Transition to Fall

Whew, the last few weeks have been super busy with summer activities and me starting my new teaching position in Port. I officially started last week with the new teacher inservice and this week is inservice for all teachers. We begin with students the day after Labor Day. Since I'm only part time and Tim leaves so much later than me for work, our kids are hanging out at our neighbor's house while I'm working. There is only a little over an hour that isn't covered by Tim or I. So Tim walks the kids over to our awesome neighbor who stays home with his daughter and watches another little girl from our church so my kids have loved the arrangement so far. And I have absolutely loved being back in education. Although it's only part time, I really enjoy being able to maintain my profession and also serve our local community. This district is a dream to work for. I can't even begin to compare it to my years in Memphis. I will forever be grateful for my years of teaching in Memphis because they challenged me to become a great teacher and the district provided opportunities for me to be involved with teaching on a national level.

Two mornings a week Sofia will be at the YMCA for a 2 year old toddler's program. It's basically an hour and a half of art projects, songs, dancing, and playing on the playground. I really wanted Sofia to have her own special program and she just loves her classes at the Y so this program works perfect for our family. Tim can drop her off and I'm done teaching in time to pick her up. Sofia also will start another session of swim lessons in September. She is so excited for her new swim lessons. We are still debating whether or not to sign the boys up. It just gets a little tricky with three kids because you need an adult with each child for the lessons. And, the boys are still pretty young so at their age the lessons are mainly getting kids comfortable with the water and time to socialize with other kids. My boys are probably a little too comfortable in the pool and around water.

Sofia continues to love dancing and music. I'm debating whether or not to sign her up for a low key creative dance class at the Y or an actual dance class at the local dance academy. I just love this age, it's so much fun to see my daughter try new things and explore various interests. Tim and I try to be really careful about over scheduling our kids. I try to keep Sofia in swim lessons throughout the entire school year and then choose one activity on top of that. I can't even imagine how busy things will be when the boys are old enough to participate in their own classes and sports.

Everett & Sullivan at 1 year

Better late than never. I've concluded that summer is just not a good time to blog, when I have free time I'd rather be outside or doing something fun. Anyways, the boys had their one year visit this past Friday. Everett weighed in 23lbs 6oz (51st percentile) and was 31.5" tall (86th percentile). Sully weighed in at 22lbs 7.5oz (337th percentile) and was 30.25" tall (52nd percentile). Their sizes are SO different from Sofia. She never left 90s (as far as percentiles) until she was 2. I'll be really curious to see how tall they boys end up being, and if they pass their sister. The men on my side of the family all average 6 feet and up but Tim's side of the family definitely has shorter guys. The boys look like brothers but most people ask if they are twins because they definitely each have their own look, especially with the differences in their hair. Sullivan managed to avoid getting his one year vaccines because he showed up to the doctor's office with a little rash. So we decided to play it safe and bring him in later this week for his vaccines. The boys are great eaters. They absolutely love fresh fruit and vegetables. I'm so happy they do because their big sister has been very picky about her fruits and veggies so it's nice to have two kids eat them readily. The boys' favorites are about the same. They love blueberries, pancakes with bananas or blueberries, fruit leathers, asparagus, carrots, kale soup, grilled chicken, strawberries, kiwis, mango, pineapple, you name it. They are healthy little eaters. In fact, they turn their nose up to junk food. Every now and then we have fries from Culver's and Sofia loves them but the boys want absolutely nothing to do with them. In the past few months it has been so fun to see the relationship between the boys develop. They love to work on getting into things together. They definitely fight over toys but most of the time they work it out between themselves. I love listening to them baby babble back and forth when we put them to bed at night and when they wake up in the morning. Sofia is definitely a protective big sister, whenever they are upset she gives them a hug and then pats their back and says, "It's ok, honey" or "It will be ok, buddy". It melts my heart to see this. There are definitely scrums between Sofia and the boys but Tim and I are so grateful that our kids have each other to lean on.

Everett- You are such a sweet and sensitive little guy. You love to snuggle and you are definitely a Mama's boy. Everyone comments on your long dark hair with curls. You are a very busy boy, you stay very busy trying to keep up with your big sister Sofia and your dog, Frodo. When I walk all three of you to the park I typically put you in the Ergo and your siblings in the double stroller. I love the way you just lean back and stare at me with a sweet smile. And then you purse your perfect little lips to kiss me. You are a very affectionate little guy. You cruise around on all of the furniture and will occasionally use a push toy to get around. I don't think I've ever seen a baby crawl as fast as you do, sometimes you crash because your arms can't keep up with your fast little legs. You love balls and books, when I play catch with your sister you always try to join in. You are actually pretty good at throwing things for only being 12 months old. You really enjoy books with animals and you are able to point out a few different types of animals in several books. Your Dad and I always say that you will probably get your heart broken a few times because you wear your heart on your sleeve. But thankfully your brother Sully will probably give you a good slap on the back and tell you to get over it. You went horse back riding twice this month; once at the zoo and once at the County Fair. You also went tubing for the first time, you enjoyed it but it also wore you out. You and Sully took nice naps on the boat while your Dad and I went water skiing. Everett, your smile is infectious and I love the way you love life. You are a little boy with an adventurous spirit and a kind heart. I have thoroughly enjoyed the last year with you and I look forward to the years to come.

Sullivan- Sully, you are a wild, stubborn little man. Your Dad and I have had so much fun in the past few months as you have revealed more and more of your personality to us. Way back when you were a newborn your family and your doctor predicted you would be an artistic guy. I think we all nailed it on the head because you tend to view most things in life from a unique perspective. In fact, we frequently catch you in different yoga positions where you are literally looking at things from another angle. You do things the way you want and you don't really care what other people think. Although this can be a difficult trait as a child, I think it will serve you well later in life. You definitely like to get your way, if things don't go your way you let us know by doing this funny little kick. You also make some of the most interesting sounds I've ever heard. You don't always make the sounds that are on the 12 month checklist, but you have several of your own varieties. The other day Frodo was growling at the front door and a few minutes later I saw you perched at the front door growling just like Frodo. You also love exploring textures, you will try to pull your blankie or you sister's blankie out of the cribs and you literally throw yourself into your favorite blankets. You are such a handsome little guy who also loves to explore but you notice much different things than your brother. You are always paying attention to the fine details of things. Sully, you have started dancing more this past month and you make everyone in the room smile with your dancing. Like Everett, you also went horseback riding twice and enjoying going tubing on Big Cedar Lake. You also spent a fair amount of time napping on Grandma Peggy on the boat. Sully, I love your creative and unique spirit. I hope you continue to follow what interests you without worrying about what other people or society thinks. You are such a fun loving guy, I can't wait to see what year 2 brings.

The one year pictures are en route from our photographer so I'll just leave you with pictures from some of the fun things we've been up to lately.

Learning how to milk cows at the Ozaukee County Fair.

Daddy with his boys.

Trying to figure out a way to hoist each other up the pole.

My unique little Sully checking out the pool from another angle.

All 5 of us tubing on Big Cedar Lake.

Playing on the tube at the sand bar.

Big news!

Sorry for the delay in sharing this news, and yes the official one year post for the boys is still in the works, I'm waiting on their doctor visit to plug in their stats. I am thrilled to finally share some awesome news from June. In early June, I noticed a job posting for the middle school that is about a mile from our house. The job was for a part time Spanish teacher. The Port Washington-Saukville school district has an excellent reputation and I remember being told by professors in college to expect a lot of competition for teaching jobs in good districts in Wisconsin. Granted, a lot of that has changed thanks to the politics of the last two years but anyways, I applied. The interview process was long, much different than what I was used to in Memphis. After the second interview the district said I was an excellent candidate but they thought I was an even better candidate for another job they had open at the time. The job was essentially the district's technology coordinator, someone to help the district improve their use of technology and teach teachers how to implement technology into their classrooms. For those of you who know me well, this is pretty much my dream job. However, I explained to the superintendent and the rest of the interview panel that I deliberately applied for a part time position because I still want to be home with my babies while also doing what I love, teaching and being involved in the community. Everyone respected that and I was offered the Spanish position!

I am beyond excited. I love staying home with my kids but this year I definitely missed teaching young people and being involved in the education of my community. This position will allow me to teach roughly two classes per day and still be home by 10am every day. I know it's going to be a lot of work grading and working on lesson plans at night but after 5 years of teaching I have become much better with my time management as a teacher. Having three little ones has really made me excel with my time management. The big thing I knew I'd lose was being able to do spin, yoga, and body pump classes in the morning but I think I'm going to start going to bed earlier and spin at 5:30am on Tuesdays and Thursdays and swim the other days at the school. The school I'll be teaching at is also home to the city's indoor aquatic center so I should be able to swim, shower and still have plenty of time to prepare my classroom for my students. Tim normally doesn't leave home until 8:30am so we are in the process of interviewing nannies. We'd prefer to have someone come to our home since it's such a short time period but we'll see how things work out. Either way, I'm so excited to start teaching again. This will be the first time since college that I'm not teaching in an urban setting so it will be very interesting to see how different things are.

Everett & Sullivan celebrate their first birthday!

Here's a fun video of the boys when they were about 3 months old. It's hard to believe these tiny little babies are now busy 1 year olds.

A little over a week ago we celebrated the boys' first birthday. We spent their actual birthday with just our little family unit hanging out at the Pirate's Hollow Pool in Port. The next day we did a ton of cleaning and organizing for the party. As most parents know, it's tough to keep the place clean with kids around. So we decided to take the kids down to Bastille Days since their tio and tia would be there. To our surprise we ran into my parents there too. It was hot but everyone had a good time eating and dancing. 

The boys' party was on Sunday afternoon. We invited mainly family and a couple of friends. The boys were lucky to have both sets of grandparents attend, as well as their tio and tia (Lindsey & Andrés), Aunt Kathleen, Uncle Andy, and some of their great aunts and uncles, cousins etc. It's definitely nice to  be close enough to be able to have family at these events. I can't describe the feeling of seeing such a beautiful relationship develop between my kids and their grandparents and family that they get to see on a regular basis.

Since Wisconsin is in the middle of a major heat wave we filled up the water table, water pool and slip n' slide for the kids to play with. Everyone feasted on some of the best brats I've ever had which are made at Bernie's in downtown Port Washington. Bernie's is one of my favorite local businesses in town. We also served my Mom's famous beans, fresh fruit, and other side dishes. I made both cakes for the two birthday parties Sofia has had so far but for this party I ordered the boys' cakes. We were camping the weekend before  and I didn't feel confident in my ability to decorate the cakes according to the "Thing 1 Thing 2" theme. Everett loved his smash cake and destroyed it within seconds. Sullivan was a bit intimidated by the crowd of people singing to him but he still seemed to enjoy a bite or two of cake. Sullivan was much more comfortable with the small family celebration we had on his actual birthday.

Here are some pictures from the event.

Ev checking out the slip n slide

Sully's turn

And Sofia

Summer Fun

Whew! The past few weeks haven't left any time for blogging and frankly we have another couple of crazy weeks before things will settle down a bit. The highlights of the last few weeks have included the following,

Andrés & Lindsey's wedding: Tim and I were both fortunate to be a part of the wedding so there have been lots of showers, parties, etc leading up to the fun 3 day wedding weekend. It was a gorgeous day and Sofia was the "flower girl". I put that in quotations because the cathedral that they were married in does not allow petals to be thrown so Sofia was really a ring bearer in a flower girl dress. She was so adorable running down the aisle. Sofia also danced to her favorite song at the wedding reception in front of all the guests! It was such an amazing weekend because we spent three full days with so many different parts and generations of our family. Tim's family and mine have become closer over the past 6 years that we've been married so they were a big part of the celebration as well. A special thanks goes out to Tim's parents who helped us out with the kids so much on Friday and Saturday while we were busy with the rehearsal and wedding day/reception. On Sunday one of my aunts hosted a gift opening/lunch for our family and for the family members that flew in from different parts of the world for the wedding. My aunt has a house on Lake Nagawicka so it was fun to take everyone out on the boat. Oh, and Sofia didn't get a nap for three straight days and she handled it like a champ. The boys also missed their afternoon naps for two days and they were also troopers. The boys are used to being held by a lot of people so they didn't have any anxiety when being passed amongst all of the family that was in town.

Sofia getting a little encouragement to go down the aisle.

One quick family picture in between all of the festivities.

Now she wants a boat. Add that to the list that includes a pony.

Independence Day: We had an awesome day. We started out by watching Port Washington's parade and then heading to the lakefront for Port's 4th of July festival. We didn't last too long because it was incredibly hot and the kids were worn out from the parade and wedding festivities. While the kids took afternoon naps Tim and I hustled to pack everyone up for a camping vacation. We spent the evening at our neighborhood's 4th of July picnic at Lake Park. Our neighborhood/street gathers there every year to grill out, swim in the lake and watch fireworks. The park is on a bluff above the lake and there are steps right down to the beach. The fireworks are launched by South beach so Lake Park is an amazing place to watch them. So is our front stoop :) The kids just couldn't stay awake until 9:30 after such a busy weekend so Tim and I put them to bed and finished packing for our camping trip.

Camping in Peninsula State Park (Door County): The boys finally got to go on their first real camping trip. They did attend the fall 2011 Ruder campout at Devil's Lake but they were too little to sleep outside in that cold of weather. Sofia first went camping when she was almost 4 months old in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Anyways, we took a camping trip with Tim's parents and his brother and new wife, Susana. Tim and I got to the site first and we set up all of our gear and we let the boys explore in the dirt, I have never seen dirtier or happier babies. They absolutely loved camping. Sofia was so much fun to bring camping at this age, she loves to explore and go on hikes and bike rides but by far her favorite activity was swimming at the beach. She had a little turtle raft that she loved exploring with. She even sat on the end of a SUP (Stand Up Paddle) paddle board and let me paddle her around for a while. The biggest challenge was all of my kids missing their naps. It was way too hot in the tent for the kids to nap there during the day. So we resorted to lots of walks/hikes and let kids nap in strollers. Tim and I upgraded from our tiny two person backpacking tent to a 6 man family tent when we first took Sofia camping. I remember thinking back when we bought it that it would take years to fill it up. The joke was on us thought because that baby is now full! Our sleeping arrangements consisted of the boys in separate pack and plays and then Sofia shared a queen sized air mattress with us. Tim's parents were nice enough to stay back at the campsite with the kids for two nights so Tim, Chris, Susana and I could go see two shows at the American Folklore Theatre. It's a magical theatre that is literally in the middle of the woods. All of the shows are written by AFT and most of the shows are directly related to Wisconsin culture and it's history with lots of songs and jokes. This year we saw "Victory Farms" and "Belgians in Heaven". Both shows were great, I think Sofia will definitely be old enough to attend a show next summer. I have been going to these shows since I was a little girl so it was so wonderful to be back. After one of the shows someone in the audience was called on stage and proposed to his girlfriend, it's amazing how many people hold a special place in their heart for this theatre. We even took the kids to their first fish boil, the fish is boiled outside with salt, onions and potatoes and is served with cherry pie full of fresh cherries from Door County. The boys loved the fish and Sullivan was crazy about the cherry pie.

Even though she's standing in these pictures she did actually sit for a long time and we paddled around Nicolet Bay for a while.

"Mommy, my turn. I want to paddle."

One of the many stroller naps during camping.

Two cute guys enjoying the great outdoors.

Our fish boil dinner.

Loved the fries, not the fish.

The boys are the healthiest eaters, they loved the fish.

Ice cream after dinner.

Picture from the AFT website that shows what the theatre is like during the show. No joke, it is one of the most amazing experiences.

 Everett & Sullivan's First Birthday: Their birthday and party happened within 5 days of us returning from our camping trip so it was quite a busy week for us. Especially since Tim and I decided to storm the Bastille in the middle of the week. "Storm the Bastille" is one of my favorite fun 5ks in Milwaukee. It's a night race that kicks off the Bastille Days festival in Milwaukee. The run doesn't start until 9:30pm so we couldn't bring kids but my sister volunteered to stay at our house during the run so we could participate. We did it with my newest brother in law, Andrés. The rest of the week was busy with putting together the food and decorations for the boys' party. Their actual birthday was two days before their party so we were able to have some nice family time together. We took all three kids to Pirate's Hollow. Pirate's Hollow is the community pool in Port Washington and Tim and I remember driving by it when we were looking at houses thinking what an awesome bonus the pool was. We had no idea how awesome the pool actually is until we went with the kids. There is a beautiful kids area, high dives, water slide, lap area, etc. It is definitely challenging bringing three little ones to a pool but we had a ton of fun. Sofia and Everett both went down the water slide on our laps. After long naps we celebrated with a simple dinner and we sang to the boys and gave them each a slice of cherry pie from Door County with a candle. They devoured it! I feel like the luckiest woman alive when I sit at the dinner table and look at each sweet little face around me. The party was a ton of fun as well, I'll let that be a separate post though.

Cherry pie

This weekend we are heading out of town yet again for another wedding! We will stop in Madison on our way for the boys' 1 year pictures and then it's up to Tim's parents' house for Christopher's wedding reception. A proper post for the boys birthday will be coming in the next week or so. And hopefully I'll finally find some time to blog about a big change coming our way!