Silly Faces Game

Another one of Lucy's favorite things these days - the Silly Faces game. :) You spin a wheel that lands on eyes, ears, hair, hat, etc and then you get to pick out the object to stick on your face card. The first one with a complete face wins. 

Hours of fun, people!! :)

Spectacular Sunday

Some more photos of the Storm family celebrating the last days of summer at the end of September.

Riding the tricycle! I think that this bike might be too small for Lucy next summer!

Relaxing on top of the canoe...

Having a picnic in the backyard :)

And, after naps we headed to the beach! The water was freezing but this girl didn't care!! Haha!

Our little man splashing around and playing in the sand. Watch out - 7 or 8 months from now this guy is not going to be content to just sit on the beach! He is going to want to be in the water just like his big sister! 

Dominos

Lucy loves Max and Ruby - the brother/sister rabbit couple who have adventures together. She really enjoys watching short Max and Ruby videos before bedtime. One of her favorite episodes is called Max's Dominos. Ruby is hosting a party and Max sets up an elaborate series of dominos and toys. Ruby is mad at him for making a mess but it turns out that the dominos make the party a huge success! Anyway - Lucy has been asking about dominos lately so we dug into the depths of our game collection and dusted off some dominos for her to play with. She was excited to bust them open.

Here is a quick video of Lucy starting a chain of Dominos. What fun!

Indian Summer

Wow - we had a beautiful end of September before it really become fall/winter around here! The kids really enjoyed that last wave of summer!

One last chance to break out the sidewalk chalk for the season...

and wear shorts!

Here are our artists at work drawing!

Sometimes Roman tries to eat the chalk too. Oops. 

Lucy picked some of our last dahlias. This sweet little flower happened to match her dress! :)

On Saturday we headed up to Minocqua to meet our friends MacKenzie, Sophia, and Henrick and their families. It was Beef O Rama in Minocqua so the town was busy! We had to park a long way away from our meeting place - good thing that it was such a nice day. Lucy didn't complain once about the long walk and Roman enjoyed his ride in the stroller!

We had to check out the lake on our way back to the car.

The kids hung out on the dock and watched boats go by!

See you next summer, Lake Minocqua! Thanks for a great season!

Dishwasher Blues

This fall our dishwasher bit the dust! I asked Lucy to sit and give me her best frowny face! Basically the computerized control panel used to start the machine/choose the cycle quit working and the repair guy said that it would be more cost effective for us just to buy a completely new dishwasher rather than repair our old appliance. It seems wasteful to me - given that our house is 8 years old and that the people who lived here before us were rarely here - there is no reason why this dishwasher should have died! But, it is what is is! And, boy were we glad to have a working dishwasher back on the premises when we got our new machine installed. Watch out - the status of our kitchen quickly deteriorated without a dishwasher! Yikes!

Saturday Out and About

A typical Saturday for us at the Storm household - heading the library before running errands. The kids l-o-v-e going there! On this morning, Lucy played and played with this magnetic fishing puzzle/game. She liked it so much - and, Spoiler alert - her Grandma Nola and Grandpa Ken got her the same puzzle for her birthday recently. She is a huge fan and becoming quite the angler. :)

Mama and Roman cuddled and read books.

Later, on Saturday afternoon, we went to the playground in Crandon. It was a beautiful day, Lucy and Roman enjoyed their time on the swings as always.

Lucy also played on this horse toy, which I kind of thought was no longer allowed on playgrounds due to injury rates. Well - good news, she had a great time without being bucked off. I was watching her like a hawk while Roman was sitting quietly nearby. At some point I turned to to see that he was chewing on something. I ran over and promptly fished around in his mouth to find a cigarette butt!!! Ugh!! To whomever is smoking at children's playgrounds and disposing of their cigarette butts next to the equipment - You are the worst!! I got the butt out but there were some little shreds of tobacco hanging out in his mouth so I ended up calling Poison Control. They said that as long as Roman wasn't vomiting or convulsing within the first hour of consumption that we were in the clear. He was fine! Whew! Still annoyed at person that threw their cigarette butt into the playground….

Roman's 1 year Well Child Visit

Roman had his 12 month well child visit at the 13 month mark! Part of the delay in our one year visit was purposeful, we wanted to wait until the flu shot was available for our little man. Also, Dr. Henry is only in Rhinelander on Thursdays so we need to work around her schedule a bit. W

We ended up having a great visit although the logistics of everything ended up being a small nightmare! I scheduled Roman's appointment for 500 thinking that it would be a great plan, I wouldn't miss very much work, I would pick up Roman at the end of his day and we would be home in time for dinner…Wrong!! Note to self - I will never schedule a 500 pediatrics appointment again! I picked up Romeo as planned, at 445 in the afternoon. Around that same time, Dan picked up Lucy. Dan told her that he would take her to the park and then rendezvous with us for dinner. I did not want to take Lucy with because I knew that Roman was getting shots and I did not want her to be scared or upset. We got about a block away from daycare when Dan called to tell me that one of my tires was flat/extremely low. Ugh. We pulled into the closest spot - the entrance to the park, of course - to check it out. We decided that it was too low for me to continue - I ended up taking Dan's truck and the 2 kids to the doctor's office while Dan stayed behind to change the flat. Boo! Lucy immediately threw a fit because she was not able to go to the park, Roman was hungry, and we were running late. sigh. We finally arrived at the clinic - late for our appointment but it didn't matter because everything that ran late earlier in the day was running into our appointment slot. I think that we got back to the scale around 530. Mama had prepared and brought a few snacks for Roman but it wasn't enough for two kids! Luckily, both Roman and Lucy were in pretty good spirits. FYI - Roman weighed in at 24 lb 12 oz (73rd percentile) and was just about 31.5 inches tall (90th percentile). He is a growing guy!!

Dr. Henry gave him a full check up and a clean bill of health! We talked about sensitive skin issues (the usual hot topic for Storm children during their check ups! :) and vaccines.

Lucy did a great job being patient - she busied herself with puzzles, books, and crayons during the appointment. When the time came for Roman's shots, Dr. Henry took Lucy out for a short walk, they got stickers together and had a little treat of fruit snacks. It was really nice, like I mentioned earlier I really didn't want Lucy to be in the room during vaccination time so I definitely appreciated Dr. Henry taking her for a few minutes!!

After our visit - we returned to the park to pick up Daniel who was fighting with a spare tire in the Subaru that had been rusted in place after years of not being used. Long story short - the evening consisted of a drive through and dropping the car off at a tire repair place and us getting back to the house around 730. It was a crazy night but it all worked out!! So thankful to have a healthy boy!

Hiking in the Yard

We continued to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather by spending lots of time outside. We didn't need to go far - sometimes it was ideal just to take a quick walk in our yard.

Dan and the kids - ready to talk a hike!

Lucy sporting her Hello Kitty sunglasses.

Looking cute in the woods!

Hiking down to the river. 

Check out this crazy mushroom that we found in the yard! Love discovering new things outside. 

Lucy and Roman's First Movie

One of the last weekends in September we found out that Nicolet College was showing a free outdoor family movie so we went to check it out. What a fun night! Lucy was so excited to see a movie. We dressed the kids in their pajamas and took them to the show. It turns out that the movie was held indoors due to bad weather. While we waited for show time we checked out campus including Lake Julia. What a nice spot! Here is a pic of Dan with the kids on the lake.

Lake Julia was very beautiful, it has all kinds of cool lily pads and weeds.

After our walk outside we found out seats at the Nicolet theater. The kids got popcorn and treats and they could not wait for the movie to start.

A selfie of Mama and Lucy at the movies.

The show that night was the Lego Movie - Lucy still sings, 'Everything is awesome!!' every once in a while. Haha! We only ended up staying for 30 or 40 minutes of the movie. The kids were getting restless and it was clearly bedtime. But we were totally fine with bailing - we had a great time and the movie was free after all! It was a good experience for a first flick. :)

Fall Colors

We are so fortunate to live in such a beautiful place! This is particularly true in the fall - for a few weeks in late September and early October, we are surrounded by amazing foliage! It is awesome.

Our river is pretty spectacular!

I love the reflections of the trees on the water.

This is one of my favorites. Chief loved playing in the water - no matter what the season!

Speaking of fall colors - it is football season in Northern Wisconsin so that means all things green and gold. I don't own a Packers jersey and I have to admit that there are some days at my work where I feel seriously out of place! Haha! We grilled kabobs this September and I realized that I was making them with Packer colors - even the vegetables around here support the Pack! Happy Fall!

An Update on Chief...

Sigh. As you can see in this photo - Chief has had another round of IVs. 

As you will remember from previous posts, it was about 3 years ago when Chief got very sick and was diagnosed with Addison's Disease. As part of his treatment, we have been giving Chiefy monthly cortisol injections (Side note: I say we but I really mean Dan) and having him take daily prednisone tablets. He needs these medications to live and has been doing really well over the past couple of years. In mid September, he stopped being his usual self and started to slip back into what seemed like another Addisonian Crisis (Not eating, lethargic, depressed). Dan took him to the vet for panels, IV fluids, exam and ended up finding out that the cortisol that Chief needs to live is slowly but surely destroying his kidney function. Ugh. Long story short - we are not going to do dog dialysis. Dan has declined to donate one of his own kidneys for Chief. Chief pulled through this latest crises (I swear that this dog has 9 lives!) but we really don't know what his prognosis is at this point except that at some point, his kidneys are going to fail. We switched medications so that Chief will no longer get monthly injections. He might live for a few weeks or a few years - we're just doing our best to keep him comfortable and to ensure that his last days are awesome. We already know that for the past ~ 6 months of his life that Chief has been living the dream. Lots of space to explore, a river to swim in, a toddler that drops lots of food from his high chair at every meal. :)