice cream, watching a movie, harvesting beans, weeding the perennial patch, refinishing the picnic table, cleaning the house, taking a nap (me!), going to church just us, and going out to dinner.  Crazy, but the best part was being able to do it all together, and not have to tag team wit who was keeping an eye on the kids :)

The girls had a great time, too.  They picked blueberries and blackberries in the woods, played inside and outside, went to the Eau Claire Children's Museum, played at a beach, went to worship with the grandparents, picked blueberries at Gary's Berries, went for Kubota rides, read lots and lots of books, went kayaking with Grandma, went fishing with Grandpa, and making treats for the birds with Grandma.

I went up to join the girls on Sunday and then stayed until Tuesday to give Matt some alone time at home, too.  Since we've been back, I've been battling what I hope to be my last big migraine of this pregnancy.  It was a pretty uncomfortable one that lasted longer than I had anticipated or hoped.

The exciting weather news as of late here is that our grass is green again!  We finally got some rain last Wednesday (Anna and Kate were SO excited), and then got more over the weekend and every night for three nights.  Unfortunately that also means that we'll have to start mowing the lawn again.  Oh, well.  Even though we're still technically in a severe drought, it just doesn't feel as bad after a week of rain :)

After about two months without rain, we had to take a picture of the first storm coming in.  Notice the brown and crispy grass!

Hopefully I'll remember to update this early next week after we have our ultrasound on Monday morning.  We can hardly believe that I'm 20 weeks along today!

Amazing Anna

We are so blessed to have Anna as a part of our family.  This kid is usually a joy to be around, but this past week has been filled with some pretty amazing events in her life.

First, she had her 5 year check-up last week.  I know, not too noteworthy in itself, but she knew that she'd be getting a handful of shots at this appointment.  We talked through it and prepared her as much as we could, but even so she said "Mom, I'm really scared and anxious" as she was lying down at the end of the appointment.  After the first one, she said "Hey!  That wasn't too bad!"  Even after the second one she didn't shed a tear.  The third and final shot is saved for the end because it's the most painful.  Though there were a few tears, she got herself under control right away and said "Well, I'm glad that's over!"

Besides the shots, she had a perfectly healthy check-up.  She's 43 lbs. and 43.5 inches.  That puts her at 68% for weight and 70% for height - very proportional :)  She chatted with the nurse and the doctor all about her birthday, kindergarten, her birthday party, and life in general.

Second, last week Anna decided to stop sucking her thumb once and for all.  For those of you who have followed this saga, you probably remember that sucking her thumb has been an almost 5 year addiction and that she has worked over the past two years or so to gradually cut back her thumb time.  The most recent parts of this journey included her New Year's resolution this year to only suck her thumb while she was sleeping and then packing away her special blanket (to which she and her thumb have been VERY attached since she was an infant) when she turned 5.

Anna kept telling us that she would quit the habit when she turned five, but her birthday came and went with her still telling us that she only needed to suck her thumb to fall asleep.  We've been giving her lots of ideas for strategies of how to stop (chew on something else at bedtime, snuggle with a big something or cuddle with a small something, listen to different music choices, think/pray about the day, etc.) and just letting her make the decision to stop, because we always knew that when she wanted to stop, she would find the willpower to do it.

Well, last Thursday we heard her up for awhile after we put her to bed and then on Friday morning she came out with the biggest smile and told us that she didn't suck her thumb to fall asleep.  My first response was "Wow!", but my next thought was did she really do it and know for sure?  Anyway, we gave her lots of praise and just waited.  When I checked on her on Friday night, she was sleeping with a chewy spoon in her mouth :)

Since then she hasn't gone back to the thumb!  She's also had a hard time falling asleep and/or sleeping in.  By yesterday she was really, really tired, but just couldn't settle down enough to take a nap, until she finally crashed on our bed while listening to a book on tape and fell asleep for awhile.

We've certainly had a few rough moments in terms of dealing with a really tired girl, but I think we might be over the worst of it.  And most importantly, we're SO proud of Anna.  We never wanted the thumb-sucking to be a fight between us and Anna so we've worked hard to just encourage her in the steps she's ready to take, knowing all the while that sucking her thumb is really not good for her teeth :)

Anyway, the last big thing for Miss Anna is that on Sunday she learned to swim!  As with so many other things in her life, once she figured it out, there was no going back.  We've had lots and lots of pool time this summer, but she still was hesitant to put her face in the water or to practice "swimming" without a noodle or floaty wrapped around her.  Then on Sunday my mom was here for awhile, and since it was so stinkin' hot again, we were out in the pool.  Anna wanted to show my mom how she could put her face under water while she had goggles on.  Then a little while later she tried it without the goggles, decided that she was okay with it, and then started to swim!  Crazy kid.  Again, we're so proud of her and she's so proud of herself :)

The last thing to mention right now is that the only reason I'm able to update this blog in the middle of the day today is because Kate and Anna are very busily playing.  Here's what they came up with.  They snuck into our room earlier and stealthily put away their clean clothes that were lying on the bed.  Then when I asked them what happened to the clothes (a game we often play), they told me that a robber muskrat stole them (this was a new twist to the game).  Then they set up a trap for the muskrat in our room made of blocks and string and various other things.  Silly girls :)