Sizzling Summer

The kids and I have been loving the warm weather. It perfectly coincides with me trying to be more active with them. We have been to the park or out in the yard for playtime every single day for the last week and it's awesome!

Phoebe had her school concert. I'll see if I can figure out how to get the videos I took on here at some point. She was adorable. And I love the feeling of excitement in the air. School still goes for another week and a half unlike last year when the concert was the final day of preschool, but Phoebe still had school end gifts for her teachers and students. They all loved them.

This next week we have our seventh wedding anniversary, Phoebe's fifth birthday, a home tour in a house I think will be THE one, a field trip to the zoo where Walter and I are tagging along, James leaving for a ten day trip to NY, and June coming in with the heat!

I've been registering kids for their summer activities. I had delayed much of it foolishly because I thought we were moving to Oakland. I should have done all the registrations and just pulled them if needed. So, I got Phoebe on the waitlist for summer school. One of her teachers this year will be teaching it, and she'd get an opportunity to be with her school friends for a few more weeks. She's also officially signed up for T-ball. I believe she's doing dance (she wants to, I'm trying to figure out what day/time works).

Poor little Wally finished his last day of 'school'. I love that the high school kitty corner to our house offered this program. There were about eight students that held a daycare program three mornings a week for 2-4 year olds. Walter LOVED his school. And he loved seeing Miss Erin, a girl we had babysit for us a few times prior to his school. I contacted her about offering a summer program since Phoebe's calendar is full, but there isn't much for two year olds. We'll essentially have the Boberman head over to her house (or ours if Phoebe is at summer school) for Erin to read to him, do projects and some learning worksheets. We're thinking one or two days a week. I love that she's helping me out with this.

I'm super excited for summer to be here. I'm not happy that a 10 day span has to happen before it where I'll be alone with the kids, but we will be fine. Phoebe has school until June 5. There's the library reading program to sign up for both kids. And we have enough outdoor toys to keep them occupied outside and the inside of the house clean (*chuckle*).

Phoebe at Walter outside her dance recital.

Phoebe and her boquet collection (birthday party, dance recital, and school concert).

Birthday Girl

Soon our little baby girl will be five years old. I don't even know how that is possible. Life really does fly by in the blink of an eye. Phoebe is full of curiosity, compassion, and smarts. She's the best big sister a brother could ask for. She loves school, crafts, playing at the park, visiting her grandmas and other family, and helping me with any task she can.

We celebrated her birthday with my mom's side on Mother's Day weekend. It was the weekend of birthdays since there are a ton of them in May and June. Phoebe was blessed to receive a fancy new carseat (goes up to 120 pounds as a booster), dresses, a collection of porcelein dolls, craft supplies and much more. We spent a nice day playing outside and cooking out.

This year we decided to do a small party with her school friends. I had looked into party places like Monkey Joe's, but we didn't want to spend $200+ on a crazy party. Phoebe had picked out a book from her school scholastic order called A Little Fairy Magic by Julia Hubery. We didn't realize it at the time, but the story is about a mouse named Phoebe! She gets a new fairy outfit from her parents for her birthday and she tries to do some fairy magic.

Phoebe actually came up with the idea of doing a fairy birthday party around that book. She picked five friends for her fifth birthday party. I got to work figuring out how to do a magical party on a small scale at our house. I ordered costumes for Phoebe and all the guests from a website called Halo Heaven. The girls received a pink leotard with attached tutu, miniature fairy wings, wand, and halo headpiece. And I saw an idea on pinterest for little fairy houses (bird houses). Oriental Trading company had an inexpensive pack of houses that locked together. I also ordered some glittery butterflies, pink jewels, and flowers for the girls to use in addition to markers.

The girls had so much fun. Luckily two moms stayed to help wrangle all the fairies. The party was only scheduled for two hours since the kids were ages 4-5 and I figured that would be plenty of time to read the book, decorate fairy houses, eat cupcakes and open gifts.  We ended up having enough time to play in the kids' freshly organized playroom. The girls loved the baby toys and dollhouse.

I'm trying to upload pictures, but they are just showing up as red X's. Boo. I also have some pictures from the park. The kids ask every single day to go to the park. Last week I packed a lunch and we spent two hours there. It is so special to make those memories with the kids.

Photo Book

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Go Go Go

Life is busy. That's a fact. With summer fast approaching that seems especially true for the weekends. Since my last post, we've had birthday celebrations, school graduations, many house hunting excursions, and changes around our home.

May seems to be one of the busiest months of our year. Nick finished his semester at UWW. He was  totally part of our family these last few months. He was such an invaluable helper with the kids, third and fourth hand for me around the house, and support for James as well. He even helped give input as we've searched for homes in a pretty wide radius from Jefferson that will fit our family, work for James commute to work and Phoebe's commute to St. Joe's for kindergarten, and not have any tenants on the floor above waking our napping babies!

Phoebe will turn five this month. We've celebrated with my mom's side already on Mother's Day weekend. And she has a very small fairy party scheduled for this weekend where she will dress up and decorate fairy houses with her friends.  We will also celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary.

Tax season might have ended on paper in April, but James is still busy as ever. The suckiness of tax season was so lightened by having Nick around. I was even able to attend some Mary Kay events and teach religious education again this year. Poor James is still playing catch up and having some very stressful days even halfway through May.

I'll have some new pictures to load in the next few days. Even if our phones are a little expensive, I don't hesitate to give it to the kids for some much needed occupied time. They had it last Friday morning when I was running around trying to get Phoebe ready for school. And I haven't seen it since. I didn't realize all of the non-phone call or text ways that I use it. Phoebe ran a mile race with my dad on Mother's Day, and I had to pay $21 to buy two 4 x 6's because I didn't think to grab my very expensive but rarely used camera. The kids and I did go to the park after Phoebe's school today and I brought it with to get some updated pictures. It will be nice to have some non Instagram photos to share. And soon I will have Phoebe party pictures and five year old photoshoot to share too :)

Eesh! Sorry

Alrighty, we are still in tax season and I'm using that again. These passed months have flown by. How did St Patty's Day and Easter come and go without any cute blog posts?! Bad blogger, bad mommy recorder. Let's get updated with some pictures since this is such a better spot to record those memories compared to facebook and instagram :)

This family picture was taken on the weekend of Dad's church play. It was neat to see him in a project that he did outside of work, just for him.

Phoebe all dressed up for school picture day

 My birthday breakfast. I made fun pancakes with my new pancake pen including Mickey Mouse for the kids.

 Our house is crazy obsessed with puzzles right now.

Now you've seen some updated pics from the last few months. We've survived winter and loved the unusual heat wave of March. The park is definitely one of our favorite spots especially with a nice packed lunch and bottle of bubbles. The kids are hanging in there with our ongoing house search and had their first non-family babysitter when we went to look at houses one day. This will happen from time to time as I'm pouring myself into my Mary Kay business. Yes, I do love being home with them. And I've falsely used that to delay the grunt work that needs to be done to get it off the ground. Seminar is in July and James will be accompanying me as well. My goal is to add 50 new customers to my base by that time. I've lived in Jefferson for over six years and it is time I met new wonderful women!

Phoebe is still doing dance and is also in a six week gymnastics program. She is always a little hesitant at these classes, but ends up loving them and blossoming. I enjoy seeing her use her energy in such activites. She loves her 4K class and is starting to get really exciting for a new school for kindergarten. She's planning on a Chuck E Cheese party for her birthday where she says they have a really big room for parties. I believe she is thinking of the room at Flabbergast where her friend had his party or possibly the rooms at Monkey Joes. Either way, we'll have to figure it out soon and book something. Can't believe in a little over a month she'll be five years old!

Walter starts his 'school' tomorrow. There's a program at the high school for students to watch kids in a classroom setting. The class is under two hours on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The important thing is that Walter's time and Phoebe's are at the same time! That means time for Mary Kay calls, cleaning without immediate uncleaning, and anything else I need to get done during the day. The little man will also start potty training soon. He's ready in some ways like screaming poop immediately after he goes or his little game of peeing on the bath rug any time he can before bath. He has big boy underware that he adores in Thomas the Train and Toy Story, so I just need to prepare and follow through with the 3-day potty training over a long weekend.

I hope (as always) to update a lot more frequently. I'm currently reading Bloom by Kelle Hampton where she discusses how blogging is her record of her kids' milestones and pictures. How many times have the kids said or done something so adorable and I might have posted it on facebook or called my mom or sister, but not really recorded it? Too many. In two days it is my mom's birthday. Tax season will finally come to an end (cue angels singing), although that will be replaced by CPA exam studying. Then school will come to an end right after Phoebe's birthday and summer will be here. Let's see if I can't record all these big moments :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

James is working his horrendous tax season hours today, so the kids and I will do most of our Valentine's fun without him. We do have big plans to make Valentine's cupcakes for his surprise later today (strawberry cupcake, cream cheese frosting, heart sprinkles!).

Walter and I took Phoebe in to school today to help her distribute her Valentine treats. She picked out a pink outfit and I did her 'heart hair' from pinterest. We were a bit rushed, so I did my version instead of the 'probably easier actual' way.

Walter was a bit bummed out when we were finished helping Phoebe. He was reall enjoying her classroom and the new activities there. I told him we could go to McDonalds for a little bit of indoor climbing while she was at school. He ate a hashbrown and played while I sorted coupons. Then I realized I had all these big plans for Valentine's Day food and didn't have any supplies. So we ran to Walmart for pizza and cupcake supplies.

Both of the kids loved making their very own pizzas. They both seem to love mushrooms and olives, and we already had pepperonis at home. Walter now prefers his olives not on pizza and refuses to eat mushrooms. Phoebe used a lot of everything!

Her face was painted at school for their Valentine's party. I think she's a love kitty. I wonder if it will come off during bath night tonight.

Out of the mouths of babes

I need a tape recorder. Phoebe's especially sweet and cute at bedtime, and many times I fall asleep before writing it down. Last night she said two adorable things. I even repeated them hoping to remember. She asked why she didn't have a bigger brother or sister when she was little like Walter. I told her that she was meant to be our first baby. She said "Maybe God knew that I would be a good sister so that's why I came first".

She also told me she wished she had curly hair. I french braided her hair after bath night on Monday, so she has 'curly' hair for school on Tuesday. She really loves how it looks so I guess I'll have more chances to improve on my french braid. (pics to come)

Walter says new words every day. He likes watching "punzel", "rek", and "woody buzz" (Repunzel, Shrek, and Toy Story). If he hurts you like swinging around a toy, he says sorry right away. The other day I told him I loved him and he said "love you too!".

Oops, didn't publish this one

Why do I keep coming on here and starting a post, but then abandoning it? I might be lacking in many of the areas I'm trying to improve, but the least I can do is share a cute picture here and there.

I realized this week that I haven't been doing the two crafts a week. We have been cooking/baking a lot and to me, those feel like huge projects (= huge tests of patience).

Here are the kids super proud of their pizza snowballs. Thank you pinterest.

And just some other cute pictures of the kids.

I follow many blogs and there are some I eagerly look forward each day to being updated. Sometimes they just post a photo dump from their phone or post a cute story of the kids.  That's what I need to do. I have the worst memory of anyone I know, so I need to keep these stories here instead of just calling my mom or posting to facebook,

So one cute story for each here. Phoebe LOVES to dress up. She specifically likes 'twirly' dresses. Every morning she asks if she can wear a dress. There are a few that are winter appropriate, but she usually holds her thinnest summer dress in her hands. So I tell her she must wear the pants and shirt I have laid out, but she can put that dress on when she comes home from school.  Every day she does indeed strip off her clothes for one of those summer dresses. Then she plays dolls or grocery store. And about two hours later she comes to tell me she is cold. To which I suggest she put the pants and shirt back on that she wore that morning.  This is always a horrible suggestion and she realizes she isn't really that cold.

Little Walter has been under the weather. Phoebe initially brought the cold home from school. After about a week and a haf with it, Walter jumped on board. He's had the cold for over two weeks now, and I thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Then Wednesday he woke from his afternoon nap and really needed to be held. Normally he needs some time digesting that he is no longer in the warm bed and that Phoebe really needs for him to snap out of it and play. But this day he curled into me and .....fell back asleep! It was so precious and I can't even remember the last time I held him while he slept. He dozed for another 45 minutes which he really needed.

That night I noticed a big molar coming in the back. I thought back that this could be an explanation for why he was so much worse than Phoebe with his 'cold'. Maybe he was cranky, tired, and had a drippy nose from the tooth as well as the germs. Fast forward to tonight. Around five he said he wanted to lay down. When I offered to lay with him for awhile, he switched to the living room chair where he just sat until James came home. He was super irritable and chose to cry in his bedroom over picking up a whopping ten Mr. Potato head pieces. James wanted to go out for fish, so I sent Phoebe with him. I went in and asked Walter if I could help him pick up the pieces. He came out and we soon had the bin back on its shelf in the playroom. That's when I noticed he was burning up. The poor little man was shaking and just wanted to be held. I got him a fresh sippy of water and turned on Shrek. He fell asleep twice while James and Phoebe were out eating. But every time he was sleeping he'd shake his head and say "no, no, no" over again. The fever was bad enough that I fought him to get down some tylenol. I'm hoping he wakes up better and ready to go.

We're leaving at 8am to drive to Appleton for bridesmaid dress shopping. Tricia's coming over from Milwaukee and we're all driving up for just the day. Dad and Travis will help with the kids so Carissa, Tricia and I can try on whatever dresses Salena picks out. I've asked if I can gracefully back out of the wedding with no such luck. I'm hoping 'the one' makes me look 60 pounds lighter since I haven't yet worked on that resolution to work out more and get rid of these extra pounds.

Tax season is here

Sorry, I've come on to make a new posting at least five times since the last one. I have pictures to share, but then I get distracted by pinterest or the kids wake up five seconds after I sit down and open my laptop. I've been in a mood lately knowing the season ahead of us. The one where James is gone all.the.time at work and it's all on me. But it's not really that different than offseason. I mean, the kids go to sleep at 8. He comes home by 7:30. So on the days I really need it, he can jump in and do bedtime and then eat.

I'm hoping this feeling hasn't brushed off on the kids, but I think it may have yesterday. I'm not kidding. Phoebe screamed for 45 minutes. Like the screaming you do when you want a crowd of people to know you are being attacked. It was all over a pair of pants. She came home and had snow on her pants. She asked if she could change them and I said yes, to another pair of pants. She comes out with a skirt and I told her yes but with a pair of pants. She eventually snuck on just a skirt as I was trying to start dinner. Later on, she's whining....actually whining....to me about her legs being cold. Um, what?! So I gave her the pants she took off after school which were perfectly dry, clean and warm. That's when the fit started.

Walter doesn't throw fits. He just looks around for the most mischievious things to do. You know, like throwing toys in the toilet and trying to flush them down. Or taking the bag of cut up cheese and shoving a doll and some barbie pieces in there. It is unbelievable the things he will do many of which I know beyond a shadow of a doubt he knows is bad. I get that he's two and he's learning, but that shouldn't always equal massive messes.

We have had enough good times where I have felt like super mom and the kids have laughed.  Here are some pictures to prove it.

Fun even in the bathroom

Watching a movie with her babies

Picture with Busia and Papa (and Chip) before they left for Clintonville. They were down to move Uncle Nick from UW-Parkside to UW-Whitewater (about time!) and to tour two houses with us.

Since I can't figure out how to get it here, you can go here to my facebook page and see Phoebe saying Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.

I have pictures of the kids baking muffins, but those must be on my phone. I'll have to share them soon.

Growing Family

I realize that I didn't post since Thursday. I'm supposed to be doing a daily picture and I'm pretty sure I've taken pics on my phone everyday, but I only have these. The first is Walter's adorable baby outfit with cute animals all over it. He's two already and doing things every day to remind me he isn't a baby any longer. He's obsessed with angry birds and knows how to work the kindle fire and our iphones. *sniff*

And this is our clan at Aunt Debbie and Grant's wedding on Saturday. From left to right: sister Carissa, brother-in-law Brian, Phoebe, James, me, sister Salena, soon-to-be brother-in-law Travis, sister-in-law Christina, brother Louis, brother Nick, Nick's amazing girlfriend Becky, Mom, Dad and Walter.

I promise daily posts this week and A LOT of pictures!!!

Look what I found

Oh wait! You can't. I found that there is a folder on my SD card with old videos. Like so old Walter is wobbling in them and we're feeding him mushy food. I tried uploading two of them, but I couldn't get it to work. I tried youtube and it's an unrecognized format. I'm working on vimeo and we shall see. Here's a link that may work to see one video.

I spent much of the day cleaning and trying to get us ready for our trip this weekend. I did remember that I had set out to do two projects per week with the kids, so I pulled a very easy craft out that the kids pretty much did alone. Two empty toilet paper rolls, a quickly drawn face and wings, and washable markers. It didn't hold Walter's attention very long, so you only get to see a finished Phoebe owl.

The kids were very good today to let me get a few things checked off my list. We even made a trip down to Janesville tonight and an exciting dinner at Sams (cheap!). Here are my babies all smiles while watching a movie so I can stock the cupboards again.

Progress

I finished my first book of the year! Now I know why everyone loves and recommends the Hunger Games to their friends. I went straight to book two which was also on my kindle. That thing will be the main reason I reach my goal of 10 books this year. It is so much easier to push it on, have my page waiting there and scroll through a few pages. Walter has a special draw to my traditional books and scrambling bookmarks, so that is no longer a problem.

David finished his part of the kitchen project yesterday as well. He moved the counter and cupboards over three inches. Here's a sort of before and after. I should have taken better pictures! I decided the 'after' would be the day 4 picture.

This is the after picture I took since it was just nice to not have a refrigerator in the middle of the floor. I still have the china from the cupboard to the right of the fridge all over my table, but it will all get cleaned up and organized soon. You can see the paint on the top of the fridge to show how far it all moved over. It's exciting to have a better fridge, one that we might be able to actually use water and I from too!

Little Penguins

As promised, here's a picture of the proud kids with their penguin artwork. This is my picture for day three although we did take more than one.

One of my goals is two craft projects with the kids a week. I'm not sure yet what we'll do before Friday. Maybe something to take up for Aunt Debbie's wedding on Saturday.

We had the excitement of cousin David taking down a cabinet and the above stove microwave to make room for the larger fridge James bought from his uncle. We have china dishes all over our dining room table. I've got a giant box of hot chocolate mix, crackers, cookies, chocolate bars, and just junk food. I told James that 30% might make the cut to go back in the cabinet. Much of it is expired which makes me so sad. Glad we've evolved to have lists of what we have in the fridge and freezer and figured out better ways to organize the cabinets for less waste.

We've been using James' Coca-Cola beverage fridge for our overflow. Our new fridge will easily fit that gallon of milk while we finish off the old one. This shows the kids trying to stock the fridge since we had the company of hard workers this week who deserved more than tap water or milk. David is such an amazing handy man and Ali, his girlfriend, is so amazing with the kids.

I'm currently taking a break from moving the old fridge contents to the new fridge. Luckily, we have room to have them both plugged in at the same time so I can take my sweet time. It's a boring yucky job, but it will be so worth it when it is over.

The second day

Today was our last day of holiday break. The kids and I had returned to Jefferson yesterday while James stayed in Milwaukee to watch the Rose Bowl. I wanted today to be relaxing for the kids since Phoebe didn't have to be to school but also productive for me.

We slept in (8am) and then Phoebe requested pancakes. I do enjoy pancakes every once in awhile since I make a big batch and the we reheat the rest of the week. I washed dishes shortly after to stay on top of keeping the kitchen clean. The kids watched movies which occupied them for the perfect amount of time.

Walter received some cars squinkies for Christmas. He can't really be trusted with them alone, but the three of us played with them today. For lunch I went all out and made turkey burgers and sweet potato fries while making a bowl of tuna noodle salad for us to also have this week. Our 'Monday' will be Tuesday and I know we'll be just fine until I grocery shop on Wednesday on double coupon day. I've always tried to keep things in control and planned out prior to the envelope system, but that fixed amount specifically for food really keeps me in check. I let  the kids go through the coupons and we cut any that I may need before their expiration.

And I'm so proud of myself for this next activity. I've got tons of craft ideas pinned on pinterest under my 'kid ideas' folder. So I hopped on there to see what easy craft we could do with the supplies in our house. Boo at us for not having the traditional white shaving cream or we could have had snow paint! I decided on footprint penguins even though a project with a four and two-year-old and paint can get me twitching. They turned out so adorably. I'm not sharing since I'll have them hold them up for picture #3 at breakfast tomorrow.

We finished the day with clean up and dinner.  I treated the kids to a bath. I say treated because my baths are usually in and out, clean them and dry them. James fills the tub twice as deep, lets them dump water on each other. I'm just so paranoid that I can't usually let loose. I really tried tonight, and Walter might have hung himself with that extra rope. He even went so far as to giggle while peeing on himself as I'm trying to pick him out of the tub. Good thing the water was right there to turn back on. We made good time on our bedtime rituals so I let the kids watch a bit of their movies again. Phoebe curled up with Princess Charm school in the playroom, while Walter and I went in the living room to watch The Littlest Angel.

Phoebe ended up falling asleep on the loveseat, so I carried her to our bed. Yes, James is coming home tonight, but I completely forgot that fact until I had crawled her all the way to his side. I'm sure he'll want to stay up late and watch movies or something with David, and he usually falls alseep on the couch when he does. Walter and I finished his movie and then he went to bed very easily.

Here's the picture I took when Walter discovered Phoebe was sleeping.

I know I need to figure out my camera. I'm thinking I'll reserve that book from the library again that was recommended to me, I ordered from a different library, checked out, didn't crack open, and then had to pay a late fee. I think that's a bit more realistic than taking a photography class.

I'd also like to record here that my reading has already improved. Thanks to our Christmas present kindle fire, I've been reading whenever I have a spare few minutes. I'm 23% through The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and 8% through Larkstorm by Dawn Rae Miller. I meant to just download a sample of Larkstorm, but I must have accidentally bought the whole thing. After I finish my nightly chores, I'm curling up with The Hunger Games until my eyes tell me to stop.

New Year, New Everything

I'm like many people entering 2012 with quite the list of things I'd like to start doing or stop doing or do more often. I belong to an online forum with many other moms like me, and it seems like we're all trying for the same things - cooking healthier meals, reading more books, achieving better fitness, spending more time with our family....And there were many ideas on that site for 365 projects. One that I'm trying is a picture a day. One day down and one (okay many) pictures taken! So far I still leave it on auto, but I'm sure by the end of the year I will figure out manual.

Day 1: We were at Grandma Dura's house clearing off the table from dinner before playing rummikub. I wanted them to smile together, but Walter prefers his current goofy face.

Here's my 12 for 2012 list::

1 use envelope system
2 build our savings
3 send birthday cards to everyone in the family BEFORE their birthday
4 cook majority of meals at home
5 lose 20 lb by my 29th b-day (April 14 - I want to lose 52 by the time I turn 30!)
6 do 2 crafts/week with the kids
7 donate more to the church
8 work my MK business more
9 read 10 books (2011 was 1 - boo)
10 finish kids birthday books (Phoebe 4,5 Walter 2,3)
11 keep house clean by using cleaning schedule
12 develop family schedule