Hello From The Other Side

Well, once again I have failed to be the blogger I would like to be.  No excuses.  No, you know what, I do have excuses!  Three big ones and a million little ones too.  Anyway, more than a half of a year has gone by since I last updated!!!  No way I can even try to cover it all, but the highlights since last September include:

Labor Day Weekend

Best part of The Last Fling was the misters!

Block party fun

Labor Day Parade

First Day of 2 Day Preschool with Ms. Cynthia 

Worried to start, smiles to finish!

Cousin Owen was born!

Nine years married!  

Annual Apple Orchard visit

Always good for a laugh...Zo in her goggles.

Love this.

Nathan turned 4 (and more recently 4 1/2 as he won't let us forget)  The half actually really does make a difference because over the past few weeks he has really become such an independent, helpful, more rational kid.  I love it! He also continues to amaze us with his intelligence.  He can add/subtract numbers to 10, started to read a couple months back, and asks questions non-stop about everything.

Birthday boy at school

Celebrating at home...

Huge highlight from October!!!

And lowlight...Leila's first disappointment as a Cub fan...

 Leila and her good friend, Rowyn at American Girl Place

Happy Halloween!

Visit from Aunt Kelsey and Uncle Mike!

Winter dance parties begin

First (and one of the only!) snows of the season

Browsing the ads for Christmas toys

Leila got a great report card! Celebration at Meson Sabika with Mom and Dad.

Annual trip to the aquarium on Thanksgiving eve

Thanksgiving morning bowling!

Twinsies

Turkey dinner

Bingo with Gigi

Another successful tree purchase from the Home Depot

Ready to talk to Santa

New tradition! Ladies Tea

Love moments like these

Zoe turned 2 in December.  She's not exactly terrible, but she is two in every way.  Wants to be bigger than she is, and has a BIG personality to match.  She makes me insane with frustration at times, but she is also the one that makes all of us laugh constantly, and she gives the best hugs.  Favorite things she says:  

"What you doing?"

"Bobbers!" (talking to Bob)

"Bee 'n' Ba"

"Hooray!!"

 Our angel at his Christmas pageant 

 Christmas Time!  

Annual cookie baking with Oma

 More cookie decorating at Ama and Papa's

The cousin crew

Christmas morning

The fam

Girl's day

One of my favorite pics ever.  "If a kangaroo and a wombat can be friends, anything is possible."

Happy New Year!

 And Happy 88th Birthday to Gigi!!

Mondays with Owen...

As I wrote my last entry Leila had just started 1st grade and now she is about to graduate to 2nd!  What a lot of growing up she has done in the past several months!  She is confident, loves school, tries new things, has a "BFF", Amelia, loves Taylor Swift, is obsessed with Pomeranians and wants a dog soooo bad.  She also likes dressing fancy everyday.   

So proud of this girl and her love for writing and creating stories

BFFs

Dressed up like big sister

Leila agreed to try out basketball this winter since Matt offered to try his hand at coaching 8 first graders.  The team (The Bulls) had its ups and downs...no score was kept...and they all seemed to have a great time.  During one of the games, Leila said, "Daddy, I'm about to sweat, will you take me out?"  So, a second season is still in question.

 The Bulls!

 Daddy Daughter Dance

In January, we went to Mexico with our friends, The Cisowskis, and had a blast!  The kids loved the beach, buffet, and Leila and Matt swam with a dolphin!

Zoe and Nathan getting read for the trip!

Viva la Mexcio!

Back home for Valentine's Day

And more snow...

Only days later, we were outside playing hide and seek with no coats!

Then came St. Paddy's Day

Zoe's first neighborhood Easter egg hunt

We just finished up our annual Team Vacation to The Inn at Spa Feske.  As always it was so fun to see our west coast family/friends, and spend some quality time together.

Team Vacation 2016

Bunny Cake 2016

Egg Hunt

Cubs game

Leila's new best friend, Wagner

Traditional Roy's Happy Hour

P.C. and Oma with their loves

Nathan really found his confidence in swimming during our trip and can swim by himself now!  Zoe, plays in the water with no fear at all...diving down for rings, jumping in without caring if someone is there to catch her (yikes!), and all the while doesn't use goggles, keeps her eyes open and a smile on her face.  Leila continued to enjoy the pool and learned handstands and somersaults from Auntie Jaimie (now known as Uncle Jaimie thanks to Zo.)

Toofless

Leila just lost her two front teeth.  So that, along with the fact she can read chapter books now, has a crush on Kris Bryant (of the Cubs), and is only a few months from seven, must mean my baby is really a big kid now.  Ugh.  I'm kinda dreading her getting those two big teeth because she is going to look older and a little piece of me just gets heartbroken with each of these milestones.

And now it's Spring.  As usual, I feel so cliche saying time really flies with these kids, but it's so true.  I can't believe Zoe is the same age Leila was when Nathan was born!  She's still just a baby, right? I still hold her like one at bedtime and I have no intention of freeing her from the crib.  And I can't believe Nathan is the same age Leila was when she was about to start Kindergarten!  I'm actually grateful for my extra year with him now that I see how quickly they grow up in elementary school.  And even more mind-blowing...I can't believe Leila is almost the same age I was when I met some of my lifelong best friends!  It's all too hard to believe sometimes, overwhelming, and yet exciting...because as we just finished up our last airplane trip Matt and I looked at each other across the plane aisle as we both read books (insane!) and smiled a smile that said "We've made it."  Although parenting is never easy, and always has it's challenges, we've made it to a space that seems much easier than just a year ago. Hello from the other side! (Thank you Adele for always being in my head.)