Monthly Archives: October 2022

I’ve got 2 weeks of photos and there are a lot of them because we’ve been busy!

Last Monday, Nate moved into a very fancy new office. He and Jeremy shared an office when Nate first started at Edward Jones. Now EJ is piloting something new- offices with multiple FAs. The new office is really nice and I was excited to stop by as all the moving and setting up was going on.

The boys have been busy with school and Gussie is rocking swim lessons!

Last Saturday was a very busy day. First, I took the boys to get their ears pierced. Xander has been asking about it for months and then Augustus casually mentioned he wanted to do it too. Augustus hopped right up in the chair and got both ears pierced with barely a cry. Xander got nervous and decided he didn’t want to do it. We walked around and thought about it and he changed his mind several more times, but ultimately decided not to go through with it.

When we got back, it was the neighborhood bags tournament. Nate came close to winning a second year in a row, but he got second place this year.

Later in the day, I took Xander to get his hair cut (the first time in a year!).

Sunday was a fun day with Grandma Debbie.

This week was a busy baking week for me as I have some orders coming up. I got to do playground/lunchroom duty on Tuesday, which is always super fun. Another mom mentioned that her 4th grader was so mad that she was there. 4th grade!? I thought I had more time before my boys stop being excited.

Wednesday was Grandparents/Special Friends day at school. Grandma Debbie and Uncle Danny were honored guests. They got to spend the morning going to classes (Grandma was with Gussie, Danny was with Xander). They got to see the boys in gym classes, drama (Xander was the narrator of the play), Gussie got to decorate a pumpkin. It was a full morning!

The final part of the day was a performance, and on Tuesday night, Xander was singing me a preview of one of his songs. He told me, “parents can come too!” and since apparently I only have a few years left of boys wanting me there, I moved some things around so I could go to the performance.

It was a half day of school, so when the morning was over, my mom and I took the boys out to lunch and then they got to come home and play all afternoon!

Thursday was the first day of MEA break, and it was a full day of rest and relaxing. Nate golfed. I worked. The boys played with Sam and Abby, built a whole city with magnatiles and cardboard, spent some time drawing, and just hung out. I think a “boring” day every now and then is really good and the boys enjoyed being able to do whatever they wanted all day.

On Friday, we loaded up the van and headed up North. My aunt and uncle have a beautiful cabin just 45 minutes away and I was super grateful they let us use it for the weekend. The Nelson family joined us for a night and we had a blast!

The Nelson’s arrived shortly after we did on Friday, and we headed right to the nearby park which was awesome and had some super fast slides and a gliding swing. The weather was amazing. Christine managed to take the funniest photo of me I’ve ever seen- not flattering, but HILARIOUS. We had a crazy busy day of playing nonstop, fishing, throwing rocks and playing on the beach, playing games, water color painting, eating snacks, dinner, a campfire with s’mores, a movie night for the kids and game night for the adults (and KT). It was a literal perfect day!

On Saturday, the kids played nonstop, the boys went fishing again, the girls painted some more, Christine, KT and I worked on a very hard puzzle, more playing on the beach… it was so fun! In the afternoon, the Nelson’s headed home and we headed to the Taylor’s Falls Scenic Boat tours for a boat ride. The weather was warm and breezy. The colors were pretty. The boys got to climb on the rocks before and after the tour. It was so great. Afterwards, we went out to dinner and then headed back to the cabin for some relaxing and a slightly earlier bedtime than the night before.

Today we packed up and headed back home. We missed the puppies, but Nanny Shyanna had spent the weekend with them and I know they were well cared for. It was so much fun to get away for a few days and I’m so grateful the Nelson family could join us and that we had such amazing weather and that we could use the cabin.

Christine, KT and I didn’t finish the puzzle we started, so I carefully brought it home leaving as much of it assembled as I could. I started working on it this afternoon and then KT joined me and pretty soon, it was almost dinner time but we were SO close to being done. Grandma Debbie had come over for dinner and she was helping and then Augustus got into it too and then we were all committed to finishing it. Xander was NOT into it and said, “I am so hungry, I practically have tears coming out of my eyes!” which probably makes me a terrible mother that I was focused on a puzzle, instead of feeding my starving baby, but in my defense, it was 5:45, so dinner wasn’t THAT late.

We completed the puzzle (minus 6 pieces- beware of free puzzles!) and had dinner and no one starved to death in the process.

What a great weekend!!

October is here and we had a great week!

The boys were busy with school, video games, coloring, playing outside (we had a few nice days and a few cold days), our last tennis lesson, very fancy birthday lightsabers from Brad and Angela, and being excited for Xander’s birthday party.

Saturday the day finally arrived for Xander’s Roblox themed 7th birthday. I can’t believer our baby is 7! Roblox is an online video game that allows you to complete a variety of tasks and be in different worlds. I don’t totally understand it, but Xander and Augustus both enjoy it. We started our party crafting our own avatars- coloring, glueing, and decorating. From there we moved outside (luckily the weather cooperated) and did 10 different games. If you participated, you earned 1-2 “robux” which are the money in the game. I had made stickers and the kids were super into collecting them and sticking them on their scorecards. We did a variety of games including cone smash (smash the ice cream cone and then complete the challenge written on small paper inside), team keepy-uppy (keep a beach ball in the air for 10 hits- they didn’t even get close, but they still got their sticker), ring toss, bean bag toss, shoot a target with a nerf gun, egg in spoon (actually ping pong ball in spoon, and then a more challenging version where the spoon was in their mouth), balloon between their knees and then they had to pop it, cheeseballs onto Nate’s head, and dig the worm out of pudding (they had the option of using their face or holding a spoon in their teeth to dig it out that way- Gussie was the only one who did it face first).

We had robo-theme snacks half way through and once all the games were done, they got to use their robux to buy prizes. I wish I had remembered to take a photo of the prizes, but they were VERY excited to “buy” the best prizes! We had ice cream cake and then the kids ran around and played soccer and in the playroom until 3pm. We had some fun treat bags and then everyone headed home!

Success. My favorite picture from the day had a wall of parents photographing their children. I got several nice text messages after the party. …However… it’s never simple when it comes to kiddos… About 1.5 hours into a 3 hour party, Xander’s eye was all of a sudden really goopy. I knew instantly that it was pink eye (I was a camp director- I know stuff like this) but I was giving the universe the benefit of the doubt it was just junk in his eye. I cleaned it out and crossed my fingers. But a few minutes later, it was goopy again. Dang it. So as I’m leading the kids through the next game, I’m frantically weighing my options in my head. Do I tell all of the very excited kids that the rest of the games, the prizes, the cake, etc were done and party is over, or do I go on with the show?! Since they had already all been exposed and there wasn’t really any physical contact ahead, I decided to continue. I’m still crossing my fingers that no children end up with pink eye. Despite the communicable disease, Xander had a lot of fun.

The party ended and I was EXHAUSTED. But being a mom means that after entertaining kids for 3 hours, you are rewarded by making a special dinner for the birthday boy. And then after that, you get to take said birthday boy to after hours urgent care for drops. Once I handed him my phone, he was relatively calm about our evening field trip. We got the drops and headed home. What a Saturday!

Today the boys ran around and played with Sam and Abby for most of the day. Nate and the boys went to Harvey’s house to watch football for a few hours and I organized and baked. When the boys got home, we decorated the front of our house for Halloween (yes, I did find bulldog skeletons, thank you very much) and then it was more playing outside with Sam and Abby.

We’ve got an average week ahead and I am so glad!

It was the last week of September and it was a fantastic week! The boys had tennis lessons, Gussie had swim lessons, we had conferences for all 3 boys (all of them went SUPER well!), we spent a lot of time playing outside after school, and after a few weeks off, I got back to baking (Halloween macaron boxes coming soon!).

This was the second to last week of tennis lessons. All 4 boys seem to have a ton of fun while they are there, but all 4 complain before the have to go and claim they hate tennis. None of the parents can figure it out. Next week is the last lesson and I’m thinking we won’t repeat tennis again. Gussie is ROCKING swim lessons and he is actually swimming! He is doing so well and I am proud of him.

The boys are both obsessed with Roblox and luckily have a teenager who can help them when they get stuck, because I don’t have any idea how these games work.

1st grade is way more serious than kindergarten and Xander has to read out loud every night- he is doing SO well and we can see progress even since the beginning of the school year. It is amazing to watch him grow before our eyes!

Today was both the Twin Cities 10 mile and also Xander’s 7th birthday! When Xander found out I was running on his birthday, he said, “so the race is like a tribute to me!” So today we referred to it as “the Xander tribute Twin Cities 10 mile race”. 10 years ago, for Heather’s bachelorette party, we ran the TC10 mile. I wasn’t much of a runner then, and I had to train hard for the race. I don’t remember it being THAT hard though. For their 10 year anniversary, we decided to run it again. I have been running way more, but it wasn’t easy! I didn’t have a goal for a certain finish time- I am proud of myself for running 10 miles at 40 years old. It wasn’t easy, but it was a fun day and I was happy to see Nate and the boys at the finish. Also, I was just happy to see the finish line!

After the race, we had birthday brunch and Xander opened his gift from Danny and Heather. The weather was GLORIOUS today and it was a great start to the day!

This afternoon, Gussie and I headed to Phoebe’s 5th birthday party. It was held at a gymnastics gym and it was SUCH a fun party. They showed the kids how to use all of the areas and then let them run free to jump, bounce, roll, and flip around. He was in heaven!

When we got home from the birthday party, Grandma Debbie was at our house for Xander’s birthday dinner and chocolate mousse dessert. Next week is his birthday party, so today was pretty low key as far as birthdays go.

And now it’s October. I am crossing my fingers the weather holds out another week, but it might be getting cold soon.