Swinging

A new thing for Katherine in the past 1-2 months she finally enjoys swinging and hates when it is time to go. Emma enjoyed swinging outside at a very early age. Katherine was quite unsure about it until mid-summer of this year. Here is a photo of them together at a park in Plymouth.

Belated Summer Photos

Here are some photo collages from other adventures in August. Our trip to Nicolet Beach at Peninsula State Park on Emma's birthday. Second collage is photos of Emma and I at Walking with the Dinosaurs show at the Resch Center in August. We attended it with our friends Michelle and Tanner. It was really neat! The T-Rex was the last part of the show and was very loud. Emma thought it was great just a little too loud - as you can tell by her hands covering her ears.
Third collage is photos from the baby shower in Elkhart Lake, along with the beach at Elkhart and riding ponys at Downtown Night in Elkhart Lake.

The end of August happens to also be the end of summer vacation

Wow! This is post #2 for August. I have had good intentions but not the time. Probably more so not the motivation because I know I have so many things I have wanted to post on from the adventures we have had since the end of July through August.

From the end of July until August 12 Ethan had off of work. It was a wonderful time spent having many day adventures, birthday fun, visiting with extended family home from California, and enjoying the sun and water at the beach. During Ethan's time off we had a kid birthday party for Emma at Build-A-Bear with 5 of her friends, a family reunion on Ethan's Mom's side of the family, a family birthday party for Emma at home on Sunday, a trip to Nicolet Beach at Peninsula State Park in Door County on her birthday, a couple trips to Bay Beach as a family and with extended family, a first time visit for all to State Fair in Milwaukee, Packers Training camp practice, Packesr Family Fun Night Scrimmage with friends, two trips to Elkhart Lake to enjoy the beach and take in Downtown night in Elkhart, a baby shower, a round of golf, and an 18 and 20 mile training runs. Now do you understand why I have not posted much? So many photos to go through and decide. I have been working on collages though. To be posted very soon.

Since Ethan went back to work we have enjoyed the NEW Zoo twice, I had a devastating loss to be explained later, a few trips to the park, attended a wedding which had a first of its own (to be told shortly), traveled to Madison to see friends from Wisconsin who now live in Washingtion and were celebrating their 10 year anniversary, an open house for Kindergarten, my nephew's birthday party which included bowling and pizza and then brats and hamburgers back at home for the immediate family, another hot 7, 10, and 20 mile training runs. Only 3 weeks to go until our full 26.2 marathon in the Fox Cities. September 19, 8am if anyone wants to come out and cheer us on. We could use the support!

In addition to all of our adventures as a family, Katherine turned 18 months with a healthy doctor appointment and a few shots to keep her healthy. She is taller, bigger, and everyday saying more and more words. And I started to wonder a few weeks back if she would start talking more soon - now there is at least one if not two new words each day being said by her. What was I thinking?!

The last couple weeks we have still kept busy but have had some down time at home. Although obviously not enough down time to post to my blog. The last couple days have been hot so being inside has been nicer. I feel like we were not outside quite as much this summer because of heat and mosquitos! They are incredibly awful around our house.

Tomorrow is the first day of Kindergarten for Emma. My first baby off to school full-time. I can hardly believe it. She is so excited! I am excited for her too. But at the same time cannot believe the little baby who gave me the most fear when she was first born is old enough to start elementary school. A whole new phase of life for us. New worries, new firsts, new memories, and lots of learning for all of us.
Birthday party at Build A Bear and opening gifts at home on her birthday.
Family birthday party
Packers Training Camp and State Fair Fun
Packers Family Fun Night with Friends
Bay Beach - Having fun with family

Happy Birthday Papa

We had lunch with Papa and Nana on his birthday in Plymouth. After lunch we went to a nice park in Plymouth for the girls to run out energy before our drive back home to GB. Here are some nice photos of the girls with Papa and Nana.

Happy 5th Birhday Emma

This is a week overdue but if you knew what we have done in the past week (another post to come) you would understand. Today is our first day of nothing. Here is a collage I made of my little girl who turned 5 last Thursday and is going to Kindergarten (oh my!) this year. Where does the time go?


Top collage is Emma at birth, and then on her subsequent birthdays at 1, 2, 3, 4 and the morning of her 5th birthday (bottom 3).

Photos of Emma over the past 5 years. Top left is Emma's 5 year old photo.

Moments of July

Here are photos from July. Enjoy!
Top collage is an afternoon of fun at Bay Beach with my sister and nephew. Beach photos are from a day at Ashwaubomay Beach in Green Bay.


Second collage are funny photos of Katherine, Emma singing at Kamp Kermit, and more Bay Beach.

4th of July weekend photos

Here are some photos from the 4th of July weekend in Sheboygan. The first two are at Nana & Papa's - playing with Papa's feet and Aunt Heidi making Katherine laugh; Then the next photos are from the 4th of July parade. Chad & Ian, Uncle Chad & Katherine, Ian & Emma; Katheirne enjoying the parade; Next are Emma at Nana & Papa's in the afternoon - making the markers as tall as her and then this is what we all did with our afternoon for some amount of time - nap! Finally at the fireworks...Katherine enjoyed although did not sit still during like I had hoped but was good. Katherine wanting to sleep. Emma & Katherine with Papa and then with me. I like the last one she is clapping with Papa at the grand finale.

Updated Summer List

So the following is a list I wrote back in June of events I hope to do this summer. Time to update it. Still many fun things to do with only a month left. We will see how it goes. Ethan has off starting July 28 for just over 2 weeks so hopefully we can accomplish some more in that time.
Summer of 2010

Timber Rattlers game,
Green Bay Bullfrogs game
Milwaukee Brewers game
Milwaukee County Zoo - Done with friends
Madison for a day - Henry Vilas Zoo and see friends from Washington!
Visit The Farm in Door County
Breakfast on the Farm - Done with friends
Travel to Minnesota - Done and greatly enjoyed
Go to the beach - did this in Minnesota and hope to do again
Ice cream in Door County at Lickety Split
Go to PC Junction - fun train restaurant in Door County
Go to Chicago - Shedd Aquarium
Many trips to the park - Done and still doing
Many trips to Summer in the Park to picnic and listen to music - only did this once so far - far behind past summers
Wednesday Evening concerts at St. James Park - only once
See family and friends more often - saw some family in MN who we have not seen in a long time and have been seeing a variety of friends in Green Bay

Absent Blogger

Where have I been since my one post in July compared to my 12 posts in June? Well, since my last post which was from our trip to the Milwaukee County Zoo we have been to Sheboygan and back for the 4th of july weekend. We have been to swmiming lessons everyday for 3 weeks, Emma has been to Kamp Kermit, we have been running 20-25 miles a week, been to storytime with Froggy, we have been to the Twin Cities and back for a long weekend which was full of fun (separate post(s) to come), and Katherine has been to the dentist for the first time.

I have been wanting to post but something else comes up. I am behind on my scrapping goal - 1 page a day, and I have not been working on the decluttering of our house which starts with the basement. I am currently reading a great book called "No more clutter" which hits on many true points, and I think will be very useful as the declutter process continues. Although a chapter I read last night makes me realize that the kitchen needs decluttering again. Did you know that any dish or cup with a crack in it should be thrown away because bacteria can grow where the crack is and become unhygenic? This book even gives definitions of what kind of hoarder you may be and you can be more than one type. I am definitely a "Sentimental hoarder". My significant other is definitely a "procrastination hoarder". It is quite interesting. So I am reading about decluttering but not doing it at the present time because I never feel like I have good enough chunk of time to do it. But according to the author this is a common reason it does not get attempted by many and that the solution is to break it into 10 minute jobs until you are able to take a whole day or half a day. Will someone please take my children so I can do this? :-)

I also had an idea to either add a post or a tool to my blog of great children books that we have or have read. I had this idea the other night when reading to Katherine. I love to buy books for kids because you can never go wrong with a book and they can last forever. I think we have some great books, and decided I should share some of the great titles and authors that we enjoy. I just have to decide how to add it and where.

I definitely have a ton of photos to post.

And as for the girls they are ever-changing. Emma turns 5 in one week! I can hardly believe it. She is definitely a little mother. Her newest hobby is to let me know how I should handle katherine when she has done something or what I should do with katherine if she is not doing something I have asked. And her comments lately are priceless..I have started to write them down when I remember but have missed a lot of good ones. And so many questions she has these days. She was very tired this week from our trip to Minnesota and you could tell by her comments and questions. We always know when Emma is going to fall asleep in the car because she will ask us the weirdest question and the next thing we know she is in la-la land.

Katherine is now 17 months and still a first class clown. Just yesterday she had Emma and I laughing with a goofy walk that she invented all on her own. She is definitely more in a copy cat stage now and will try and wants to do anything she sees big sister doing. She just started to say "baa" yesterday or today, I can't remember because the days and weeks seem to blur together right now. I have also heard her try to say "bye" but the "b" sound does not come out and it sounds like "dye" because she has the "d" sound mastered and definitely the "m" sound for Mama is mastered quite well. Writing about sounds makes me feel like a guilty mother because we have not been working with Emma on her speech sounds that we were supposed to continue through summer.

Milwaukee County Zoo

Sunday, June 27 we met four of our friends (Christy & Paul, Jenalyn & Glenn) and their combined 4 girls at the Milwaukee County Zoo for a day of fun. The morning started rainy and thundering but by 2pm it was sunny and hot. The rain actually felt very refreshing in the morning. Between the 6 of us we have 5 girls 4 and under. Emma is the oldest and Ella is the youngest. Grace, Lydia, Lauren and Katherine fall inbetween in that order. They all have fun together. You will see we attempted to capture a photo of all 5 girls in the monkey house. In the one Katherine decides "I am out of here". Katherine also enjoyed riding on Christy and Paul's sit and stand stroller. Lydia, on the other hand, was not too happy about Katherine taking the standing portion from her. Other photos - Emma & Lauren looking over the fence. Lauren & Grace sharing an umbrella. Lydia riding on her Mommy's shoulders. Ella just enjoying the ride.

Here are some collages of our day. The bears in this collage were playing/fighting. It was a lot of fun to watch. Christy and I were the only adults to experience it. One is male and one is female. I really like the photo where the female gets out and walks away and the male is looking over the edge like "come on, don't stop now".

I posted the blog Christy - now you don't have too. :-) You can just comment or add anything I missed.

A test

I have been trying to figure out how my cousin puts together great collages of photos on their blog, so that I don't have to post each photo individually. I think Ethan may have figured something out with the Adobe Photoshop. So this is a test to see if it works. The photos are from our 2nd trip to Bay Beach on Father's Day. We rode the carousel and the train for the first time this season. Katherine enjoyed both! The photo of Katherine with the sprinkler is from the fun the girls had yesterday. The there is Emma playing soccer, at swimming lessons about to jump off the diving board, and running the WPS Kids Run in May.

Bay Beach!!

Bay Beach is officially open and has been for a month now. We took the girls for the first trip of the summer on Memorial Day. Katherine was all for the rides but did not like having to leave the ride when it ended. We have since taken them once more on Father's Day and she has quickly caught on that when one ride is over there is another to go on. Many more trips to come for us. Although I think Emma is starting to become bored of the little rides. So more trips this summer may see Mom and Dad separated each with one daughter.

Katherine's crib friends

These are just a few cute photos of where Katherine's crib friends end up sometimes. This initially started with Ernie for many nights and then in the most recent of nights more friends have been added. We think it is quite funny. And if you could hear her talking and laughing at night after being put to bed you too would wonder, "What in the world is going on in there?" Perhaps her friends come to life like in Toy Story. We just took Emma to Toy Story 3 tonight. It is good. There are a few scary parts for a young 4 year old but overall very good and funny.

I love the change in expression from this to the next photo.


Look Mom my friends...

Strike a pose

Katherine actually will stop and smile for the camera most of the time. It is quite cute. And completely different from Emma. I do not remember Emma ever being so willing to strike a smile for the camera. We had a very rainy couple of days at the beginning of June so I pulled out the dress-up bin for the girls. Emma was super excited! And this was Katherine's first experience with dress up clothes. Many of these photos are from Katherine's fun first experience. Although, she is definitely not okay with her sister trying to dress her (unlike our friends the Pedersen sisters).
Miss T! :- )
This is me trying to get a shot for a Gerber cute baby contest. I think she could win, don't you?

Another little Snow White. Emma wore this dress when she was 2 or 3.

I love this photo of Katherine. She had been watching Emma have her photo taken in the dress up clothes up against the closet so she went and stood. It was too cute.

I like this one too! Little one trying to steal the show and big sister always on the look out.




This is Emma dressed up for Magical Kingdom dress-up day at Kamp Kermit a week ago.
Our star-studded girl!

What we love best about our Daddy!

Happy Father's Day Daddy! We love you, Emma & Katherine and Mommy too
We love that Daddy lets us climb on him and we always have fun with Daddy.