Madeline Island, Lake Superior

After Em's birthday celebration and our trip to Kansas City we came home for a couple of days so Robert could work.  We luckily were asked to head up North with our good friends for some R&R.  We have been several times before, but haven't been able to make it work the last couple years.  I think the last time we were there Noelle was still sleeping in a crib.  Let me tell you taking three kids that can swim well, listen O.K. and can make their own breakfast is a game changer. 

 Crossing over Superior from MN to Wisconsin

 I took tons of sunset pictures....

 Or lake pictures in general

 We had two really great weather days, and two days where it was not best to be on the boat- wind wise

 This is the thing, most kids don't care that the water is 65 degrees at best and the sun is not always shinning, they have fun anyway!

 We don't find many shells, but the rock searching is amazing.  So many neat rocks!

 Leigh found a Norweigen pancake maker (Ebelskiver) so we tried those several times.  These girls helped cook and eat!

 Oh, and we rarely shower at the lake, you can. But no one really does it on the regular...

 Sometimes we eat an entire meal of fried food snacks without plates

 The whitefish from Superior is sooooo good.  All my kids liked it, we did tell Dallas it was chicken, but he gobbled it up. 

 We hammocked a lot

 Smores are always a requirement

 Girl cuddles in bed, we were staying up to watch the stars.  We headed out to the dock at 10:00 pm and laid on cushions and taught the kids how to find satellites and stars. It was my highlight of the week.  Lots of God's work up in the heavens!

8:00 am rinse off crew, I had that coffee cup in my had until 10:00 am everyday, love sipping coffee in nature

 Oscar the Dog likes the water. He also hogs the raft!

 It takes Robert more time to get to relax mode than me.  He found the hot tub to fix so he could be "doing something".

 We boated to the mainland to get ice cream and fish to fry

 We also boated to Anitou Island (one of the Apostle Islands) and we toured an historic fish camp

Also, Robert taught Emily and Dallas how to drive using the golf cart. 

Emily's 10th Birthday

Emily turned 10 this summer.  It is so fun to have a 10 year old.  She is really helpful. She loves to cook, mostly dessert but she is willing to do just about anything.  We have a ways to go with the clean-up. I like clean while I cook, so I would like her to have that strategy. She is very creative and loves helping people.  Emily seems to like playing with babies.  Our friends up the road have a toddler and she does a great job entertaining her.  She is enjoying piano and learning an instrument this Fall. I would still say one of her favorite ways to pass the time is reading.  She asked for Nancy Drew and Roald Dahl books for her birthday. 

 Part of her present from us was a trip to the American Girl store. We have never been to a store and really, time is ticking so we thought we better do it.  We went to the Kansas City store, mostly because we go to KC less often than we do Minneapolis. The only downside was that the KC store does not have a cafe or restaurant, only a salon.  I was initially envisioning doing the tea service with the dolls, but Emily enjoyed this and didn't know what she was missing.

She received this collection of Roald Dahl books from Robert and I.

From her brother and sister, they found lots of stuff at Hobby Lobby to buy her

Birthday breakfast at the Cafe with Robert

More gift goodness

Emily's 10th Birthday

Emily turned 10 this summer.  It is so fun to have a 10 year old.  She is really helpful. She loves to cook, mostly dessert but she is willing to do just about anything.  We have a ways to go with the clean-up. I like clean while I cook, so I would like her to have that strategy. She is very creative and loves helping people.  Emily seems to like playing with babies.  Our friends up the road have a toddler and she does a great job entertaining her.  She is enjoying piano and learning an instrument this Fall. I would still say one of her favorite ways to pass the time is reading.  She asked for Nancy Drew and Roald Dahl books for her birthday. 

 Part of her present from us was a trip to the American Girl store. We have never been to a store and really, time is ticking so we thought we better do it.  We went to the Kansas City store, mostly because we go to KC less often than we do Minneapolis. The only downside was that the KC store does not have a cafe or restaurant, only a salon.  I was initially envisioning doing the tea service with the dolls, but Emily enjoyed this and didn't know what she was missing.

She received this collection of Roald Dahl books from Robert and I.

From her brother and sister, they found lots of stuff at Hobby Lobby to buy her

Birthday breakfast at the Cafe with Robert

More gift goodness

Photos from July 2016

Fireworks wonderment

 Collecting cicada exoskeletons and hanging them on your romper is perfectly normal

 Reading books in the shade of the trampoline

 dog watching

 Molar pulling (by the dentist, making room, braces prep)

 when the nine year old labels the boiled eggs

 Summer is full of ice cream opportunities, the kids figured out you can trade in the Chick-fil-a kids meal toy for a free cone

Noelle's first pedicure (my 4th or 5th..)

Birthday meal, homemade macaroni and cheese, made by Emily

 First trip to the American Girl Store, dolls Emily and Mya recieved pampering in the form of painted nails and a new hairstyle. We figured it was now or never to hit up a brick and morter store.

Hit up a Lego playplace/museum as well while we were in Kansas City

And we had dinner at Fritz's the famous burger place that you order at a phone in your booth and a train delivers your meal to the table

 Kansas City War Memorial selfie

 Visit to the TWA Museum flight attendents in Kansas City

 Fourth of July parade

 Dallas and Robert were in a local Ames magazine

 Dallas and Robert at the Newton Speedway

 Emily climbing aboard a Ford tri-motor airplane, a ride on this 88 year old airplane was one of her birthday presents.

 Picture with the Ford tri-motor at the Oshkosh Air Show

 Fighter Pilot

 Her favorite thing ever, riding on a carousel.  This one was a two story carousel in a mall in KC

Photo op with a DC-9 TWA airplane in Kansas City

Happenings

I am so behind with this little blogging gig.

We are well into school, we have had 6 weeks of Classical Conversations and will have this Monday off for a Fall Break.  Other stuff will still get done around here though, no school outside the house can equal more school here.
Emily is working hard on memorizing all of the CC content, she is thinking about testing for Memory Master in the Spring, which would require repeating all memory work to three people with no mistakes.  She is taking piano lessons and started band at school.  Soccer was her sport of choice this Fall.  Her good friend was playing and she really wanted to try it as well.  Trying soccer in Ames for the first time at age 10 is no joke.  People love their soccer around here and have been playing since age 3 or 4 (not an exageration).  She really loves it.  Her rule following and natural bent for not being aggressive doesn't exactly work in her favor, but she tries hard and has a blast, and we are enjoying watching her do something she loves.  She often has soccer four times a week if she has two games scheduled so we have spent a bunch of time on the soccer field. Dallas and Noelle have made good friends of other siblings and they have a couple nice climbing trees and a playground near.

Dallas is still a Lego building machine.  He can build any type of vehicle and often whips out a prototype after we have seen or learned about an auto or airplane. Getting school done is a challenge for him as he would rather be doing something else like drawing or building.  He is reading better each day, but still doesn't love it. He has already had two colds this Fall.  He is still our kid that feels all the feels and does so to the extreme.  His fits are intense when he feels wronged! On the flip side he loves BIG! His favorite food right now are homemade Jimmy Johns roast beef sandwiches and broccoli cheese soup.  Dallas is playing flag football through an Upwards League that our church hosts.  He is a great passer and often plays quarterback and his receivers get touchdowns.  He is still working on catching well "all the time".  Robert says he can, but he likes to add so much flair to his catching, like jumping, spinning, falling, and leaping that it makes it much harder for him to catch.  If he simply catches it without all the other stuff he does well.

Noelle is still living the musical life. She talks and sings and hums constantly.  Always with the words, words, words.  She is an hummer eater. She dances around, and now adds cheering to her repitorie.  She has been participating in Upwards Cheer leading this Fall.  She really likes the practice and and wearing the uniform. I think the games are a little boring until they get to half-time and get to perform their dance.  They always cheer for the 1:00 pm game so often she does not know many of the players so paying attention is out the window.  There is a lot of picking grass! She still loves digging for worms, playing in the sandbox and jumping on the trampoline.  Jumping in the pool was her favorite in August.
I noticed a lot of hair clumps around her bed the last bit of summer, it took me a while to figure out she was pulling it out.  Having three girls with longish hair in the house does make for some tumble weeds of hair on the carpet especially if we are lazy with the vaccum. At one point in early September i realized her hair was really thin on one side and kind of put it all together.  People- parenting is hard! and don't google hair pulling! We headed to the doctor to rule out some issues like low thyroid (she had to have blood taken and all of McFarland Clinic knew about it!) Thyroid checked out normal, so we were sent to a dermatologist. Scalp was deemed healthy.  He said it was not likely a stress/anxiety issue because of her age. He prescribed a special shampoo, and made sure Noelle new it was only for her and super special (make her feel good). I stratagized with my hair stylist.  I ordered her a satin pillow, got some detangler spray and she has been wearing mittens to bed on her hands for the last 25 days.  I think we have turned the corner! She is/was defiantly doing it in her sleep - we had never witnessed it during the day.  I watched her one night when she was sick and sleeping restlessly and she was rubbing her hair a ton with her mittens on.  I wonder if she had a scalp thing this summer from a lake or pool and it became itchy.  She told me she doesn't like the clumps of hair at night so she pulls them out.

Seriously parenting is hard.