O turns 13 years old...

On Jan 3rd it was official: we have a 13 year old... its been quite a ride with this one. Never a dull moment and we are constantly kept on our toes. Every year brings its own joys and challenges. Seems like not so long ago we were rocking our sweet babe to sleep that very first night. Happy Birthday to our first born!! We love you no matter what and we always will. 

Not super often we get to see this smiley face!! 

This face is more what I see most days.

Photos were taken by Slow Road Photo in our garage last September when we realized school photos weren't probably happening this year with Covid. I didn't get a school photo last year of O so I wasn't going to miss another year. 

We celebrated O's birthday with lots of Nintendo switch time and their favorite dinner from Pancheros. We also ate more ice cream for dessert. They opened their gift too which was a whole bunch of colorful new t-shirts (I know, we are super awesome parents!)

O has also been taking long naps some days when things are too stressful. Some days it's close to three hours and we have to wake them up. Most often those naps are because we have completely stressed them out asking weather or not they did their schoolwork. 

One Second Video continues for 2019 & 2020...

It wasn't too long ago I realized I never quite finished my one second videos from 2019 and 2020. I believe 2019 was one of the biggest "I missed lots of days" videos so date. 2020 was a lot of the same old same old, having been stuck at home most of the year due to Covid. But even through Covid there was plenty of outdoor summer fun. 2019 was just rough starting from Sept 2019 straight through to 2020. On days I was too emotionally drained, I didn't take videos. 

All that to say- here are a few home movies to keep the tradition of one second videos alive! 

2019 video:

 

2020 video:

Valentines day...

 I hardly ever celebrate Valentine's Day. Jerimy and I got engaged on Ground Hog's day so we usually go out then. But I happened to watch a movie on Friday that had a pretty great song in it. SO I spent close to three hours on Saturday morning looking through old photo albums and taking pictures of old photos. Then strung them altogether in a three minute long video for Jerimy! 

I thought I'd share it here because, well, I can and want to look back on it. In some ways we have really changed, in other ways not so much. 

Christmas 2020

Christmas 2020 was an interesting new experience. We decided that we would not be joining extend family at any gathering because Jerimy had a cold that wouldn't go away and I had been working in childcare with several quarantines this fall. So we celebrated quietly with just the four of us. The kids opened gifts, after waiting FOREVER till Daddy and I got out of bed... which was maybe around 7:30 or 8am. They opened Santa's presents and then did a little treasure hunt for presents Oma sent for them (because they were too large and awkward to wrap). 

It was hiding under our bed... 

We facetimed with some family off and on during the day. 

Lucius spent a great deal of time building all his new Star Wars lego sets.

 

 

The kids enjoyed some video gaming time, sledding and we build a 1000 piece Lego puzzle.

And just for the record, 12.14.2020 was the date we officially told our soon to be 11 & 13 year old that we, their parents, are Santa’s helpers. Being Santa’s helper means we can create a sense of magic and wonder during the holidays for them, which we fully intent to still do. Pretty sure they’ve had their suspicions but they’ve never really wanted to know the truth till this year. The oldest was still saying “its just a story!!” out loud while to the youngest had his "ah-ha" moment when listening to this picture book, which explains why parents pretend to be Santa for their kids. 

 

 Something I made for the kids this year and added it as a christmas gift were art portfolios. I went through their school papers and found some fun art pieces to put into these 11x17 inch albums so they could easily flip through and see all their art work. There's plenty of empty pages left from them to fill with even more art master pieces. 

Lego Decor

Since we updated/ Painted the front door this Summer/Fall, we've been having fun decorating the side window with mini Lego builds for each month. 

September 2020: 

 

This little window beside our front door used to be brown. It’s now white!!! And as an added surprise, I made little shelves from extra metal I had. Magnets hold the shelves up and they are just big enough for small lego vignettes. These are “Back to school” lego builds. Top one is me with a camera taking first day photos in front of our brown garage door, the bottom is us walking to school (ps-we didn’t do either of those things today).

*if you look super closely, the kids used lego life jackets as backpacks. Sounds about right for 2020!

October 2020:

 The kids made houses and then added trick or treaters to their lego mini builds but apparently I did not get a photo of it. bummer.

November 2020:

 I don't remember if they built anything for November or not...

December 2020: 

 

January 2021:

 

 

Lucius turns 11 years old!

Something about snow storms and this kid... 11 years ago it did this same thing on his Birth Day.

No one told me that when my baby aged from a decade to 11 he would look like a old octogenarian historian. So thankful everyday for this incredibly kind, huge hearted, and super snugly kid. Happy Birthday L! We love you more than you could possibly imagine.

 

To celebrate L's birthday in true Covid-19 glory, we went to Donut Hut to get donuts in the morning before school. For dinner we ordered dominoes pizza by request from Lucius.  Then after dinner we played a family screen time of lots of Mario Kart races on the big screen. For dessert we all tasted a wide selection of ice cream that Daddy brought home from the store special for all the birthdays. 

January 2021

Why the long blogging absence... well it was a rough couple years. 

Back in early 2019 we had the chance to get O into a new school. A school we hoped would be a good fit for them through 12th grade, without having to switch multiple times from Middle school to high school. It was also a smaller school who boasted of being LGBTQ+ friendly. Knowing how kids were starting to pick on O for being their true self, we thought it a good idea. September 2019 we had a few meetings with soon to be new school and their new teacher. The new school is a Montessori charter school which is different from the public schools we've had O at. Their old school was AMAZING and we had a brilliant team of people who had worked with O for years. We were sad to leave them but it was now or never to get into this new school. So O began their 6th grade year at Great River School.  It was a VERY rough transition for O in many, many ways I'd love to forget about. O started showing huge behaviors that were familiar with before we were getting OT for SPD. The new school was completely unprepared and unwilling to listen to our information on how best to work with O. It was infuriating, sad, exhausting, and traumatic. 

Needless to say we started OT back up in October, had multiple doctor appointments, and starting O on medication. By January 2020 we had finalized an IEP (Individualize Education Plan) through the new school for O as well. The whole year O struggled with behaviors but also we later found out O had been bullied by their new classmates. It was a real struggle for all of us. Many tears were shed. By March 2020 when Covid 19 shut down school buildings, we were actually quite glad of the respite. 

Lucius continues with sports when he can and he is the biggest sweetheart on the planet. It's been hard having to focus energy on O while also making sure he was alright through it all too. Having exhausted parents because a sibling was out of control can not be easy on any kid! We hate that he sometimes doesn't get our attention because he actually does his job and follows rules. 

Summer was spent healing from the past school year and enjoying being home full time. We didn't really do much of anything away from the house. We went on a few outing to local spots that wouldn't be populated by many others so we could stay physically distant to slow the spread of the virus. When school started up again in the fall we were beyond grateful that it started and has been distance learning from home for both kids so far. Which isn't without it's own stresses (especially on Jerimy who tries to work from home since March 2020 while also helping keep the kids on track). 

January 2021 is the start of this new year that everyone is so excited for. It feels much like last year in many ways, but we are hoping we might eventually be able to travel and take trips again in the future. We're thankful that we have not had Covid and have been able to keep to ourselves to help do our part to stop the spread. It's been lonely at times. We've continued to do a lot of work on the hose and yet we haven't been able to invite others over to share it with people. But we know someday we'll be able to visit again and that cheers us a bit.