Summer is over :(

It's official. By the end of today, our summer will be over. It seems the weather agrees with this, because today and tomorrow the highs will be near 90, and then 71 and 66 for Wednesday and Thursday. Please hold off on the snow for as long as possible!

For our summer's last hurrah, we drove up to Pennsylvania. In hindsight, I think we were more than a little crazy. The trip was a blast, and we had so much fun seeing family, but 16+ hours in the car with 2 kids? Not something I would recommend! On the way there, we drove through the night. It was okay. Ellie was able to sleep pretty well, but Rowan kept crying and falling back asleep. At first it was every hour, then every half hour, and eventually down to every 5 minutes. At that point, I pulled over and brought him up to the front seat to nurse him, hoping that would keep him asleep for a while. Well, as I put him in my lap, he threw up all over me! Then again. And again. But after that, he went back to sleep and stayed asleep for a couple hours!

We drove to my sister Nichole's new apartment where she lives with her boyfriend Warren. They were so gracious to let us stay there with them. Not only us, but also my other sister Tara and her husband and 2 children. So, there were 6 adults, 4 kids (3, 2, 1, and 8 months old) and 2 cats living in their 2 bed, 1 bath apartment for 3 days. Sound like fun? Actually it went pretty well. :) We also had a big surprise. My mom and Mike flew up to visit too (they stayed at a hotel)! Here is a picture of all the family:

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of other pictures, because everyone else took them for us :) Jason and I were even able to drive up to New York City for a day/night, while my wonderful, kind, amazing sister Nichole watched our kids for about 26 hours. Did I mention she is wonderful? (Rowan woke up at 3:30am and would not go to sleep. So, no sleep for Nichole!) But Jason and I had lots of fun with his sister and her fiance'.

The drive home, we decided to drive during the day, since we all had to be somewhere at 9am the next morning. So, we left at 9:30am and returned to Madison at 2:00am. The trip wasn't really too bad. We just stopped for 1 1/2 hours each for lunch and dinner. And, we turned Rowan around to face forward, because I thought maybe he was car sick on the way there from facing backwards. He didn't throw up, so maybe it helped? (I switched the seat around again once we were home again. He'll be rear-facing until he outgrows it.)

So, we didn't get many pictures from our trip, but here are a couple that I haven't shared yet because of my blog-slacking.

Ellie's last ballet class:

Ellie can still draw/write with her cast on! (She had to get her cast extended while we were in Pennsylvania, because her original one was falling off. So, the tip of her finger is broken, yet she has a cast up to her shoulder!!!) If you look closely, you can see the word of the day. Ellie picked it!

Sorry, no pictures of Rowan this time.

Ellie's finger saga :(

Last Friday night, Rowan and I were in my bedroom and Rowan went over to close the door. He pushed it closed, but neither of us realized that Ellie's finger was in the hinge side of the door (she was in the hallway just outside the room) until she started screaming. I whipped open the door, and she held her hand out to me, still screaming. To make a long story short, we took her in to urgent care Saturday morning because she wouldn't move her finger or use that hand, and it was bruised and swollen.



The doctor there doubted that it was broken, since it was a one-year-old that closed the door, and obviously one-year-olds can't cause that much trouble. I don't think he has kids :) He sent us to x-ray just to check, and after looking at the x-rays, it was definitely broken. He put Ellie's finger in a splint, and told us to make an appt. with an orthopedic doctor on Monday.



So, after another LONG story, we finally saw a pediatric orthopedic surgeon on Monday, who said that Ellie needed surgery on her finger. Surgery! For getting her finger shut in the door! It wasn't lined up to heal right, so they needed to get it fixed before it started to heal. So, on Wednesday morning we went into the hospital for outpatient surgery. Ellie was in fine spirits, and actually enjoyed being there, since she was able to watch t.v. to her heart's content :) I went in with her as they put her under anesthesia, and she did wonderful, so they escorted me out. About 45 minutes later, everything was finished. They ended up being able to push it back into place, but it wouldn't stay that way, so they inserted a pin into the bone that they'll take out in about 4 weeks. They brought us back to recovery to be there as she woke up. That was horrible! She was just flailing around and inconsolable for a good half hour. And for the next hour, until she was ready to go home, she was just miserable and would scream at anything the nurses tried to do :( But, no worries, as soon as we left her room to go home, she was her normal, happy self. When we arrived home, instead of crashing in her bed as I was sure she would do, she ran around showing all her neighbors her new hot pink cast.


So, for now, the ordeal is over. We begin driving to Pennsylvania tonight to see all our sisters. And in two weeks we'll take her in to have another x-ray done, to make sure it is healing properly. I believe her cast can come off in 4 weeks, but maybe a little longer. Wish us luck trying to explain to her why she cannot go swimming until then!!!

We are not afraid to put our kids to work!

Check out this video: Putting the kids to work

Even our blog received a makeover!

I know it's been a while since I changed the look of the blog, but doesn't it look awesome with the new header at the top? Thank you to Claire at hotgraphix.net! And Carinna from the same site made the beautiful pictures of Rowan and Ellie underneath it.

Is anyone doing anything fun for the 4th of July? We aren't really, although I did buy some sparklers and snakes to play with. I'm not sure if we'll wait until the kids are asleep, or if Ellie can be trusted with them. Although if Ellie has one, you can bet Rowan will want one too! He has quite a temper on him. It's surprising, since he was such a mellow baby, but he can hold his own against all the older kids here!

Ellie is LOVING her Spanish and pre-Ballet classes that she is taking at the YMCA. She gets so excited when she is able to go to "school." Jason takes her to Spanish, and I take her to dance, so she gets special time with both of us. It's so cute to hear her say, "Adios!" whenever she is leaving the house, and of course she is adorable trying to leap across the floor in her ballet class.

Both kids (and parents too!) are really enjoying the nice weather and being able to play outside. All of the neighbors get together in the evenings and just talk while the kids play. And our garden is finally starting to produce food! We've been able to bring home handfuls of strawberries for a while, and now there are some onions coming out. Can't wait until everything else pops up!

Guess what we did today?

Before

After

BeforeAfter (I buzzed it at home)

And Mommy too

Happy Birthday Rowan!

Our little buddy boy had his first birthday yesterday. He's no longer a baby :(

Playing with birthday presents

His carousel birthday cake

Digging in, with a fork

Now he's really eating!

Ellie wants to try it with her hands too!

We went to a local hotel yesterday that has an indoor "waterpark." We had never been there before, but I had a coupon that I was saving for a special time. So, we packed up the kids after Rowan's morning nap and went to the "waterpark." After we bought the tickets, we walked into the pool area, and I saw that the children's area was closed. Which was ridiculous, because that was the entire reason we went! I couldn't believe that the girl at the front desk didn't even mention it to us, when she saw that we had two young kids. I walked back to the front desk, where the girl told me that the pool was drained that morning and might reopen later that day. So, we played in the big pool, which had a large slide that we could go down holding onto our kids. It was fun, but not worth the $26 we paid to swim there! So, we stayed for about an hour, and then I went to the front desk again and managed to get free passes for us to come again when the kiddie pool is open. Good thing, or I wouldn't have been a happy customer!

So, even after sharing cake with our neighbors, we have lots left. It's a really yummy (and extremely healthy, except for the frosting) carrot cake! Anyone who wants some, just fly right over!

Watch this!

Here he comes!

Tomorrow we leave for Arizona!

Yippee! Tomorrow we head to Arizona, to the sweltering heat. Ellie is very excited, and I'm sure Rowan would be if he knew :) We can't wait to see some of our family. I'll be sure to post pictures when we get back.

Here comes trouble!

Rowan has been crawling for quite a while now, and he is really speedy. But yikes, he is beginning the journey to walking! He walks quickly along the furniture, and now he's beginning to stand. I'm so glad he didn't follow in Ellie's footsteps (no pun intended) and walk before 10 months; I'd be happy if he waiting until he's over a year!

Our kids are crazy!

What does a 3-year-old buy?

So, Ellie received some birthday money this past week. Her first money was a $10 bill from Grandpa and Gigi. Ellie was so excited to have her own money! I asked her what she was going to buy with it, and here was our conversation:

Me: Wow Ellie, what are you going to buy?
Ellie: I think I'll buy some groceries.
Me: Well, you don't have to do that. Mommy and Daddy can buy our groceries. Maybe you could buy a toy? Some books?
Ellie: Actually, I want to buy some sugar for my birthday cake.
Me: It's okay Ellie, we already have sugar for that.
Ellie: Maybe I can buy some presents.
Me: That's a great idea! What kind of presents do you want?
Ellie: I can buy Christmas presents for Rowan!
Me: Aw Ellie, that's sweet

Finally I convinced her that she could spend the money on herself, so we went to the dollar store. After about an hour of browsing the aisles, putting things in the cart, and returning some things to the shelves, she finally had 10 items to buy (I paid the tax). Here is a list of what she purchased:

helium butterfly birthday balloon
bouquet of fake daisies
a snake book
a frog decoration for our garden plot
toy cars for Rowan
pad of paper
Mickey Mouse puzzle
bag of decorative rocks
chapstick
tinkerbell nightlight

Quite a collection! She was so proud to give the cashier the money herself. However, she will not be doing this with all of the money she received!

Whew, glad that's over...

It's amazing how many hours are spent planning and preparing for something that is over so quickly! Ellie's birthday party took a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. I think it went better than I could have expected, with 9 kids between the ages of 10 months and 5 years old. The theme was "Ellie's Garden Party." We played a couple of games - "stick the bee on the flower" (like pin the tail on the donkey) and "find the critters," a hunt throughout the play area for little frogs, snakes, and caterpillars that Jason hid. They LOVED finding all of those. I had another craft planned involving gluing pieces of tissue paper, but it was just too windy and the kids were having fun just playing, so we skipped it.

The food (my favorite part!) was awesome. We had water and lemonade to drink, and the lemonade was in a watering can instead of a pitcher. Our lunch consisted of fresh fruit and veggies, tortilla chips with guacamole and salsa, and sandwiches cut into flowers and butterflies. But the best part was the cake! I made a chocolate cake, with chocolate butter frosting, and decorated it to look like a garden. I used a garden trowel to serve it, which was really cute, but it didn't really work very well :) I also made a cupcake caterpillar because I was afraid of running out of cake.

Here are some pictures:

Ugh, I spoke too soon!

All the signs were here. Green grass, sunny skies, children playing outside. We even contemplated transplanting all our indoor plants to our garden plot. Good thing we didn't! Yesterday, it began to rain, which has not been unusual for the past couple of weeks. It became unusual when it began to snow! Lots of it too, not just little random flakes. Hopefully it was just the "last hurrah" of winter, because we don't need any more snow!

It's birthday season in our house! Jason just celebrated his a couple days ago, he is first out of our family in our 2-month birthday season. I made him an ice cream cake (like a jelly roll but chocolate cake w/ice cream rolled up inside), and our neighbor watched our kids so we could go see a movie. Tomorrow we're having a birthday party for Ellie. This will be her first "real" party, with little friends and everything. The theme is "Ellie's Garden Party" so I really, really hope it's not too cold to be outside! The forecasted high is 62 degrees, so hopefully it won't be too chilly. I can't wait to see how her cake turns out; I'll be sure to put pictures up on here!

Hmm, is spring finally here?

After snowing one last time a week ago, I do believe that spring has arrived in Madison. Yippee! Yesterday was a really warm day, with a high of 73(!) but it's mainly been in the 50s. We're starting to work in our garden plot, which is a lot of hard work, because it had dead plants all over it. In order to plant, we have to get out all of the roots, so that means lots of digging. In fact, my wrist has been hurting since I last went out there two days ago. Too much spading! We can finally plant some things though, so that will be exciting. Right now we have some plants indoors that we started from seeds. Jason has an acorn squash plant that is HUGE and needs to get into the ground. Here is a picture of our highchair garden :)



The kids are great; Rowan is cruising on everything, but I think we're still far from walking. He can walk using a push-toy, but he doesn't have the balance yet to stand on his own. Thank goodness! Ellie is having lots of fun now that it's warm enough to play outside with the neighbor kids. I've also started watching two girls (different from last semester) in our house about 20 hours a week, so the kids are having fun with that. And, our neighbor kids come over every once in a while too. We've been busier, but it's mostly been fun :) Here are some pictures of the kids. I need to work harder on getting a good one of Ellie!

Rowan "helping" with his diaper laundry


A good belly-laugh


Ellie's beautiful outfit


They love each other!

Silly kids

I only have a minute (Rowan is sick again, yuck!), but here is a video I made of sneaking up on Ellie in the bathroom. She loves to make funny faces in the mirror!

Also, we went to the YMCA yesterday, and it was great! We put the kids in the childcare, and Jason and I shot some hoops in the gym. Oh, and the high temperature yesterday was about 43 degrees. It's amazing how quickly we have acclimated to this weather, because we didn't even wear jackets!

It's been a long time!

Well, things have begun to slow down again. My neighbor is out of the hospital and has healed super-quickly, so she no longer needs my help. Thank goodness! It was a lot of work; I do not know how moms do it when they work outside of the home! I was exhausted not being able to do laundry, pick up the house, clean the kitchen, go grocery shopping, except for after the kids went to bed. Not to mention having so many kids together at once. I am sincerely glad that we never had twins or triplets. Yikes!

The family is doing well. All of us have been sick lately except for Jason, but we're all healthy for the moment :) It's still snowy and cold here, but there haven't been extreme temperatures for the past week or two. It's a little depressing when temps in the 30's sounds warm!! Especially when those of you in Arizona call me to let me know it's 80 degrees out. Thanks so much.

Rowan is no longer the easy, always happy, you could leave him playing on the floor for hours, baby you all know and love. He is now a VERY mobile baby! He crawls, 50% of the time on his hands and feet instead of hands and knees. And I am no longer surprised to walk into a room and see him standing somewhere, where he was previously sitting. He also now has opinions about things and isn't afraid to let you know. We have finally seen his tears! For the longest time I wasn't sure if his tear ducts were working because I had never seen tears on his face. But he really has a sweet personality, with a smile for everyone. Oh, and he loves to show off his two new top teeth :)

Ellie has been quite a handful lately, in good ways and not so fun ways. We have been trying really hard to find ways to have her play with other kids, because she really needs that social stimulation. I'm looking into a part-time preschool for her next school year, but it is expensive! We really don't have ANY extra income right now, so we'll see what happens with that. She has an unending thirst for knowledge, which is awesome, except when she asks you a million questions at inconvenient times. We have always been seriously thinking about homeschooling our kids, mainly for the educational benefits, but now it seems we almost have to so Ellie can continue to advance at her own pace. I know socially, as a 2-year-old, she is nowhere near ready for kindergarden, but intellectually she is at that level. She can read basic books, like Hop on Pop; knows all her colors, shapes, numbers; can do some basic addition, count past 20; etc. Learning is just something she's always liked to do. I always feel I have to make a disclaimer to other moms though, that there are other areas that she may not be as good at, since it doesn't interest her as much. For instance, I don't think she can catch a ball. Or throw with aim. Those just aren't things that we have practiced with her.

Other exciting things:

- Jason received a grading position through school, so he will be making a little extra money grading papers for two classes. Yeah!

- We're applying for YMCA membership, hopefully with financial assistance. They have some really neat classes, especially for Ellie's age. Not to mention free childcare, so Jason and I can get a break and get some exercise!

- One of our neighbors and I are sharing a garden plot this year at our community garden. We've been eating A LOT more vegetables lately (thank you Deceptively Delicious, so it will be great to grow our own. I can't wait for the snow to thaw!

Ok, now some pictures.

We will not be leaving the house today!

Not a good weather day today. Right now it is -9, feels like -34 with the windchill. Yuck! This past Wednesday was the "Storm of the Decade" as all the news reports called it. We had up to 21 inches of snow in some places, almost beating a record set in the 90s. I'm not sure if this was national news or not, but over 2000 cars were stuck on an interstate for over 12 hours Wednesday afternoon/night! I still can't understand how or why it happened, but they COULD NOT MOVE for 12 hours. Something about semi-trucks not being able to make it up icy hills on the road. Can you imagine? Most people didn't have any food, ran out of gas (which meant no heat in snowy weather!), how did they go to the bathroom? I cannot imagine the people with small children sitting there for 12 hours with no food! Finally they sent out the national guard to pass out food and give people gas who needed it. Here is a link to an article: http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/271390

Rowan is feeling much better, but he does still have a horrible cough. I wouldn't be surprised if that lasted for weeks; Ellie still has it. He also has a new skill, being able to push himself up to sitting from lying down. But still no crawling! He also has two top teeth to add to his two bottom ones. He likes to grind them together, which sounds terrible! Ellie is really enjoying us watching our neighbors kids, since she has the four year old boy to entertain her. Next week will begin the really busy time, since I'll be over at their house for 9 hours a day.

We had our very first date night since this summer! We swapped childcare with another neighbor couple who has 2 young boys (3 & 1), so we were able to go out to dinner. Ellie loves their mom and Rowan loves everyone, so they had a great time and so did we :) This week we'll be watching their boys.

Busy times

We're going to be busy this month! Our neighbor across the hall went into the hospital yesterday to have surgery done, and she'll be there for about a week. Guess who is watching her kids during the day? She also watches another baby boy, so I'll have 3 babies under the age of 1, a 2 year old and a 4 year old. Yikes! Luckily Jason will be home during most of the hours, so I can send Rowan or the two older kids over to him if it's ever too much. But I'll also be helping her out during her recovery, so we'll be doing this for the whole month of February.





The kids have been sick this past week, Ellie had a mild version first and passed it on to Rowan. He was sooooo sick! The first night I didn't sleep at all because I had to hold him up on my chest for him to breath while he slept. Even then he was coughing and gagging all night. The worst part was that he was barely keeping down any milk because I would feed him, sit him up, and then he would cough until he threw it all up. Luckily he is now a lot better, although he still has the cough. To top that off, he now has his first black eye! He was rolling around on the floor and bumped his face on the bottom of our tv. Doesn't he look like the most miserable baby?

And then beautiful Ellie (with a beautiful juice mustache)

"Drink"

Rowan learned another sign! The sign for "drink" is making a thumbs-up and putting the thumb to your mouth. Can you see his little thumb? Awwww, so cute!

Come on spring...

It has been ridiculously cold here lately. Like, highs of 5 degrees or less. Yesterday some schools were closed because the temperatures with wind chill were close to -20 degrees! Last Thursday it was -8 degrees when Ellie and I had to take the bus that morning. Luckily it's supposed to be more like 5 degrees this morning.

Jason is a week or so into classes, and liking them so far. He thinks that this semester will be easier than the last. Because of that, I was looking into a part-time job outside of the house that I could do in the mornings. I found the PERFECT job for me, but unfortunately they filled it before I was able to interview :( I'm being pretty picky about what job I take, so we'll see if I start working this semester or not.

Ellie goes through weeks where she picks the same movie to watch every day. Let's see if you can figure out what last week's movie was. She now enjoys drinking up all her milk, holding the cup up in the air, peering into it, and saying, "Oh bother. Empty again." If that didn't give it away, she also often asks for "just a smackeral" of something to eat.

Rowan has learned his first baby sign! I was floored when I saw him doing it, but I am not surprised at all by what sign it is, "milk." I put him on the floor one day to change his diaper before a nap, and he was not happy to be put down. His little fist went up in the air, slowly opening and closing, until I realized that he was trying to sign "milk!" I've been practicing that sign with him since he was 3 months old, but not expecting him to get it until more like 10 months old.

Ok, that was just a quick update, because the kids should wake up any minute now!

It's official...

Rowan is a big boy! He's in the 90th percentile for both weight and length: 21 1/2 lbs and 28 in. long. Everything went well at his check-up; he's perfectly healthy and on track with his development. And even though he received 4 shots and went without a nap, he was still charming everyone at the grocery store after his appointment :) He's not really interested in baby food, but he does enjoy eating food he can hold in his hand, like banana in a mesh feeder. Here's a picture of him "feeding" himself rice cereal.

Ooh, guess what I saw today as I was driving around Madison...Texas Roadhouse! Although, after looking at their website today, I'm not too surprised because they have hundreds of locations in 44 states. There's even one in Yuma! We'll be going soon (well, sometime this semester...maybe) to have some of their delicious rolls and a loaded baked sweet potato!

Back in chilly Wisconsin!

Well, I was so excited to be able to see parts of grass when we returned; I guess a lot of the snow melted while we were gone. I seriously thought we wouldn't see the ground until spring. Most importantly, our parking space was completely clear, and I expected that to be completely buried! Well, now it's covered again :( At least this time there wasn't a huge ice storm immediately following the snow, so we can shovel out our spot easily.

We had a lot of fun visiting family, but it's good to be back (especially after our loooong ordeal at the airport and an unexpected overnight stay in Vegas). If only we could bring our family with us! It's so nice for all of us to have our own rooms, 4 people all on different sleep schedules sharing one room is not fun! It's nice to get some sleep again. Rowan is sleeping through the night again, oh, and I forgot to mention on here, Ellie has been binkie-free for about a month now! Jason (and myself as well) is very glad that her teeth will be able to form unimpaired. She did pretty well getting rid of them, but we did have a few rough nights.

Rowan has his 6 month check-up on Tuesday, so I'll be sure to update after that with his stats. I unofficially weighed him in Iowa and he was 20 lbs, but we'll see what the official weight is. He still isn't real interested in eating food (at least baby food), but he's been willing to try the baby rice cereal the last couple of days. And, he's getting up on his hands and knees and rocking. Yikes, here comes crawling! He can get into anything already by rolling and scooting, but crawling will just make him that much faster.

My first niece!

I haven't had much internet access or time to update this blog, but I just have to announce that my new niece, Ashlyn Makylee, was born on New Years Eve. She's so beautiful! Congrats to Zane, Tara, and big brother Bryson!

Rowan's room

Okay, the second post of today. Rowan's room is the only room that is pretty much decorated, and here are the pictures!

His closet

His changing table morphed into a storage unit for all his cloth diaper stuff!
Flannel star sheets I bought for $1 off craigslist!
Set painted by Grandma Hoffman - Rowan will never forget his name, that's for sure!

Goodbye snow ...

Hello sun! This is what we are leaving behind as we visit Arizona:

Let it snow...

Ugh, it has snowed over a foot in the past week. The first snow was 1/2 foot and this city was not prepared! There were lots of issues with streets not being plowed quick enough, and many people downtown park on the side of the road, so the snow had no where to go after plowed! Not to mention we had an ice storm the same night of the snow, so all the snow is now stuck under a layer of ice. Yuck! I don't see this snow going away until spring. Right now it's 1 degree out. 1 DEGREE! The other day as Ellie and I left in the morning it was below zero. I have some snow pictures that I will try to put up later today or tomorrow. There is also snow predicted 3 times in the coming week. A gigantic thank you to my great friend Autumn who sent me her down jacket to use this winter! If it worked hiking the mountains of Nepal, it definitely works here. Welcome to winter! We can't wait to get to Arizona in a week and a half...

So, I made the brownies from Deceptively Delicious. In case you didn't know, these brownies have spinach and carrots in them. Yep, sounds disgusting. Tara was interested in these as well, so I bit the bullet and began steaming the vegetables. The first thing to mix together is the melted chocolate with the pureed spinach and carrots. As I held the bowl of steaming green spinach soup poised above the bowl of chocolate, I thought "What a waste of good chocolate." It was not a pretty sight! After mixing together all the ingredients (with whole-wheat flour and some flaxseed meal thrown in, these brownies are quite healthy!) I couldn't resist tasting the batter. Hmm, not too bad... The recipe warns not to eat the brownies warm, but to let them cool completely so the spinach has a chance to disappear. Well, of course I couldn't resist at least tasting them straight from the oven. Wow, still not bad! And after they cooled... let's just say Ellie did not resist gobbling her large brownie right up after dinner. I wouldn't say they are the best brownies I have ever had, but I definitely wouldn't think there were vegetables in them! If you like cakey brownies over fudgy (I prefer fudgy, but I'll take my chocolate either way), you'd definitely like them. And if I added frosting, there's no way you would be disappointed. Well, who wants me to bring brownies for their holiday dinner???