Our beloved Maddie

Friends - I'm so sorry - I went on hiatus for 10 months. I guess life got in the way and I let it go. That's stinky of me. SO VERY MUCH has happened in 10 months. Hadley went from toddler bed to full sized big kid bed, turned 3, and is pretty much talking like a grown up (I MAY be known to exaggerate from time to time). Morgan has all of the sensitive 5 year old feelings, is reading, and looks like she may be 8 years old, not 5.

I digress - I'll get to all those fun, important details another time because I'm going to try my best to post 1-2x/week from now on. I can't keep missing all the fun stuff.

Yesterday was the hardest day the Schmidt family has endured in our 8 years (well, technically if you count dating time, it's almost 14 years, but who's counting? #me). Long story short, Maddie, our first fur baby, was feeling sort of yucky at the beginning of the last week in January so we kept an eye on her and decided to take her in on Wednesday. She was misdiagnosed with a respiratory infection and given meds. We took her back Friday as she had not improved and was getting worse. X-rays were negative and we were told to wait for the meds to kick in fully. Saturday saw a slight surge - a few ear perks, a quick step here or there...but lots of bad. Lots of fast breathing, no rest, she couldn't lay down, vomiting...and it just wasn't getting better or changing. Sunday was worse so we decided to go for a second opinion on Monday morning. Adam took her at 8:30 and within a very short time and a blood test, it was determined that she likely had a form of cancer and didn't have a chance to make it. Her liver and kidneys had pretty much already shut down or were thisclose to doing so and we couldn't save her. Devastation. Our first fur baby. The first one besides Adam and I to cross the threshold of our house as a member of the family. She was only 8; not even a chance to be old yet.

We decided to take her home so the girls could say goodbye to her and have closure. Hadley was with Grandpa Al at tumbling so I had him just bring her home. I stopped to get Morgan on my way home from work. Once we got home, we told Morgan who was devastated. We told Hadley when she got home, who thought about it and then asked, "So we only gonna have one dog?" Both reacted exactly how the countless websites I checked while waiting for test results said they would. We said tearful goodbyes, Al kept the girls at home, and Adam and I took her in.

The staff at Riverside Animal Hospital will be getting a sincere thank you from us shortly. They were calm and kind to us during this impossible time. Everything was so peaceful and hard and awful, but they went above and beyond. I don't think I could do their jobs and have to see this often. It's heartbreaking.

It was peaceful to see her not struggling for breath anymore. It was heartbreaking to know she wasn't going to be taking any breaths again. It kills us to think she's not going to be dodging crazy Jessie antics anymore. The pain of only hearing one set of tags jingling up the stairs hurts. Accidentally calling Jessie by Maddie's name is excruciating. Putting only one dog in her kennel at night is brutal. Dogs are truly a part of the family. Truly I say to you.

We are struggling and it hurts to write all this down. It's so permanent. I count to 2 on a daily basis no less than 10x on a weekday (kids or dogs, you pick), 100x on a weekend. It's awful that I only have to count to one for one of those groups now.

Will we get another and have two? I can't answer that right now. For now, we're mourning Maddie and praising God we were able to have her in our lives for the first 8 years of our marriage. She taught us so much and gave us unconditional love. She will be missed more than words on paper can begin to describe and our hearts ache for her.

A friend posted something on my Facebook wall yesterday that was just perfect. It's hard to read right now, but it's so true and how I'll end...

"When dogs go to heaven they don't need wings, because God knows that dogs love running best."

She was the best and is running her little paws off now, no hurt in sight.

The one where...it WORKED.

Holy crap this sort of thing almost never happens with Hadley. She WILLINGLY ACCEPTED the epic "paci removal." She slept through the night. It took a little longer for her to fall asleep and she cried a little once, but she SLEPT.

We had an "I'm a big girl with no paci and slept!!" party this morning and plan to do so every morning until she's 4. Ok, not that long, but at least until next week when we can deem her "broken" (of the awful habit) and buy her a toy. Because isn't that what good parents do? Bribe children with toys for being awesome even though the awesomeness would be forced upon her eventually?

Parents: 1
Hadley: 1

That's what you call a win-win, folks.

::please dear God don't let this be one of those crazy "honeymoon phase" things::

The one where the pacis … were gone.

Holy crap you guys. The past few days, Hadley has been obsessed with the little plastic slide in her daycare room. So much, in fact, that she would rather sit on her cot and stare longingly at the slide (and perhaps cause a little ruckus too) than go to sleep. (the teachers brilliantly have decided that tomorrow, they're going to move her cot.)

Discussion of Hadley's slide-love made me wonder if Hadley still took her paci at school so I asked. Imagine my SHOCK when the teacher said, "No…she hasn't used a paci since she came to our room (in January)."

Open mouth. Gaping. Shocked eyes. (look like a moron, I'm sure). WHAT!? I immediately decided that due to this little nugget of golden information, I'd push the issue at home. We decided this was going to happen in summer when we could sleep it off the next day(s).

Me: "Hadley!! You don't use your paci at nap time at school!?"
H: "No!"
Me: "Do you think we should make you a big girl at home too and put them away??"
H: thinks… "Yeah!"
Me: (ponders what I've just done) "ok!"

Rinse, repeat this conversation x2 with YES! each time…we were going for it.

Two "mommmmmmmmyyyyyyy"s later and a little extra time, she's sleeping. She hasn't fussed since. I'm hopeful for the overnight but we'll see. This could be exciting, folks. Hang in there and pray for us! If she can make it a week, she gets to pick out a new toy!

The one where we order a deck.

And it cost over twice what we'd planned. Joy. But no, really - JOY will be had by having this deck. I can't begin to tell you how excited we are to have a real-live deck as we've never had one. Our Iowa house didn't have a deck right off the kitchen and we pretty much never used the "patio" off the basement door.

It's going to be 14'x20' so it will be plenty big. I see us relaxing on the deck while the kids run around with their friends. I see us out there enjoying drinks with friends now and as we get older and I see many a meal had on the patio furniture we'll order once we get the deck in place (ask Adam to store one more thing in the garage he's still working on cleaning out? I'll take my chances on missing a sale on patio furniture.) ;-)

As soon as things dry out a little bit and the "spring" weather comes back, we're anticipating a deck in place in the next few weeks. We have a confirmation meeting to set it all in place on Wednesday after work as well as to pick out the exact composite material we want. I'm quite excited - one more outdoor space to add to our almost none at the moment!

In other news, I finally got confirmation that I'll be at MacArthur/Keller next year in the Green Bay School District. I was so very pleased as this was my first choice of 3 initially, 4 at the end. It's amazing how God works and knows which way to send you - initially I was quite upset about the entire thing but I've been shown that this is a huge opportunity to be even more in love with my work. I'm leaving behind good things which saddens me, but a new chapter means new, exciting things and I'm eager to share what I know/can do with this school. In addition, my second year means a gain in confidence, straight up knowledge of the WI system/paperwork, and growing as a professional in general. I'm so thankful I get to go do something I love (most days). ;-)

The girls are doing well. Adam traveled last week which proved to be VERY difficult with no yard for the dogs and being forced to walk them every time they needed to go out. Adding to the challenge was taking the tiny humans with me if I went down the block instead of just across the street (our neighbors are so kind - they said to come over and use their lawn whenever we needed - obviously we clean up messes - so I don't have to go far when I'm alone with the girls). The neighborhood had a fun snapshot of crazy as two dogs were pulling me down the sidewalk and I'm yelling at them to slow down and twogirls to keep up.

I'm tired. I'm so very tired but I can totally rock the next 8 weeks of school. More soon. Hopefully sooner than the gaping hole in time that was the last post to this post. :)

The one with the stereotypes that ring true

People tend to smile and laugh and share tidbits from their experiences with tiny humans when they see our girls in public, not unlike many children's parents, I suppose. Today, though, a stranger was talking about his great nieces while we were waiting to pick up our new lawnmower and I realized that so many stereotypes of kids/people/birth order/etc. ring true with our girls. For example…

Owies

Morgan: OH DEAR LORD A (teeny tiny almost can't see it) SCRAPE!! The world is ending! I might be dying! NOMOMMYDON'TPUTABANDAIDONITI'LLDIEMORE!!!! WAAAHHHHHH!

Hadley: BAM. play play play play…Me: "Hadley!! What happened to your head (while in the play place)?!? Are you ok!?" Child can be seen laughing and running away - don'ttakeawaymyplayplacetimewithowieattention. No lie - we went to McDonald's on our way out of town Tuesday (to WI Dells) and Hadley came out with a huge bump/bruise next to her left eye. We never heard a whimper out of that kid. She so badly wants to be just like the big kids.

Staying in bed at bed/nap time

Morgan: would never leave her bed unless the house was burning down and even then might question her decision because we told her to stay in bed. Now she knows she can come out of bed when her "wake up sheep" light goes off which has been a god-send for sleeping in on weekends for the parent-folk…

Hadley: bed/nap time - play talk noises Snoopy Hippo pacis (she's only supposed to have one at a time but can reach her stash on the shelf b/c we're lazy and don't want to get her one in the middle of the night). Yesterday at nap time, she'd already forced me to go in a few times to encourage quiet/sleeping. I found her GIANT white horse in bed with her and more playing/shenanigans going on. 

Following Directions

Morgan: Generally follows directions. Needs reminders here and there but rarely sees the time out step anymore. 

Hadley: similar to Morgan at this age, but about 100x more feeling behind it. SUCH a stinker. She says "no" all the time. She will look you in the eye and do almost anything you tell her not to one. more. time. After being away from KinderCare this week, I really think she's imitating the behavior of her little friends there, as we've seen a sharp decrease in some of her behaviors this week. 

Imitation

Morgan: She rarely imitated other children as she grew because she was the first kid in our family so there wasn't much to imitate besides kids at daycare. We could reason with her and remind her that we behave a certain way, blah blah blah…and it would not be an issue for long.

Hadley: While she'll do her own thing, she imitates "big kids" ALL the TIME. Morgan climbs something high? Well, so can Hadley (fall, plop, bruise, heart attack for mom…). Morgan plays with her food and it doesn't fall on the floor? Hadley plays the same way and half of dinner goes to the dogs. Sigh.

Smarts

Morgan: Oh our little genius child. It was 2:1 for a long time and we taught her many many things. She knew her alphabet and a million other things by the time she was two. She's continued this love of learning and is reading and math and thinking and growing.

Hadley: Sorry kiddo - 2:2 is a totally different story especially when kidlet #1 talks a mile a minute almost every waking moment of the day. She's learning and growing too, but not like Morgan. This kid is going to be smart but she's going to also be street smart in a way that Morgan might not be simply because she's second-born. 

There's more to the differences with these two. There are a ton of similarities - they are both good sleepers/eaters. They both love their family members to the fullest extent of their hearts and beyond. They are both adorable! They both have a love of books that makes my heart burst with joy. We wouldn't trade them for anything and we love the people they're growing into. The differences are what makes them perfect and ours. 

The one where the second one is different than the first

As a parent, no one is EVER perfect (hello! see me pointing wildly at myself! and then a quiet finger at Adam...we're totally not perfect although I know we don't suck either). Sometimes I yell and feel that the girls are being irrational even though in all reality they're just being kids and all that goes with that.

That said, Adam and I have had some heavy discussions lately about Hadley's behavior. Let me preface - we know our girls are generally good and not horrid little humans. We work hard to make sure they shy away from being horrid little humans which ultimately results in discipline and guidance and rules and such.

Something we're both working on understanding is the girls are TOTALLY different people which means what works/ed for one does not necessarily work with the other. I'm understanding this more than Adam at the moment but then we get on the same page, things suck before they improve, then they're nice, and then Hadley's smartipants little self feels the need to retest and make sure we're still on our toes. I'd like to think it's her 2 year molars coming in (which the dentist just confirmed that Hadley is smack-dab in the middle of it) or the fact that she's picked up yet another cough-like-crazy cold, or cabin fever or (insert your favorite reason for 2 y/o antics here) but really? I think Hadley's just a totally different kid who shines SUPER BRIGHT when she shines and then makes you potentially lunatic crazy when she's the opposite.

I have more thoughts on this but I'm running out of brain power. Thank you time change, up for a long time with a coughing tiny human last night, and having to get up for work in the morning (whine, I know, don't we all get up…wahhhh). Only 3 more days of work this week and then some much needed time off - Spring Break y'all! Off Friday (Susie birthday lunch with the girls), Adam land during nap time (oh yeah! Toronto this week! conferences! sigh.), down time until Tuesday, and then we're headed to the Dells T-TH. Can't. Wait. I'm on a mission to find little girl floaties but I'm getting nervous…hopefully Adam knows where they are...

The one where they kicked me out

I'm wallowing in self-pity, folks. It will pass and I know I just need to get over it because it's life and (what!?) it's not all about me. I got an email from an administrator on Monday (the kind where it's all "Call me. My cell is blahbiddyblah.") and after some phone tag, found out through a very unemotional delivery that I was essentially being kicked out of my building as of the end of this year. The person whose spot I took didn't like her new position and given the circumstances of my arrival (late) and whatnot, she gets her old spot back.

I could say lots of mean things (since I've already thought them, obviously) but when it comes down to it, it's life and if that's how the rules go here, that's how they go and honestly, I'm not going to be the one to change them. Thankfully no matter what, I still have a job so that's not the problem.

Oh and I'm sad. I flat out cried after barely holding it together while she was telling me over the phone. I really enjoy my building, I finally feel like I'm making friend connections and not just professional ones here (this is so hard for me to do), and it's just a good PLACE. I told the administrator that I do not want a high school (I could go into the mess that is speech in high schools here but I'll save all that fun jazz for another day). Frankly, I don't want a middle school either (what?! why don't you want to therapize hormonal teenagers who don't want to come to speech!? I don't get it?!) but if I get a K-8 building, so be it (I don't think I will).

So now I sit and wait while all the other more senior SLPs get all the good spots and then I get the leftovers. Thankfully there are a few retirements as well, so I shouldn't be stuck with the high school opening they have...I could take the Assistive Tech position that opened as a result of the person coming back to my school but I don't want it. I want to see kids on a daily basis of all sorts of varieties. I'm not sure I'm cut out to work with gadgets all day even though I have the training and experience to get started, learn more on the job, and probably do ok.

AAAaaaaaannnndd it's conferences night tonight, followed by another night of them on Tuesday. Sigh. Such a necessary evil. I'd much rather have 15 conferences than 35 though...

POSITIVE NOTE:
Adam booked our getaway to Wisconsin Dells from March 18-20. It's just a few days away but I think it's just what we need - we need some fun, some water, some plain old family time away from the "norm." We haven't told the girls yet because they'll want to pack tonight and go tomorrow. Maybe this weekend. Maybe next weekend. I don't know but we best find their floaties BEFORE telling them...

And then we turned 32

You'd think I'd be blogging more with all this "time" I have, right?

No. No I don't have extra time. When I'm sitting on the couch, I'm ALL about the Olympics or sleeping. I'm tired, people. I'm tired. Of so many things (ahem, stupid too cold weather, ahem) but right now, we're just going to say I'm tired and need some shut eye (yay weekend starting tomorrow).

So. We turned 32 since my last post. I have to say, I think I really like that Adam and I have close birthdays because we sort of get to celebrate together and have conversations like this:

Me: "We have to have a plan. Do you want the cookie cake or the ice cream cake? I'll take the other."
Adam: "I'll take the ice cream cake."
Me: "Great - want me to order mine or do you want to?"
Adam: "I totally got this." (and he totally did. It was purple with MORE purple on top. Love him.)

We're cool like that.

Here's the other awesome thing about having close birthdays - if one is a bust, you just get to have fun on the other almost right away!

You guessed it - wahhhh everyone was either deathly ill, mostly ill, or 2 years old on my birthday (see how I did that? how the 2 y/o is just as much work as the sick ones? because I'm right.)

My birthday was fine - I relaxed, had too much cookie cake, and drank some wine. Adam knocked it out of the park by getting me some perfume I didn't even know I loved and I no longer stink to high heaven. Adam's birthday was fun and the girls had a good time eating ice cream cake. He got the driver (golf) he'd been eyeing up forever and now we're 32. Old balls.

Here's to 32 being slightly "quieter" than 31 was - I don't know if I can handle back-to-back years like 31 ended up being...(even though I loved it!)

Hello February!

Blah blah blah where did January go…no wait, really? Where did January go!?! With all the cold days and crazy weeks at work b/c of that and the like, suddenly it's February. I'm almost THIRTY-TWO you guys. Thankfully I'm not almost 33 which would make me just shy of a 1/3 of a century old so we're not going to go there until 367 days from now, mmm-k?

So what's new, how are we doing, I suppose I should tell you. Since it's been a while, a nice, long bulleted list sounds about right so here we go, little to big.

Hadley Elizabeth:

• This kid is getting SO VERY big. She has spent 2 nights in her toddler bed and is easily starting her 3rd. She LOVES being "big" and I don't hesitate to remind her to tell any/everyone she's come into contact with this weekend that she's being uber successful with it just to reinforce how awesome she's made this transition. 
• She's never getting rid of her paci. :-/ I lie. We're going to try like hell this summer when I can get a dang nap after long nights. 
• She's still feisty but we're working on it. I have to remember she's 2 sometimes.
• She has caught a case of word vomit. The kid is constantly talking, becoming easier to understand, and routinely cracks us up with how she says things (ie. "round-about" = "butt-a-butt").

Morgan Addison:

• Had her first softball clinic today. She LOVES hitting (and has been practicing in the basement for 2 weeks) and less-than-loves catching (who can blame her - I hate it too). 
• She starts soccer in May and goes through July and had softball for two months in there somewhere on opposite days. We still have to squeeze in swimming for both girls…
• She's in tumbling right now and loves it. She's only been to one session b/c of stupid freezing -50 windchill temps but she goes again on Tuesday and she can't. wait. 
• She's reading and loves it. I brought home some Level A books from school and she's been going to town. I can't tell you how excited this makes me b/c before I took to reading kids' books 99.9% of the time, I LOVED (and still do) reading. 

Adam Paul (ok ok fine. He goes first b/c he's a full 5 days younger than me. whatever.)

• He just got done traveling two weeks in a row. The first was to the Caribbean (jerk). The second was to Iowa (ha it was cold there, too). We have him home until the end of February when he goes to hang out with the Canadians again.
• He likes his home office gig and we had someone come look at the space to get going on actually building him a real ROOM for his office instead of his make-shift on on the concrete basement floor. I'm excited for this to happen for him. I didn't enjoy my concrete slab-ness of an office at one of my Iowa schools, so I wouldn't expect him to like it, either. (it doesn't bother him as much).
• He continues to amaze me with his patience with the girls as they test and just be 2/4 sometimes. What an amazing dad-man. He makes us a strong team. 

Melissa Sue:

• I got a new car! We traded the Highlander in for a Kia Optima (blue) and I simply adore it. It's fun and sporty and once it stops snowing someday in July, I bet it's REALLY fun on dry pavement. Morgan is hilarious as she doesn't think we can get to a new destination in the truck anymore - it's doesn't have a "map." (navigation) We'll be getting an Acadia (likely) when the time is right but since Adam's truck is wonderful and we're not hauling large quantities of carpooled children/stuff around quite yet, we're not in a huge hurry on that one. 
• Work is going well but let me tell you, the paperwork is going to be the death of me. I HATE learning an all-new system and am struggling with the change that is happening mid-year. Or next month. Or every other week. It's just new and different and not run like Iowa. I'm not going to lie - as much as I HATED all the training and paperwork there, they knew their shit. They had things going for them. And the whole state was on the same page. I'm going to stop there so I don't write a small novel on this topic alone. :-D  <-- a="" anyway.="" face="" li="" me="" my="" on="" putting="" s="" smile="" that="">
• I don't think I'm ever going to get over the fact that we have family/friends so close. I got to have a drink with my bff after work Friday. My brother popped over and had lunch with us 10 minutes after he called b/c he could. We went to a family birthday party we probably wouldn't have driven home (as the sole reason) for. The fact that we're not missing almost everything makes warm fuzzies surround my heart every time. 
• I'm loving our down-sized life. Our smaller house (that I can actually manage/clean). My smaller car. (NOT my smaller salary but hey…it is what it is and it's worth it). 
• I miss my Iowa friends. They are amazing, they kept me going while I was there and thank GOD for the technology to help me keep up with them now. Holla. I miss you guys. 
• And lastly, I get to go to New Orleans in June! Adam has a big conference there and I get to go. My good friend, Meg, might even get to meet me there (she lived in the area for a while so she can show me all the awesomeness the area has to offer). 

Ok, bedtime. Another week awaits and thankfully this should be a WHOLE WEEK of work (read: no snow days to make up in June since I'm already working until the 13th! Minimum!). Adios, 31. What a year. Here's to hoping 32 is a little tamer. Maybe. ;-)

And that's why I shouldn't...

blow the snow with our snow blower.

So...the hubs is out of town enjoying the Caribbean and all its 85 degree weather (waaa, he's working...whatever. It's still tropical.). BAM! Insert 7-8" snowfall here while single parenting two kids and two dogs.

I was GOING to blow the snow the night it happened, but it was so very windy that the drift that had formed would only get worse through the night so my genius brain said, "Of course! Get up early! You'll remember how to blow the snow (from running it two years ago) and you'll be greaaaaaaat!" So that's what I did.

In fact, I WAS a genius and got it started pretty much right away. I blew a Highlander-sized hole through that drift (the rest of our driveway was bare b/c of the wind - woo!) and made it to work on time. It's ok - you don't have to call me awesome to my face. You can just think it.

So the evening happens, the girls are in bed, I'm iMessaging with my BFF (b/c that's what we do), and I finally get out in the freezing cold (and windy again, mind you) to blow the rest of the drift. I of course had to fix the (not straight) sidewalk path our good Samaritan neighbor made for us with his snow blower.

Weeeeelllllll, it turns out it's hard to see with blurry, watery, snowflyinginmy eyes and I missed the sidewalk. I ended up on the (frozen) mud a bit and voila. I'm as done as done is going to be. I head up to the house, turn off the blower, only to have the dogs CRAWLING up my legs, terrified.

Beep. Beep. Beep. I hear what they hear. They think they are being shocked (remember the electric fence we had laid on the yard last week? They KNOW it's in) by the beeping sound on the box it's connected to in the garage. I rip Jessie's collar off, (Maddie's too scared to wear one right now) and unplug the box as fast as my frozen fingers will allow (which is slow. very slow, especially with 50# dogs crawling up me trying to be held.).

Finally I can think. It wasn't beeping when I came OUT...now it's beeping...NOOOOO. I totally severed the line when I did my off-roading snow blowing adventure. Wait! I'm not electrocuted! A miracle!

So now the Invisible Fence people get to come put it back together (splice?) on Monday. Broken before it's even in the ground. I wonder how much that will cost.

No, we can't fix it ourselves b/c it will void the warranty. Special, huh?

And that, my friends, is why I should be the one inside making hot chocolate (drinking wine) and HE should be the one outside running the machinery. From Jamaica. Yah mon.

Hadley the Two Year Old

And then the baby one turned two. TWO. She's two already and loving every minute of it. Hadley highlights commence (and sorry, baby, when you read this a month late when you're big. once you move an entire family/household across the Midwest in two phases months apart, you'll understand).

• Our little talker - she's now using 2-3 word sentences that are getting longer every day. It's nice that she's really caught up on her language now - we understand her more, she's frustrated less, and we all laugh at the hilarious things she comes up with.
• Our little stinker - she's still up to no good often and loves to be the sassy one. She's the one we'll find egging Morgan on until she "pops"...but she's a good egg, too, and isn't fully sassy, if I do say so myself. Adam may disagree sometimes. ;-)
• She likes:
• babies. toy and real.
• her baby cousin, Calvin. She will kiss him no less than 1,239 times in 10 minutes if allowed to do so while leaning on his tiny baby tummy (if unsupervised).
• her big sis. No wait - she LOVES her big sis. They play together all the time and Hadley will do almost anything Morgan tells her to (at this point - another short-lived gem, I'm sure).
• the McDonald's play land, especially the one by our new house with the giant slide she and Morgan go down together (and even alone sometimes! big girl!)
• SLEDDING. We have a GINORMOUS sledding hill a few blocks from our house. this kid is afraid of nothing and as soon as the tube stops (with the parent sitting under her), she jumps off and waddles her padded self directly straight back up that mountain.
• her Grandpa Al. It must be a second-born bond or something. They are in cahoots at all times. Got an owie? If Grandpa Al is there, mom/dad might as well not exist.
• tickles. she'll tell you she doesn't want tickles but she's lying and actually means she wants more.
• to eat. She eats fairly well and if it's a soup she loves, she'll devour it and beg for more. Favorite foods include mac 'n cheese and hotdogs, my chicken noodle soup, white cheese shells, kilbasa (love it when she says this - BASAAAA), popcorn, clementines...she's a good eater.
• Her stats at her 2 year well check were great! She was 26.4lbs (50s for percentile?...can't remember) and 35" tall (80th percentile!! Woah growth!). She's still easily fitting in 2T clothes so it will be interesting this summer, unless she has another growth spurt, of what she's going to wear...Morgan was in 3T during her 2 y/o summer so we might have to revert back to last year's 2T clothes that were big on her.
• She has discovered the word "no" loudly and clearly but will usually be talked into what we need her to do eventually. She has a mind all her own and a free spirit who knows exactly what she wants.
• Hadley loves to dance. She dances anywhere to any music. She also quickly catches on to lyrics of a song and was singing one in the car this morning I didn't realize she had learned. She's also singing one about a bus and very clearly knows what she's singing even though the rest of us have no clue other than this "song" is triggered any time we talk about/see a school bus.
• She's been having a hard time going down on the first try the past week or so. She stands and yells MOM! DAD! (like that - like a big kid) and then won't tell us what she wants. We're trying to go super nanny on her and just lay her back down, cover her up, and leave. I hate that. I would rather snuggle her but then I'd be in her room until 9pm and that's not cool.
• Old news, but she's totally potty trained during awake hours. She's dry about 1/3 of the time she wakes up from naps, depending on how long they are. She's getting "driER" overnight, but we're a ways off from that and that's totally ok with me.
• We kept her in her crib for the moves and in a few weeks, we'll transition her to a toddler bed although something tells me this independent little girl with a mind of her own will not make this as easy of a transition as her older sister did for us... ;-)

Our little Hadley keeps us busy and entertained for sure. She snuggles us and makes so many people smile. We love her like crazy and are excited about the big kid she's growing into. Happy 2 years old, Hadley Elizabeth!

Aaannnnnndddd we're back!

So. Behind.
But so many amazing things!
I will be back to chronicle December 2013 at some point, including a "Hadley turned 2!" post (because she's an awesome big girl now - who are we kidding - she's still my baby) and try to get some pictures posted of what's "finished" in our house. Right now that would be ... the kitchen. I think I can safely say the kitchen is done except for decorating and even that won't be much because there are more cabinets than wall space by far (opposite of the Iowa house). The girls' rooms are done too, except for decorating, curtains being up, and blinds in Morgan's room.

But for those we didn't talk to over the holidays, we've settled in nicely, we're still "roughing it" without blinds in the master bedroom or Morgan's room (they should be done this week, early next week hopefully!), but we can fully function around the boxes that are immediately visible and are very much enjoying our new home.

Highlights:

• We LOVE that the girls can play in their rooms without supervision. At the Iowa house, their ages and distance (an entire flight of stairs that made hearing them without a monitor almost impossible) didn't allow for independent play in their own rooms. And they're suddenly playing so nicely together...ah, the joys of 2 and 4 (I know this is temporary but for now we're choosing to love it).
• Kitchen. My kitchen. The end.
• Proximity - we're relatively close to everything and when we found Calvin this referee outfit he HAD TO HAVE, we could drop it off on our way home without a bat of an eye. LOVE!
• So many more but I must move on for now. :)

Lowlights:

• OMG Is it January 10th yet? We can't wait for the dogs to have their electric fence (it comes Jan. 10th, see?) so they can go outside unsupervised. It is SO COLD and let's be honest - we hate taking them out on leashes.
• Cold. Ok, I get it, it's winter, but I'm CRINGING at the thought of the HIGH on Monday being -10. (did you see that big fat minus sign!?) And almost daily it's been going down a degree. Someone said -14 for the high and I almost fell off my chair. No. No school Monday. Please dear Lord no school on Monday for the very sake that I'll freeze to death.
• No other ones! Just whining about the cold we're all experiencing!

I'll get back to such things as Hadley turning two soon...for now, Happy New Year 2014!

16

There are 16 days left until we are the proud new owners of our very own home in WI.

I'm writing this with all seriousness that I. CAN'T. WAIT.

Don't get me wrong - there will be bittersweet things (ahem, 4 extra hands to help with the kids, ahem).

Did I mention I can't wait?

::writhes with the difficulty of WAITING::

(squeeeeeeeeeeeeee)

Thanksgiving is almost here

I know once the Thanksgiving weekend starts (sometime tomorrow afternoon), I won't have time to post anything about anything because the weekend is going to be nuts. Thursday - Thanksgiving all day. Friday - shopping all day. Saturday - double sister birthday party prep and party. All day. Sunday - Calvin's baptism (not all day). Monday - work. UGH. I know we're not alone in the runrunrun that this weekend will be, but you get the idea. Wahh - we are so blessed with so many loved ones to see. It's a GREAT "problem" to have.

And since pretty much all I think about is my new house and how to stay sane before getting there, we have LESS THAN A MONTH NOW until this is reality. It will still be crazy reality a month from now, but it will finally be HAPPENING. I can't begin to tell you how excited that makes me.

I'm thankful! I'm pretty much always thankful, but since we're pointing it out and all this time of year, here is a list of what I'm thankful for (and definitely not all inclusive. a book is not what I'm looking for here).

• My husband! While this whole pack-up-and-move craziness has not always brought out the best in us, he's been amazing and keeping us all grounded. He's a wonderful husband and father and in the sake of saving time, just know that he's our rock. He keeps our family going.
• My kids! I'm so blessed to have these two adorable little monkeys to keep me BEYOND busy and we love every minute of watching them grow (although the current game of "let's see who can accurately guess how many times Hadley says "NO" in one evening isn't my favorite. no lie.).
• My In-Laws. We would be dead on the side of the road if it hadn't been for them the past 3 and the next 1 month. Amazing people. The end.
• Our health! We are all relatively healthy people and for that, I'm ever grateful. It can be so scary when someone is sick, really sick and we haven't had to deal with that much at all.
• Our Iowa house selling and our Wisconsin home to move into! YAY!

Ok there are TON more but I'm just going to keep those to myself and know that we're thankful for all we can do, have, and will do in the future. Happy Thanksgiving (a little early), folks!

SOLD. SOLD. SOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HA HA HA the funniest thing happened. I blogged yesterday about the showing on Saturday, what a pain, they came in the middle of packing and we didn't hear anything, so obviously they didn't like it...WELL, it turns out they LOVED it. LOVED it so much, in fact, that (long story short) they wrote up an offer and we sold it! Last night! Here's how it all went down (b/c I need to remember this later).

• (mid morning Monday) Our realtor emails us that the family really liked the house and might write an offer!
• An hour later, our realtor emails us an offer! A legit one! (no low balling here)
• We counter!
• They counter!
• We stew while I'm on my way home from work (crying, mind you. this is our FIRST HOUSE with all the memories and emotional attachment, you know). Adam is worried they won't let us counter one more time. I said they would have wrote $X FIRM if they meant it. Adam talked to Sara. She's brilliant and agreed with me that we should counter one more time.
• We counter!
• We wait. UGH.
• I'm talking to my SIL about something on the phone. The phone practically implodes (it's the house phone so I'm not so good at working it - not ours). I realize Sara's calling. I call her right back.
• Confusion about who called who.
• "You got the deal! House is sold!"
• I do the happy dance in the bedroom where I had been on the phone. I get details I will remember for a nanosecond and then promptly forget because HELLO! We just sold our house successfully!
• I sit on the couch and text Adam who is sitting in the recliner (longest. 7 minutes. ever. for him to check the phone that is practically attached to his hand).
• He finally sees he has 5 texts from me and falls off his chair while reading them.
• CHAMPAGNE!! We sold our house!

See? I like this game. Now is trying to figure out if we have to get our stuff out sooner than Dec. 21st as planned...either way - YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYYYYYYYYYYY! And that is how we sold our house.

We moved again.

I don't know how many times we're going to end up moving until our Iowa house is completely into our Wisconsin house, but for now, we've made another move.

Friday was a whirlwind of work, IEP meeting, race to run a few errands, grab the girls before they zonked out completely at school, and drive 5.5+ hours to Iowa so they had a little time to run around before falling into their beds (their OWN beds, yay!). We made it fine. Al & Sherri left around 3 and made it fine. Adam's flights were delayed an hour and a half but he got the trailer and drove down fine (only almost hit ONE deer).

Saturday, the real chaos started. I left for an 8am massage (I HAD to use up a gift certificate, darn), then we picked up the Highlander from the shop where it got a last free tire rotation, and then booked it out of the house that we had to reclean (after all the morning packing chaos and little girls' rampage) for a showing at 11:00. Of course! A showing in the middle of packing! Why not! And we have yet to hear how that went so I'm assuming it was all for nothing. More packing while the girls napped, then race to The Children's Museum for a daycare Christmas party (which was fab, as usual, and awesome for the girls to see Mary and friends again...Hadley would NOT let go of Mary for quite some time). We raced back home for dinner, play/pack time, girls got another bath, packing until 9:45. I ran out for well-deserved adult snacks and then we hit the sack hard. TIRED people, I tell you.

Sunday hit with a trip to church for a last worship which was SO heart-filling it wasn't even funny. It was sort of hard, actually, and I found more than once I had a large lump in my throat. We have an amazing church family at Grace Lutheran. Home we went and packed up as fast as we could b/c rain was coming. By rain, I meant giant thunderstorm but Adam and Al were diligent and got it all packed up/tarped down, and we hit the road just before 11:30. Longest line ever at McDonald's, then headed out of Muscatine by noon. Al had to stop for tarp adjustment. Adam and I kept going. I had to stop for kid bathroom break (a half hour into the trip...grr). Once we turned north, the weather turned. The west wind was HORRID and got worse the further north we went. I had the black luggage rack thing on my car and it might as well have been a sail. Long story short, it was once of worst trips between WI/IA weather-wise we've ever had. STRONG 30-35 mph winds going across the road most of the time with hard rain. The last hour "blessed us" with torrential rain. Nothing was ruined (that I know of yet) and we all made it.

We have lots of furniture/big stuff left in Iowa. Dressers are empty. The garage is FULL and will take a load in itself. I'm terrified about moving the China cabinet and grandfather clock. We plan the next "adults-only" trip on Dec. 20th/21st (not sure of leave date yet) to get the rest of the big furniture we need to move in and be comfortable in the new house. It's hard to believe that's just a few days over a month away! So close to getting into our new house...we can't wait! And now a crazy week of conferences awaits...

ListS

Those of you who meet me figure out within about 2 minutes that I'm:

1. Type A. 
2. Mild/Moderate OCD.
3. in LOVE with LISTS.
4. Oh yeah, I adore my family. 

So back to #3...The number of lists that are currently sitting at home waiting for me is almost obscene. (why did she underline at home? what a weirdo...)

Not a weirdo. If they were with me at work all day, do you think I'd get anything done? Anything? I *might* see my students but outside of that? Nothing. I'd be so excited to work on my lists, reorganize them (especially after the HUBS gets ahold of them and "adds" to them in his different colored pen and boyish handwriting), and then wait until the minute I get to go accomplish them that I'd be one of the worst employees ever. 

So they sit at home, waiting, while I'm hoping that my DH leaves them alone until I can get my grubby mitts back on them again and ignore whatever else is going on around me as I work on them while researching things to do with my lists online. 

Right now (outside of my ever-running work lists that stay at work), I have lists for:

• What do we need from Iowa to effectively run a household? (organized by room, with *s for cross-referencing things that don't "live" in the correct room in Iowa - like all my kitchen stuff that's stored in the basement)
• What can stay in Iowa (all pending no house sale, mind you) until we get down again late January?
• What can be stored in cold weather? What goes in the enclosed trailer(s)? What can ride in the back of a pick up truck?
• CHRISTMAS LISTS!!! What our kids want, what other people's kids want, ideas for other family members, what's been actually purchased already...these are my favorite. Oh wait, all of them are my favorite. But Christmas has a shiny gold star just for me. 
• Before signing on the new house list/schedule
• Day of and after signing on the new house schedule to when we are actual DEPERE residents

And you know what? It made my heart happy and my brain calm to make the list of my lists. Fellow SLPs and several other friends reading this can relate - you know who you are - and you are nodding your head reading this. You are my people. 

Onward with the day and tackling my lists because lists weren't made to sit there. They were made to have each item crossed off, one by one, in a certain way with a certain pen, and even for a few things to be added that I accomplished just so I can immediately cross them off. I love lists. The end. 

Just under 2 months

Just under two months since we've moved back to WI (Sept. 6th).

Just under two months until we're living in our (OUR) new house (Dec. 27th; 56 days away, but who's counting?).

I'm not going to lie - both sort of feel like an eternity.*

I also know I really shouldn't be allowed to whine here because we are very fortunate to have saved and worked hard and put ourselves in the position to be where we're at in terms of veryimportantthings like a house purchase/sale. I'm just not a patient waiter!!

So let's talk about fun things, like the girls, as I have hardly updated about them lately and it's been all me me me. Or house house house which makes me think me me me b/c it's a huge part of me. Girlie time!

Morgan (I'm FOUR now) Addison

• Our smartie. She's currently the youngest in her class at school now as we "encouraged" them to move her to the 4s room as soon as she became of age instead of leaving her with 3 y/os she was light years ahead of (think about it - 6 months as a preschool/toddler aged person is HUGE). They wanted to wait until the holiday break (2 months away). We didn't and likely would have moved her to a different location. Thankfully, they moved her for us within the building. ;-)
• She's catching up to her peers quickly and is working on Pack 3 of the 4 packs of sight words she has since starting in her new class a few weeks ago. She currently knows such words as the, and, a, she, he, and (and more but I can't remember them all). Some days she struggles with the social side of things and is "learning" about bigger kid issues. On days when I wonder if she should be in more academically challenging arenas, I am reminded she's right where she belongs socially and the two balance each other out nicely.
• She still hates getting up early to go to school (6:10/:15). Oddly enough, back at the Iowa house it was not uncommon for us to groan and hear/find her awake at this time ready for the day. Two more months, child. Then you can get up a bit later. :)
• She's playing more and more with Hadley and they are fun to watch when it's going well. Not so fun when it's not.
• Morgan has some MAD Baby Calvin love. She holds him no less than a hundred times when we visit him. SO excited we'll be so close.

Hadley (sassy pants) Elizabeth

• She continues taking her climbing and falling to new heart-attack provoking levels. She particularly enjoys climbing into Grandpa Al's smaller recliner, then leaning over the side of the arm rest, and trying to catch herself with her hands as she goes to the floor. I can't tell you how many face plants that kid has taken off that chair (or how many laughs follow after it's obvious she isn't broken).
• She's catching on quickly to things and enjoys school, too (daycare - we just call it all school for ease of lingo). She counts to 5, 6, 7 or more - it's hard to tell sometimes. She uses 2-3 word utterances and has HILARIOUS inflection (oh NOOOO! YES! Daddy-O to name a few). She also knows the first two letters in her name and we're working on D. She knows some colors. She knows shapes. I'm going to blame this move on why I'm not grilling her all the time like I did with Morgan at this age.
• Hadley has some serious. grandpa. love. I don't know what we're going to do with her once we move out...if it's a minor/moderate owie, she bypasses me without a thought, then Adam with a little hesitation, and then just throws herself into Granpa's arms. (at least she still reserves the serious stuff for me/Adam.)
• She's the happiest little monkey to ever be woken up in the morning ever. This morning, Sherri found her awake already (odd) with her water bottle in her crib going "woah!" every time she flipped it open. She's totally more than ready for a toddler bed but we'll just take care of that once we're all moved in. She's our baby so who cares. She's small and still fits so boom. Crib. Crib until she's settled at the new house. Then...toddler bed. That will be an adventure in itself...
• She's been wearing 18 month flood pants and some 2T clothes. This weekend she's officially being turned over to 2T as most everything 18-24 months still fits but I promised my girls at birth they would never wear high water pants unless they wanted to (who would want THAT gah, said the mom who wore them all the time growing up ::cringe::). Since I'm in charge of what she wears and Adam just brought her 2T stuff home from Iowa (he traveled there at the beginning of this week for work), she's getting switched. I was looking at her 18 month winter coat and wondering what size Morgan was in at this age...seems like she's a good size smaller than Morgan who might have been in 3T stuff her 3rd winter, age 2? I'll have to go back and look.

Ok, all that said, it's time to get some work done. I needed a break. It's been an awesome afternoon without meetings and the like to clog my productive juices. That and I don't know if I will ever know what's going on around here...hmm. Sounds familiar from about 6 years ago during my first year at the AEA...Happy time change this weekend, folks!

*DISCLAIMER: Eternity isn't meant to be a poor reflection of our (extremely super awesome) hosts (Adam's folks). They've been nothing but helpful, accommodating, and amazing since we've taken over their house and lives. There is, however, something to be said about having your own space/house in our culture and for a Type A OCD person such as myself, I have to give myself a pat on the back 6 days out of 7 when I've held my shit together and not been an @ss because I miss my "boring" life in my own house.

Pictures of the New House

I'm going to see how many pictures I can post of the new house - I'm not sure how much "new" storage I have on here so we'll see how it goes. Enjoy - I'm so excited...only 62 more days to go!! (I think that might be one of the biggest numbers I've ever seen...:-/)

Our beautiful house!

(minus a beautiful lawn...wonk wonk. Have to wait until spring)

Looking at the front door. Basement access on left, 

hallway/kitchen left of that, master to the right.

(angels singing)

Our My walk-in closet!

Dining/kitchen area from living room 

(girls' rooms/bathroom to the left through arch)

Hallway to bathroom (first left) and two bedrooms

TBD who gets which one. Morgan is choosing ;-)

Panoramic view of the open area of the first floor

(master left, kitchen right)

Adam's office 

(ha ha ha - WILL be his office and almost only project in this house)

One of our favorite things - no "fixer" projects in this house for a long time. The office is a project we anticipated with any of the houses we looked at and considered buying. Adam wants to put a backsplash in the kitchen but that's a "pretty project," not a "fixer" project. Oh and we have two little girl bedrooms to paint but again, pretty stuff. Not maintenance or fixer stuff. The countdown begins - 62 days!

Hello, DePere!

We had a good weekend. No no no, we had a GREAT weekend. We put in an offer on the new construction on the east side of DePere Friday afternoon. We waited with bated breaths because we went low. These builders do NOT take anything lower than list price and we were sort of hoping we could go a little under and ask for a few other things thrown in and come out a little ahead (we needed a fridge and oven...we wanted a later close date...few other things).

Saturday morning brought happy girls, nervous parents, and then boom - a counter offer! It wasn't great. It wasn't awful. I was upset b/c I wasn't sure if Adam would go for it or if he'd say nope, let's go for the other house (cheaper). Thankfully, he agreed that we should counter again and go for it. We countered and gave the builder until the end of Saturday (7pm) to get back to us. We gave him his full price so he could keep his reputation of not accepting less than full price but stuck with a few of the other concessions we wanted.

Saturday 6:30 came and went. 6:45 rolled around and while we were playing around celebrating Morgan's birthday, Adam looked up from his phone and said, "We got it."

YOU READ THAT RIGHT - WE GOT THE HOUSE!!

I can't tell you how happy I am to know that I was 31 and able to have our dream home. Yes the lot is a bit smaller than we wanted originally, but since everything else was exactly as we'd hoped, it will be great. Our realtor was shocked we were able to get the concessions we did and we went and picked out the appliances needed tonight.

It's late and I'm tired but we're so thankful that we will have our dream home (that's only 4 minutes from Adam's brother! I LOVE the idea of close cousins (and maybe sometime soon we'll have more close cousin time!)) December 27th. We have a showing at the Iowa house on Friday after a serious drought but we're not getting our hopes up at this point. Happy? Yes. Hopeful? Not really.

Pictures tomorrow if I can figure it out. I wasn't posting pictures forever b/c I had run out of room/storage but I was able to change my heading picture so maybe they gave me more. :) Either way, we're coming, DePere! It's going to be a great 2014!