happy 10th birthday Bella

My sweet baby girl is 10 years old. I'm not sure where the last 10 years have gone. I swear she was just born.

She's not that little anymore, Bella is 4ft 9 inches tall and around 80lbs. She hasn't cut her dark blond hair , other then a trim, since she chopped it off when she was 4. She has only 4 baby teeth left to loose. 

Bella is my outdoors nature loving kid. She would be outside all the time. She loves to work with her animals and find new creepy crawlers. She does chores twice a day to care for her chickens, cow , duck and goat. She knows everyone name and they all flock to her. She's manged to train our cow and working on the goat. There hasn't been an animal that she doesn't like. In the last year she has made it to three different aquariums, an animal safari at Disney and two zoos. Her future goal is to be a zoo keepers. 

Bella has went from being a fourth grader to a fifth graders this year.  She really enjoyed fourth grade, especially math and science. She's loved this year with no homework and was able to enjoy more reading for fun, along with learning new math skills on her own. She's a speedy reader of books about Dragons, animals, and some fantasy. She's a friend to everyone and gets along with anyone she works with. This skill transferred over to her camp experiences. 

Bella went to Camp Kesam again last year and then Camp Gray again this summer. Camp Grey she knew no one going at the same time, and she made so many friends. She had a great time, as it was a week long. She hopes soon to be old enough to be part of the ranch camp and spend her week with horses. 

Dear Bella,

I'm so proud to be your mom. You make me feel so lucky to have a wonderful, smart and fun loving daughter like you. In that last year you were part of student council at your school, which is a great responsibility and shows leadership. You were so proud to be part of it and loved going to meetings. Your dedication to your animals is amazing. You love every one of God's creatures.  You have tried to save baby birds this year and one of our ducks. While you have had your animal losses, you still are able to deal with it and move on. You even buried your little birds on your own . 

You have taken piano lessons and learned that you can't master everything on the first try. Every day i saw you working to not get upset and shut down when you couldn't do it, and such an improvement as you have gotten older.  

I feel so lucky to be your mom. I know your dad is watching over you and right there for you at every moment. You will always be a daddy's girl.  I see this more and more as you adventure outdoors with things like Archery and fishing. You also picked up some of his phrases and habits. 

I 'm excited to see what this year will hold for you. It's a big deal to be 10 and in 5th grade! 

Happy Birthday my sweet little Ladybug! 

Mommy Love you! 

Chicago

One of the things I wanted to do with the kids for the last couple of years is take them to Chicago. There are a lot of things i want to show them, but I knew that Shedd Aquarium was top on the list. I had kept putting it off because I was afraid of traveling in Chicago on my own with kids. I don't mind some places to travel too, but a big city and I get nervous.  So I asked Olivia and Jordan if they wanted to come with us. It was such a great trip! We took the train out of Milwaukee and arrived in Chicago bright and early.  Our first stop was to Shedd Aquarium. 

 They have a wonderful art installation of creating sea creatures from the trash found out our bodies of water.

 I loved the belugas .

 We found out that they kids could touch the sting rays.. I let everyone guess which child was not a happy camper about leaving when she had touched a bunch already. LOL

 So we got done at the aquarium and had a couple hours until our train was leaving. I knew Millennium Park wasn't far away, so we decided to go explore. 

 Buckingham Fountain. It was windy and the spray from the fountain got all of us as we tried to walk around.

We made it to the bean...then it started to rain, more then a sprinkle. So we didn't get to see much more. We sat our the rain in starbucks before we hightailed it back to the train staition. So proud of my kids ..Bella walked the mile plus and max walked at least 1/2 of it after we had already did so much walking. The rain caught up to us ont eh way home, but after a great day, it was ok.  Thanks to Olivia and Jordan for going with us. My only bummer is I didn't get a picture with them. :(

Water, Fair and Fun

So this summer I decided to try something new for my kids for swimming lessons. We did a week of private 30 mins lessons. Each kid one on one with the teacher for 5 straight days.  Bella did great and it was just want she needed. She had three goals and by the end of the week was able to make them. That wouldn't have happened in a normal class. Max got a bit more of the basics. He's a little behind where Bella was at this point. He also didn't have the attention span to last the whole 30 mins. 

We played a little with robots ;) 

We also spent the day at the fair. We got to see all the animals, Dylan with his horse and ride the tractor tram. :)

Annual picture. Hopefully next year Babcia can be with us again.

Then we went to avoid the heat and play with our friends. We went to a childrens play musesum. It was loads of fun.. we love hanging out with those crazy boys :)

summer ills

So as it always happens  someone has to get sick when it's not good timing. 

Max ended up with strep and an ear infection. He was pretty miserable . Thankfully i got him into the doctor quickly so he got on medicine. It ended up putting a damper on our weekend as i had to cancel our hotel stay since I didn't want to take Max to expose anyone else to his germs also hard to have fun when you are miserable.

So sunday Bella and I did a quick trip to Lancaster for Ray and Sheri's 50th anniversary party. It was so nice to see everyone , including Mass said by the Bishop and Fr. Greg. Grandpa and Grandma Judy were there along with our littlest cousins 

 Max needed a hair cut badly..so before the sickness hit, we thankfully got him in.

 A bonfire perked him up instead of a hotel stay.

 We forgot sparklers at the 4th so we did them now.

 Loved hanging out with this little guy..and holding his sister through Mass. Both are way lighter then my baby, these days.

 We got a kit in the mail and that was entertainment for Max since he couldn't come with us.