Happy Birthday Sidney

This little sweetheart turned 12 just as the school year started. She was very specific when it came to the dessert she wanted on her day (which entailed a long early morning drive to pick it up). She was so excited to open that box and see a gigantic birthday cookie! 

We were fortunate to get to have lunch with her during the school day, since we're all working/learning from home. And she wrapped up the day at her favorite spot: softball practice. 

This Sidney of ours. She is sweet and kind and social and friendly (this ongoing COVID lockdown is getting more challenging as a result). 

She loves softball and Netflix and is turning more and more into a teenager each passing day. 

The things she says make us laugh every single day, I only wish I'd write more of them down. As a memory, here is the most recent 'Sidney statement'.....we drove past Hyland Ski area as they were making snow for the upcoming ski season. She glanced over and asked me "is that snow cold?"

Yes my dear, snow is always cold. 

And one more, just because.....she was telling me about the upcoming health unit in school about puberty, "mom, we're going to have to learn about tentacles". 

Um, not quite kiddo. 

Boy she makes us laugh! 

Happy Birthday sweet Sidney!

 

End of school yea hoopla

The end of the school year came and went. We had parties and field days, report cards and field trips. Both girls ended the year on a high academically, Sidney isn't actually "graded" yet, but Regan pulled off all A's (a couple A-'s but apparently in middle school, those are the same as an A). All things considered, especially the horrendous experience with a teacher who is no longer employed by the school, we were incredibly proud of her to persevere and finish out the year as well as she did. Never in a million years would we have expected the year to go as it did, but for her to rise above and still pull off all A's was amazing. We even got the sweetest note home from her track coach/school counselor who commented on how great of a kid she is and how she is not only a great athlete, but also a positive leader.....glad she can pull it together for everyone else :) 

Not to be outdone, Sidney also did great this school year. No major obstacles to overcome, but she did have to work hard in class to climb the academic ladder. She has to work a little harder than Regan in school, but when that girl puts her mind to it, she can move mountains. Some lessons come super easy to her, ones that I would expect her to struggle with. It's the more common sense stuff that she can't grasp so quickly. Then again, this is the girl who recently had a conversation with me that went like this: 

Me: Regan, I remember when you used to hum the day away. 

Sidney: What song is "the day away"? 

#facepalm

Oh how we love her! 

Now onto the fun photos: 

End of year party with a group of her besties

Regan joined us and I couldn't resist taking a picture of Regan with her former teacher (now Sidney's former teacher too!). We love love love Mrs Newman! No one will ever top her teaching! 

More fun on field day at the elementary school. 

End of year comparison pictures for Sidney. 

Look at that growth! My brother says her shorts are too short...
I told him that statement means he's getting old. 

Life of a middle schooler, Regan learned a tough lesson as she shattered her screen. 

Phones don't belong in our waistbands (though she learned that from me). 

This was the best I got from Regan for a last day of school. She hung out with this group of friends all night long (where she also shattered her phone screen). Which means between all of the chaos, I didn't get a comparison photo of her, darn it! 

Here's to the school year wrap-up! We not have a 4th grader and 7th grader! 

Little bit of everything

The recent weeks have been a hustle and bustle of a little bit of everything. We chauffer the kids from school to activities to friends to home. Our jobs are increasingly demanding and appropriately challenging. Occasionally, sometimes, rarely we get a little downtime and soak in each other (or if you're Sidney, whine that she's so bored because we have an extra hour or two unscheduled!). 

Here's a little bit of our everything: 

Lincoln cannot be more proud of his Friday morning swimming lessons. He adores them. And who wouldn't when you end the class flying through the air! He has excelled at swimming as well, front crawl, back crawl, it's incredible to watch! 

Regan has no problem with downtime. She has an ongoing obsession with slime, and has moved onto the floor because her giant bubbles are growing too big for the kitchen counters. 

Regan and I went on a shopping date and she convinced me to swing through the cutest little bakery shop and pick up a few custom cupcakes. Apparently they were delicious!

Maybe it's because I'm older wiser, or maybe it's actually something new, but whatever the case, I'm in love with the gorgeous sunsets this winter. If it has to be cold, and I have to be driving before the sun rises, at least it's beautiful. 

And upon arrival to my office, I am greeted daily by the best co-worker around: Baylor! He loves me as much as I love him and it's so fun to have his greetings each day. Most recently, he walked into my office, plopped himself by my feet and promptly fell asleep with his head on the footings of my chair! 

Off to the races

 We have a thing about the kids learning how to swim. And not just a "survival" swim mode, but learning how to swim correctly, and for distance. There are so many reasons behind this: good exercise, lifelong skill, we have an inground pool, etc.
Within this requirement, is swimming lessons. When Regan was little, we tried various programs, and ultimately, settled in on Foss because their methods worked well, and worked quickly. What took them 8 weeks in another school, took 1 class with Foss. No brainer. 

With this 'school', comes some opportunities for fun swim meets.
Sidney asked to sign up, and I obliged. 

And then, on the day of the meet, she fussed and whined that she didn't want to go. 

No my dear, we do not quit. 

Honestly, the girl was fussing as we drove. She didn't want to do it. She was nervous. She didn't want to be the only girl.
And so I promised her that if she didn't like it, she never had to sign up for another meet. 

Well, in true Sidney fashion, she hopped into the pool and swam her heart out in 3 races: front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke. 

In the end, she walked away with 3 first place finishes! 

She giggled as she showered, beamed as she changed back into her clothes, and as we sat down for dinner to celebrate, announced "THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!"

I think it's safe to say that she is hooked! 

Congrats Sidney :) 

Star of the week

This sassy girl is pretty excited to go to school this week, because she's the Star of the Week! 

She was bouncing off the walls with giddiness on Friday afternoon. Turns out, it was a pretty awesome day. So awesome that she asked me "mom, do you ever have one of those really good days?" Friday was her day. 

She earned yet another White Tiger ticket at school for being responsible. 

And then at the all school rally, her name was drawn (she had lots of chances given the number of White Tiger tickets that she had in the pot) as the winner.

And then she finds out that it's her turn to be Star of the Week and is handed her poster to fill out over the weekend. 

It was a great day! 

Here's a close up of her poster that she finished Friday evening. She is so excited to show her friends at school! 

The middle

Our dear Sidney is growing up before our eyes. She's funny and sweet, stubborn and strong-willed all wrapped up into a ball of energy! 

Apparently her lack of good sleeping as a baby was a preview of her 'not-so-great' sleep habits as a child. Sure, she sleeps through the night (thank goodness!), but she fights an 8pm bedtime like no other and is up at the CRACK of dawn....like 9pm-6:15am on a typical day. 

I'm seriously questioning this girls' actual hours of sleep during that time too, and here's why: she has lost a total of 5 teeth and THREE of them came out in the middle of the night. THREE!? Who loses a tooth in their sleep?, let alone three! The latest was at 12:34am (I know, because she wakes me up). She taps on my body, smiles with her hand out as I open my eyes and sigh "did you just pull out your tooth?". 

Girl! 

And then, she's got a little attitude too (coupled with chronic lack of sleep)....oh boy, talk about testing our limits! The other day, she grabbed Lincoln just as I was sitting down for morning coffee and asked him "do you want to go dance?". He jumped at the offer (the boy loves to dance) and they raced into the toy room. She glanced over at me (mind you, I was moments from my first sip of coffee), and declared "you dance mom. I don't want to", as she ran out to find something else to play. WHAT!? Little stinker. 

Thank goodness that she is just as fun and sweet as she is stubborn and strong-willed. 

We love you our sweet Sidney!

Sidney says

well folks, she's at it again. Sidney's on a roll with her statements again and last night, I could barely breathe I was laughing so hard. She was laying down in bed for the night and hollered downstairs:
"mom!"
"what Sidney?"
"I'm so tired"
"go to sleep!"
"but I'm so tired"
"ok dear, then just close your eyes"
"well I can't do that. I can't pretend sleep all night long!"

wait...what!? Oh my goodness. We sat downstairs and just laughed our pants off!!

Wisconsin Dells

We decided to take an early summer vacation and head east to Wisconsin Dells. After much research and debate, we booked a 2 bedroom condo at Chula Vista (because let's face it, a typical hotel room isn't much fun when traveling with 3 young children who need their beauty sleep). Having been to this resort roughly 6 years ago, we had a good idea of what to expect. And they didn't disappoint!

So with the resort booked, all we needed to do was travel there. (Rewind to...and stay healthy! Sidney landed with strep throat just 5 days before we were to leave and I prayed my heart out that no one else would come down with it). We packed and packed and packed a little more even though I promised to use everything we brought, with the exception of an extra outfit for each kid that I was hoping we didn't need. 

We hopped in the car Saturday morning, with a 3.5 hour trek ahead of us. We all figured Lincoln would be the trouble maker....but that darn Sidney, well traveling with her deserves a post all of its own! Keep in mind the girl screamed all the way home from the hospital nearly 7 years ago, and the only thing that's changed, is that she has words to use for whinning instead of screaming. At least every 15 minutes she needed an update: how much longer?, I'm hungry, can I have gum?...you get the idea.  Oh but we love her! 

Eventually, we entered The Dells and since we were ahead of schedule, we opted to spend a little time at Deer Park. It was on our list "to-do" anyway and this was perfect timing. As predicted, the kids just loved it! The girls had been there on our last trip to the Dells, but only Regan could somewhat recall the experience (with the help of some pictures). After paying an outrageous fee, we grabbed 3 packs of crackers and set out to play. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

Side note: go to this place, it does not disappoint! 

He was only mildly nervous, but even then, not nervous enough to keep a distance. Nope, he wanted to be right there in the middle of the action. 

Sidney was out of crackers after just a few minutes, her thought was "just feed them and they'll leave me alone!"....wrong! They thought she was THE BEST thing around because she handed out crackers left and right!

Lincoln just slays me, he really does. The way he would put his hands together against his chest and squeal with delight, we knew he was in toddler heaven! 

After checking in and grabbing dinner, we headed to the resort's waterpark. And the kids were in love!....wait, let me remind you all that I realized I had brought FOUR kids to the Dells. Ryan turns into a kid when we visit waterparks. The guy just can't get enough! It took until our 5th trip to the waterpark (and 2 days later), before I got to go down my first slide :) In his defense, I never asked and Lincoln preferred to hang with me so we just went with it. We spent a lot of time getting wet during this trip but it was so much fun. I didn't bring my camera to the parks with the exception of one time because I have been burned in the past and it was stolen. I did manage to get a few pictures/videos during a trip to the outdoor park. As for Lincoln, he managed to get himself down several of the kiddie slides after a little prompting. After he went down once, that is all he wanted to do! Over and over and over again. We climbed a lot of stairs and took a lot of naps :) 

Lightweight Sidney has a tendency to land like this when she comes shooting out of a slide...

To say we were all impressed with Sidney's bravery is an understatement. The yellow slide pictured below (Regan is on it) is an 80 foot drop. EIGHTY FEET! Straight down! That's as tall as an 8 story building! And both girls marched right to the top, sat down and down they came. Unbelievable! They later commented "it doesn't even feel like your body is on the slide"....yea that made me feel good about their safety! Especially as I watched their bodies ping-ponging side to side!

Click HERE and HERE for a couple of videos. 

The one major outing we took outside from the resort was to hop aboard an Original Wisconsin Duck. It has been decades since I had been on one, and we thought it would be a good family adventure. Boy were we right! Ryan was rethinking this idea as we boarded, feeling woosey from the morning water slides, but he found his bearings and we had a great time. Snuggled in tight, we saw deer, loads of trees and some pretty amazing sandstone cut outs along the river. We learned some remarkable history, not only about the Ducks themselves (those suckers were used in WWII!) but also about floodings and famous houses along the river. The girls listened carefully, asked questions and best of all, retained the info and are so excited to share their knowledge with their friends. Lincoln sat on my lap for the full 60 minutes, just taking it all in. He loved that "ride" and I'm sure he would've sat for another 60 minutes had it lasted that long.

On an unrelated note, during the car ride back to the hotel there was a little catastrophe in the back seat as Sid screamed: 

"Mom I have a bloody nose!"

"Sid what happened?"

"Lincoln had his finger up my nose"

Wait, he what?!

Cue some quiet giggles from the front seat. What the heck?! 

The things these two do...

While we are sad that our summer trip is over, we are so happy to have gone. When we tucked the girls into their own beds tonight, I commented at how much fun it was to be on vacation and Sidney says "it's not vacation! It's not vacation unless we go on an airplane". 

Oh that girl, she has some high expectations in life! Guess we better plan a "real" vacation next time!

Sidney...updates

Sweet Sidney. Our dear sweet Sidney. She really is something else. And if given the opportunity, has a wild and fun imagination. It's sad that she doesn't use it much like she used to (darn school takes up so much time), but it's still there each week, and she continues to make us laugh. Last night, it went like this:

Sidney grabbed 2 of Lincolns balls and took off into the toy room where she had the karaoke machine blaring and had been playing for some time. Then this happened....

Me-"what are you doing?"

Her-"getting boobies...(pause)... For my next show."

I admit, I almost peed my pants! 

On to other news :) Sid got glasses and is cute as can be rocking out her new frames. She was worried sick that her friends would laugh, as it turns out, the only thing she heard was compliments and comments such as "I want glasses!" She looks great and we're hopeful for less headaches. 

Love you sweet Sidney! Keep on being you. 

visitng school

The girls' school has a policy where they don't have big birthday celebrations for each child. So each teacher has a unique way of celebrating each child, and in Regan's class, it meant I got to come to class for a little. The birthday child can invite a parent to read to the class and I was ecstatic to hear Ryan say he was not so super interested in reading to the class (he may have used a different remark....). And so Regan and I sat in special chairs at the front of the group and her friends listened intently as I read to them. I love going to class and interacting with their classmates. 

While I haven't been in Sidney's classroom recently, I do get to see her artwork each day during pick up. This past week was all about 100 days of school and I love love love all that they do about 100. Sidney wrote out that she would really want 100: "dollrs" but that she would never want 100: "splntrs". Oh how I love kindergarten! And then here is a self-portrait of what she thinks she will look like at 100 years old. LOVE IT!