MLK Weekend

We had a great MLK weekend filled with some nice family time!  

Roman happily gnawed on some toy moose antlers.

 

 

Both kids kicked around on Roman's activity mat. Lucy is kind of funny in that she gets super interested in infant toys when she sees Roman playing with them. She will get jealous of his toy and take it for herself. Luckily he is too young to care and is happy when you just swap a toy out with something else!

 

On Saturday morning we went to see the Handphibians - a Brazilian drumming group in Madison. They were performing as part of the Kids in the Rotunda series. Lucy and I went to see them last year and she really enjoyed the music.

 

Here she is listening to the sounds while sitting on top of Daniel's shoulders.

 

Roman liked listening to the music too! And despite being surrounded by lots of loud drumming...

 

...he managed to fall asleep in the front pack. Haha!

 

Here are the Handphibians!

 

Afterwards we strolled down State Street to get lunch. It has been a while since I paid a visit to State Street, we had a great time! Dan requested that we go to Pizza Di Roma so that is what we did. Trip down memory lane!

 

There is nothing like faux Tuscan scenery to make the pizza taste even better. :)

 

Lucy was a fan of her pizza pie and of the giant mirrors. Maybe she'll be back when she is a college student at UW-Madison someday? :)

Lucy and her Dad enjoyed some time outside over the weekend too. They shoveled, went sledding down a neighborhood hill a few times, made snow angels, and sang Frosty the Snowman together on Sunday afternoon.

 

Lucy loves to scoop snow into a big pile! Thanks for the sweet shovel, Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Glen!

 

 

Helping Dad clear the sidewalk.

 

 

 Happy January!

 

 

Roman's First Bites

Our Roman is growing up! At ~5 months old he is not quite sitting on his own but he is getting stronger and better at supporting himself each day! He is super interested in food, gnawing on things constantly (the other day Chief was lounging near him and Roman put his tail in his mouth. Gross.) and he is a voracious eater. I can barely keep up with my pumping! Lucy barely ate 16 oz per day at day care when she was Roman's age. Roman is eating at least 20 ounces and acts like he is starving by the end of the day. So, we decided to start giving him some solids. Given our previous experience with Lucy's bumpy transition to solid foods and all of her issues with oral texture aversion as a baby, I have to admit that part of me is terrified to go through this process again. With Lucy I thought that it would be so much fun to try all kinds of new things and I assumed that she would love eating all sorts of foods but the journey to table food ended up being a long and often stressful adventure. The good news is that we can already tell that Roman is much more oral than Lucy was, he mouths on all kinds of toys and has already started chewing on his little fingers and toes. The Sophie the Giraffe chew toy that we bought for Lucy is now finally getting used!  Roman's first bites of cereal were a hit and we are hoping that he continues to eat new things without any issues! :)

 

Our little man sitting at the table at his day care. Doesn't he look like a big boy? He is ready to eat!

 

 

Here are Roman's first bites of oatmeal. You can see in the next few photos how his face gets progressively messier. :)

 

He gobbled it up right off the spoon!

Delicious!

 

Of course Lucy wanted to feed Roman right away. She is such a helpful little lady. We convinced her to feed her own doll while we fed Roman at the same time. She seemed satisfied with that arrangement and proceeded to feed her 'Baby Jesus' while Roman ate his lunch.

Our House in the Big Woods

After closing on our house, we quickly planned a trip to Rhinelander! We drove up on Friday morning, picked up our new keys and garage door openers from Ron in Tomahawk and headed to our new place. We had a busy Friday, we arrived at Murmuring Pines just in time to meet a contractor who came to look at our bonus room and provide an estimate on making 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom in the space. I also needed to drive to Crandon that afternoonto take a drug test for my new job. :) I am going to be a Clinical Data Analyst for Forest County Potawatomi! I am excited about it, I feel very lucky to have found a position that is such a good fit for me in the area! I will be working with their electronic medical record and pulling information for grants, providing reports to the Federal government and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, working with their accreditation processes, etc. I am especially excited that it is a 4 day work week so that I will have Fridays with my kids. Yay!

 

We arrived and promptly made ourselves at home.

 

Our awesome dining room table and chairs at the moment! Haha.

 

 

The previous owners left us this fine piece of Northwoods art.

Ugh - enjoy the photo while you can because this thing is coming down!

 

 

After dinner on Friday with our friends the Bronsons, we retired to our sleeping quarters - Lucy slept in a pack and play but she was so very excited to cuddle with and lounge on her new sleeping bag. Thanks for the Christmas gift Uncle Brad, Brian and Amelia!

 

Our little man is rolling all over the place these days, Roman was super happy to have a soft space to play.

 

 

On Saturday morning we had friends over for brunch! Lucy and Jacob had lots of fun doing stickers, playing with puzzles, and eating together. We can't wait to see these two grow up together. They will be in the same room at day care in a few weeks!

The guys worked to build us a rip roaring fire. Dave and Laura have the same brand of woodburning stove so we had an expert to help us get the job done. And, wow does this stove work! It heated up our house in a hurry, it was nice and toasty all day.

On Saturday afternoon we went snowshoeing around our property. What fun! It was the perfect day for an adventure. The air temperature was pretty warm and we had lots of fresh and beautiful snow. Lucy was on her Dad's back riding in the backpack and Roman rode with Mama in the front pack. The dogs happily ran with us all over the place.

Full circle - For a while, Lucy refused to ride in the backpack, she threw a fit and/or screamed the whole time she was in it. We took a hiatus from using it and, on this day, she was super excited to be up high on her Dad's back! Daniel just had to be very careful of tree branches! :)

 

 

Here is a selfie of our whole family.

 

 

Our new, beautiful backyard!

 

 

 

Here is our house, blanketed in some fresh snow.

 

Yours truly with Roman in the front pack.

 

 

This was one of the first times that we have had Roman facing out instead of in while in the front pack. He loved being able to look around. I like it better with him facing out as well because if he is facing toward me, all he wants to do is eat! There were lots of new sights and sounds for our little guy to take in!

 

Here are some pictures of the Pelican River, right outside of our front door. Scout does not like water but Chief was a happy dog to have this river so close! He even jumped into the water during our walk. Yikes. He had a little trouble getting out of the open water onto the ice. Dan and I cheered him on from the shore, knowing that we both had children on our backs and that no one was going in after him if he got into a bind! Luckily, Chief was able to climb out, shake himself off, and continue on his afternoon romp no worse for wear. Crazy dog!

 

 

 

Our dogs are going to have so much space to roam when we move! They will love it!!

 

 

After a while, Lucy was tired of being in the backpack. She wanted to run around on her own! She had a great time running down our snow covered road. The road is a dead end and we we are the only permanent residents in our subdivision so, needless to say, it is very quiet.

 It was such a nice weekend and somewhat disappointing to return to our cramped quarters in Madison! But we know that there is a lot of wrap up with work and packing - the next few weeks will pass quickly. My last day of work at Epic is on February 12. We are doing our big push to move (renting a UHaul, having family come and help) the weekend of February 15! Then we will be back in Madison to clean the house, wrap up a few things, eat all of the ethnic food that we can, and say goodbye to friends. My new job starts on March 10 and we already have a new day care lined up for the kids. Both Lucy and Roman will be going to the same center! Hallelujah! It will definitely be bittersweet to leave Madison. We will miss Madtown and our friends a lot but we are so excited for our new lives in the big woods.

 

 



Lucy is 26 months old

On January 8th our little peanut turned 26 months old!

 

 

Lucy's favorite things these days have definitely been holdovers from Christmas. This girl loves Frosty the Snowman with a passion. She will sing the song, she requests to watch the DVD almost everyday, she will bring up the characters during playtime - once I went into her room after nap and her first words to me were 'Hocus Pocus'! which, if you are not as familiar with Frosty as we are at the Storm household, is the name of Professor Hinkle's rabbit. Lucy is also still fascinated with Baby Jesus. The other day I picked her up from daycare and her teachers told me that she had renamed all of the dolls in the classroom Baby Jesus! :)

 

Lucy continues to be a terrific big sister, she is quick to attempt to comfort Roman when he is crying, she fondly calls him Romeo as a nickname and she can always make him laugh. It is so sweet! When we eat dinner she often says, Roman look at me! and proceeds to take a big bite of food. She is working on her deductive reasoning skills and sometimes says to me, 'Roman only drinks milk. When Romeo is older he will eat <fill in the blank> like Lucy!' She is also asking lots of questions - 'What's that?' and 'Who's that guy?' are commonly heard at home. Lucy will ask Daniel and I about our preferences. She'll say, 'Mom, do you like chicken?' or 'Dad, I have a question! Do you like cake?' Good stuff!

 

Lucy enjoys playing in the snow and shoveling, she loves her little friends and often requests to spend more time with kids like Charlotte, Kenzie, or Nolan. She likes stickers and coloring and especially loves drawing snowmen like Frosty. Lucy loves her babies, her dress up clothes, and reading books. She continues to refine her stall tactics before going to bed at night and is starting to use her little potty more and more at day care and at home.

 

We love our little sunshine!

 

 

 

 

Baby It's Cold Outside

We have had a very chilly January here in Madison. Usually these super frigid temps are reserved for the Dakotas but they have been making their way to Wisconsin recently! A few weeks ago we were struck by a polar vortex and, as a result, lots of schools (including Lucy's daycare) were closed. It was crazy timing because we were closing on our house on that day and I needed to get a number of things at work completed before leaving for an overnight trip to Milwaukee. 

 

Roman's daycare was still open so Mama bundled up our baby Bear and dropped him off on the way to work! This little guy is such a sweetheart!

 

 

On January 7 I had my first overnight work trip since Roman was born. Boo. It was only in Milwaukee but it was still painful! The logistics of pumping in new places plus the separation anxiety I have from being away from the kids at night is the worst! I am so happy to be leaving my job in a few weeks for a life that involves zero travel for work!

 

Anyway - here is the awesome coral reef/inspirational artwork that I got to look at while pumping in an abandoned office space in Milwaukee.

 

 

And here is the window. I wish that there was some way to show how freakishly cold it was outside!

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Lucy and Daddy had a nice day of building forts and playing dress up!

 

Check out the static in Lucy's hair! This kid loves hanging out in forts/tents.

 

Dress up time! What a treat to receive these great dress up pictures as text messages from Dan.

Hope everyone is staying warm!

 

Closing on our new place!

Well, it is official! We are homeowners again! We signed the bottom line on all of the documentation for our new place on Murmuring Pines Trail. We were very happy and relieved to finish up the process. As is typical in our experience of selling and buying homes, nothing is simple and easy! We opted to do a remote signing in Madison so we needed to get all of our insurance documents, down payment $, etc, together and sent to the title company in Rhinelander by Friday afternoon so that we were ready to close on Monday. It ended up being a little bit of a scramble due to the holidays and getting a hold of the right people during short work weeks. On Monday, January 6 we were struck by the polar vortex so it was freezing in Madison! The title company in Rhinelander ended up being closed due to the weather. We signed all of our paperwork but our home ownership wasn't official until the title company reopened and reviewed everything on Wednesday morning!

 

Because of the extremely cold temperatures, Lucy's day care was closed. Lucy stayed at home with Daddy on this day (blog post coming soon!) so she had the privilege of coming to sign documents with us. She wanted to sign everything too so we set up a little station for her with a pen and some post-its. :)

 

 

Here I am cracking my knuckles and getting my hands warmed up to do lots of signing.

 

And Dan - looking happy to be a new home owner!

 

That evening we celebrated - some bubbly for us and some sparkling apple juice for Lucy.

 

Yay for the new house!

More Stories and Sweets

We attended the January installment of Stories and Sweets at our local library at the beginning of the month! January's theme was frogs. As always, Lucy and Roman had a great time.

 

The library usually has donut holes and a few larger donuts as treats for the children to choose from but this time they had lots of big donuts for this kids. Lucy was ecstatic. Here she is with a powdered sugar donut that is approximately the size of her head. It was crazy! There were toddlers chowing down on enormous bear claw donuts. Wowza.

 

After reading a few books about frogs, Ms. Tracy and the kids sang 5 Green and Speckled Frogs. One of our favorites. Not sure if Lucy actually sang along but she definitely danced. :)

 

Most of the time, Lucy starts to get disinterested in activites after her donuts, stories, songs, and a short movie but on this day she was very excited about the craft. The children made their own speckled frogs with lots of sparkly sequins. Mama helped with the glue and Lucy happily stuck the little jewels onto her purple frog. Gotta love the tongue sticking out in deep concentration. This sweet frog is now hanging on our refridgerator.

 

 

Roman was such a sport during story hour, he was super content the entire time! He loved watching his big sister and listening to the music and books.