The Start of Summer

What seemed to be the never ending school year because of all our snowdays did, indeed, finally come to an end. It was sad packing up all of my Reading Recovery things but I am on to another new adventure, something that I have wanted to do since I had my favorite teacher Mrs. Meyer, a First Grade teacher! It will be BUSY year next year but I am so excited about it!

Joe has been instructing at a "character camp" the past couple weeks and will be doing that for the month of June. Its basically a bootcamp for highschool aged kids. So, his hours have been great-- normal :)--so we've gotten to have him home at bedtime!


Kale has been LOVING playing with the neighbors now that the "sun is hot" as he says. He has been spending hours in the backyard digging in the sandbox, putting bugs in his bugbarn that he got as a big brother gift, and of course the sprinkler. I am thinking we may need to invest in a more child friendly sprinkler since he has bruises on his legs from where the metal parts spin around at a high rate of speed and whack in him the shins. He doesn't seem to mind though and I figure if there is no blood or tears it can't be that bad :)!

Here he is with our CUTE neighbor girls! You can feel the heightened activity level just by looking at the picture :)!

Ava Grace is changing everyday. She is such a happy girl (although we brought her to a potluck for Joe's work and she screamed the whole time....since she doesn't cry very often I don't really have any tricks to soothe her. A random lady there must of felt sorry for me and offered to give it a shot. I was so embarrassed! Turns out, she just didn't want to be held anymore in that hot room. We put her in her carseat and she turned off the tears immediately..lil turkey). She now is enjoying being on her tummy since she is strong enough to hold her head and chest off the ground to look around. She attempts to reach for the toys on her exersaucer and is sometime successful at grabbing those quick little buggers (they don't move unless she touchs them but still,its tricky. lol). She LOVES to watch her big brother and the wilder and crazier he is the more fun he is to watch. Of course, Kale eats it up and loves being the center of her attention. Tonight he had her giggling for the first time. The deep belly laugh that you can't help but to laugh yourself. :) Love it.


We made the first trip to the swimming pool this summer. Kale of course was everywhere and smiled the WHOLE time. Until we had to leave of course. What made it even better for him was our neighbors went too. Maylee and Kale are two peas in a pod. Here the little fish are in their swimsuits before we left. Isn't Ava's suit Adorable!! (thanks Jane and Clare :))



Kale also got to take Ava on her first trip to the zoo.



First Smores of the season!

There is lots of fun to be had this summer!--- Hopefully the mosquitos tame down a bit or kale will be swollen all summer.... he looks like he got hit in the head with something right now.... a big ol goose egg?? nope just a bug bite..ugh!

3 Months

Accomplishments:
Lots of jabber
BIG smiles
Eating her WHOLE fist
Rolling over!

On the verge of healthiness...

Just when I think we are all healthy, someone has a snot issue. BUT for the most part I think we are back to normal. Ava is back to sleeping better (although it could be better ;) ) and Kale's cough seems to have subsided. Maybe I better not put that in writing for fear tomorrow morning he will wake up with a cough.

We ventured North this past weekend to visit the grandparents. It was Jake's 2nd birthday and Clare's Highschool Graduation. Both were good. Kale had a major pep talk about how to act at birthday parties. The kid remembered from a YEAR ago that he helped Jake open his presents. Well, this year, since Jake is fully capable Kale was forced by his mother (although Jake kept saying "open it Kale") to sit back and watch. He did for the most part and watched with nervous laughter as Jake discovered what was in those mysterious packages. BUT There was no holding him back when Jake opened up a box FULL of little diggers and trucks! Kale was so excited about it. We gave jake a lawn mower and the boys mowed and mowed many laps around the "loop" at Nana and Papa's house. Loud but it occupied!

Papa had Kale in training this time...picking up rock. He had fun for awhile but then he got smart and told Papa "that one is yours" and didn't get off the four wheeler. Oh the memories.

Ava has been smiling and jabbering up a storm.



She is growing like a weed and even rolled over for the first time today! Her big bro was her biggest cheerleader and he thinks "tomorrow she will probably learn to walk." Sadly, it will seem like time went that quickly when she does learn to walk so lets not rush things!



Kale continues to be a little sponge and is so curious about everything! I really do love it but on about the 182nd question about how a cylinder works in a tractor (which i have no idea) I have to regroup every ounce of patience I have. He loves to read and is thrilled he can "read" the word GO in his Llama Llama Mad at Mama book (It is enlarged print and bolded red..lol) I love the enthusiasm and hope his zest for life follows him for many many MANY years!

Perfect Timing...

Maternity leave is over. I can't believe how fast it flew. Seriously, seems like they just were sending me home from the hospital with our new little babe.

So I was preparing to go back to school and wouldn't you know it... Ava started coughing. We brought her into the doctor to find out the poor little thing has that darn RSV. Just in time for me to go back to work, nice. So we now are trying to relieve symptoms with a nebulizer, which seems to be helping. She has been a trooper about it, doesn't complain too much until we hear her start to snort through the monitor at night when her poor little nose gets so clogged she can't breath through it to suck on her plug.

Here she is getting a breathing treatment...poor thing..

And of course, Kale had to try it too-- he thought he looked like an elephant!

Joe and Kale went to the circus over the weekend. I sent the camera with Joe and told him to take pictures. I got a few pictures of the bears and acrobats but NONE of Kale... men! ;) Oh well. He had a great time. It was 3 hours long and still Kale would have stayed for more (I think Dad had enough at about 2 hours). Kale's favorite thing was bears riding motorcycles.
Before they left we had a big pep talk about clowns (huge phobia). I went into depth about how clowns are people wearing funny clothes. They put on huge shoes, huge pants and paint their faces to look funny. He seemed to feel better about them and in fact, he now says he's going to be a clown when he gets bigger. Good thing we had the chat because Joe immediately sent me a text when they got there that clowns were everywhere. He would not talk to any of them (or make eye contact for that matter) but no panic attacks so we will call it a success!

Shannon and Jake came for a few days. I think Shannon has decided that she might like her job just a TINY bit better than she did before she came down and that 3 kids are definitely not in her future. She needed a beer when I got home! :)
We also have discovered that Kale and Jake are crazy. They feed off of each other and get so wound up someone always winds up crying or in time out. Here are the little monsters.

That devilish laughter written all over Kales face in this picture pretty much sums up the visit!

Ava is 2 Months!

Time has flown by and Ava is 2 months already...which means I will be returning to work next week.. Luckily only for a short bit before summer vacation.

Ava is now 12 pounds 4 oz. which is the 84 percentile and 25 inches which is the 99th percentile. She got some vaccinations today and was less than thrilled about that but other than that is happy :)! She smiles some, is really checking out her environment, lets out some loud babbling occasionally and is getting stronger by the day.

I took the kids by myself on an ambitious 4 hour road trip to Sioux Falls to see Shannon and the fam. The drive went smoothly both ways with one stop for a feeding and a diaper. On the way there, I wanted to go as far as i could while Ava was asleep. It was about time for her to be hungry but since she was still asleep I kept driving. Well, note to self, there is NO WHERE to stop after Missouri Valley besides a "parking only" rest stop. Sure enough, while we were there, Kale announced he had to use the restroom. I thought, "good thing your a boy" but no - it was more of an emergency than that! So the people driving by got quite the show! Kale was quite proud of this accomplishment!

We had not been to Sioux Falls since Jake was born so it was a much needed visit. The boys had fun wrestling and causing trouble. Turns out they are quite the pair.
Here is Sheldon giving a Harley tutorial to the boys.


Our stay was shortened when Kale's scratchy throat turned into a full out barking cough. He said, "why am I coughing? I wasn't coughing a couple yesterdays ago!" And one night when he was attempting to sleep he sat up and said, "this side of my nose is stuffy and this side is not, that's odd."
Turns out that barking cough is pneumonia. We have had quite the spat of issues here and I hope it is over now and Ava doesn't end up with something. we have been going through lots of Clorox and hand sanitizer.

Next week I am headed back to school and there starts the rotation of visitors to watch Ava until the end of the school year. I can't believe how little I can check off the to do list that I had for my 10 weeks off..in fact the list keeps getting longer!

Issues...

We've got skin issues around here! Friday, after a evening of playing outside in the gorgeous weather, Kale's face proceeded to get very red... by bedtime swollen. After taking him to the doctor Saturday morning we learned the poor kid had staff infection on his face. Probably from scratching a bug bite... ugh!
THEN.. our second trip to the dr. this week was for Ava. She woke up looking very...well... terrible. She was red from head to toe except for her cheeks which looked very very pale. She was one big hive. The doctor thinks it was a virus she was reacting to but I am supposed to start logging my diet to see if there is a correlation between something I ate and her flare ups. I would post a picture but... no, I only post cute ones :).

This week highlights:

Ava is smiling! It is easiest to get her to do it right when she wakes up from a good nap. I tried to get a good pic and this was the best I could do...


Kale helped dad washed the cop car and was quite proud of himself as you can see.




Kale has also been loving being outside watching all the construction that is going on in our neighborhood. There are building over 6 houses, including one right across the street. They must think the housing market is going to come back in full swing or something. I want to tell ask them to hold off on the pounding until at least 7:30 but apparently work begins at sunrise..grrr. Don't they know if children are sleeping they should be too! It is all Kale can do not to run over and sit on all the equipment they have out just calling his name. This morning he wanted to go drive the skid loader. I told him when he gets bigger. His response, "I'll go get Daddy, he's already bigger." Then I said, "Those skid loaders are only for the workers." "Why?" he asked about a thousand time to any response I gave him. Next, thing I knew he had on his rubber boots and said, "There, now I am a worker. Let's go tell them I can drive."

He also has some addition plans. Kale thinks we need to make another garage(which, I think Joe would agree). This one is specifically for a skid loader which he thinks, "will be nice to have in the winter and for helping the workers keep the dirt off the road." I am sure he will start the building this afternoon!

We got Ava what is called the "Nap Nanny" it is supposed to work miracles on helping your child sleep. So far no miracles but she does seem to like to sleep in it. Lately, she had been going to bed around 7:30 and then sleeping until 2:00. and then 3 hour intervals after that. Not too bad, I can't complain.


We don't always get baths in before Joe leaves for work at 7:00. This is how I attempted to accomplish both baths at once one night. It was actually pretty successful! :)

Easter

Well we made the first trip back to Northwest Iowa with two kids. Funny thing is-- we took two cars..:)! We had done some MAJOR spring cleaning and had two car loads of junk to bring up for a garage sale. Joe took Kale and the dog, and I had Ava. Ava slept most of the way up and back home. Both ways Ava rode like a champ until the last 10 miles. The last 10 miles involved violent screaming. When we got home her face was beat red from yelling and she did not even want to touched.. she only wanted to stretch out on the floor. Anywhere over three hours could be questionable for awhile.

Ava got to meet all sets of great grandparents as well as A LOT of other relatives that had not met her yet. The only downside of having both our families from the same place is that there is so many people to see and so little time!

We met Shannon halfway between Sioux Falls and my parent's house to get Jake so the boys could play while Shannon and Sheldon were at work. We took my parents car for the DVD player and we realized we could easily get used to having a bigger vehicle! There was so much room! We are a bit crammed in our car. Oh well, we will make do for now. Kale and Jake had fun but Joe and I have decided that THREE kids would put us over the top and maybe in need of some counseling. We weren't sure what to do when the the third kid had something else in mind! We were out numbered. Kale always wanted to be on the four wheeler...Jake wanted nothing to do with that but wanted to be outside pointing and talking about things..and Ava needed to be fed! ugh! The once laid back Jake (although still very easy going) is breaking though with a few glimpses of the terrible twos (which I was SO hoping would happen so Shannon could quit sailing through parenthood while I was chasing Kale around sweating :) ) In fact, while I was putting him to bed he yelled "NO!" and hit me in the stomach it actually made me feel quite warm inside just to know that ALL kids must go through this (either that or just the Goeken boys--haha). He then proceeded to attempt to knock over Papa's new TV and yelled "SHUT UP" when Drake started barking! All of this was music to my ears :)!





Kale also got his farming fix and helped Papa put on "hydrous" in the "big huge tractor." This is what he has been doing in his playroom since we got home too! He loves to farm. He wants to drive anything that has a motor and will sucker anyone into giving him a ride. In fact, just after Joe and I had him convinced that most everything was out of gas or had flat tires... Travis fired up the lawn mower AND the four wheeler to give him a ride :)

Kale has been getting spoiled with gifts basically since Christmas! So, we had hardly talked about the Easter bunny to avoid him creating a lengthy list of things he thought should be delivered to him... Joe took Kale and Jake into the Easter egg hunt in Primghar. They had fun riding the fire truck and getting eggs although Dad did not take near the amount of pictures I would have :)!



Bob and Jane gave Kale and Ava matching outfits they wore for Easter. We had Shannon pick up something for Jake too. They looked SO cute! Come to find out, once we got to church.. EVERYONE else shops and The Childrens Place too! Nikki had her kids dressed up in it and Kale and Ava matched Eli and Martina Harmon too!



Both kids we EXHAUSTED when we got home they both slept like rocks. It was great seeing great family over Easter!