Leon is 7 months old

Here is a montage of 7 month pictures of our baby boy taken in late July! Leo is the best addition to our family! What a precious, smiley, squirmy little guy. I just love all of his expressions.

 

Love you to the moon and back, sweet boy!

Hello Summer, Goodbye Rhinelander

Late July was filled with sweet corn feasts!

 

 

What would we do without Josh from Josh's Corn Stand, affectionately known as the ‘Crandon Corn guy’ by our family? Thanks for bringing such joy and deliciousness to our dinner table! 

 

During the last weeks of July we continued to pack up our lives in Rhinelander. I found all kinds of treasures in Lucy's room including this list - Things to do when she is Bored plus a bonus list of her best friends with their associated hashtags! Haha! #cute #totesadorbs



 

I sifted through art work...

 

And first grade homework.

 

 

I made the mistake of allowing kids to pack up some of their own boxes. Ai yi yi! When we got to Eau Claire and started opening boxes I found all kinds of crazy contents including a crusty Palm branch that Lucy had saved from Palm Sunday, used Dixie cups, etc. Sigh - Lesson learned.

 

In other July happenings, we zipped over to the Book Fair at the YMCA of the Northwoods and Lucy purchased a poster. She was so pumped to hang it up in her new room in Eau Claire.

Roman helped his Dad mow the lawn at our rental place.  

 

 

 I sorted through some of Roman's treasures too!

 

We took down our elaborate living room décor including unicorn displays.

 

Roman was on a big Star Wars drawing kick this summer so we found lots of Darth Vader, Yoda and Sarlacc pit handiwork around the house. He is a good little artist!

 

We said goodbye to our day care and our summer camps. Not gonna lie, it was not easy to part ways with the day care / summer camp situation that allowed our family to grow and thrive over the past 5 years. It was just very bittersweet, we are excited to be closer to family and to start a new chapter in Eau Claire but we will most definitely miss our life in the woods and all of our dear friends in Rhinelander. Here are Lucy, Leo and Roman hanging on a Hodag at their last day of camp/daycare up North.

 

I also started down a new path with my work ... when I told my employer that I was leaving, they offered me the opportunity to work from home. Insert all of the praise hands! I was thrilled and jumped at the offer to work out of my basement. Hah! When everything around me was changing - different house, new city to navigate, new daycare for Leo, new summer camp and school for the big kids - I was so grateful that my job was going to stay consistent. I was sad to leave my co-workers but, thanks to the wonders of technology, I still video chat with them daily and keep up with the latest and greatest. Here I am with my workplace bestie - Jessica!

 

 

As we packed up our lives in Rhinelander, I would be remiss if I didn't give a shoutout to the MacFarland family! These guys babysat our kids multiple Saturdays while Dan and I cleaned and packed without children in tow. We could not have done it without them!  

 

 

They even got sweet Leo to take a nap outside!

 

We made a final trip to our new home in Eau Claire and stopped for gas/food/stretching along the way. Roman is obsessed with all things military these days so he was happy to visit this veteran's memorial.  

We dropped all of our belongings in the new house and hit the ground running with work and daycare/summer camp. This is what our living space looked like for far too long. Crazy! To be honest, one of my biggest regrets about the move is that I didn’t take a week or two off to get a jump start on organizing our lives! Oof! We are almost 6 months in to our new Eau Claire lives and I still feel like I am catching up! 

 

  At least we had the cutest little cheerleader to encourage us. :)

  I am so glad that my big kids can help watch the babe while we unpack! 

 When we moved to Eau Claire, it was important to me to get our big kids plugged into some of their favorite activities. We found a dance school for Lucy right away! She is taking a ballet/tap/jazz combo and is loving every minute of her class. 

Leo joined a day care with a pack of little boys!  He quickly made friends with Miles and Myles in his room. 

 Do you remember when we moved to Rhinelander and Roman got pneumonia? I had some post traumatic flashbacks of that incident when I needed to take Leo to the clinic during our first week in Eau Claire! Fortunately he just had a reoccurring ear infection so it was nothing serious! 

 

 Look for more posts on our life in Eau Claire coming soon!  

Early July Updates and Berry Picking with the Cousins!



The children spent early July at Vacation Bible School at Trinity. They always have then best time and come home with tons and tons of crafts. :)   

 

Here is Roman recounting the story of the Good Samaritan with little puppets he made out of popsicle sticks. Love it! 

 

 

 

 

The big kids had a program on Thursday evening and then headed to Eau Claire with their Dad for the weekend.

 

 

 This precious nugget and I stayed back in Rhinelander for work and daycare on Friday.

 

 

Leo was pretty pumped to have some undivided attention from his mama.

 

The Eau Claire crew worked on the never ending list of moving tasks but they found time to fly kites! 

 

 

And eat custard from Culvers. ;)

 

Leo and I made the trip down to Eau Claire on Saturday morning and we all met up with the Cihacek/Storm families for some berry picking in the afternoon. It was a hot day in the field!

 

But we had a great time searching for some of the last strawberries of the season.

 

 

Roman is affectionately known as my little fruit bat so he was pumped to gather berries on this day. This kid could eat all fruit all day long.

 

 

Neal enjoyed some snacks along the way as well.

 

 

Here are the littlest boys.

 

This is the sweetest little group of produce!

 

Roman and Neal - two little peas in a pod!

 

We collected lots of raspberries on this trip.

 

We tried to get a nice group picture ..

 But hats were covering faces, people were hot and sweaty, and - let's be real - it is hard work to hold onto a squirmy little Leo.

Here is a picture of Lucy and her brothers.

  We went on a little tractor ride around the property. We thought that the trip might generate a little bit of breeze on the hot day!

 

A selfie from one side of the trailer.

 

And a picture from our side.

 

Leo was in my front back and he was a sweaty little babe!

 

 

 We are so happy that we live close enough to the Cihacek crew to meet up 'in the middle' of the Cities and Eau Claire to do fun things.

 

Expect many more family berry picking / pumpkin patching / outdoor adventure posts to come as we settle into our new place. :) 

 

 I had to include this picture in the post as well ... when we returned back to Rhinelander we needed to make our weekly Aldi run for groceries. Roman was excited to find a pirate eye patch in the back of the van so he wore it the rest of the day. Hahaha! I hope that seeing a 5 year old wearing a goofy eye patch in Aldi brought some joy to other shoppers in the store. Arrr! :)