We have another foster cat! This is Richmond. He’s come so far in the last two days that I can’t even believe it. He went from running when we even got close to approaching to accepting real pets today! That might not seem terribly impressive for most cats, but it’s amazing progress for this one.
When the weather permits, my boys have been in the backyard working on their ultimate frisbee skills. They even have a team name: the Whistlepig Dynamite. Yeah, it’s the perfect name. We know.
Thank goodness for remote learning! In addition to finishing the boys’ school work today, we also knocked out their 4-H demonstration speeches. Robbe showed how to make two pretty awesome pranks and Chase demonstrated two magic tricks. Solid demonstrations, if you ask me. Luckily, it’s Covid, so you can watch them, too. Maybe next year’s will be done in person! We can hope.
Can’t see the video? Click here for the link.
Can’t see the video? Click here for the link.
I haven’t been taking photos in the last couple of days, so blogging has been tough! I’ll just use this gem from Chase’s bday celebration. I think it captures the little brother perfectly when asked to celebrate the big brother for a second day.
When your real birthday lands on a Wednesday, you celebrate on Saturday, obviously. Today was a lovely day filled with Chase’s favorite things: disc golf, video gaming at the movie theater, pizza for dinner, and brownie cookie ice cream sandwiches for dessert. His good friend was here and two of his favorite cousins joined in on the fun, too.
It’s been a long two months of non-stop birthday mode. It’s so fun and also so exhausting. I’m ok with a break until next February, now.
You know what’s even better than birthdays? The days after birthdays when all free time is spent building/playing with/figuring out the new presents. Thankfully, Chase has been a super kind big brother willing to share the fun with Robbe (otherwise it would turn ugly very quickly). And, no, Chase didn’t receive that Obama book as a gift. It’s the Lego Chain Reaction set (on top of the book) that were showing off in the photo above.
This guy turned nine today. 9. I became a mom nine years ago today. Whoa.
We had a really lovely day of celebrating. Here are the highlights:
Remote learning in the morning (good thing we’re quick about school).
A stop for a triple chocolate muffin as a special bday sweet treat.
Kickball and four square in the backyard/driveway
Family presents before lunch
Playdate with his bestie
Lego-building time
Dinner with grandma, grandpa, and Uncle Brian
More presents from extended family
Brownies with chocolate ice cream for the official bday treat
A quick magic show (utilizing a bday gift) before bed
Not bad, right? We’ll do another little celebration on Saturday and then birthday season is officially over at our house. Such a fun [but relatively exhausting] few months.
It was 80+ degrees today. Obviously that means we dusted off the bikes and hit the trail by our house. Turns out we still remember how to ride them! There’s nothing better than the first bike ride of the season.
It didn’t feel much like Easter with no family and no church, but it was a nice day nonetheless. The boys had fun hunting for their baskets and it was another beautiful spring day. We have a lot to be thankful for.
We busted out of the big city for a change of scenery at the lake. A bit of fishing, lots of bird-watching, quality time outside. It was pretty great—and that’s before the temperatures go up 15 degrees tomorrow! We’re so grateful to my parents for sharing this escape from reality with us. After a [almost too] quiet spring break at home, we needed this.
The walk to the library is one of my favorite excursions from our house. It’s far enough that it feels like you’re actually doing something, but close enough that it doesn’t feel overwhelming (especially for the boys). In just two weeks, the downtown library will relocate while the building undergoes a 14-month renovation. I’m just crushed about it.
I can’t adequately express how much the library means to us. In a normal circumstance, we’d go twice a month (at least), collect more books than we could carry, and spend the rest of the day reading and reading and reading. Throughout Covid, we’ve become even more appreciative of what a gift the library is. We had to go without for several months and lately we’ve only been allowed to request books for pick up (no browsing). With two boys who love to read, we go through a lot of books, and the library (and staff) is a total gift. A total gift.
I’m not sure what’s going on here but this activity kept the boys entertained for a lot longer than I would have expected. For anyone wondering, spring break isn’t nearly as much fun with no travel and crummy weather. It’s a good thing we like each other (even after a year of Covid).
Out with the old (top photo) and in with the new (bottom photos)! We weren’t expecting to buy a new car this year, but things don’t always go as planned. I will say, though, new cars are really nice. Like, really nice. It might not have been planned, but it sure is exciting. There are lots of new bells and whistles to learn about and we even have heated seats now! That’s about as exciting as it gets for new cars in Wisconsin.
p.s. The boys sat in the car in the driveway for that photo. They normally ride in boosters but the car seats weren’t installed yet so we’ll go for our first official ride with them tomorrow. I just didn’t want you to worry. :)
It was a weekend filled with family time capped off with a birthday celebration for my mom (including the family Zoom bingo game pictured above). Nothing makes you feel more appreciative for the people in your life than the last year. Am I right? I’m just so happy to be back celebrating together again.
Look what showed up in our garden box! Robbe spotted the tulips poking through and was so excited. I am, too. It might actually be spring!
The boys joined forces and drew this sweet family portrait yesterday. My head is a bit wider than I would have envisioned, but I’d say everything else is pretty spot-on.
We’re in a bit of a predicament with our van right now. We either foot the bill for a sizable repair or trade in. Awesome. Just awesome. Bright side? The boys got to take their first test drive today. That’s something.
We’re waiting for some final number crunching and then it’s decision time. Adulting is hard.
It’s been a bizarre extended weekend for us. Chris has been off work since Wednesday (because we were supposed to be in Mexico). We had lake house plans and plans to visit his family (my mother in law got her second vaccine!). I’m not going to go into details but the weekend turned out very different than we expected and much more stressful. Tonight, I’m trying to feel extra thankful for my health and am hoping things look sunnier in the morning.
Unrelated to any of the crazy weekend, here’s this adorable photo of Chris and Robbe. Enjoy. :)
My posts have been a bit sporadic lately as I inched toward the day 2100 team update. These posts always take so much more thought and time than my normal ones. I can’t believe I’ve done 21 of these updates over the years (every 100 days for those keeping track).
Without further ado…
FAVORITES: Fostering cats (it's pretty much the best thing ever), sitting in the sunshine, downtime at the lake house, reading (I just finished The Immortalists...it was excellent), clean bathrooms (not cleaning bathrooms, for the record), watching (and feeling!) spring arrive
POST-COVID TO-DO: Catch up with friends. Texting and calling just doesn't cut it sometimes, you know?
CURRENT CHALLENGE: Figuring what our life looks like this summer. Somehow balancing lake time, summer school, summer sports (baseball + swimming!), travel (fingers crossed!), etc. It's a lot.
FAVORITES: Winter ending, talking video games with the boys, bringing the mail in (he's always so on top of it), working from home (it doesn't happen very often, but it's grown on him), puzzling, planning for lake house water activities
POST-COVID TO-DO: Travel. We're all done with Wisconsin.
CURRENT CHALLENGE: Loading and unloading the car after weekend trips to the lake. How can we possibly need to schlep all that stuff back and forth constantly?
AGE: Almost 9
FAVORITES: apples, chocolate chip pancakes, video games, movies (pretty much anything on a screen), re-reading books, candy (Bottlecaps, in particular), Legos (you knew that one was coming), practicing skateboarding, reading the newspaper comics
POST-COVID TO-DO: A two-night slumber party with his best friend, Jack.
CURRENT CHALLENGE: Preparing for four-days of school again (starting April 3). I'm pretty sure he'll have less school work than he does now, though. Homeschool can be tough.
AGE: Freshly 7
FAVORITES: french toast, yogurt and berry parfaits, dreaming about gardening this spring/summer, playing Minecraft, being outside, switching best friends every couple of weeks, any sweets (suckers, in particular), graphic novels, Legos (always), sending emails to his friends
POST-COVID TO-DO: Playdates with friends. Lots of playdates.
CURRENT CHALLENGE: Waiting for warm weather. Robbe was promised an outdoor playdate with a friend as soon as we can do it outside. He asks about it almost daily.
We got to see these two beautiful young women perform their senior vocal recital tonight. We’ve missed so much of Skylar’s (on the left) junior and senior year activities that we were overjoyed to attend this one. About 15 people (invite-only!) filled the school’s auditorium so we felt totally safe and comfortable.
It was a lovely showcase of their talents and the boys even managed to stay focused. You know it was good, then!
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