March 31st Family Picture

We did our family picture on my birthday while we waited for cake. Max wasn’t a fan of the pictures idea at first.

Happy Birthday Mama!

Happy 30th birthday to me!  We kept the day pretty low key since Bella had school anyhow.  Max and I had fun going outside to play and enjoy the warmer weather.  Josh and Bella picked out an ice cream cake for me and got me flowers.  I opened cards and gifts  and hung around with my little family.

He loves to hang out in this crib since that’s the only place he can have his nuk. Since he climbs in on his own, he took the ipad with him.

Outside fun

Barbie jeep stil works!

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy birthday grandpa (a day early)

We invited Grandpa and Grandma Judy over to celebrate grandpa’s birthday a day early. We cooked out on the grill for the first time this year and I let the kids decortate a cake for him. It was a nice relaxing time. Afterwards we went outside where Josh and his dad worked on trimming the pony’s hooves. That was a challenge, but hopefully overtime it gets better.

We also did the kid’s Easter pictures in the morning, but more on them in another post.

3/23 Family Picture

This week’s family picture was a quick one because I forgot to take one. We were home from church, it was post nap for max. Josh had already changed out of his church clothes and was getting ready for chores. Max seemed to be in a  good mood so I went for it.  Our best shot turned out blurry, but I went with it anyhow.

 

Our friends came to visit

Saturday was a crazy busy day. we spent the morning cleaning up before our friends arrived to help Josh get a jump start on fixing up the Lancaster house. Josh went up before everyone arrived to get started. Once all the guys arrived I fed them lunch and they headed to the house. the woman and kids stayed behind. the only kid we saw a lot of was the baby because he couldn’t get away.  The kids all had a blast both indoors and out. I think every child left was sad to go, I know Bella and Max couldn’t handle their friends leaving. Thank you gals for the girls day and letting my husband put your husbands to work.

missing most of the boys

Love this little guy!

She loved the baby

They both had on the BFF shirts.

So tired out.. but loving the baby toys

The week were I took very little pictures

So after our fun time in the Dells, we went back to my mom’s house. We attempted to keep it low key, but still ended up busy. We had a playdate with our favorite family.. though Max was just not as a big of fan, not sure if it’s his age, or the fact that he’s the only boy.  Then it was home for nap for max and lunch for Bella. Josh watched the kids so I could go out to eat with Court. After some mixed up we found each other and had a good time. Then it was back to my mom’s and Josh got to go ice fishing. He did pretty well too. I think he brought home 7 fish. My mom got home and watched the kids for us, so I could go out to dinner with another friend. I was spoiled in the fact that I got to see my friends one on one  

Saturday Max woke up sick.. actually he went to bed sick. I didn’t know what would happen when I woke up. It was a confusing 30 minutes figuring everything out, but it ended up with Josh and Max staying at my mom’s house, then us girls went to meet up with my sister and nieces for a day of shopping at the outlet mall in pleasant prairie. It was a good time. I found some good deals. Bella loved the attention. We got back to my sisters and had cake before heading back to my mom’s to get Max and Josh. We stopped over at Tori’s to visit for a bit too. She didn’t mind our germs.

 

By the time we got home we were all ready for bed and left the unpacking to do for another day. It took me 2 days to get everything put away and my house in order just in time for Della and Tim to come and watch the kiddos for us while we went to Mayo. Thank you to them for being able to step in last minute for us. Mayo was an experience. The place is nothing like I’ve seen before for a medical place. 

We arrived back home to a not so happy baby boy. No clue what the cause was, but he was miserable sick for 24 hours and then on the road to recovery. I then spend the next day deep cleaning and disinfecting my whole house. My baby had three virus in three weeks, I was ready for this house to be healthy

St. Party's day

A bit late, but happy st. Patricks day!.

Max has been anti-camera, so it was a last minute thing to get pictures of these two. 

Family Pictures: Great Wolf Edition

Well we were gone for a week, so I decided to do family pictures at our vacation spot.

this was in our wonderful hotel room. Max was watching tv..the only way he wouldn’t scream. He was not happy to be in the room, as he was sick of the same 4 walls and ready to leave. he kept trying to get to the elevator because he knew it was the ticket out of here.

 

bonus picture of us as a family down by the pool. Behind him is the kiddie slides that the kids had a blast with. We also have pictures of Josh and I with the kids here two years ago.

Great Wolf Lodge Day 3

Max and I were the first ones up this morning. Josh got up next since i wanted to get a shower in. I figured i wouldn’t get that wet for hte short time we were in the pool, so it would be ok. The hardest to wake was Bella. But as soon as we told her she could get a chocolate chip waffle for breakfast before we went to the pool she started to move.

We got already to go back to the breakfast buffet and eat. It wasn’t as busy, which was nice. We saw our friends there again too.  The kids actually ate really well, i was surprised. They shared a waffle , so it was a filling meal. Josh and I got our fill too!  Then it was back to the room to head to the pool. We got down there about 15 mins after the pool had opened. We started out at the little kid slides since our friends were there, then we moved on to the actual pool, before heading to max’s favorite spot. We then moved back to the lazy river slide and river before we met up with our friends and all the kids did the little kid slides. They were having so much fun, that it was sad to say we had to leave.

We got back to our room 10 mins before check out. OOPs. We still managed to let the kids get a bath in and pack up. I think we finally got all out of the room at 11:30. Oh well. They didn't charge us extra or anything. 

We got in the car and Josh asked if we had to rush to our next spot. I said nope. So he decided to take back roads to Watertown. We had some interesting towns we went through. It was fun and for a short time both kids were sleeping. Max feel asleep before we got to baraboo and slept the first hour. Bella slept the 2nd hour of hte trip. 

We arrived in watertown and bella was still out of it. So we let her lay on the couch and turned on the tv. Max was into everything. Once Bella pepped back up and we watched a movie, we loaded up the kids and took them to McDonald’s to play. The kids had a great time there. Both of them made friends. Max is able to get up into the slide like the big kids so he was happy.  Then we stopped over at shopko to see my mom. She gave the kids suckers and we walked around the store before headed back to her house. We fed the kids supper before mom arrived home, so when she got home she watched the kids while we went out for an hour by ourselves. We ended up at Applebee’s and got an appetizer to spilt.

Once home it was time to get the kids ready for bed, who naturally didn’t want to go down, but at least they finally did around 9. We were all ready for sleep!

Great Wolf Lodge Day two

Well it was a hit or miss night, everyone ended up sleeping until 7, for me and Max, 7:15 for Josh and 7:45 for Bella. We got up and dressed to head to the buffet for breakfast.  Max was not having breakfast until he saw the doughnuts. I think he ate two of those and dipped them in both yogurt and sryup. he did eat some of my waffle, but then he was done, so it made for quick eating for hte rest of us. I got my yummy waffle with the wolf in the center. It was so good.

After eating we headed back to our room to get ready to hit the pool. It was starting to get busy already. We hit up the actually pool and let the kids “swim” They has some fun, but the water was so chilly. Max went down the little kid slide a couple times and Bella had fun on those. Then we moved on to max’s favorite area. He loved playing on the jet ski and the little slides. he even went down with Bella a few times. Then we moved on to the lazy river. This time Josh went up and down the slide with Bella and i got to be lazy with my boy. it was very peaceful. Thinking about it we didn’t do a whole lot at the pool, but it was just perfect for our two little ones and it was relaxing for the adults.

We came back to the room in hopes of getting a nap for max. Josh was the only one that got a nap. finally after about an hour and half we gave up and went on a hunt for lunch. We ended up picking cracker barrel. The food was yummy for all of us. Max freaked out at first. Not sure why, but the peg game kept both kids happy. We then decided to give Max a hap, Josh drove around while Bella and I checked out some of the outlet mall. I”m on the hunt for Rain boots for max, and Gotta hit up disney . Bella ended up with a toddler Arial and Max got Tow Mater and Red the firetruck. No luck with boots.  Josh drove around and max got about an hour nap. We found Jellystone and now my husband wants to go back there in the summer.

we got back to the hotel and Max flipped out since he was confused by the whole nap and waking up. So we decided to go down to the Cub Club and get Bella’s project there. She picked out a Violet Pillowcase to color. Max got a dino play set and ended up going back to the hotel room early with Josh while Bella colored since he was just out of his element. Bella and i picked out her candy cup before heading back to the room to get ready to head back down to the pool.

We got the pool and it was a little less busy as all the morning people seemed to have checked out and the afternoon people haven’t arrived yet.  Josh took the kids to the kiddie area by the tree house, but Max wanted nothing to do with it, so we went back to his kiddie area.  We played there until we ventured to the lazy river area. There we ran into a classmate of Bella’s and his family. Bella enjoyed having a friend to play with. I had fun talking to the mom while the kids played.  Before too long it was after 6 and time to get supper. Time seems stand still in the pool but as soon as you leave the pool time seems to jump 3 hours.  We couldn’t decide what to do, so we got food from the hotel restaurant. We actually ordered it and brought it back to the room, which worked out best for the kids. Then it was time to head down to storytime again. bella was all excited because her friend was there too.

After the clocktower show and the story read by one on of the characters, bella went to wait in line to meet Wiley. I think she went because her friend’s older sister did. Then we headed down to the arcade to use up the rest of the tokens and pick out prizes. Bella was really nice and let her brother get a monster truck with most of her winnings and then she got some other little things, including candy.

Getting back to the room and ready for bed was rough. The kids just didnt’ want to go to sleep this time.  I was kind of bummed at this because i knew tomorrow would be a very busy morning!

Great Wolf Lodge Day One

Today we start our Vacation, but as with anything there is stuff that had to be done at home first. We woke up some early and some late. This meant it was a rush in the morning. Granted we couldn't check in until 1pm, but we heard of rain snow mix coming in and didnt want to be stuck driving in it. Also we were ready to get away from it all.

Max had speech at 8:30am. I wasn’t sure how it would go with everyone around. IT actually went better then i thought. As normal Max was slow to warm up but it didn’t really let Daddy and Bella being in the house stop him from “talking” In some ways it might have helped  a bit.  After that was over, we started to load up the car , double checking we had everything. We left home at 10am. only 30 mins later then i thought.

We headed out thinking we would go up i-90 but about 20 mins from Madison we decided to go up Hwy 12, which was much more entertaining since there was little towns to see. It seemed to be shorter and we got up to the hotel about 12:30pm. We decided to do lunch since we couldn’t check in yet. We at a noodles, well Max drank there, but the rest of us ate and it was really yummy food.

We went straight across the road to get to the Great Wolf Lodge. I went in and found out they had a room ready for us. We did manage to get a pack n Play for Max, since i forgot mine is at my mom’s house. Our room is 391 which is just up from the outside door one. So we moved our car there and started to unload. We love our room. It’s not huge but still seems to be enough room to spread out.

Bella so badly wanted to go the pool so that’s what we did. First up was the lazy river for Max and I , while Bella did the lily pads. Then BElla and Josh joined up in the lazy river. We got out and let the kids do the little kids slides. Max wasn’t so sure about them. Bella is now able to do with with no problems, which is great. Next we moved on to the little kids play area in the newer part of the water park. Max loved it. He had no worries about getting water in his face or hair. Even Bella finally braved getting water in her face. They had a blast with the “Jetskis” that shot water.  I suggested moving to the big tree house since Bella seemed ok with the water thing.. Well they had fun in there along with the kids play area. But max was getting chilly, so we went back to the lazy river, this time Bella wanted to go down the tube slide with me that ends in the lazy river. I think we did that 5 times, before we switched and Daddy went up with Bella.  Once they went down a couple times, then Bella did a a couple of the little kids slides, including the baby body slides . Finally we loaded up a headed back to our room. Max was pretty tired out. 

We put the kids in the bath to get cleaned off after Josh took a quick shower. Then while the kids played in the tub, real life caught up with us and Josh had to make some doctor/medical calls . Boo.  We got the kids out and tried to figure otu what to do for supper. IN the end we decided on pizza from the hotel. We went down to order it and headed to the arcade to play a couple games while we waited for it to cook. They went computerized there..everything is done via a card swipe instead of tokens. totally crazy. We also put our ticket total on there too, instead of carrying around tickets.

Josh got our pizza and Bella wanted to make her stuff animal, so we went to do that. I totally recommend anyone coming up to pay for the Pup pass… It’s saved money and it’s made it easy for Bella to get something without haven’t to pay cash now. It’s already paid for.  Then it was backed to our room to eat. Grandma Della wanted to skype so we talked to her for a bit while we were eatting and just hanging out in our room.

at 7:30 we went back to the lobby to get ready for the clock show. It was pretty busy too. We ended up with peanut butter cup ice cream, dirt cup and a chocolate covered pretzel. The kids enjoyed the show and the story. But didn’t want to meet Rachel Raccoon. So we headed back to our bed to get ready for Bed.

Max was really ready for bed, He got excited when Josh set up the pack n Play. He was in bed before anyone else was. We got Bella ready next and then Josh and i. Sleeping was ok. Poor Bella has what Max did two weeks ago, but with medicine seems to handle it way better. We also had some issues with the heat and a/c since that’s all computerized too.

Family Picture..what a difference a week makes

On a whim I thought, lets take our family picture today. There is no set day or time that I take them, just when I realize, “oh we haven’t done one this week” or “we are all looking nice lets try”  The kids were post bath, about to have books read. It was only hours before we “spring forward” so we were racing to get the kids to bed in hopes they wouldn’t loose too much sleep. Max was in a good mood, so I thought “let’s try this whole picture thing” sure enough he was in a great mood, as showen. Bella wasn’t as happy because I made her move to make room for Josh. It seem only fitting that Max was the only one in focus this time around.

The outtakes. We take about 5 to 10 pictures in one setting .

this was my 2nd favorite.

The first week of march

I set out to record this weeks events and I was ready to say it wasn’t an important week and blah. But looking at the few pictures I’ve taken, it hasn’t been that way. With kids there is no unimportant weeks. Something always happens in their lives. Right now things are not going the way that Josh and I thought they would. Plans that we had are all gone now. I’m glad I haven’t actually said what yet. But Right now we are looking at a change in ownership of the farm. There is nothing more then that. Will we move? I don’t know. Will we be done milking? I don’t know, Who will buy it, we don’t know. We are dealing with some pretty uncompromising people. which is making the choices a lot harder.  We then couple this with the unknowns of Josh’s treatment. So this is why there have been so many breaks in my blogging. Trying to process what is happening, while still doing the normal and making sure my kids don’t feel slighted or unhappy, keeps me busy. Also we have entered the season of Lent. I’ve added a few things for me to better myself… working out, flossing and decluttering. All of these things take me away from the computer which is kind of my way of giving up some computer time. This year I’m trying to make for a better me. I feel part of my rut I’m in is from being “on” and “connected” too much. Here’s hoping that decluttering more and time away from electronics will help.

 

Now to probably the part my few readers are here for….

This week wasn’t suppose to be so busy, yet it turned out to be. The goal was to be outside as much as we good, in hopes to get rid of these cold germs.  So once Bella got home from school, we went outside to help with calf chores. Ok the kids just played in the snow, but still I helped.

Pretty sunset

We also made lumaries for Relay for Life. WE are hoping next year to be part of a team and do even more.

Tuesday was our naturally busy day on top of being Fat Tuesday. Max and I met up with friends at McDonalds after dropping off Bella at school. Then we came home and started the clean up and laundry. Max napped and I left for centers at Bella's school. It was fun to be there.

Bella’s Teeth.. one of the projects they have worked on in class.

When bella and I got home we all bundled up to head outside. It’s a fight to get Max outside, but he had a blast once out there. I’m so glad that Bella can get ready to go outside herself.

 

We got his car unstuck and he was so happy. Still couldn’t go very far in it. All of Max’s favorite things seems to be the hand-me down or I bought them used for a couple dollars.

Chicken chasing..I mean catching

Daddy had fun with Max and the skidsteer. It was quite funny to watch

 

Then we were done outside we decided to treat the kids to Happy Joe’s for Supper, since it was fat Tuesday and all. Well the food came out very slowly so we had to find a way to distract max. Thankfully there was free Wi-Fi and Chuggington on DisneyJr. LOL

Both in st. Party's shirts a few days early

Bella got to play the games and managed to get tickets to get a few of the little toys. We then stopped at A&W for ice cream. it was a nice end of the day.

Wednesday came and it was another busy day. First there was a 2 hour delay for school. This was a bummer because we had planned to go to 8:15 mass for ash Wednesday. Thankfully Father at church decided to do another Mass for the kids at 10:15, so we were able to go to that one. I took the kids to the library since story time is normally at 9:30, but due to the snow, there was only one other family there, who happens to be a classmate of Bella. We have very cool librarians who read books to our kids and the kids loved it!  I took Bella to school and then Max and I went to Mass. Josh met up with us there, but then left as soon as it was over to wait for the delivery of our new mattress. Naturally they weren’t on time. So We did a quick lunch while Max went down for nap. Josh had to leave to go to hay and I waited for the delivery guys. Thankfully they were quick and quiet once they got here. I worked on getting the room cleaned up after them, then my lenten goals. 

My Lenten goals this year are to work out, floss and declutter via 40 bags in 40 days.  It was nice to start but all three made me realize how out of shape, badly I need to floss and how much clutter I still have in my house.

I had to wake max up shortly before we had to leave to get bella from school, once we got home Josh was there. I stayed in with the kids while he feed bottles since bella at Gymnastics.  Josh came in to be with Max and Bella and I went to class. She had a great time in class and is really learning a lot. Home for supper, books and bed… We were all ready to sleep, moreso Josh and I and try out the new bed!

Thursday and Friday were hit or miss. News of plans not going as planned hit and so during the day it was rough for Josh and I. Max had Speech and he was not a fan. It’s so frustrating because we only get a set time and that’s it. While he was in a good mood 20 mins before she came, he wasn’t when she arrived. He slowly warmed up and we talked about possibly looking into some ipad games to try to help him talk. I know sounds silly, but he will mimic some of the sounds on his other games. 

Once Bella got home we all bundled up to get the calves feed and take care of the new one. It was sunny but not warm enough the melt stuff yet. It seems all the blah feelings are lost when outside playing in the snow, petting the dogs or caring for the sweet babies.

Feeding Sophia with Daddy

Then on his own.

Sunset on the farm

Fun on the farm

Bella feeding Olaf

We had another new calf born before Friday night milking. The mother wasn't able to clean it so we had to hose him down. Poor thing was pretty cold and so we had to try to dry him off and clean up.