Fall fun with the cousins

We met up with the Cihacek family for a visit to Como Zoo in September. We hadn't been there in ages!

Roman was thrilled to see his cousins as always! ;) I am so impressed with how nicely that Neal will wear a mask. Leo is just 6 months younger but has zero tolerance and no ability to successfully sport a mask. Ai yi yi.

 

Can you tell that Leo just wanted to run?? He was so excited to see all of the 'aminals' and is the king of animal noises these days!

Dan needed to zip over to the Cihacek house to drop off Ranger quick so we waited for him at the beginning our our trail through the zoo. There is a single walking path through Como Zoo right now, they have timed entries for families and it is actually really awesome! This place can get really packed during a normal Saturday so it was very pleasant to have some space around our crew!

It is hard to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time! I think we got 4 out of 5 for this one. :)

Here are my monkeys outside of the monkey house.

Lucy liked seeing the ostriches. I was reminded of the time when Lucy turned 3 and had some birthday money to spend at the Children's museum in Eagle River. She searched the gift shop high and low, pursued hundreds of amazing toys and was determined to buy a little plastic ostrich. Hahahaha! We still have that little guy at our house. ;)

Roman checked out the giraffes. Roman's zoo highlight was hearing the lions roar and seeing a plastic kiddie swimming pool that the big cats had scratched up during their free time. 

We had supper at the Cihacek's house and topped off the evening with a bonfire/s'more making in the driveway. Leo enjoyed his very first s'more and loved every delicious moment. 

 

We stayed overnight and headed to Maple Leaf Orchard for some apple picking on Sunday morning. The sweet treat food tour continued for Leo - nothing better than an apple cider donut!

We sure tried to snap a picture of all of the kids before heading out to the orchard but it was a fail! It is like herding cats to get everyone looking and smiling - Hahaha!

Thanks to some threats and bribes, I was able to get a quick photo of the Storm kiddos before we boarded the tractor. 

This crew was eager to pick (and eat!) apples. It was a beautiful and crisp fall day, a perfect morning to harvest apples.

We picked all kinds of apples, Roman even hopped on his Daddy's shoulders to get the good stuff up high. 

Lucy got up high as well and loved every minute. :) This is probably one of the last years that you will see this type of picture because these older kids of ours are getting to be so tall and big! 

We harvested so many wonderful apples! Here is James with his haul. 

Of course we ate our fill along the way too. We affectionately call Roman our Fruit Bat because this kid could eat fruit all day every day. He loves it!  

After devouring several apples, Roman transitioned to apple cider donuts. The snack of champions!

What a delicious and wonderful September morning!

September Happenings

Here are the early fall happenings for the Storm household. 

September is a perfect month to take lots of walks. This little guy loves strolling through the neighborhood on cool evenings. Leo waves hello and shouts 'Hi!' to everyone he sees.

I had to include this photo because this is a now a first day of school activity in 2020! Roman was tasked with designing a mask to express his personality. He quickly drew all of the Avatar symbols for fire, water, earth, and air. Avatar is the latest favorite for him right now. Roman would love to be a Fire or Air Bender these days. 

Roman received a Bey Blade for his birthday and he was so excited. This sucker was spinning all over our house during the month of September. 

Roman lost yet another tooth! He is getting many notes & dollars from the Tooth Fairy these days. As a side note - this awesome shirt was a birthday gift from Uncle Brad. It is the armor from a Roman soldier and our Roman loves wearing it.

Now that Lucy is at home on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays we try to do things like taking walks or running errands together on Fridays. On this morning we zipped around the neighborhood. You can see that Lucy was all set for the upcoming Packers game later that day!

Of course Lucy continued to chat and read with the Grandmas on her stay at home days. We were so grateful that Grammy Sharon and Nola were able to spend so much time reading and talking with the kiddos this fall. Thank goodness for technology!

Another favorite 'stay at home day' activity - elaborate sidewalk chalk art. :)

Grammy Nola came for a visit in September and we made a quick trip to Chippewa Falls to see the animals at Irvine Park.

The children love sitting on these bear statues - they can get very hot in the summer time - so nice to climb on them during the cooler days of autumn!

And here is the bear in real life.

Leo was excited to see the bear up close and growl at this guy. Whenever Leo doesn't know the word for an object he will say, 'What's this guy?' 

Here are the big kids in front of their favorite turtle fountain. It was such a nice afternoon at Irvine Park!

We are so glad to have Jeffers Park within walking distance from our house; this kids love going to the playground.

Leo was excited to cheer on the Packers after his playtime!

Roman is looking so tall these days! 

Leo is not a fan of swings.

Lucy made us some special brownies to celebrate a Packers game.

We tried to soak up the last of the nice weather of the season by having dinner and ice cream downtown. 

These two sillies love to get food from Silly Serrano! 

Nothing better than playing at Phoenix Park at sunset.

Our little ice cream monsters!

Is September too early for Halloween jammies? I don't think so! Haha! Here is our spooky girl and our twinning mummies. :)

We also celebrated the season with these sweet lil waffle makers that I got from Target. I mean how cute are these pumpkin and skull waffles? Dan rolls his eyes and says that our small appliance collection is out of control but I personally think that it was $10 well spent! Haha!

Am I the only creeper that takes pictures of my kids during nap time? ;) Love this little nugget!

When I was Lucy's age I would attempt to dress my brother Kevin in doll clothes and she has carried this tradition forward. Her is Lucy in her mermaid tail and Leon in her matching American Girl doll version. Haha!

For a brief but spectacular few weeks the library reopened this fall. If you scheduled an appointment you could browse books and check out materials. It was so great to get back to one of our favorite places! Roman was disappointed that he could not play on the i-pads but the big kids loved looking for new reading materials. Of course I was informed that we still had overdue materials from March - ai yi yi! 

These two were so happy to find new books!

I remember this day so well because it was a warm and sunny late Wednesday afternoon. We got a 500 time slot at the library so I took the big kids and afterwards we zipped over to Leo's daycare to pick up the baby. 

It was a beautiful day and things were feeling sort of 'back to normal' as we left with our stack of books. But COVID craziness was definitely still all around us. Sigh. The very next morning a number of additional layoffs were announced at my work and about 30% of the people in my department lost their jobs. Ugh. A lot of very bright and talented people, a lot of dear friends and co-workers with young families, and a lot of folks living in an area without many other options for employment. I just felt sick!! My position was safe but I still feel guilty about the people who were let go. I am so grateful for the health of my family but wowza, COVID has really rocked my world when it came to things that I always thought were stable - my job, my baby's day care situation, my big kid's schooling. I definitely took these things for granted before the pandemic!! 

Lucy is a 3rd grader

I can hardly believe this but my baby is a 3rd grader! It seems like just yesterday that Lucy was starting 4K with Ms. Koth at Pelican Elementary. Wow - time flies! Lucy loves to learn and was so eager to head back to school after many months away. She was part of a cohort that attended school in person on Mondays and Tuesdays with virtual school on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Lucy's teacher is Ms. Higley. She had Art at Sam Davey but was going to do Music and gym at home. 

Lucy is such a bright light! She loves to read, she is creative - we have DIY crafts all over our house at any given point in time - and she is very thoughtful. 

We can't wait to see what new things that Lucy learns in grade 3!