Budding Popstar

Elsa started listening to Christmas music tonight, because why not? She asked me if there was any Thanksgiving music, and I told her I didn't know. She told me she was going to write a Thanksgiving song when she's a popstar! She asked me how she would do it and I told her she could start now, by writing the words of the song on paper. I then told her she could use the piano to create the music for it and that I would write the notes down for her. She proceeded to sing me a song she made up. She is so fun right now, super creative.

Elsa also informed me that she was thinking about what it would be like to be a famous sculptor. She said she would make a mini Mount Rushmore and that someone would buy it for $100 and she would become famous. I love her big dreams ❤!

One More Question

I love listening to Adam and Elsa at bedtime. They have this great routine where after books and prayers, Elsa says to Adam, "I have a question for you." Some are funny, some are deep, some are super random. But for every one she asks (and there are a lot!), Adam patiently talks to her about it. And she always ends with "one last question, Dad."

Prayers

Two nights ago Elsa was playing with the neighbor girl, Tia. Shannon, Tia's mom, sent me a note that the girls told her that they saw the Mayo Clinic helicopter fly over and they stopped to pray for it. Oh so sweet!

In the dog house

Kale thought it would be funny to lock Nolan in the kennel with Mazy. Nolan found it funny, but really? In all that dog hair? And Mazy had no reaction at all. Boys will be boys, I guess!

Recycle

Elsa completed an assignment for school on Wednesday, where she had to think and write down all the items we recycle. She drew a picture to go with it. The picture proudly shows me recycling my beer came. Such a proud mom moment!

Easy and hard

 Kale went to a neighbor's house on Sunday afternoon. Shortly after leaving he was back at home again, clearly upset. Adam and I tried to get him to open up about what happened. It turns out, in Kale's words, "Dad happened". Sigh. I'm sure we are not the only parent's who wrestle with screen time, age appropriate video games, etc. As I reminded Adam - we are not here to be a friend to our kids, but to parent (which is a heck of a lot harder!). Luckily Kale bounced back. I'm sure this won't be the last time something like this pops up, especially as we inch closer to the teenage years!

On the other side of the fence sits Elsa. She came home yesterday so excited to share that the school counselor talked to her class about things they love. Elsa shared that she loves "holding hands with mom", "kissing mom goodnight", and "wrestling with dad". I sometimes wish we could bottle her up right now - she is such a bright light!

Old

Elsa asked me if I used candlelight for light when I grew up. Her perception of "long ago" needs a little work!

She's Baaa-aack!

I drove to pick up Elsa from my mom and dad today. She was the first passenger in their new car, which was very exciting. She talked my ear off the entire drive back home, and didn't stop talking until after dinner. She sewed her own pillow and blanket (with help from grandma), baked three small loaves of banana bread for her and her brothers and a large loaf for me and Adam, made magnets, an Easter bunny, and paper Easter eggs. She took a long adventure walk with grandma to the woods, rode her scooter and watched a few movies with grandma and grandpa. She said she had the best time and had the best dream ever, where her hair turned unicorn rainbows. 

We thought all was well until I decided to try a new way to decorate Easter eggs. We put rice in a bag, added food coloring and then shook the egg in it. It worked just fine, but Elsa was extremely disappointed in the whole thing. She told me that I "ruined Easter". Then she started sobbing uncontrollably and stomped to her bedroom. 

Adam tried to talk to her and even tried to make her feel better by fixing Forky (the fork from Toy Story 4). Well, when he tried to glue on Forky's foot the other foot (made of popsicle sticks) fell off, too. More sobbing commenced and we gave up. I just sent Kale in to her bedroom to check on her. I'm going to guess that she worked so hard the last few days and was on her best behavior that she is simply exhausted.

Elsa will be heading back to St. Cloud on Sunday for a few more days of distanc learning with grandma and grandpa. She goes back to school on April 7th. Fingers crossed we can get through the last two months of school with no more quarantines!

Quarantine

Nolan was finally able to go back to school last Thursday. Unfortunately, Elsa is in quarantine again as of last Wednesday. I got a call from the school around 9:20, letting me know there was an exposure in Elsa's classroom and that I had to come pick up Elsa from school as soon as possible. (the whole class was sent home). Another switch to distance learning. Elsa was a little sad when I picked her up - I don't think she knew what was really going on. Her teacher did a great job of getting the students out the door with all their learning materials for the next two weeks. Thankfully it's a short week this week - only two days of school. We got Elsa tested for COVID on Saturday, and the results came back negative. Grandma Paula and Grandpa Tom are fully vaccinated, so they were happy to take Elsa for a few days this week to coordinate and help out with her distance learning. She was so excited to get her own "Grandma and Grandpa camp"! 

Something that caught me off guard was when Elsa logged in to her math google meets last Wednesday. Her teacher made a comment that she was so happy to be able to see the kids faces, after only seeing them in masks for the school year. The teacher even asked the kids to smile! It broke my heart a little bit to be reminded that the connection teachers crave (like as smile) have been missing this year. 

We had a fun weekend. I got to watch our niece Lalayna dance with her high school dance group on Friday night. It was a smaller crowd due to the socially distancing - we were all spaced out. It was a great show and Lalayna really shined up on the stage - even with a mask on the whole time! My mom and dad came down to celebrate Hattie, Lola and Nolan's birthdays. It was so good to see them and not have to mask up since they are fully vaccinated. Adam and I are fully vaccinated too, so I feel like we can see the light at the end of the COVID tunnel.  

Where do the years go?

And just like that, 6 years have flown by since my last entry in our blog. I've decided now is a good time to start again, on the day that Nolan turns 12! 

Nolan turns 12 today. He is an amazing kid and makes us proud. He is kind, thoughtful, funny and active. His favorite things are playing with the neighbor kids and playing on the Xbox. He does really well in school, despite the strange circumstances of the last COVID year. He's playing trumpet in the 6th grade band (interesting because they have to "mask up" the instruments) and did 3 months with the Marlins swim team at the Y. Even though he's growing up, he's still a kid at heart. 

Today Elsa and Adam painted the bench swing from Ellen and Greg's old house in Chaska. Adam got it hung up under the deck and it is perfect. Adam has a lot of memories of the swing, so we're excited to have it up and using it at our place.

The kids have really been enjoying looking through the five years of blog books we have printed out. While I'm not sure how often I'll do it, I plan to pick it up again and add a few thoughts a week to the blog.  

Holding hands

Tonight Nolan and I went to Lalayna's dance recital. We had to park a long way from the door, so when we were walking through the parking lot I told Nolan to hold my hand.

N: Mom, I like holding your hand.
M: Me, too, buddy! Did you know that there will come a time in a few years where you're not going to want to hold my hand?
N: Why?
M: Because when you get older parent's aren't as cool and you don't want to be around us as much.
N: Why?
M: I don't know, but it happens to everyone.
N: I will want to hold your every day!

I'm glad he said that because last Thursday he hold me I was "so mean":)

Manners

It's always a proud parent moment when another parent compliments you on your kid. Kale attended his first friend birthday party today. When I dropped him off he greeted the mom right away. I asked him what he should say to the birthday boy. He said "thank you", not the happy birthday I was expecting! The mom asked me before the party even started if Kale could stay later. When I picked him up from the party the Mom thanked me for letting Kale stay and said that he is such a great kid to have over at their house. This was after Kale asked if he could give the birthday boy a hug goodbye, and then thanked him for letting him come to his party. On the way to the car Kale told me he was really good and used his manners. In between all the tough times there are these little moments that shine through!

4 months old!

Elsa and her buddy, Georgette.
Her friend Bennet borrowed
us his monkey, because I
accidentally packed ours away!

Happy St. Patrick's day!

Hard to believe it's been 4 months already - our little peanut is getting so big!  She has finally started to fit better in the bumbo chair, and has recently started grabbing and hanging on to toys.  She loves the toy in the picture below. Thankfully Nolan and Kale took good care of it!  She is eating 5 oz. and still spits up, but we know she's gaining weight based on our recent dr. visits!  Kale still loves her like crazy and has recently started calling her honey, and Nolan could pretty much take her or leave her.  At least he says good morning and good night to her!

She has finally developed a little fat roll on her arm,
as well as dimples in her elbows. You can see
the roll on her leg, too!

She loves banging all all the buttons that make noise

Kale and his "honey" and "cutie"

Progress

Well, we did it.  We successfully moved about 75% of our belongings to Adam's parents 3rd stall garage space.  We are so thankful for the extra storage space - our house actually looks big again!  We moved 8 large boxes and storage bins of toys, in addition to the train table, basketball hoop and other miscellaneous large toys.  It will be nice for the boys to actually have a smaller selection of toys to pick from - and to clean up!  I drove them up to St. Cloud on Friday after work, and we just got home from picking them up.  They were pretty surprised to see the house as empty as it is!  It's weird, because there is definitely an echo to every room.  The photographer is coming to take pictures tomorrow, in hopes that it will be on the market early this week.  Wish us luck!

Double ear infection

Elsa had a super fussy weekend, which has led to a lot of sleepless nights for us this week.  It was to the point that she has been crying uncontrollably for 1/2 hour periods of time, and we can't get her to calm down. It finally clicked today when Jane called and noticed that she was pretty fussy and crying a lot when she was laying down.  I made an appointment for her this afternoon and sure enough, her first ear infection didn't clear up and now she has a double ear infection!  I knew it was bad when our NP said her right ear was bulging.  We have a brand new prescription of augmentin in hopes this will take care of it.  The good news is that she has gotten that much closer to breaking the 11 lb mark - 10 lbs, 14 oz!

She did manage to crack a few smiles this weekend!

I want to see you move...

Well, it's official - we're moving south!  I accepted a new job a few weeks ago as the Asst. Director of HR for compensation, benefits and payroll at MN State University, Mankato.  I am very excited for the new challenges this job will offer, but we have a lot of stuff to do on our current homefront.  We told the boys our exciting news last night - and were pleasantly surprised by their reaction.  As soon as Kale heard "Mankato", his first words were - "that's where Yoya (Lola) lives!"  Nolan immediately started talking about all the new friends he'll make and the new school he gets to go to. We didn't tell them until we had a chance to tell Jane.  We thought it would be helpful if she could talk to them about it, too. It was so sweet this morning when I dropped the kids off at Jane's house.  Kale looked at her and said, "I'm going to miss you so much, Jane".  I told her we are all going to miss Jane a lot.  I know we will never replace her - she is one of a kind!

We have a lot of stuff to start working on in the meantime - like starting to pack and clean out our house so it can be put on the market!  I've been a bit overwhelmed just thinking about it, so I haven't done a whole lot yet. Luckily I have a pretty fantastic husband who is also excited about the move and has already been working on some of the not so fun tasks - like cleaning out the laundry room and storage room!  We made the decision earlier this week to send the kids to my parent's house for the weekend, so we can focus on cleaning and packing.  We're going to have to stay focused, especially since we're both running in the Get Lucky 7K race in Minneapolis Saturday morning!

Bowling

The kids had a great time at the daycare bowling party today.  It was Nolan and Kale's first time, and they both really liked it.  Shock of all shocks, though - Nolan had a lot more patience than Kale!

It's Tricky

Movie makers have totally figured out how to get kids to listen to music.  The boys always equate a song to the title of the movie it's in - for example, the Turbo song is It's Tricky by Run-DMC.  Today on the way home from daycare Kale requested the Turbo song.  It was amazing to listen to him sing "It's Tricky", and tell me his favorite part is "I met a little girlie". At least he has good taste in music!

Santa and Jesus

This morning on the way to daycare the boys were discussing how fun it was that Elsa was talking.  I asked Kale what he thought Elsa was talking about and he said "I think she's talking about you, mommy".  I asked Nolan the same thing and he said, "I'm pretty sure she's talking about Santa and Jesus".

Activity mat fun

Elsa is becoming so much fun.  Today for the first time she grabbed at a toy and held on to it.  I love watching her eyes get big when she figures something out!  Jane said she is doing the same thing there, and has really gotten the hang at swatting at the toys on her activity mat!