Lately

A quick rundown of what we've been up to these last few weeks....

It got cold. I mean real cold. So we did what normal people do and we went to eat ice cream. Had the whole place to ourselves!

This same beyond frigid weekend (did I mention Matt was working?), we also coped by hitting our favorite brunch spot after church.

One Sunday evening I got to be on call for Matt. Well, sort of. He had to go up to MSP to stay the night and work there the next day and was still on call here, but they were unable to reroute his pager, so I had to function as the go between and call him on his cell phone if his paper went off. I don't remember anything about this sort of responsibility in our marriage vows.

Matt had a birthday and turned 38 (old man). More on that in another post. For now, know that Adrienne helped me with his requested cake (turtle ice cream pie), and that the girls were delighted to give him the game 'Pie Face' as a gift. Lots of laughs.

Adrienne had another play date with her friend, Paige. These two get along SO well and have a nice little friendship developing.

Jillian had her first basketball game. She thinks they won because she made a basket.  Here she is dribbling up the court. Watching 1st and 2nd graders try to play basketball is quite the painful, er I mean entertaining experience.

Jillian had her first playdate with a friend from school after her game. She and Noah are such good buddies. This was the first time that she's had a playdate with or been to someone's house that I don't personally know well (outside of a birthday party), so we are moving into this new season of parenting and trying to figure out how we handle this as our kids choose their own friends.  Noah's mom happens to be a social worker, so she gave me all the info I would want to know and I didn't even have to ask! Whew. They had a fabulous time together and his mom sent me this adorable picture of them together.

We've experienced a lot of bath shenanigans this month. Twice (twice!) Adrienne has gotten her hands on a full bottle of something (the kid wash below, and then my shampoo) and dumped nearly the entire bottle into my bathtub so she could have some "suds". Jillian was present the first time and allowed it to happen, her excuse being "You weren't in the room so I'm sure you couldn't hear me if I yelled to you". Nice try, kid. Adrienne coughed up some dough to pay me for this shenanigan. Let the punishment fit the crime.

Jillian won a Terrific Kid award at school last week. This month's award focused on being trustworthy. I was able to go to the assembly and surprise her. Here she is with all the first graders who won the award.

And guess who the other classmate was who won the award??? Yep, her friend Noah! As if the award wasn't enough, she found out that she moved up a reading level (which is a very big deal) that same day. Her teacher sent me an email later telling me that she overheard her telling Noah "Noah, this is like THE BEST DAY EVER! I am a Terrific Kid AND I moved up to 2R!" Super cute.

Grammy and Grandad came up to spend the weekend with us. We all enjoyed their visit and had fun taking them to J's basketball game, to Newts, church, brunch, etc. I gave Grammy the honor of helping Jillian with her homework. I was glad to not have to be the recipient of all the whining and complaining for once.

Also this month--Adrienne (who has been learning about the solar system in her science class at preschool) told Matt that the biggest planet is called "Cupider". She may have misnamed Jupiter, but we think NASA should consider using Cupider as the official name for Planet Nine. And I got a nice tongue lashing from my 7 year old the other night as Jillian yelled "You are making my life miserable!!!!" at me for the first time. Man, things are going to get interesting over here in the teen years.

Little Megan

Adrienne is so much like my sister Megan was as a child. So much, sometimes, that I would swear she belongs to her if I didn't remember birthing her myself. I see this resemblance in many ways--mostly in her sense of humor and ornery personality (and if you'll recall, her disaster of a bathroom sink). Recently, Adrienne started a new form of play that has "Megan" written all over it and is quickly depleting our toilet paper supply. When we were kids, Megan used to "cast" our Barbies with wet toilet paper. They always had some sort of dire injury that required her services, and we still laugh when thinking about all the dried up toilet paper scraps my mom would find on the floor later on. To my knowledge, Megan has never 'trained' Adrienne, nor have I ever mentioned this to her. So, imagine my giggle when I found this a few weeks ago.

Yes, poor Draculaura had a run-in with "mean Elsa" who "freezed her head".

I love how she made sure to rip a hole so Draculaura could see through the bandage. Also, is it customary for an attacker to visit her victim as she recovers?

On another night, I went up for my pre-bedtime check and found this poor kitty from a Happy Meal in dire straights, taped to the "hospital bed" while Maleficient reigned supreme.

Things must have gotten worse for Draculaura. The next bandage was much more severe and vision occluding.

And last night, the mother of all sights left me nearly rolling on the floor laughing.

Draculaura is having a really hard month. The hospital budget must be tight, because now Dr. Adrienne has resorted to using washcloths, painters tape (where she found this, I have no idea)...and wait for it....a pair of her own underwear. Let's hope they were clean. Keep fighting the good fight, Draculaura! You've got this.

Hoop Dreams

Jillian decided she'd like to try basketball for her winter activity, so after some thought, I signed her up for Champion Basketball which is a Christian organization geared toward teaching kids fundamentals, giving equal play time, etc. She is on a team with 1st and 2nd grade girls, and was sooooo excited for her first practice tonight. As I cleaned out her backpack this afternoon, I found a list she made during her free time at school. I asked her about it and she said "Oh, that's just my basketball plan". This makes me smile more than I can say....

The other side of the paper contained this picture depicting the girls smashing the boys in a game. So cute. Girls rule!

Jillian was over the moon to learn that her friend and classmate, Cate, is on her team. Cate's older sister has played in this league before so she had lots of advice for Jillian. Jillian at the last minute told me that "Cate says I have to have tall socks". Well, she didn't own any tall socks, except for soccer socks. So that's what she wore. We got to the gym and she was just bursting at the seams with excitement. Here she is with Cate just before practice began.

After practice, sporting her game jersey....over the moon with excitement. She has two more practices, then will start games every Saturday through March. Let the fun begin!

The Rest of Christmas Break

Matt miraculously had the entirety of Jillian's Christmas break off of work, so we had lots of togetherness.

The day after Christmas, Matt took the girls to spend their gift cards from Grandma and Pop Pop, and we put in a family effort to assemble a jigsaw puzzle before teaching the girls to play one of our favorite games--Camel Up!

On Sunday, we hastily packed up a few days early and headed to Des Moines.  Winter Storm Goliath was threatening to get in the way of original plans, so since we had the time, we just skipped town. Jane Fonda, er I mean Adrienne, came along too.

Adrienne rode this way for a solid 30 minutes in protest of her sister's music choice. It's hard to take turns.

The girls had a fabulous reunion with Grammy and Grandad--they hadn't seen them since July! We went out for pizza after we arrived, then spent a fun day indoors Monday while it snowed...baking cookies, having tea parties, and crafting.

On Tuesday, Grandpa and Debbie made the trek up to see us. We met them for dinner and then enjoyed a leisurely stroll around Bass Pro before they headed to their hotel.

On Wednesday morning, we met Grandpa and Debbie again and had a delicious brunch at the Iowa Machine Shed before they headed back south. We managed a family picture...with a pig.

On Wednesday evening, the cousins arrived! The girls were so excited to see Jack and Bryce, and to meet Baby James. We then had 4 days of family bonding and chaotic kid fun. Love to see how much the kids enjoy each other!

Jack holding James for the first time...

My girls curled up watching a movie. Sometimes they look so much alike that I have to do a double take.

These eyes make my uterus hurt. Have mercy.

As per tradition, Grandad ensured the grandkids had Krispy Kremes for breakfast every day. Nothing like a sugar high to start the day!

The biggest and the littlest

 Bryce has a very systematic way to enjoy the donuts.

On New Year's Eve morning we opened gifts. Grammy delivered BIG TIME with Descendants pajamas for the girls!

And Adrienne was SO excited to finally get the Ice Power Elsa from cousin James. She asked me several times why Santa 'forgot' to get that for her since she specifically asked him for it...couldn't tell her he 'forgot' because Aunt Mal already purchased it for her.

Wonder Baby soothing himself to sleep.

Adrienne got a doll who shares her name--big stuff!

After snow play each day, Grammy hooked the kids up with hot chocolate, peppermint spoons, marshmallows, cookies, you name it. Do you see why my kids always cry when they come home??

 More Wonder Baby shots.

Jillian received Twister from G and G, so she and Jack enjoyed playing together...with Aunt Mal being a good sport about joining in. I volunteered to be the spinner. Love Jack's sticker face.

I have  no pictures of NYE, but we celebrated with a Birnbaum (actually longstanding Siebenmorgen) tradition of dessert waffles, sausage, bacon, and eggs for dinner. When we were kids we'd always have this at midnight at my grandparents'. None of us were hot on the idea of keeping ours up until then, so we settled for 6 and everyone enjoyed the meal. Not everyone made it until midnight, but a handful of us rang in the New Year playing games before heading to bed around 1.

On New Year's Day, the boys went to see Star Wars and us girls stayed back to wrangle the kids. Aunt Meggie and Aunt Mal are way better at crafts than I am, so we made Fairy Dough to play with and some salt dough hand/foot print ornaments. The three big kids enjoyed this a bunch. Bryce and James were napping, so missed the fun on this one.

Boys movie theater selfie

Toasting to the New Year--forgot to do it on NYE so an afternoon cocktail while kid wrangling seemed appropriate for us girls.

On Saturday we tried to get some pics of the grandkids with G and G. It was not entirely successful. We had goofiness and some threenager drama, and just general chaos that is always involved when you have 5 kids 7 and under to deal with. Not to mention the grandparents who can't seem to look at the camera the whole time. The memories and pics are priceless...and make me smile. Lots 'o love in their arms, for sure.

Jack was cracking me up with his flashing..."hey look at my shirt!"

Aunt Mal looks surprised...Aunt Meggie looks stressed. Uncle John is in the background, across the table from Matt...they did a really good job of ignoring the madness and pretending like they didn't care about anything other than their Summoner Wars board game battle.

Threenagers do. not. like. pictures. Poor Bryce!

 Pay attention, Mom! Why is your phone out???

As good as it gets.

 Bryce finally made his escape...so 4 out of 5 ain't bad, I guess.

 Grandad and James didn't get the silly face memo on this one.

Also on Saturday, the girls made a quick escape to Target.

Somehow, on the way to Target, we got distracted and ended up stopping for a beer....gotta take advantage of some Daddy Daycare when you can! 

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at home, enjoying a pizza party, and starting to pack up for home.

Matt wanted to know why no one ever wanted pictures of the boys. So, here you go. Sons-in-laws.

My favorite picture of the week....don't forget our "brother", Urban. Meow!!

Santa Kitty and Grammy....

Such a blessing to be able to spend so much time together this year. We ended our break by coming home to about 14 loads of laundry and a frantic run to the store to cook/prep some uber healthy meals to start detoxing from all our holiday indiscretions. It's been real, 2015. You were full of fun and blessings and growth. Happy 2016!