Saturday, September 22, 2012

My Favorite Weather

This is my favorite time of year. I really really love it when the weather starts to cool down. You can do stuff like go to Olbrich Gardens and actually enjoy the time outside. 



Or watch Claire play soccer and not count down the minutes left in the game.



Or you can go to Aunt Monnie's house to eat apple pie and ice cream in the back yard.


Summer doesn't have anything on the fall.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Happy Birthday Claire!

She's nine! And nine is fine.


Claire's birthday was on a beautiful cool day. We made the most of it and the new deck to have family and friends over to celebrate. There were lots of balloons,


Lots of presents,

And lots of fun all around.










Friday, September 07, 2012

Milena

Being fully happy:

Trying, as always, to avoid a picture:



 Getting a little help with her zipper from her sister:


Wednesday, September 05, 2012

The Last Week of Summer

The last week of summer held a few surprises for us.  First, Milena got croup. This was my first experience with croup so when she woke up in the middle of night gagging for air, I'll be honest, it freaked me out. But Mike had probably seen cases worse than hers, so he was pretty casual about the whole thing, especially compared to me. Her pediatrician called in some steroids and she easily went back to sleep. I went back to bed too, and listened to all the tiny little sounds that were suddenly loud and clear.


She was completely over it for our weekend trip to Milwaukee.  We saw a lot of family on Thursday and were looking forward to seeing more on Friday. Unfortunately, Friday Claire slipped on a wet floor at Discovery World. She cut her lip pretty severely and broke a tooth off, right at the gum line.  So we quickly packed up and went back home to see the dentist, who was willing to open the office just for us. The tooth she broke was a permanent tooth, but it was only partially erupted so what looked like a completely broken tooth was really a tooth with only the bottom quarter missing. It easily could have been worse. She has a temporary cap on it now and we are waiting several weeks to see how much damage was done to the nerve. In the mean time, we are finding out that way more people than I would have thought have had a broken tooth or two. After seeing the dentist, the girls and I piled back in the truck and went back to Milwaukee to pick up where we left off at John and Leslie's with liars dice in the dining room, dancing in the kitchen and art in the living room.





The next day we hit Veteran's Park for some paddle boating. Someone decided we should name our boats. Milena decided our blue boat would be called "Red Racer". 



Even with the drama of Claire's face, we had a great weekend. It was really nice to see so much family. 

Sunday we went to Ripon for Mike's grandma's funeral. I don't have any pictures from this, of course, but it was a really nice gathering. It was really good to see all the Halbergs again.

Finally after a busy week and a busier weekend, Tuesday was the first day of school. Its a big deal this year because we are homeschooling Claire. Or more accurately 'virtual schooling'. Our district has the option for a virtual school and this year we decided to try it.  Its a combination of in school and at home learning. Two days in, and so far its fantastic. I'll be keeping a blog about it, Lost My Rutabaga. The name was inspired by Claire, who is also keeping a blog called Hare Spray. You can follow the link to my blog but Claire's is only available if you've been invited. If you are a friend or family and want to check it out, let me know and I'll send you an invitation.