Sheltered Celebrations - Gunnar Turns 7!

We are quarantined through a pandemic but that won’t stop us from fun birthday celebrations.  Gunnar is 7 today!!  Time flies!  He is still a sweet boy that goes back and forth between wanting to play with stuffed animals and his little sister or heading out to play sports and games with his big brother.  It’s hard to be the middle child but he does a great job.  Gunnar can read and write in both Spanish and English, has fun baking, likes to sing along to songs from The Greatest Showman, and he loves  Legos, Hot Wheels and remote control cars, boats, drones, etc.  Gunnar’s laughter is contagious and his helpful nature always has him ready for a fun house project.  His favorite sport to play is baseball (he got me a new mit for Mother’s Day) and fortunately for me he still likes to cuddle.

Today we tried to make his birthday as special as possible since there are no parties to be had these days. So upon a few requests of Gunnar’s and some creative effort on our part we had a full and fun day.  After e-learning was complete Gunnar had a day full of.......

French toast (technically before school)

Presents throughout the day with a clue for each one so he could find where they were hidden.

Happy meals for lunch

Social distancing celebration with friends and family driving, walking, scootering, biking, and even skating by to wish him happy birthday. 

Dinner of steak and mac&cheese

And mint chocolate chip ice cream cake 

What more can a 7 year old ask for?!

We can’t wait to see what this next year bring!  I’ve got my fingers crossed for haircuts soon.....ha!

Tooth Fairy Time!

We are going to get a visit from the Tooth Fairy tonight!  First lost tooth for Gunnar Ben.

Spring Break 2020

Spring break 2020 is in the books!  Now, this has been one like no other but before I dive in I want to recap spring break 2019 (because I don’t think I ever did).

Last year we made memories in Austin, TX because Rich had to be down there for work anyway.  Austin wasn’t somewhere we had dreamed of taking the kids but it has warmer weather than Chicago and was easy to justify going down there a few days before Rich had to be there anyway. We didn’t have high expectations, only went for 4 or 5 nights and just looked forward to getting away for a bit.  Turns out it was a fantastic vacation and we are hoping to go back!  These photos make it easy to see why we all loved it.

We traveled as a team even though it was a late night.

We had breakfast at a random place that had cool outdoor seating and fun things to play with.

Oh....Flat Stanley traveled with us (we brought him along for our friend, Wes, who lives in Kansas City.

 

Caught a hike around a lake (where we even got to see a crew team practicing).

And then we made it to our resort and it was perfect for our little family.  Longhorn steers were one of the main attractions......fake and real.


This is Ribeye.  His buddy T-Bone was also part of the animals on site.


Made a quick drive by the state capitol and watched bats fly out from one of the famous bridges.


We made friends with the baby goats.  They were appropriately named Hank, Johnny, Willie and Waylan..


The boys went horseback riding for the first time!


A parting selfie (including our own Ribeye) before leaving.



Now, back to 2020.  We had grand plans of spending the week at the beach in Clearwater, FL but due to COVID-19 and the shelter in place orders we had to cancel.  So what do you do when the kids don’t have school and you are literally stuck at home??  Well....I worked a little, kids played games inside and out, we tried out some new recipes (great biscuits!), Rich built us a raised garden in the back yard and oh yeah......we got a puppy!  The kids have been wanting a dog for a while and without any extracurriculars or work travel we seem to have the time, so why not?!  Welcome to the family, Scout!

Yes, we put up the tent to play in.

Brought our pup home on Tuesday and we all love him.










Dyed Easter eggs!




Made amazingly perfect biscuits (thanks to Joanna Gaines’ recipe)!  


Happy Easter!


I made Easter dinner and we all even showered and put on real clothes.  Big day!


We hope you all are well and making the best out of our current shelter in place status.  And if anyone has any house training tips for a puppy, please let us know.

COVID-19....Here We Go!

Well, I never in a million years imagined our world dramatically coming to a halt due to a virus but here we are. I hope all of you reading this are healthy and safe.  We are healthy and in the midst of planning and adjusting to what will be a very new schedule starting tomorrow.  Rich and I will both be working from home primarily (with the exception of a few needed in person meetings) and the kids will be doing e-learning from home.  Our schools are closed for the next month while our restaurants and bars will be closed for at least 2 weeks.  

Good luck to all of you during this Corona virus pandemic!  Keep your fingers crossed for us as we navigate being employees and now teachers at home.  

Hang on tight!  This is going to be an interesting ride!

Love you all!!

Midwest Winter

Well.....we are already sneaking up on the end of February and this is my first post of the year.  Yikes!  Our winter thus far has been full of work travel for me and Rich and school, swimming, ice skating and gymnastics for the kids.  Luckily our winter has been pretty mild (probably because I prepared myself with new winter boots and coat) but that means we haven’t even been sledding yet this year.

We spent New Years in Nashville at the Opryland resort!  Fun with friends and indoor water parks.

Rich and I finally rode the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier.  I’ve lived her practically 20 years and I had never ridden it so Rich got us tickets for our anniversary.  He’s a keeper!




The boys are learning to ice skate.  Their parents can’t teach them and skating is a common birthday party option up here with all the hockey kids.  Needless to say...they aren’t naturals so they may be taking this class again.


We have had one snow this year that allowed Hazel to make a mini snow man.


I road tripped to Indiana with the kids for one of Zach’s swim meets.  Being new to the sport, we learned a lot at this race.  Biggest lesson......be sure your swimmer checks in before hitting the pool deck!  We made the best of the weekend and cozied up at the hotel for a movie night.




Cub Scouts has the boys building pinewood derby cars and racing again this year.  They both did pretty well!

This guy got glasses!  He just needs them for reading but he has a whole new confidence when he wears them.


We have made a few trips to the kids museum (thanks Nana)!

Hazel has made her way around the block on the tricycle several times now.


And she clearly really really wants a dog!  Majority of her classmates filled in the first blank with “mommy” but not Hazel.  She loves dogs.


And finally Zach worked really hard to raise funds for his swim team.  Thank you to all of you that donated and supported him in his efforts.  He swam 102 lengths of the pool in 1 hour at his team Swimarathon.  We were really proud of him for setting a goal and going after a challenge and he was really excited!


This weekend is filled by another swim meet but I think after this one life will settle a little.  Maybe?  At least until baseball and soccer season start up?  Swim lessons, gymnastics and scouts will keep us going along with some work travel mixed in.  This phase is life certainly is busy!  Fingers crossed that I remember to post an update next month.  My goal is once a month.  One day maybe I’ll even print all these posts out.