Summer Bucket List

Summer break is here! Well, for most of us! Grace has four more days, and then it will be official!

We don’t have anything too huge planned for this summer, but we do have a lot of family visiting, which we are looking forward to, and some local things we’d like to get out and do. I have a feeling this summer will speed right by and be gone before we know it. I’m really hoping I can find a way to slow it down and savor it!  With summer kicking off, I’ve been thinking of the different things I want to get done and enjoy as a family. I’d love to say that I created some cute, crafty thing to represent our bucket list, but I didn’t!  (Sorry, not sorry! Ha ha ha!)  No, in all seriousness, I don’t have a creative bone in my body and am always a little jealous of those that can create cute bucket lists, chore lists, etc.  Whenever I set out to do a Pinterest type craft, it usually ends up being one giant, glittery mess! That being said, this list will have to do. 🙂

(Picture Source Here)

Summer Bucket List 2017

*Paint and decorate Coen’s room.  In our old house, the kids shared a room, and a lot of the decor was Grace’s. When we moved, Grace wanted pink walls (she was super sad to give up the tree I painted in her room in the old house), so this past spring break we were able to paint and decorate her room. 
Now, it’s Coen’s turn. I’m not sure what direction I want to head in, but I have a feeling it will end up being pretty eclectic. I thought about doing a Beatles theme, but I really want to include some Billy Joel Lyrics, not to mention Coen is at an age where he is starting to have his own opinions and interests, too. He loves sports, I just don’t think I can do a sports theme. I’m thinking a few baseball themed things could be fun though. I also really want to refinish his dresser. As far as painting goes, I’ve been pinning things like crazy, but may end up going easy and just painting an accent wall.  We will see. 🙂 Right now his room is pretty bare, so I’m just looking forward to giving it some color and personality.

*Go camping at least once! We love to camp, but haven’t gone much since having Coen. Last year we went and it was rough!  He did great during the day, but night time was hard on Coen because he is so used to his own bed. I had to lie down with him, and even then it took forever for him to fall asleep, and it was even worse to keep him asleep.  He tossed and turned all night. He is used to having his own space and not being crammed into a sleeping bag with his mom.  This year will hopefully be a bit easier as he is older. He can stay up a bit later with us around the campfire, too.  We haven’t made reservations. I’m leaning toward the site in McCall that’s first come, first serve, but we may end up venturing out to someplace new. Either way, I’m looking forward to it!

*Cross Country camp for Fenix! Fenix started running track this year and will be doing Cross Country in the fall. His school has a week-long Cross Country camp that Fenix will be going to in July!  This will be his first “camp” experience, and we’re excited for him! He is really enjoying track and being a part of a team, so camp should be fun!

*Harvest the garden and learn how to can!  I’m really excited about this one!  I just hope I do it.  One of the things we loved about our house before we bought it was the backyard and the garden space. This year we managed to plant an assortment of pepper and tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini, green beans, spinach, and then we also planted a container pumpkin and watermelon plant.  In addition, we already have strawberries (that never produce much), raspberries (that the kids eat all of!), a pear tree, and grapes.  We added some blueberry bushes to the mix, but those will take a few years to produce. Ah! Once I typed it all out, I got overwhelmed. I’m hopeful we are able to produce quite a bit from each plant and that I follow through with canning and freezing things!  I’d like to do something fun with the grapes (maybe Jam or grape juice) as well as the pears. Last year we did nothing with them.  The hard part is I’m back in school once it’s time to harvest everything. I’m usually pretty busy then, but this year, we are dedicating our late August weekends to actually doing something with all the good things we’ve grown! Fingers crossed!

*Paint bird houses with Grace and Coen and make a bird feeder.  We bought houses to paint years ago and still need to paint them, so that’s on the list for this year.

*Read at least three books. This is a lame goal. I go through phases. In the winter I read a ton, but haven’t done much reading lately, so my goal is at last three books, but I’m hoping I can get to more.

*Spend an afternoon at the beach at Lucky Peak with the kids. I want to do this every year and then don’t, but this year we are doing it! I’m planning to pack the umbrella and the cooler and sit on the beach and read while the kids play!

*Go on a morning date/hike with the husband!

*Maybe potty train Coen. This one is all on him. I don’t want to force a thing! He actually went potty on the potty last week, but since then has only sat on it.  I don’t want to force anything or frustrate him, so I’m going to let him take the lead. In July we may do no diapers and just let him run naked around the back yard for a few days in the hopes that it will click.

*Go to the Dirty Dancing weekend at the Mountain Lake Lodge in Pembroke, VA.  We have our weekend all booked in July, and I am so excited! I’m meeting up with two of my friends from Wisconsin for a girls’ weekend.  This is my first trip without the family or Ken, and I’m a bit nervous, especially for all of the flying, but I know once I’m there, it will be great!

*Go on a short weekend trip with the family.  We aren’t doing a big family vacation this year, but I would like to go on a short weekend trip. I’m thinking a trip to Salt Lake or even to the Miracle Hot Springs here in Idaho. They have little domes you can camp in that I think would be fun.  I recently took on an online part time job and am hoping to set aside enough money to make this happen.

*Celebrate our TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY!  How crazy is that?! I can’t believe it’s already been ten years, yet here we are.  We celebrated a bit early with a weekend trip to Seattle at the end of April, but will still do something on our actual anniversary. We just aren’t sure what yet.  I’m thinking something easy-maybe a nice dinner where we can get all fancied up.  We do have a nice bottle of wine we have been holding onto since our trip to the Oregon Coast last year, that I think we will celebrate with as well. 🙂

*Get a massage! Yes, this is happening! I have no idea when, and I haven’t booked it yet, but I am in desperate need of one and am going to make it happen! 🙂

*Spend a day at Roaring Spring! Grace earned a pass for reading at her school and has been looking forward to it.  Not sure if it will just be us or a family thing.  Fenix isn’t into doing the water slides, and Ken isn’t a fan of swimming, so we may end up going just the two of us.

*We have lots of family coming this summer and are really looking forward to it. Ken’s stepmom and our niece (she is Grace’s age) are coming to visit over the 4th of July and we are psyched. We also have Ken’s aunt and grandpa coming for Father’s Day weekend.  We are so excited for both!  It will be fun to have everyone here and just get to spend time with family.  It will make for a really fulfilling summer. Now we are just trying to brainstorm fun things to do while they are here.

*Enjoy Dairy Days! I love Dairy Days and look forward to it every year! It’s a tradition! 🙂

*Grace has her own bucket list as well. She wants to learn how to swim independently, do a cartwheel, and ride her bike!  She actually just accomplished the first one this week in swim lessons. She almost has the second one accomplished, and the third one I’m just excited she wants to try! 🙂

The biggest thing I’m looking forward to is relaxing and spending time with family this summer.  I imagine we will spend quite  a few meals on the patio and nights around the fire pit making s’mores. I’m looking forward to swimming with the kids at the pool and lounging on the couch while they nap.   I think it will be a good summer!

Summer of 2017, bring it on…and don’t go by too quickly! 🙂

Another Year Older

It’s May and the school year is almost coming to a close, which means I may just have some more time on my hands to update this blog from time to time.

May is one of my favorite times of the year.  We always kick the month off with Grace’s birthday and by the end of the month we are counting the days down until summer -four for Fenix, nine for me, and much more for poor Grace who is in “year-round” school.  No worries, though.  She still gets summer, it just starts a little later and ends a little sooner.

Just recently Grace turned six (SIX!) and because I’m home with the house to myself and the day off of work because I’m recovering from having my wisdom teeth finally taken out, I thought I would squeeze in a quick birthday post for Grace and for Coen. Fenix turns 15 here in June, so I’m hoping I’m with it enough to post about that, too, when the time comes.

Ah! Where to begin?

Coen turned two back in December. His birthday is right before Christmas and of course it’s winter weather, which means we have to party inside.  We ended up having a really low-key party for Coen. It was just family and Coen’s little friend Hank, who turns two  a few months after Coen.  We decided to do it in the morning before nap time and meltdowns and it ended up being perfect.  We ate brunch and drank hot chocolate while the boys played, watched Coen open gifts, and then we broke all the rules by eating cake WAY too early in the morning.  It was great! The kids sat at a little kid table my mom used to have for my niece and nephew which was way too cute.  Coen was ALL about sharing with Hank until he opened his gifts and he quickly decided he was going to be very selective about what he shared, ha ha ha!

Two has been a fun age. Coen is learning so much and his speech has really taken off.  He is the most polite two year old in the world. Somehow we have him trained well.  He even says “scuze me” after he burps, ha ha ha! He is such a little individual, it’s crazy. He has his own, wacky personality.  He loves to dance and and sing, drinks milk like cows are going extinct, and has a love of all things sports!  He can dribble a soccer ball and throw a football (well, a mini one). When he sees a ball, he NEEDS it! This makes taking him to his sister’s soccer practices a little bit tough. He has NO fear.  None whatsoever.  I have given up trying to keep him from climbing up to the third level at the playground and have now resigned myself to just being there if he falls.  There is no stopping him.  🙂

He loves baths!  I can’t let him stay in for too long though, or he starts doing his infamous “butt splash” where he stands up and then drops to his bum sending a huge wave of water out of the bath tub and onto the bathroom floor.

He loves Moana and Trolls and sings right along when the movie is playing.  He also has some wicked break dancing moves.  He is still very much a mama’s boy. He’s also reaching an age where he is starting to feel left out.  Last night Ken, Grace, and Fenix went to an end of year track banquet for Fenix, and he cried and cried when he realized they left him home.  😦  I had to console him with a bath and then popcorn and a movie.

When he is mad, he takes off his shoes and socks and tosses them.  This happens often when he is upset that we have to leave the park or when we get to the store and they are all out of car carts.  🙂 He has a wicked two-year old temper, that’s for sure, but he recovers quickly!

He has been so much fun lately.  Because I’m writing this months after his actual birthday he has already changed so much. It’s crazy to think who he will be and how much he will have changed by the time his third birthday rolls around.  (We love you so, SO much, Coen!  I couldn’t imagine our  family without you in it!)

Grace’s birthday was more recent.  The month of May is always hectic.  Mother’s Day, soccer, dance recitals, and end of the year school responsibilities for me make it a busy month!  We had to squeeze Grace’s party in that first weekend in May on the same day of a soccer double header for Grace.  I was a little afraid we wouldn’t be able to pull it off and was SUPER nervous because she invited her entire class. (We didn’t want any hurt feelings, and Grace is very social and makes friends with nearly everyone she meets-whether they like it or not, ha ha.)  The idea of having a houseful of parents had me in panic mode. Pairing that with the fact that we had two soccer games that morning AND the weather was really iffy (raining in the morning and windy in the afternoon), and I was a nervous wreck.

We rented a bounce house.  (FYI: If you are in the Boise/Meridian/Nampa area, we were able to rent a bounce house from Slidy Bounce for $65, which is a steal in comparison to other rental places! Plus, they were great!  Easy set-up and take-down and very easy to to work with.)  I was worried all day long that it would rain in the afternoon or be too windy for the bounce house and we would have 15 kindergartners and their parents crammed into our house with no back-up plan.

Thankfully, it all went perfectly! Grace had a blast! A large chunk of her class came and most of her soccer team.  The bounce house was a hit and made it easy on us as parents because we didn’t have to plan anything in terms of games. The kids bounced and blew bubbles, Grace opened way too may gifts, and then we sang “Happy Birthday” and the kids stuffed their faces with cupcakes-after I made them all go back outside. 🙂

We had Grace’s party a few days before her actual birthday, so on her real birthday we did our traditional breakfast of birthday pancakes.

Grace had school that day, but I was able to take the day off and we visited her dad while he was on his lunch break, made one of her favorite meals for dinner (Cuban slider sandwiches), and then went out for ice cream.

It’s hard to believe Grace is already six! This past year has been such a big year for her!  She’s lost three teeth, with two more ready to pop out.  She’s learned so much in school this year.   She is a chatter, which is not surprising, and she really can make friends with just about anyone.  She reminds me of my mom in that way.  Her social/conversational skills far outshine mine.  Sometimes this is an issue, but I think it will actually be an asset to her once she learns how to rein it in.  She loves to dance and sing. This year she started practicing for her dance routines at home and found that her practice really paid off!  She just finished another season of soccer and loved it!  She loves to be outside and play. She loves to go hiking with her dad and even received a  hiking pack from us for her birthday and a hiking pole from her grandpa.  She is such a good girl!  She is kind and caring,  goofy and creative, and she can light up the room just by walking into it.

(I love you so much, Grace! I can’t believe how quickly you are growing up! I can’t help but be a little sad, but I’m also so excited to see what the next year brings with it!)

Top 16 of 2016

Holy moly has it been a LONG time since I have logged on to this little here blog.  Phew!  My track record with keeping up to date has gotten worse and worse.  We’re still here, though!  Our little family is doing well, the kids are happy and healthy, and life is busy!  When I logged on this evening, I went through and read the last post that I wrote, and my GOSH my kids were all so little! I see it especially in Fenix. All of the kids have grown, but when I look at that picture I took of Fenix, Ken, and Coen flexing, it’s SUPER obvious how out of date this is and how much has happened in the last year in a half of my lack of blog sharing.

2016 has been good to us. It’s been a busy year for everyone, with lots of milestones.  Fenix started high school! Grace started kindergarten, and we moved! Ken has had an exciting year and learned some new things at his job and I’ve entered my second year in online teaching, which I am enjoying far more than I ever thought I would.  Coen, of course, has hit lots of little milestones that have become second nature to me, since I haven’t been recording them on here.  Poor boy! I promise I love you just as much as your sister! Life just got super busy once you arrived, little man, and so I haven’t been as good at recording things as I had hoped to be! (In truth, I wasn’t very good with Grace either. Neither of my kids have completed baby books…some day, right?) Forgive me! I promise that my lack of documentation is no indication of the depth of my love! 🙂  I used to think if I didn’t work full time, I’d be better at this, but I’m just not so sure.   Now that I spend my time teaching online, I avoid our personal computer like the plague.  Perhaps, I will be better in 2017, maybe not.  🙂  We will see in a year.

As, I said earlier, this has been a good year. I’m somewhat sad to see it end, and my feelings about 2017 are a mix of apprehension and excitement.  I’m vowing to be more frugal in 2017, to read more, and to eat less junk.  Now that Coen is getting a bit older, we want to do more family “adventuring”, more hiking and exploring our state.  All of those things I’m looking forward to.  The upcoming political changes have me feeling somewhat sad and nervous, but that’s an entirely different issue.  🙂  Perhaps I will blog more in 2017. Maybe I’ll even get around to printing out pictures for the photo albums.  Before we get too far into 2017,  I thought I’d wrap up my year of not blogging with a quick Dietz 2016 Highlight Reel. So here here is the top 16 of  2016 for our little party of five.

1.)  We MOVED!  It was somewhat impromptu, but not really. We knew we wanted something a little bigger, where we could spread out a bit more, but we weren’t sure if wanted to do it this summer or wait a year. Grace was starting kindergarten, which meant we no longer were paying daycare and had a bit more room in our budget.  We debated waiting a year and saving/updating our house to sell, but were torn because we wanted Grace to be in the same school all the way through if we could.  We decided to sit down with realtor and with things selling as quickly as they were and with interests rates so low, we decided to go for it.  We actually had an offer on our house before listing it, because someone my sister worked with was looking for a house in our neighborhood, so we were able to skip dragging the kids out each time there was a showing.  We were able to find a house relatively quickly, and it’s still within the lines of Fenix’s high school and walking distance to a great elementary school, not to mention it’s connected to some extensive walking paths and a wonderful little park. Our summer was busy with moving, but we were able to spend a lot of time exploring on our bikes and going on walking adventures.  We love our new house.  I have a dedicated space to work (with windows, so I no longer feel like I work in a dungeon) and a dining room and kitchen that make it a bit easier to host, which we do quite a bit.  It’s been fun to settle in and decorate, although the decorating is happening slowly and on a budget.  We’ll get there eventually!

2) Fenix started high school!  He loves it! He is taking drama and quite a few honors classes.  He has a good group of friends, all of which are entertaining in their own right. 🙂  All in all he is doing well! He has always been a school kid and has enjoyed his classes this year. School usually comes pretty naturally him. His biggest hurdle is staying organized and turning things in. My step-son has been plagued with that all too common affliction of completing work but forgetting to turn it in…Something I never understood as a teacher and am still trying to figure out as a parent. It may always baffle me, ha ha!

3) Grace started kindergarten. She loves it!  It was more of an adjustment at first than I anticipated. She loves going and loves to learn and make new friends, but found herself frustrated sometimes in the beginning when she wasn’t able to do things right on the first try. “Practice not perfect,” has become her mantra this year. She is somewhat of a perfectionist, but after a few weeks she settled in.  A few of our her preschool friends attend the same school, and she has also made lots of new friends. She, of course, talks too much, but that was to be expected. With me working from home, I’m able to pick her up from school everyday, which I have loved!

4) Fenix went to homecoming!   He looked very dapper and even learned the Carleton.   He had a lot of fun, and to be honest, we did, too. We met up with his date and his mom to take pictures prior to him going, which he was an awesome sport about. Then he took his date to ice cream and Ken gave the two of them a ride to the dance in the mini van…  🙂

5) Coen turned 2! How did THAT happen?  We had a birthday brunch for him with family and our friends Hank and Lindsay. (Hank is just a few months younger than Coen and watching them interact is a blast!)  We ate brunch, the kids played, and then Coen opened up gifts and blew out the candles on his cookie cake. It was way too early to being eating cake, but we figured we could break the rules for his birthday! You only turn 2 once, right?

6) Grace danced A LOT in 2016.  She took hip hop and a ballet/tap combo class last year and hip hop and a ballet/jazz combo this year. She hates stretching with a passion, but loves to dance and be on stage. We just had her winter recital recently, and it was a blast and crazy hectic. She had three dances between her hip hop and ballet routine, so I had to run backstage in between and get her changed out of her ballet costume and into her hip hop one. By the time she got back to the dressing room after her ballet routine, her hip hop group was lining up, so it was a scramble, but we made it!

7) We traveled to the Oregon Coast!  In our fantasy future, Ken and I want to live in Waldport. It’s this tiny, quiet ocean town and we are in love with it. I’m sure the gray skies and constant wind, would eventually do me in, but Ken and I have this fantasy of selling everything when the kids are older and moving into a tiny little beach home.  Grace is totally sold on this fantasy and has actually been telling kids at school that we are moving! I have had to reassure her best friend’s mom that we are NOT moving anytime soon. We took my niece with us and made it a two day trip on the way there, so we could travel from Astoria to Waldport and stop at all the touristy places along the way.  Once we got settled in Waldport, we made a trip into Newport for the aquarium and some seafood, and later made it to Lincoln to visit Mo’s and do some whale watching. The rest of our time was spent on the beach exploring, which is always our favorite part. We’re hoping to go again soon, and maybe do less touristy things and more just hanging out on the beach.  I could walk the beach and listen to the ocean for hours.  Just give me a cup of coffee and an ocean view, and I’m set!

8) We camped! We wanted to do more camping this summer than we did, but we managed to fit in one quick two day trip.  Coen is kind of tough to camp with. He naps and sleeps really well in his crib with a routine, but when we break out of that, it gets a little tough.  We enjoyed ourselves nonetheless, though. Our spot was located near some hot springs and an eagle’s nest which was really neat! The kids enjoyed doing the campfire thing and we got to do a little hiking and exploring. Coen and mom did not sleep at all though, so we’re hoping camping in 2017 is a bit more restful.  We will see! 🙂

9) Grace played soccer in the fall and had so much fun! She takes direction surprisingly well when it’s not her parents giving the directions. 🙂  She LOVED it! She didn’t score any goals, but worked really hard on passing and dribbling. She made some awesome assists and was a really good teammate. We have her signed up for the spring and are really looking forward to our soccer Saturdays getting underway in a couple of months.

10) Ken recently had some training to administer immunizations. Idaho is one of the first in the nation to train pharmacy techs to immunize and Ken was in the first wave of training for his company, which he was really excited about.

11) I started my second year of teaching online.  I wasn’t sure what to think when I took this job initially. I was nervous to be leaving the classroom, but I LOVE my job. I still get to teach and connect with students, but have a bit more flexibility to work around being a mom too.  I feel like I’ve learned and been stretched a lot in this last year and a half and that’s been a really good thing. I’ve  grown as a teacher and I really enjoy my job and the group of teachers and administrators who I work with.

12) I’m going to the Dirty Dancing weekend at Kellerman’s in 2017! It’s not actually called Kellerman’s, but that’s okay! A couple of friends and I are meeting up in Charleston and then travelling into the Mountain Lake Lodge in Virginia (hopefully by convertible) for their annual Dirty Dancing Weekend. What started as a conversation on facebook between some friends of my mine in Wisconsin came to fruition when we booked our room a few months ago. I’m equal parts excited and terrified. I don’t fly, at least not anymore.  As an adult I have always been nervous when flying, but once I had kids that terror seems to have multiplied.  I imagine I will be a nervous wreck the week leading up to the flight and out of my mind the day I fly. I’m hoping to get a flight with a layover in Minneapolis so I can meet up with my friends and travel the remainder of the flight there with them.  We’re planning to have the “time of our lives”, if you will! 🙂

13) We had a lot of visitors this year, starting with Ken’s mom and step-dad in July.  We had just moved in to our new house, so I’m sure things were a bit hectic, but we enjoyed a long weekend with them, spending most of our time at our house or in the backyard enjoying each other’s company.  The kids were excited to see their grandparents and it was nice to just have time with them.  We love where we live, but hate the distance between us and family.

14) Ken’s step-mom came to visit in August.  She stayed with Ken’s sister, but we got to spend lots of good grandma time with her, enjoying dinner, trips to the park (where grandma Lou rode Grace’s bike), and breakfast at one of our favorite diners, The Capri.

15) Ken’s dad came for Thanksgiving. We hosted dinner this year, did some Black Friday shopping, and watched the Husker’s game all before Grandpa had to leave.  Grace’s nickname for Ken’s dad is Papa Jay-Bird, and she loves to have him here. It was a good weekend. Again, we just wish we lived a little closer so we could see people more often. Hopefully this summer we can budget in a trip back to the Nebraska/Colorado area so we can see all of the grandparents again as well as Ken’s siblings that are there.

16) Ken and I celebrated 9 years of marriage!  Whoop! Whoop! It’s actually kind of crazy to think about.  We did dinner and spent time at the Village, enjoying some wine and each other’s company. For our 8th anniversary we went rafting and were torn between spending our 9th one doing something more adventurous like the previous year, but low key won out in the end.  With the kids all being a bit older, we have been vigilant about date nights this year, and have some good ones planned for 2017.

Phew! I know so much more happened than what I’ve posted here, but I think I’ve done an  okay job skimming the surface and hitting the highlights.  I had wanted to add pictures, but that’s always the most time consuming part, and I promised myself I would get the kids started on baths at 7 tonight…it’s already 7:08, so I didn’t quite make my goal, but I’m close!

I hope everyone had a wonderful 2016 and that 2017 is filled with lots of good memories!  I’m looking forward to some of the things we have planed and to watching the kids continue to grow!

2017, bring it on! We’re ready for you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Little Out of Date, But Oh, Well

Ha ha ha! I have some time to myself today.  The kids are napping and Ken is out with the dog. I thought I would hop on here, and after nearly a year, update this. 🙂  As it turns out, out, I have a post written this summer that I never published. Because my intent was to hop on here and try to record some tid-bits from this last year before 2016 gets completely away from me, I thought it would be best just to start by publishing this. 🙂  Ignore how late this is. I blame motherhood on my lack of organization and timeliness.

 

So…it’s been a while.  It should not surprise you in the least bit that this is how I’m opening my blog post, as it seems to be the norm.

Truth be told, I’ve been debating deleting this here little blog and just throwing in the towel.  I enjoy writing and I love to come back through and relive some of my family’s memories that I’ve posted about, but I find it hard to stay up to date.  Not that staying up to date matters in the least bit.  I suppose it’s the part of my personality that lends itself to being more type A that makes me feel like I can’t write about current happenings unless I fill in all the gaps in past happenings.  Does that make sense? I’m a dork.

I thought for sure when I had Coen that I would carve in the time to keep this up to date.  I wanted to share pictures of him and record, in writing, all the little firsts.  How he smelled, the way he would rest his little hand by his cheek as he slept, the many times and ways Grace would melt my heart as she interacted with him.  But, carving out that time proved far more difficult than I realized.  After my last blog post  I realized that it was just easier to not even put blogging on my radar, because if I woke up thinking I need to make the time to post, it just would’t happen for various reasons.  Two kids have kept me pretty busy. Especially in those first few months when Coen was still so new, and I was attempting to learn the ins and outs of him as well as potty train his older sister.  Once I seemed to find the balance, my maternity leave was over and school started…and then suddenly summer was upon us, and I thought for sure I would blog, but all I wanted to do was read, sit outside with the kids, or go to the park. AND THEN school started and blah, blah, blah…anywho, blogging just hasn’t happened this year, and that’s okay. 🙂

 

 

 

Anywho, in the spirit of accepting that my blog is just going to be all over the place, I thought I’d take time to catch up on the all the Dietz happenings from this past winter and spring-starting with December.  Just ignore the fact that it’s nearing the end of July and play along, okay? Okay.  Here we go, folks.

December:

I may be stating the obvious here, but our biggest event of December was welcoming our mini man into the family.  We spent December fawning over him and and having him try as many new things as possible such as…

clothing  (he did, after all, spend the last nine months naked)

riding in the car seat

sleeping in the rock n play

sleeping on the couch-don’t worry, we were right next to him

laying in his very own bed

beanies and hoodies

cuddling in mom and dad’s bed

photo shoots

taking a bath

the swing

and being photo bombed by his sister

again, and again.

The kids also spent a lot of time being ridiculously adorable in December. Case in point:

Grace decided to use my bra to make herself look like she just returned from war with an arm injury.

We decorated and celebrated

Christmas.

And then we rounded the year out by staying up until aproximately 9:30 to celebrate the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015.

January and February:

January consisted of more adorable-ness

a photo shoot or two

and a few fashion statements.

We also celebrated my 31st birthday,  Valentines Day,

and took advantage of free day at the zoo.

March and April:

My maternity ended in the middle of March, and I started back to school.  It was good to be back in some ways and then really, really tough.  It’s always hard to leave the kids.  Between school and a the kids, March and April sped right by.  

The weather was unusually nice in March and we got to break out the bike.  This particular ride, Grace had a really hard time.  At one point she wanted to get off the bike and have me push it, which is not like her at all.  I kept pushing her to finish though, and came to find out (once we made it home and Grace was exhausted) her front tire was flat, making it exponentially harder to pedal.  Poor girl.  She got a work out, and Coen enjoyed coming along for the ride.

We spent a little bit of time enjoying the early spring weather

and watching Coen grow.

We also celebrated Easter

and my nephew went to prom.  I made him pose with me because I took him to prom my senior year…when he was five.  The initial plan was for him to stop by before prom, but he ended up swinging by the night before while he was trying on his tux, which is why I’m in sweats and a hoodie.  My initial plan was to dress up, because I’m a dork like that:)

I would post the pic of us at my senior prom, but it is buried deep in a photo album.  (Isn’t Dennin handsome?  It’s crazy he’s done with high school now and officially an adult! My gosh, time goes by too quickly!)

May

May is always one of my favorite months of the year.  The weather is getting warmer, summer (and summer break) is just around the corner, and it’s Grace’s birthday, which is always quite an event.  

We kicked Grace’s birthday off this year with birthday pancakes.

We did this for Grace’s third birthday and she talked about throughout the year, so we thought it would make a good tradition.

I had the day off, so I was able to spend the day with the kids, and Ken’s stepmom and his sister arrived later that day from Nebraska.

We had her birthday the following day

and then spent the weekend spending time with Aunt Kori and Grandma Lu.

It’s still hard to believe my little girl is four!  Next year at this time we will be gearing up for kindergarten!

The rest of May was pretty low-key, right up until the end.  I finished the school year and packed up my classroom.  My cousin Nic and nephew Dennin graduated high school (!), and Grace finished a year of preschool.  They wrapped up the year of preschool with a preschool program, which gave Grace an excuse to get all fancy:)

My daughter is the one who can’t stand still and keeps switching spots during the music program:)

It’ hard to see her in this photo, but she’s there in the middle, singing and dancing her little heart out:)

Coen started solids the month of May. Grace has really enjoyed “helping” to feed him.

I’m just throwing these last pictures in for the heck of it. I very rarely get a photo of me and the kids, and the bottom photo of Byron and Coen  I just love.  Coen LOVES the dogs!  LOVES them!  He grunts and squeals and reaches out for the whenever they are near by.

That pretty much wraps up the first half of the year (and December).  Our summer is wrapping up, so I’m hoping I’ll post about summer sometimes before we hit Thanksgiving:)  That’s the goal anyway.  One can hope…

 

Two Months and Time is Flying!

Our mini man is already two and a half months old!  In fact, three months is creepin’ up on us really quickly! Where is all the time going?  I swear it goes by even faster with your second than your first.  I know that’s not possible, but my gosh, does it feel that way! Despite the fact that our excitement for the day usually consists of a jaunt to the store or a quick walk, we are keeping busy, and time is flying by!  I go back to work in three weeks as of today and the thought has me a little FREAKED out!  I love my job, I really do, and Coen will be in good hands as I make it through the last nine weeks of the school year, but just thinking of not being around him all day has me feeling anxious already.  I go on short trips to the store by our house without him from time to time, but other than that, we are pretty tightly attached to one another, and going back to work and missing out on the day to day things with him and with Grace kills me, but we will make it through and we will definitely be making the best of our weekends (and frozen meals that take next to no time during the week….sorry Ken!).

(The pics above are from his one month “photo shoot” with mom.)

Coen at two month is SO. MUCH. FUN! Don’t get me wrong, I love the newborn stage. I love the sleepy cuddles, and I love all their tiny little  features.  I love all the firsts.  This stage, the one where he is more aware and has started to really interact with us, is just plain fun though! Coen mastered the smile right around six and a half weeks and was laughing by seven.  At first I was the only one who could coax a smile out of him, and Ken was the only one who could get a laugh, but now he gives both freely, and I love it!  I spend the majority of the day making ridiculous faces and goofy noises just to get him to smile or to hear his laugh.  Grace has just found a way to make him laugh as well, and THAT has been a blast to watch.  Coen loves both his older siblings, and the feeling seems to be mutual. The first things Fenix does when getting home from school is come over to wherever Coen is be it in my arms, his bouncer, or his playmat, so he can see him and talk to him. Grace is the same way, constantly fawning over him (well, when she isn’t talking to her imaginary Ninja Turtle friends that is-that is a post in itself!).  Sometimes she gets a little to eager to interact with her brother and I have to pull her off him to give him some space.  Three year olds really don’t understand personal bubbles quite yet, and she has most definitely invaded her baby brother’s a few (thousand) times already (her big brother’s too). I do love watching them all interact though, and I’m excited to watch them grow into best friends.  I’m not looking forward to the arguing that will most likely ensue, but I suppose it comes with the territory.  I’m happy they all have each other.

Well, here are a few more tidbits about two and half month old Coen.

At two and a half months Coen…

*Weighs 12 pounds 4.5 ounces and is 23 inches tall (both in the 50%).

*Is smiling a ton! (Just the other day I saw that he had woken up in his crib, so I went to go and get him. The minute he saw me his entire face lit up in a smile, and I just wanted to pause that moment so I could keep it a while longer.  It completely melted me!)

*Has started laughing.  His favorites are when dad says, “Give me your giggle!” or when we blow air through our lips to make a funny sound.  He loves that one.  Grace has been tickling him and saying “Gitchy, gitchy, goo!” which usually warrants a laugh from him as well.

*LOVES warm baths.  The few times that we have had a bout of crying that could not be stopped, we put him in the bath and he was calm within minutes.

*Hold his head up pretty well.  He likes tummy time for the most part and can push up with hands pretty well.  He loves to be held against your chest so he can look around and take things in.

*Sleeps fairly well at night, which is a blessing! Grace woke constantly to eat.  Coen usually eats at nine or ten and then doesn’t wake for 5-6 hours, sometimes more.  I’m really hoping that continues.  I’m a bit afraid of what it will do to my supply once I go back to work and start pumping, but we will see.  For now, I am really enjoying the extra shut eye.

*Loves his bouncy chair…to an extent.  He usually lets me sit him  in there and talk with him when I’m working in the kitchen and has gotten into the habit of taking his morning nap in there.  Hopefully I’m not setting him up for napping failure.

*”Talks” and “sings”.  I love it!  He loves to talk back to you and the other day I started singing along to the Pandora station while he was in his bouncy seat and he started to “sing”/coo back to me.  It was too much!

*Isn’t the biggest fan of the car seat:(  I’m wondering if it’s because he can’t see what’s around him.  I’m hoping he gets over that.  Grace and Fenix have always been pretty good travelers and we are taking a trip out to Nebraska this summer for my brother-in-law’s wedding (financials willing) and that means 14 hours in the car.  That’s a long drive as it is, and I would hate for him to be miserable the whole time, not to mention, I think all of our nerves would be fried within the first hour.

These first few months have quite literally flown by; I can only imagine how quickly the next few will move.  I’m always sad to see a stage end, but I’m equally excited to experience the next one, so I’m looking forward to what the next months brings.

We love you so ridiculously much little man!  I can’t wait to see how you grow these next few months!  You’ve definitely completed our little family.

Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful Boy

 Coen Jay

December 3, 2014

New Normal

Hello!  It’s me, Misty. the author of this here blog.  It’s been a while, huh?  The last time I updated this I was sharing ridiculously adorable fall photos of my daughter.  At the time, there were leaves on the ground, and I was carrying around a gigantic bowling ball sized lump in my belly and wishing away the days until we finally got to meet the little soul who was free loading in my belly.  As I write this, February has just begun, the leaves have been replaced by snow and ice, and that bowling ball sized lump I was sporting is looking pretty deflated.  (O.K. So we’re actually passed the snow and ice phase and onto the ugly gray colored skies and rain phase.  Anyways, it’s been a WHILE!)

You can probably predict by my absence….or perhaps you’ve done the math, but he’s here!  There have been multiple times in the last (nearly) two months where I have tried to update this thing. On numerous occasions I’ve logged onto the computer, pulled up my blog, and sat here stumped, not knowing where to start.  Usually by the time I have started typing little man has woken up and is on the desperate look out for his mom and some grub.  (In truth, I think he’s just looking for some grub, but we’re kind of a package deal, so you know.) Needless to say, it’s been difficult to spend more than a few minutes on the computer, let alone the time it takes to resize pictures and do a little writing.

Now that we’ve made it beyond the six-week mark, things seem to be evening out a bit.  We’re slowly finding our new normal and seem to have a good grove going on.  We’ve made it through the perils of nursing…for the most part  (I have no idea why I thought it would be easier the second time around), and we seem to have settled into a somewhat of a schedule-dictate by the youngest and newest member of our crew, mind you.    (As I type this, our newest addition is napping in his Ergo.  After nearly two months, I finally figured out, just last week, how to wear the thing correctly.)

I’m going to be honest.  Two is hard.  Technically we have three, but Fenix is so much older, that he doesn’t provide the same challenges that his younger siblings do.  As Ken and I attempted to take the baby out to watch a basketball game for a high school team our friend coaches this past weekend, we were reminded just how tough this new baby thing is.  I think I forgot.  I forgot how tired I’d be. I forgot how difficult it is to leave the house when your day is dictated by a two-hour feeding schedule.  I forgot how much you worry- is he gaining enough weight? Am I producing enough milk?  Is he sleeping enough? Is he even breathing? Am I doing this right or am I completely messing this kid up for life?

I forgot.

Not only did I forget so much, but there was so much I wasn’t prepared for.  With Grace, it was just her and me most days.  She had my undivided attention.  Outside of showering, I’m not sure I ever put her down…which may be why she still crawls into out bed at three and a half, but whatever.  When she napped, I cuddle up on the couch with her.  With two there’s less cuddle time, not because I don’t want it, but because there are two little people dependent upon me and not just one.  I have two to split my time between.  While I’m nursing our youngest, I also have a three-year old asking for lunch or playing in the faucet in the bathroom when she should be washing her hands. There have been more times that I can count that I have broken down these past few weeks because I felt like I wasn’t doing enough for either one of them, even though I was giving my all.

Despite the lack of sleep, the sore nipples, and the occasional feeling of absolute chaos, life is good. I’m sad time is moving by so quickly!  Now that the little man is here, it’s hard to imagine a time when he wasn’t.  We’re enjoying all the little moments, the baby coos, the smiles, and the recent laugh he has been trying out.

So if you’ve wondered where we’ve been, we’re still here!  We’re just figuring things out and enjoying all the time we have together.  Hopefully, I’ll post more soon, like his birth story and maybe a two month update (can you believe it’s already been two months?!  I know, I can’t!)

In the meantime, here is a photo to tide you over until next time, whenever that may be:)

Fall Photos

It’s that time again when the weather  is perfect for photos.  We purchased a new computer recently (this was actually NOT a good thing, but our other one decided to die on us after five years, so I suppose it was time), and so I decided to try out the free Lightroom trial and use that as a photo editor.  Ken needed a photo of himself for his brother’s wedding website, and I figured it would be best to take Grace out twice to get some fall photos, once with us this weekend and again later on when we have Fenix. We can never quite tell what we’re going to get with Grace or how quickly she’ll burn out, so we thought we’d see what we could catch on this first run.

We bribed her with M n M’s and told her we were going on a photo “adventure”.  The bribe and the promise of an adventure seemed to work, and we ended up landing some great shots that I thought I would share.

 

 

A Quick Look at How We Spent August and September

August and September pretty much just sped right by without me even realizing it, or taking very may photos.  My August folder of photos has maybe eight pictures in it, which is kind of sad.

We’ve been keeping busy, though, with school and soccer and the normal day to day stuff.  I did a pretty good job of summing most of August up in my 24 week post here, but I thought I’d write a quick post just to jot down all the stuff I managed to leave out in August as well as September, such as

OUR ANNIVERSARY!

Ken and I celebrated seven years on the 17th of August.  There have been some years when we have been able to go all out, and other years that have been a bit more low key.  With me being pregnant, this year was more on the low key side.  Grace hung out with my sister and niece for the evening so that Ken and I could go out to eat and go to the movies.  We decided to try a new place near our house called…I can’t remember. Like, I really can’t for the life of me remember.  It was good though.   They had deviled eggs on the menu as an appetizer, which was just weird enough to be intriguing, so I used my pregnancy cravings as an excuse to order them. We followed dinner up with going to The Giver, which was absolutely terrible.  Bad, bad, bad.  It was so bad that I was mortified for the person sitting a few seats down from us who was so moved she was bawling and gasping for breath.  I could not even look at her. It was too much.  Clearly, she did not read the book or understand just how much they ruined the story in the movie. Once the credits started rolling, Ken and I both hopped up immediately out of our seats and made a run for the door.  Despite the terrible movie, it was still a good night.  It’s pretty hard to believe that the Mr. and I have been married for seven years.  I met Ken when I was 20, and am now 30, which means I have spent a third of my life with him.  Kind of crazy.  It went by quickly, as does everything else it seems, and I couldn’t be more happy with our marriage and our little family.  I am very grateful for the life we have managed to build, and I look forward to seeing what’s in store for us in the future.

August also marked the end of summer and the beginning of school for the whole family, which I already blogged a wee bit about.  We spent the evening before school started making ice cream sundaes and enjoying our last night of summer break together.

Fenix is loving 7th grade, and he’s doing really well.  All A’s.  Occasionally he’ll have a grade drop into the B range, but he has been doing a great job of staying organized and on top of things.  We’re really proud of him and hope he keeps it up.

Grace has been really into building forts lately, and so the kids also built many a fort in August.  Here’s a glimpse of  one of their masterpieces below:

I have NO idea what Grace is doing in the bottom picture.  I have about six pictures of her doing that same thing, with no idea what her  goal was.  She’s a strange creative one.

We closed August off with the Boise Balloon Festival,

(you can see a bit more of that here if you’d like)

and we kicked off September with Ken’s 33rd birthday.

We took him out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings the weekend before and then made him goulash and cheese cake for his actual birthday.  

 

My niece also turned 15 this month, so a few weeks after Ken’s birthday we had family over to celebrate both.

 

We have also spent a lot of time on the soccer fields this September.  Grace and Fenix’s games have overlapped so far.  As a result, I have yet to watch an entire game of Fenix’s  because I’ve been taking Grace to her soccer, while Ken coaches Fenix’s team.  This weekend we will both be able to make it to both kids’ games though, and so I should have some more pictures, but these will suffice for now.

Grace loves soccer…until the actual game starts.  They practice for 20 minutes and then play a 20 minute game.  The first day of soccer, she was in love!  She got right out there and was the only one on her team to score a goal.  Her second game?  Completely different story.  She got bonked on the head and then kicked in the shin, and as a result is now a little gun shy. She loves to dribble and shoot the ball, but she doesn’t like it when someone kicks it away from her or when too many people crowd too close and push.  I tried to explain that it was O.K. to push a little in soccer because you’re trying to get to the ball, and she informed me that pushing was mean, and that she didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings:)  So for now, soccer games consist of her playing for a minute, pouting when the ball gets kicked away from her, followed by her taking “a break”.  This series of events pretty much just plays on repeat for the entire 20 minute game.  It’s still been fun to watch though, and I really do think once she gets over the whole people trying to take her soccer ball/pushing thing, that she’ll be a fine little soccer player.  And if not, we’ve had a lot of fun.

That pretty much sums up our lives these past two months.  The weather is turning, and we’ve spent this last week in the 60’s.   It’s starting to feel like fall, and Halloween is is right around the corner.  Grace is already getting excited, and we’re planning to do some decorating this weekend and maybe even take a trip out to the pumpkin patch.   Hopefully I will be a tad bit better about breaking out the camera this month:) At least that’s the goal.

 

28 Weeks…

Just kidding!  I actually hit 29 weeks on Tuesday, but who’s counting anyway?  O.K. so maybe I am.  Less than 11 weeks and we may very well be up to our eye  balls in diapers and late night feedings.  I am SO excited to meet our little stowaway, but maybe not the late night feedings/diaper thing. Time is moving by at lightning speed and we have next to nothing prepared.  We have most of the big stuff from when we had Grace.  We bought and registered gender neutral on nearly everything, which is good because we’ll use it again with the little man to be.  We do, however, need to wash the car seat and swing cover, order the part we are missing on the car seat (somehow I’ve lost the plastic piece that holds the sun visor up), order a crib (Grace’s was a drop down and those have been recalled), get together with insurance on a breast pump…I just switched insurance plans too, so that should be fun, build the crib, organize Grace’s room so that it can be shared by the both of them, decide on a name, possibly paint the kids’ room, find a sub (my district has ZERO certified subs.  There is one person that may  be certified; however, her certification might be expired, so I need to call and check on that), plan sub plans for the nearly three months of school I will be gone…and the list goes on and on.  I have a lot to do, and I need to do it sooner rather than later.  I have a feeling December will be here before I know it.

 

I’m not particularly good at documenting my bump.  I really debated changing into something a bit more fashionable, and then I decided to just be honest.  Sweats/yoga pants and a tank top with a hoodie is pretty much my signature pregnancy look, especially on the weekends when I get around to taking these photos.  (I bribed the kids with a mini Kit Kat to take a photo with me.  Fenix actually didn’t take any bribing, and Grace may not have needed it, but I rewarded them anyway-note that Gracelyn is also in her own version of yoga pants.  We’re really into comfort around here.)

 

I went to the doctor this last Friday and things are going smoothly!  The baby is doing great and moving like crazy.  I had my glucose screening, which came back just fine.  I do, however, need to take iron, because I’m a bit short on that.  I had already predicted that because I had to take extra iron with Grace.  That, and for the last week, I have been DEAD tired.  My third period prep would roll around, and I would quite literally feel like I could fall asleep on my feet.  Taking a nap on my prep never looked so appealing.  I’ve literally had to drag myself through the last week.  I just started taking the extra iron today, so I’m hoping to get some energy back. I took Grace with me on Friday.  I was a little nervous because with the glucose screening we had to be there for a little over an hour.  I wasn’t sure how she would hold up for that long, but she ended up doing awesome.  She got to hear her baby brother’s heartbeat, and we were able to spend ample time looking at the fish tank in the office while we waited for the glucose to do it’s thing before I had blood drawn.  Afterwards the two of us went out to eat at The Capri.  We shared a meal and a milk shake.  Grace insisted that we each drink the milk shake at the same time because it had two straws:)

Here’s a few other details about how things are going:

Weeks? I’m 28 and a few days in the picture above, but we just hit the 29 week mark yesterday, so we are in the third trimester now.

Cravings?  Nothing interesting.  In fact, I can’t think of a single one at this point. Peanut butter twix bars always taste nice though.  But I’m not so sure that’s a pregnancy craving.

Weight Gain?  I obsessively counted calories for all of the first trimester and a big chunk of the second.  It did not help.  I put on much more in the first trimester than I had hoped.  I did well during the second trimester though, and I was happy with my weight gain at my appointment on Friday.  I stopped logging calories over three weeks ago, and that actually seems to be  working better than my obsessing.  However, I have ate poorly since Friday.  Really poorly.  We celebrated family birthdays and I bought McDonald’s on the way home tonight because I had a headache. That’s just the tip of the iceberg too. I need to be better, and I’m avoiding the scale until I do.  I’m O.K. gaining an average of a pound a week until the boy gets here, but anymore than that and we may have some issues…like me crying, a lot.  Weight gain is my least favorite part of pregnancy.

Symptoms?  Sheer exhaustion! But, like I said, hopefully the extra iron will take care of some of that. My back aches!  I’ve begun fantasizing about what it will be like to have full use of it some day.  Headaches have made a come back.  Today was particularly bad.  I woke up at four this morning and made myself breakfast so I could take the prescription I have.  It did not help, and by the time I left school I thought for sure I’d be sick to my stomach.  Eating helped…even if it was McDonald’s and not in the least bit healthy.  I think the protein/carb/caffeine combination helped, plus the long bath I took afterwards.  My headache is still there, but it’s faint, and I’m pretty confident it will be gone in the morning.  The fact that I can type this shows you that it is much, much better than from what it was this afternoon.  I’m hoping I don’t start having them on a regular basis again.

Names?  We may be closer, but we’re not sure, and we’re not disclosing anything quite yet.

Extras? Grace still hasn’t felt her brother move:(  She isn’t patient enough.  I’m still waiting for that moment though.  He is such an active baby, and I love feeling him move. I know I will miss that in a weird way once he is actually here, so I’m trying to really enjoy it.  My students have been pretty good about my pregnancy.  Middle school students always make funny comments though.  I had a student a few weeks ago ask when I was due.  I told her December 9th.  Her response?  “Yuck!”  When I asked her what she meant, she asked if I was going to have to stay in the hospital over Christmas, because she thought that would really suck.  This made me laugh. I will not be in the hospital for three weeks. At least I’m not planning on it.  Yesterday one of my students was commenting on how weird it will be when I come back because my stomach will be flat again…I just looked at her and said, “Bless your heart!”  My belly will NOT be flat again…ever.  It really wasn’t flat to begin with, but I have a feeling I will come back still holding on to quite a bit of baby weight, and it will be that way for a while.

I think that hits all the key points of our pregnancy journey so far, and Grace keeps telling me I need to go “night, night”, so I suppose it’s time I wrap this up.

Less than 11 weeks!