Ladies Weekend 2019

We held our annual Hoekman ladies weekend in early March! As per usual this winter season - there was a winter storm going on so Mother Nature provided us with some messy roads! The kids, Ranger, and I left Rhinelander on Friday afternoon and stopped to pick up Daniel in Eau Claire along the way. The  big kids and Dan were having a Storm family weekend of their own and celebrated Grandpa Ken's birthday. A great weekend was had by all!

 

As soon as we walked in Brian and Amelia's door - the kids ran to greet their cousins and collect hugs and squeezes.

 

 

Lucy loves reading to her boys!

 

Leo was excited to be out of the car and had a bottle with Grammy Nola.

 

On Friday night I stayed in a hotel with my little family as the Hoekman ladies (plus Elijah) were running late due to the weather. Saturday morning meant swimming in the hotel pool for the kiddos!

 

 

Except for my sweet little Leo who came to the Salvation Army Target thrift store to shop with the ladies. We always head to some thrift stores in addition to Ikea and outlet malls - so much fun! 

 

Mallory borrowed her Mom's Yukon to drive our crew around the Cities. This was a perfect situation as we had our littlest boys with us this year - Elijah and Leo.

 

This boy was such a trooper!

 

 

I had to document Leon's first visit to Ikea. We had the best time looking at all of the stuff. Our current living situation means that I cannot buy anything but it is always fun to look!

 

In the meantime Daniel took the big kids to the Bell Museum. You guys know that Roman's love of mammoths runs deep so you can imagine how pumped he was to see this! 

 

 

 

Dan, Lucy, and Roman had a great afternoon exploring at the Bell.

 

 

 

Across town Leo had the best time meeting and snuggling with his aunties - Mallory and Katie.

 

 

And hanging out with this guy! Elijah seems so big now when compared to Leo. 

Elijah is moving all over the place, eating real food, and making noises these days. I know that these boys will be such good friends someday! :)

 

Also we can't forget about Grandma Sharon! Nothing better than some Grammy snuggles.

  

 

Back in Roseville, the Storms were celebrating Grandpa's birthday! They had an awesome dinner at Amelia's house and feasted on cake and ice cream.

The ladies had Indian food and it was so delicious! 

 

Look at these handsome boys! Who wouldn't want to spend the weekend shopping with them?

 

 You can tell by all of my meal photo posting that I don't get out very often! Haha! On Sunday morning we had breakfast at Sun Street Breads. It was such a sunny and cheerful place to get coffee and some great treats. I had one sweet treat and one savory. So good!

 

Dan came to pick me up and the ladies continued on to South Dakota. We tried to snap a birthday picture for grandpa but one of his grandbabies was just not having it!! Poor James!

 

 

Here is a cute one of Grandpa Ken with 75% of his grandsons.

 And here is a pic of Grandpa with his princess.

Thanks again for the memorable weekend Hoekman ladies & Storm crew!!! We love you!

Roman is 5.5 Years Old

At the end of February our spunky boy turned 5.5 years old. He had an eventful half birthday as he accidentally called 911 on this day. Ai yi yi - never a dull moment around our house! I had the boys in the van and, when I stopped to fill on gas at Kwik Trip, I gave my phone to Roman so that he could watch PBS kids. I was just going about my business, filling up the car, paying, etc. When I opened my door to get back in - Roman was in tears/super upset telling me that he had call 9-9-1. I didn't believe it at first, not understanding that he could call 9-1-1 when he thought that the emergency number was 9-9-1 but, sure enough, I took the phone from him and there was an Oneida County dispatcher on the line. Sigh. I apologized and said that there was no emergency. The person on the other line confirmed that we were at Kwik Trip, that Roman was 5, that we had a black mini van (apparently Roman did a good job of answering all of the questions). Then he asked me if anyone needed oxygen. I said no ... apparently Roman kept saying, "It was an accident!" but the dispatcher misheard him and thought that he was saying, "I need oxygen". Wow. We hung up and I climbed in back to comfort Roman. Romy said that my phone timed out and that he pressed the emergency button. We talked about how he shouldn't ever press the button unless it is a real emergency and that now he knows a real person will answer. I told him that he did the right thing by answering the dispatcher's questions and then, while Roman was blowing his nose, there was a knock on the window from a police officer. Ugh!!! The police officer had heard the call come in and wanted to make sure that everything was all right. Like I said, never a dull moment.

 

Here is a picture of our Romeo at 5 and a half ... on March 1st our family gets a box of Lucky Charms in celebration of St. Patrick's Day. You would think that it was Christmas morning around our house -- Roman was so pumped! Hahaha! We love you big guy!

 

Leo is 2 months old

On the day that Leo turned 2 months old we bundled up and headed out to a doctor's appointment.

 

 

Unfortunately our car got stuck at the end of the drive way on our way to the appointment. Ugh!!! I had gotten out earlier in the day when I dropped the big kids off at school, but the plow had gone by in the meantime and my minivan couldn't handle it. I called the clinic and they informed me that I would be marked as a 'No Show' - ugh - and that the next available appointment with Dr. Wood was weeks away - double ugh. I was so annoyed because if you start getting off track with immunizations then they all get delayed. Long story short - I spent an hour on my belly scooping out snow from underneath the van before I was able to dislodge it from the snow bank. It was quite the work out! Then I got a call from the clinic asking if I could be there in 15 minutes because another patient had cancelled due to weather related issues. I quickly said yes and raced my sweaty/snowy self with the babe to the clinic.

 

As you can see - I was a hot mess but grateful to get an appointment!

 

Leo was a champ during his visit! He weighed in at 13 lbs 2 oz (72nd percentile) and was just over 2 feet tall (off the chart). We are so happy that he is healthy and strong and growing like a weed!

 

He got his 2 month immunizations and was super cooperative during his visit! 

 

Here is our official 2 month shot of baby Leo! We love you so much little guy!

School's Out Fun Day

We had a school's out fun day at the end of February - it was originally a teacher inservice day, then changed to a make up day for our snow days and then ended up being cancelled due to, you guessed it, more snow. Insert heavy sigh here. We made the best of our day by painting ...  

 

 

Snuggling with our little guy...

 

And playing ticket to ride!

 

Roman won the golden ticket on this game. When I was growing up my brother Austin used to always sing We are the Champions by Queen whenever he won a board game ... I am thinking that Roman might develop this same trait. Hahaha!

 

 

In the late afternoon Leo donned his Cat in the Hat onesie...

 

 

And we headed over to the Rhinelander library for their annual Dr. Seuss birthday celebration!

 

The kids look forward to this event and Roman especially likes getting up front to sing with Mr. Dall.

 

Here are my two Dr. Seuss loving kids! We ended the evening by going to McDonalds for a supper of champions so clearly it was a good day.

Life Lately - February Edition

Life in February included braving a lot of snow - look at our Wisconsin boy ready for the outdoors! Leo loves his UW Badger paw mittens and Packer shoes.

In addition to the snow days we had a few sick days at the Storm household. Lucy has battled a few stomach bugs this month. Here she is playing Uno during one of the sick days. 

Nothing better than a quick nap with the baby brother. Do you like Leo’s No Hair Don’t Care shirt? Haha!

Lucy asked for some homework since she missed her day at school. I made her a color by number math project on a Hello Kitty mini poster. 

Roman loves to squeeze his little brother after his school day is done. 

We had breakfast for dinner one night. Lucy loves to help me flip pancakes. 

On this evening we made a ‘L’ cake for Lucy and a ‘R’ for Roman. Roman kept asking, ‘Where is my R pancake? Where is my Ari pancake? Where is my Ari Shapiro pancake?’ Hahahaha! He is NPR kid!

Leo is just starting to grasp objects!

Here is our bright eyed boy - he is super alert now.

Ugh - Lucy was so sick in February and throwing up constantly. We were concerned about her getting dehydrated when she didn’t pee for ~12 hours and vomited so many times in a short period so I contacted our local clinic. They told me that they didn’t administer fluids and advised that we go to the Emergency Department. Insert frowny face and sigh here. The good news was that she was feeling better right away after some care in the ER. :)

In February we went to Wausau to get some professional pics of the children. The big kids loved playing on the props.

 

They got donuts for good behavior/cooperating with the photographer.

 

Lucy took 'Flat Abby' with us to Wausau as part of a school project for her sweet cousin Abby.

 

 

Lucy was excited to snap some pictures of Flat Abby in the studio.

 

 

Can you spot her? ;)

 

After pictures we stopped for lunch at one of our favorite places - the Great Dane.

 

 

 

And then we took Leo to the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum for the first time! The sculpture garden was closed due to the heavy snowfall but we were able to take a quick picture outside.

Leo took a nap - apparently being a baby model all morning was exhausting!

 

The big kids played downstairs. Of course we had a quick Target run and then headed home - it was another great trip to Wausau.

 

We came home and found Ranger snuggling with Dan ... Ranger likes to be as close to his humans as possible even if that means literally sitting on our faces. Hah!

 



 

One of my favorite things that Lucy and Roman do these days is writing notes back and forth to each other. Lucy will write a question and then Roman will write back his response. I will help him with spelling but all of the writing is his own! How cute are these back and forth exercises -

 

Leo continues to work on his baby exercises including punches. :)

 

Roman wanted to earn a small Star Wars toy so Dan wrote up a list of chores/behavior sets that he needed to do in order to make it happen. Some of the items were a bit challenging - i.e. Going the whole day without talking back or being sassy but he did it!!

 

This is the scene from one of our wintry February snow days in Rhinelander. Look at all of those drifts outside the window!

 

Lucy used her day off of school to make some art for her room.

 

I just love these three nuggets of mine!!!

 

Leo has become more and more active and alert these past few weeks. He loves it when the big kids will show him toys of give him a quick puppet show!

 

Here is our cozy little guy with a cute half smile.

 

Happy Winter!