Day 1406 | Halfway to Summer
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One of our kiddos is done with school. The other has four days left. So close to summer vacation and non-stop quality(ish) time with these two. I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty great.
Day 1405 | Back Home
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We're home again. After six days of quality family time, we're back to reality.
The funeral was exactly what George would have wanted. The music was moving, the priest's message was captivating, and Chris and his brothers' reflections were touching, and funny, and heart-breaking.
We feel like we've been stuck between two places for the last two months and that continues. As happy as we are to be sleeping in our own beds and tackling our normal routines again, we're still drawn to Chris's home town and especially his mom. I imagine this divide will continue for some time.
Day 1404 | Painted Bricks
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The grandkids painted these bricks for Grandpa today. It was the perfect project to include them and bring them all together. Family is the best.
Day 1403 | Fruit
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During tough times, it’s nice to feel the love from friends and family. We’ve gotten lots of texts, cards, social media messages, and some friends have dropped off little goodies and even planted some of my garden. And there’s been fruit. Lots of fruit. It’s been a total dream. I love fruit but usually the boys eat so much that there’s nothing left for Chris and me. Not this week!
Thanks for showing us the love, everyone. You’ve brought sunshine to a gray week.
Day 1402 | Speech Therapy Graduation
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Our little guy did it. He graduated from speech therapy school. And it wasn't one of those "it's the end of the school year so all preschoolers graduate" graduations. This was the real deal. And a HUGE deal. Robbe has been working hard with inspiring dedication all year long to get to where he is and it shows. He met with his 4K teacher a couple of weeks ago and...wait for it...she didn't even recognize that he had a speech delay. One year ago, we started this speech therapy journey with a little guy that barely put four unintelligible words together. One year. Today he talks our ear off (and is completely intelligible) with the best of them.
We couldn't be happier for Robbe or more proud of him. And we couldn't feel more grateful to have stumbled into the extremely capable hands of Ms. Megan and Ms. Stacy through pure luck. It is not an exaggeration to say that you gave Miles (and our family) the best gifts of all. Thank you for giving our peanut the gifts of communication and expression. We are forever indebted.
Day 1401 | A Heart Breaking Farewell
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If you've noticed some less-than-chipper posts lately, it's for this reason: we said goodbye to Chris's dad, George, last week. It's been an impossibly hard couple of months filled with times of hope, total exhaustion, tears, and, thankfully, some laughter and reminiscing along the way. You will be terribly missed as grandpa, as George, and as Dad. We will say goodbye in this lifetime, but we will forever be filled with your love and spirit.
To read George's life perfectly captured in obituary form, click here.
Day 1400 | 1400!
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It's been a challenging couple of months around here. I'll go into more details soon (I promise), but for now I'm going to do what I always do...a one hundred day team recap. Never has this little family of mine been more important to me.
Sara
FAVORITES: Watching the transformation of my garden (thanks to some helping hands for making this happen this year), listening to Hamilton (still going strong), white wine season, enjoying meals outside
BIGGEST HURDLE TO OVERCOME: Launching the website I've been working on for the Chippewa Valley Book Festival for the last few months. It's a big guy.
DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE: Completing some house projects. At some point I'll actually have time to focus on the house, right?
Chris
FAVORITES: Quality time with the boys, the return of grilling season, rewatching Parks & Recreation, not paying for cable services anymore, rye whiskey
BIGGEST HURDLE TO OVERCOME: Fixing the bare spots in our yard with absolutely no idea about how to do that successfully.
DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE: Finally building the boys their backyard clubhouse. It's going to happen this year.
Chase
AGE: 6
FAVORITES: Legos, Playmobil (knights and pirates in particular), getting his haircut, reading or listening to The Boxcar Children books, scooting, his Perplexus puzzle, eating ice cream, playing spies
BIGGEST HURDLE TO OVERCOME: Riding a two wheel bike. I know he can do it...it's just "slightly difficult" and that's enough to deter him. Ugh.
DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE: Reading. I mean really reading. He's got the foundation, he just needs to put it all together.
Robbe
AGE: 4
FAVORITES: Legos, Playmobil (knights and pirates in particular), getting his haircut, reading or listening to The Boxcar Children books, scooting, sleeping friends, going to the library, eating ice cream, going for walks -- Notice any similarities between the two boys?
BIGGEST HURDLE TO OVERCOME: Waiting for Chase to get done with school (June 7) so summer can officially begin.
DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE: Graduating! It's actually happening on Wednesday. His teachers decided to keep him in the speech therapy program for longer because they could challenge him on the additional sounds he needs (the ones that aren't even "supposed" to have developed yet). But he's officially ready for the certificate now!
Looking back on 1400 posts:
Day 1399 | Dressing Room Photo
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Full disclosure: this photo is from last week, but I just love it so much I need to share it.
I was trying on a few dresses with Robbe (it went better than I would have expected, actually) and I decided that I needed a second opinion on a dress. I attempted to take the photo of myself and that wasn't really working so I enlisted Robbe for his photography services.
He took approximately 300 photos...at least a quarter of those were of his head or my feet. He did snap this gem, though. Look at that cute little nugget in the background. I can't handle it.
Day 1398 | Thank Goodness for Kids
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They sure know how to lighten a heavy day.
Day 1397 | Art Show
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We’ve got ourselves a little artist on our hands. Chase’s “Castle” is on display at an art show for the month and he’s super excited about it.
Day 1396 | The Hand Drier
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It’s the little moments in life. Like when your four year old realizes how great it feels to let the hand drier massage his head.
Day 1395 | Motherhood
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These little nuggets made me a mom just over six years ago. I'm not going into all the gifts these boys have given me or all the sacrifices I (and all moms!) have made. Let me just say that hearing them call me Momma is all I need.
A friend posted this earlier today and I think it's really beautiful. Here's to all of us, "holding the universe together."
She wasn't doing a thing that I could see,
except standing there, leaning on the balcony railing,
holding the universe together.
-J.D. Salinger
Day 1394 | Lottery Tickets
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if George can’t get his own tickets, we’ll go for him. Come on, big winners!
Day 1393 | Thrift Saling
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I headed across the border to check out the 1,000 thrift sales (no exaggeration) being hosted in Woodbury this weekend. It was a welcomed distraction with a good friend and some decent treasures.
Day 1392 | Preschool Pic
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Can you handle how cute this is? I can’t. That little belly poking out, his hands in his pocket, that white hair. I love everything about it.
Day 1391 | The Play-Doh Line Up
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This was the sight at our local children’s museum for a good 5-10 minutes today: all five of the kids we went with entertained themselves happily with Play-Doh. It was pretty incredible...and surprising.
Day 1390 | Dance Competitions
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My nieces have been participating in dance competitions forever. It’s been a huge part of their life forever. I’ll be honest that I haven’t always seen the appeal. The make up is a little intense. The costumes sometimes reveal a little too much. The moves are sometimes a little too sultry. Turns out I’m kind of protective when it comes to these young ladies.
Year later and many competitions under my belt, I get it. It’s not about the costumes or the make up (although they can actually be pretty sweet). It’s about working your tail off and dedicating yourself to something for so long that it becomes instinct. It’s about the friends you meet and the closeness you feel to each other from all the practices and late nights at competition together. It’s about a whole family affair (my brother and sister in law each have their roles at the competition, too), which doesn’t really exist these days. It’s about dealing with the successes and the failures on a constant basis and learning how to keep going when things don’t go your way.
I’m glad my girls found dance. I still think they are the most beautiful versions of themselves without the makeup and hair and fancy costumes, but I’ve come to appreciate the dance competition version of them more than I ever thought I would.
Congratulations on another great competition, ladies. I’m proud of you.
Day 1389 | Duluth
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We took a family road trip to Duluth to support our nieces at a dance competition. The sunshine kept us company while we toured some of the Duluth hot spots and the boys loved watching all the dancers at the competition. I’ve heard it from a lot of people, and I agree: Duluth is a pretty great city.
Day 1388 | Spring is the Best
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That is all.
Day 1387 | Clean Up Duty
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I’d like to say I was just motivated by the nice weather to remove car seats and vacuum the van. Nope, as you can probably guess, car seat out + cover off = someone got sick. The little one to be specific. I’m lucky the mess was contained to clothing and car seat (and not the rest of the car’s upholstery), but what a mess. Bleh.
And it turns out it wasn’t a one-time incident. So far it’s been a four-time incident but the rest have been much less of a production. Poor little guy. He was so agitated last night and so uncomfortable that I offered to sleep in one of the guest beds with him. When he said he only wanted me to sleep in his bed (a twin), of course that’s what I did. I mean, I knew I was going to be on high alert listening for any squeak while sleeping away from him, anyway.
As little sleep as I got (but I did get punched in the face once!) and as exhausted as I was today, it was totally the right decision. It speaks to the power of a mother’s presence that just having me “sleep” next to him last night made him feel calm and comforted enough to get the little sleep he could get. My job is really hard. And pretty gross sometimes. But it’s also the best.
p.s. Don’t judge me for how crazy dirty the van is. Just a constant reminder that winter is still holding on.
