A letter

Dear Grandparents of my children,

I'm sorry I haven't kept my blog up to date. It seems like something has overtaken our lives, which I affectionately term "crazy-ness". I don't know where all the time is going, but every time I think I have a great idea for a post it ends up being a week later that I finally sit down to post it and, not surprisingly, I have forgotten what funny things I was going to write. Your grandchildren say the darnedest things sometimes, but do I ever take the time to write them down? The answer is a quick "No, but I wish I did." Jaycee told me this very morning that she hates any outfit that I choose for her. Getting ready for school seems to be such a chore for her. I tell her she has all the control for choosing her outfits. Then she chooses shorts. Then I tell her some of the control has been revoked, change again. Then she comes out in a skirt. Then I try putting stretch pants on underneath and she cries and says she hates it. It's been a rough battle with this one. She definitely has her own sense of what she wants to wear, and if I try suggesting something to wear, she simply chooses the exact opposite. On any given day, she will have changed outfits ten times (at least), and that doesn't include changing into pajamas. One of her favorite outfits is her underwear. That seems a little incompatible with the current season, but she is undeterred. Thankfully, we are able to convince her to get dressed when we go anywhere, but as I mentioned before, that is no small task. Luckily, all problems with clothes pushed aside, she is very patient when I try to do her hair. She usually likes to get her hair done, and I have fun coming up with cute new hairdos. I decided to take a picture of one of her recent hairdos. She didn't want me to take her picture, but you can tell she even thinks she looks stinkin' adorable.

Her hair is getting so long and beautiful.

This picture is posted especially for Grandpa Dixon. Rydge's "dork dot" takes me straight back to my childhood. I was around middle school age when my dad had something like this on his forehead. Funny story: We had a little basketball hoop that had a suction cup on the bottom so it would stick to a table. One day my dad decided that it would be funny to stick it to his forehead, and it stuck really good. He left it on for a while because we were all laughing at him, and when he took it off he had a silver-dollar-sized bruise right in the middle of his forehead. He was finishing his education degree at that time and had to go student-teaching to Box Elder schools with that on his forehead. I'm laughing even as I type. Anyway, Rydge's story isn't as funny, but it's worth telling. It was a beautiful day and we decided to go out in front of our house to play and run around. Rydge was so excited and he loves running away from me. I started chasing him and I could just see him getting so tense because of the excitement. He got so excited while trying to run that he forgot about his feet and smacked down onto the pavement. So sad.

You will love reading Rydge's latest stats (not much different than last time):
Weight: 20th percentile
Height: 50th percentile
Head circumference: 99th+ percentile (or off the charts)
That's right, this kid is a lollipop.
But we sure love that lollipop.

I am sorry to report that while we had a wonderful Halloween this year, it has been poorly documented. I forgot my camera when we went trick-or-treating at MCW to all of the offices. As a sidenote, that is the best trick-or-treating there is. It's inside, you don't have to walk from house to house, they have lots of candy, and they feed you dessert at the end. When we went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood, my camera decided not to work, and I could only get it to take a picture without it being focused. Here's our little Spiderman. His costume had a hat and glasses to go with it, but the hat was about 6 sizes too small, and he never wears anything like glasses unless he's trying Brad's glasses on.

This is a picture of Jaycee with some of our neighbors' kids. I don't know why Jaycee turned around.

You might be wondering why there is a long black leg covering the pumpkin on the left. Well, keep wondering.
Just kidding. Story is as follows: Lance had a great idea for his pumpkin this year and he got right to work chopping and carving away. His inspiration came from the barfing pumpkin, except his was a victim of gun violence. On one side of his pumpkin he shoved the end of one of Jaycee's toy guns and on the other side he cut a very large hole with the brains spilling out (dyed red for a real visual effect). He was so proud of his idea...until our landlord came by the next day and had a look of utter disgust on her face. About an hour later, our mailman came by looking at it the same way. Poor Lance's idea was not so cool anymore, and he immediately went and took the gun out. I guess it's not so funny in a place where there really is gun violence. I was going to take a picture of the pumpkins before we went trick-or-treating, but Lance didn't want the picture to be taken without the gun in his pumpkin. But he also wasn't willing to go inside and get it. So there you have it.

Here is a picture of our noisy little man. That's what he does whenever he wants something. Along with that look he gives a horribly loud EEEEEEHHHHHHHH!!! We are still working on communicating with words.

Here is a good picture of our pretty little Snow White (even if her hair is right in the middle of her face).
Look at all the cuteness you missed out on because you had to stay in Idaho and take care of your own lives. Too bad.

Well, it was fun giving you an update on our life here in Wisconsin. If you ever feel like taking a spur-of-the-moment car trip, I know of one that would take you about 20 hours, but we would sure make it worth it for you. If not, we are eagerly looking forward to the Christmas memories we will be able to make with you in the near future.

Love, Chemene.

Playtime

I have had both sides of grandparents asking me when I would update my blog, so here it is. It's not much because I haven't been great at taking pictures lately. Rydge looks older to me with every picture I take.

I love when Jaycee will actually play with Rydge. I mean the nice playing. She'll always play with him, except her version of playing is knocking him down, knocking on his forehead with her knuckles, locking him out of her room, etc. When she actually gets him laughing and catches on to what he thinks is funny, it's hilarious. Rydge loves playing with her, and they both have a great time. There is nothing better in this world than to hear true laughter from your own children. It's contagious.

It's gotta be BLUE!

Blue Harbor Resort, that is. While Lance's mom was here visiting us he was lucky enough to get the weekend off (thanks to Shawn Ostler, his partner in crime for their current rotation) so we could actually leave town. It was a beautiful place, and it was actually the first time we touched the water of Lake Michigan. We had a great stay there, but I missed out on my morning run along the beach because it was raining. I was so disappointed. Peggy's face says it all...it was cold! I actually didn't even dip my toes in the water because I thought we'd be able to play more on the beach the next day. Rain always ruins everything. Jaycee had a blast playing in the water even if she wasn't prepared to get wet. She was soaked by the time we left and we still had to drag her away from the water.

I didn't take many pictures of the indoor swimming because they don't turn out very good. Lance took Jaycee down one of the tube slides on Friday night, and she got way scared when the tubes went dark. When he tried to get her to go again, she wasn't tempted at all. It took him the rest of the night, and some of Saturday morning to get her to go again. When she finally went with him again, she was a changed little girl. They went at least 75 more times down the slides before it was time to go. Lance definitely got a good workout that day. He couldn't say no to her because he had been begging her to go for so long. He's such a good sport.

This was Rydge's take on the whole swimming experience. We had to forcefully pull him into the water. He didn't like it. He just preferred playing around the chairs and having nothing to do with spraying or splashing. He also opted for a nap instead. I hope he'll grow out of this eventually. He's got to love water if he's my son, right?

Brewers Game!

We were the lucky recipients of a visit from Lance's mom. When she came into town, we did nothing but celebrate for the weekend. One of the celebrations was to go to a Brewers vs. Cubs game. Lance's family has always been true Cubs fans, but lately we've all lost interest because the Cubs (and the Brewers as well) are playing terrible and there's not much to celebrate. Even so, we were way excited when we found out the Cubs were in town during her visit. We were even more excited when I got a text from our neighbors and they wanted to give us their Toyota Tundra Territory seats. Those are the seats of luxury in Miller Park, and we enjoyed them to the fullest. Who expects to be able to recline in comfortable seats while at a baseball game? It's amazing!

This is Jaycee's favorite part of the baseball games. She gets to go down the yellow slide, kind of like Bernie Brewer.

We got free hats and thunder-whackers. We felt so special ;)

Look at those puppy dog eyes. He's so stinkin' cute.

Jaycee took a ten-minute nap during all the excitement, but she didn't miss much. It was a fairly uneventful game.

Here's a funny story to go along with the Brewers games:

When we were trying to decide which game to go to while Peggy was here, we had the option of going on Saturday night or Sunday afternoon (right during church). The plan we had already was to go to Blue Harbor resort in Sheboygan, and thought we might have exhausted kids by the time we made it to the game. The tickets were also way more expensive for Sat. night, so I left it up to Lance to decide (I didn't want the blame to go on my head for going to a baseball game right when we should be heading to church). We should have asked Jaycee what to do, because when I told her we were going to a baseball game, she came unglued. The Sunday before she had learned in primary about showing Jesus we love Him by Keeping His Commandments, and they definitely talked about going to church on Sundays. Here are some quotes:

"We can't go to the game, we have to go to church! We need to follow Jesus. When you do things that are naughty you aren't following Jesus. Dad, I don't want you to choose to follow Satan. If you go to the game, you are following Satan, and not following Jesus. Grandma, I want you to go to church with me."

Those are just a few of her retributions to us naughty people. Then we got the tickets from Steve and Sarah for the Sat. night game. The resolution was to let Grandma and Dad go to the game, and mom, Jaycee and Rydge went to church. There is a valuable lesson that we all learned from her, and I hope I will be able to make better choices about what my Sunday activities include. A huge chunk of parenthood is the learning curve we as parents have to catch onto. I learn so much from my little kiddos everyday.

Mom and Daughter Both Survived First Day of School

That's right--I sent my little Jaycee off to Junior Kindergarten today (it was for a mere two hours, but it counts). A lot of mixed feelings, but overall excitement for this new stage in our lives. I never thought school would come this fast in child-raising. It's especially scary sending her to school in Milwaukee, but through a series of little miracles with housing when we moved here we ended up in a great school district and only live a couple blocks from the school. Schools weren't something we thought about when we first moved here. Anyway, it was a busy day for Jaycee. She started out playing with Natalie at 8:00 this morning while Amy and I take turns to go running. Then she had her first day of dance class at 10:00. After that she went to school at 12:30. Not surprising, she was completely exhausted by the time we got home at 3:00. We'll tell her first day of school story mostly through the pictures. Here she is eating a quick lunch before we walked to the school. I realize it's a very poorly thought-out picture, but I don't claim to know much about photography. It looks like she has a lamp growing out of her head. We have had way too many battles about the clothes she wears already, so I told her she could choose her first-day-of-school outfit. She did pretty good.
I was bound and determined not to get a crazy cartoon or princess backpack, but once again, I didn't want to have a battle with her. I tried to convince her otherwise, but she chose Princess and the Frog. The colors don't stand out quite as much as the normal princess backpacks. It matched perfectly with her outfit, but it looks way big on her. She still only weighs 30 lbs. She's a very slow grower.

Right before we got to the school she crashed on her bike. I thought she might have bumped her chin or nose, but there were no visible injuries. That may be why she looks a little apprehensive and sad in this picture. Maybe a small sign of the stress a little 4-year-old might feel. We were waiting for her teacher, Mrs. Zeimet, to come take them inside, so she dealt with the waiting by riding around. From what I've seen, her teacher seems to be so awesome. She's so good with the kids, and she knows what she's doing.

Waiting in line to go to their classroom.

Jaycee's lucky because she has three friends that she already knows from our ward that are in her class. We kind of discussed beforehand and decided to do afternoon kindergarten for all of them. The second girl behind Jaycee is Dylan, and the third one is Abbi. I don't know where Drey went, but he was standing with them. Just a quick sidenote: the lady in the black and white shirt behind the kids came up to me afterwards and said Jaycee is definitely going to be her favorite in the class because she's such a sweetheart. I definitely agree with her.

This is when they had completed their first day of school. I loved the smile Jaycee gave me when she realized I was there waiting for her.

And now it's time to go home (after we played at the playground, of course).

There were no tears from me (I hate crying), but I was definitely nervous as well. I hope she has a fun time in school. I hope no one is mean to her. I hope she can be nice to everyone. I hope she can share. I hope she will miss me while she's at school. I hope she will want to learn. So many hopes for her...

Gymnastics and a whole lot more!

There's not much to write about for this post, it's just a lot of random pictures from our life lately. We have been soaking up the last days of summer before school starts. This little munchkin is headed off to Junior Kindergarten on September 1st, and she is so excited. She's grown up so much lately. If it seems like you've seen a lot of pictures of her in this dress, it's because she wears it all the time. I had to make her stop wearing it because it's coming apart, and it needs some fixing. My seamstress services are few and far between, and they take a long time to be completed, so she might be able to give it a rest.

Wierdo...Those are some sports cones she decided to wear on her ears.
These are faces that I see all the time. Rydge whining because Jaycee's picking on him, and Jaycee's acting like nothing is happening. I don't know why kids think it's fun to pick on the younger kid, but it's heartbreaking for a mother. The other night he was "in her way" so she just decided she would stand on his wrists and ankles. Does anyone know of a good punishment for the mean older sibling? Sometime I just want to give her a taste of her own medicine, but that's not very effective. FYI: Rydge is wearing the necklace because Jaycee put it on him. We don't make him wear girl stuff.
This is Jaycee's first day of gymnastics picture. It all started on the 4th of July. We were watching the parade, and some of the gymnastic academies had their gymnasts walking along doing tricks to advertise. They had people going along to the crowds handing out fliers. Afterwards, Jaycee said, "I am going to be in the parade because they want me. The lady handed me a paper." It was so cute. So, she got into a gymnastics class, and loved it. We actually had to miss her last class because we had the family pukes. All of us were too sick to even get out of bed.
Look at Lance. That is the face of one relieved medical student. He lost a couple years off the end of his life because of his boards test, and this is the day he got his score back. His hard work paid off, and he could finally take a deep breath and somewhat relax for a minute. I say "a minute" because it was back to reality very soon after that because he was already in a very busy rotation.
I just had to take a picture of these cute little boots on Rydge. They're Jaycee's cowboy boots, and he decided to slip them on.

What is it with kids and their parents' shoes? It's so cute.

We are very slowly working on Jaycee's words and writing. She's coming along, but I think I'll leave the rest up to her teachers. She gets bored when I try to help her.

Last but not least, Rydge started walking a week or so ago, and it's so much fun to see him so mobile. He really loves his new tricks and has already advanced to carrying anything possible around the house. For example, golf clubs, balls larger than he is, bats, food, etc. So, this is his zombie walk with Jaycee maulilng him at the end.

Water fun!

So, lately it has been extremely hot in Wisconsin--almost to the point of unbearable--but it's so bad to complain about it being too warm outside considering we have to practically hibernate during the unbearable winters here except to gather food from the grocery store when we are feeling brave. Still, some days are too hot even if you're going to play in the water. Being the boring adult, the plan is to just watch the kids swim, but it all comes down to whether you want to be soaked with sweat from sitting there, or have a little fun and cool off in the process. We joined in on the slip 'n slide, but opted not to take pictures. I have made sure to take pictures of Rydge and Jaycee's water fun, though. Rydge isn't completely happy about hanging out in the cold water. He'd rather wander around our 4'x4' yard and crawl all over the thistles that have taken residence there. The other boy in some of the pictures is Drey. He and Jaycee are pretty good playmates, and they had a great time on the slip 'n slide. Drey was very unsure of the safety of the slide, but after seeing Jaycee go down it a hundred times, he decided to give it a try. Of course, being the tough guy, he had to run across the whole yard to get his momentum.



Hopefully no one thinks this is harsh, but we sent Rydge down the slide, and he seemed to enjoy it. He never cried, so it means he had fun, right? I'll show you his run, then you can decide if he liked it or not. I love the face he gives.

I didn't want to leave Jaycee out, so here is her run down the slide as well.

I'm a little partial, but his smile is to die for. I love it.

Happy times

Ever since Lance started rotations for his third year of medical school, time has been flying by. My days are all a blur, and I have found myself wondering what I am doing with my time. I really can't look back on the day before and say some big thing I accomplished. I look at my house, and it's not exactly clean,to say the least. Sometimes there are more important things to do besides the housework, like playing dollies, or hide-and-seek, or coloring. I look at my kids and keep thinking that this time with them goes by so fast, and they are at such fun ages. I'm somewhat saddened when I think about sending Jaycee to Junior Kindergarten in a month just because I never imagined she would grow up so fast. There are so many things about having kids that are frustrating and make me want to scream, but there are so many more things that make it so worth it. I love staying home with my kids. The other night I was leaving for just a few minutes and I had both kids screaming their heads off because I was going out the door. It was heartwrenching for me. Ironically enough, they survived my little 15-minute absence. I love these times with young children, and hope time will slow down a little bit so we can enjoy it even more. I think you've seen this picture before, but take this picture, for instance. Look at that adorable face. I had a huge mess to clean up, but he was so cute. He had to feed himself, and there wasn't any way to stop him. I swear he knows when I want the house clean because that's when he starts pulling things out of the cupboards. It's all just part of the life of parenthood and I wouldn't trade any of these moments. They are priceless.We've been having a lot of rain lately, and we just had to go out and enjoy it. Meghan went with us to play in the rain, too, but I didn't think to take a picture of her with the kids. She was nice enough to snap a picture of us. What fun times.

I've posted a video before of Jaycee's dance recital, but this was at our ward talent show. She got a second chance to try and dance a little faster (the last time she didn't move because she said she was just dancing slow and everyone was going too fast) and we bribed her with anything she wanted if she would just dance. She actually did a really good job, and I almost cried because I was just glad she actually moved and didn't suck on her hands the whole time. I was so proud. That's just like Jaycee to do something because there's a reward involved. You can't really see her face, but she's the one on the end.