Happy Birthday Maya Leigh!

This girl is SEVEN!!!!!

She has grown so much this past year, and the past seven years, and I can’t handle the cuteness.

She is so sweet, smart, excitable, hilarious, goofy, and amazing. 

Happy birthday Boogers!!!

Timehop Tuesday

Happy Tuesday! I realized I have missed the past two Mondays of In Training and Unlearning, so I will combine the last three weeks of training together on Monday!

As for Timehop Tuesday, this one is a doozy! Here is baby Callie wearing a peace sign onesie, and 10-year-old Callie holding baby Mila wearing the same peace sign onesie 10 YEARS LATER.

And then this almost-7-year-old looks so big!

Weekend Wrap-Up:The God Bless Mila Edition!

Happy Sunday everybody!  To say we had a big weekend is an understatement. There was a new (to us) swing set, a dance recital, a baptism, and lots of family time!

Early last week G-ma and Pa happened upon a swing set in their neighborhood that was for sale.  We pounced on the opportunity and Pa took it apart and got all the pieces moved over to our house last Wednesday.  Then on Friday night, he came over and helped us put it all together in our back yard.  The girls love it! Thank you Pa!

On Saturday morning Boom, Auntie Yoda, Lucy and Mila came over to play in our yard, and the swing set was a hit.  

Yesterday at 5pm the girls had their dance recital outside (if you aren't local, you may not realize that the heat was RIDICULOUS).  It went well and we were all very sweaty and hot and tired by the end.  But I'm grateful that Ms. Connie and all her staff figured out a way for the kids to safely perform. If you'd like to see a very long video, click here for 10 minutes of the girls' various dances. And you don't have to be dripping sweat to watch them!

The recital was streaming live, so G-ma, Pa, Auntie Cat, Uncle Dan, Auntie Hanna and Mitchell all got to watch the girls too!

This morning was Mila's baptism!  We were actually able to go to church, and had the whole sanctuary to ourselves.  Ha!  We got there a bit early so Maya got to help Pastor Meta light (and then later extinguish) the sanctuary candles.

The baptism was beautiful.  Chris and Callie are Mila's sponsors, and Laura got to put the actual water on Mila's head. Mila wore the baptismal gown that Mary made for Lucy.  The front fabric of the dress is the shirt that our dad wore at Laura and Craig's wedding.  So special.

After the service we went to a park near their house for lunch and play time!

Mila got some baptism gifts, and all the cousins got new Jelly Cat stuffed animals from Boom!

Then we celebrated Maya's birthday, since it is coming up in a few days!  She had fun opening her presents from her Aunties, Uncles and Boom. 

It was so nice to have Mari and Josh in town and to be all together!  We got to take a new picture of the four of us. :)



Mari, Josh, and Boom came over for a BBQ deck dinner, and we had fun playing some lawn games and relaxing in the beautiful summer evening.

Click here for some other videos from the past couple weeks.

Have a great week! We have a soon-to-be 7-year-old who is very excited it is FINALLY her birthday week!

A Picture Update: Summer 2020 Week 6

Happy Friday!

We had a fun and busy week after our long weekend vacay last weekend.  So here are the pics! 

On Tuesday evening I went to hang out with Laura, Lucy, Mila and Boom at Laura and Craig's new house! Lucy was very proud of her new bike, and then made me right it.  And Mila was adorable, as usual! :)

On Wednesday we met Auntie Hanna and Mitchell for lunch at a beautiful Japanese Gardens spot near our house.  Mitchell was also so adorable, as usual! I love my M&Ms. 

The girls and I took Luna to a park on Thursday afternoon. She got hot and tired!  Then we got the sprinkler out because we were hot and tired.

The girls' rescheduled dance recital is this weekend on Saturday night, and the rehearsal was on Thursday night.  Here is a preview!  The studio is using an outdoor amphitheater nearby, and they are doing a good job of taking lots of precautions.  Here's a little preview.  Video of their dances will be posted on Sunday!

This afternoon G-ma came to help us plant the new pots with the flowers she picked up for us. One of the things we planted was MINT, which directly resulted in Mojitos later this afternoon.  YUM.

Auntie Mari and Uncle Josh are in town for the weekend, so we got to see Auntie Mari this afternoon!  Hooray!!!!

Have a great weekend!

Timehop Tuesday

Whoops! Just realized it is actually Tuesday and not Monday, so I just have one Timehop today.

The girls were both supposed to go to camp this summer, and they were also supposed to have day camps and VBS and other fun things.

Instead they are home getting creative and playing with the neighbors and we took an unexpected trip to Wisconsin.

Hopefully they still remember the summer of 2020 fondly even without all the things they were going to do. 

A year ago we dropped Cal off at camp!

Weekend Wrap-Up: The Lost Lake Edition

Hello all! We are back from a long weekend in Northern Wisconsin on Lost Lake (near Rhinelander). We rented a little cabin and had a lovely weekend up in the north (Wisconsin) woods!

On Friday morning we packed up and headed to Auntie Cat's to borrow her new and fancy/beautiful canoe! She helped us get it all strapped up on our car and we stopped after a bit to make sure it was all good.  We also stopped in Chippewa Falls for lunch and ate near the river.

We got to the cabin around 4pm, and the first thing the girls wanted to do was blow up a couple of the floaties we brought and get in the lake!

Then we went on a quick paddle before dinner.

We made tacos for dinner and enjoyed some fishing off the dock and the lovely sunset.

On Saturday morning the girls were up fairly early and did some running around outside the cabin.  The trees were so tall and beautiful!

After breakfast we went out for another paddle, this time for fishing!  Both girls caught a number of fish, and I did my best to try and figure out how to keep us in the "correct" spot while the wind was blowing so Chris could deal with the worms, etc.  I wasn't great at controlling the canoe, but the girls caught lots of fish regardless.

Then we had some more lake time, this time with the BIG floaties!

The girls are always so graceful in the water...ha!

Chris doesn't like to just sit on the dock (like I do), so he quickly got out the fishing gear again and they did some more fishing off the dock.

By late afternoon someone was TIRED.  She got herself stuck on her floatie near the shore, and then proceeded to lose it saying she couldn't get herself back to the dock.  It was hilarious for the rest of us (definitely not for her, though) and Callie eventually saved her.

We decided to go play mini golf in Eagle River before picking up takeout for dinner.  We used LOTS of hand sanitizer in between holes, and Callie even got a hole-in-one (Chris got two of them as well, but didn't want to pose for the hole-in-one picture).

The sunset on Saturday night was just beautiful.  We got to enjoy it from the front deck of the cabin after we put the girls to bed.

And then later we went out on the dock for a bit to enjoy the glow.

On Sunday morning we were a bit lazier.  I took some pictures of the cabin and the girls' accommodations.  They tried to sleep in the same bed/room the first night, but kept each other awake, so Maya ended up (once again...like many vacations past) sleeping on couch cushions in our closet!

We went out for a mid-morning paddle/fishing expedition and then later Callie somehow got soaked in the lake in her clothes. I also went for a run on the rural Wisconsin road near the cabin.  It was pretty lovely and a nice change of scenery from my usual suburban runs.

After lunch we headed to Sugar Camp Lake beach.  It was tiny, but the water was clear and there were hardly any other people there.  It was so beautiful there!

Then we headed into Rhinelander to explore the town a bit.  We saw the "Hodag" (pictures of it are everywhere around town) and got some ice cream.  We also walked a bit down by the Wisconsin River.

Before dinner, we went back to the cabin and the girls got to try a junior paddle board and then got out their big floaties again.  Later, we had to start packing things up, so Maya helped Chris deflate her floatie.

I watched the sunset from inside this time (there were loud people out having a bonfire down the road).  But later we woke Callie up so that we could take her out by the lake to see the stars.  She loved it!

This morning we did one more paddle/fishing adventure, but Maya was NOT having it.  

Oh well. All good things have to come to an end.  So that about sums up our trip.  Here are a few other pics from our fun few days.

I'm very grateful for these three other humans and the fun we have with our little family. And a special shout out to Auntie Cat for the use of her beautiful canoe! Thank you so much.

If you made it this far, thanks for hanging in there! As you can see, we packed a lot of stuff into less than 4 days away.   Click here for some videos of our adventures!

Have a great week. I really can't believe it is nearly the middle of July!

A Picture Update: Summer 2020 Week 5

Holy moly we are about halfway through summer! It always goes so much faster once 4th of July hits.  Eeeek! Ok here we go...

Monday: crazy sky, VBS activities, swimming pool, Luna cuddling Tiger

Tuesday: just Luna being high maintenance, as per usual

Wednesday: Maya had a sleepover at Boom's house!

Bush Lake with friends!

Thursday: blueberry lemon crumble, goofy Maya and Luna

The girls got to hang out at G-ma and Pa's house and got cute new masks!

I stopped by to see this dude and he was ADORABLE.

Look how big he is sitting up!

John and Jenny were in town and came over for dinner!  Jenny had fun taking pictures of all of us with those big flowers on our heads.

Have a great weekend.  I'll be back on MONDAY for a weekend wrap-up!