Oh boy oh boy!

Well school is in full swing. Reid in 4th, Althea a big kindergartner! We had a full summer of 1st and 9th birthdays. Reid had a fun party at the public pool, Gus took his first steps right around is first birthday actually closer to the 4th of July. We did the usual trips to Minocqua, Gwinn, spend a lot of time at the pool, Paulo's waterpark etc. It was a warm nice summer.
Now being in full swing of school, and activities we are still enjoying some great weather. Last week it was in the 80s all week! Reid has golf and Althea is doing dance and is about to start swimming lessons at UWSP. She lost her first tooth about two weeks ago. Very exciting stuff. Reid is also about to have another missing tooth. Gus is learning new words. So far he can say, "ding," which usually means he is about to hit you with something. He can say Ba, duck, and hot. Althea absolutely loves school. She has made a lot of really nice new friends and just loves being there.  Reid is learning that school can be hard sometimes! He scored extremely high on his standardized testing, not sure why or what it is used for but he did well, we didn't have any doubts. Anyway, that's just a little recap for now!

8 months +

Gusser has been crawling like crazy for a few weeks, right around the 8 month mark!
Today he discovered his tongue and keeps sticking it out. He weighs about 16 1/2 lbs, give or take. He was at the Dr. for impetigo that he just couldn't kick! He is starting to pull himself up on things and maybe just maybe is starting to sleep a teensy tiny bit better.

Althea has her introduction to kindergarten today! Time flies, wow.  She learned to tie her shoes and is reading like crazy, more and more every day!

Reid and his Destination Imagination, "The Mystery Men," Team took FIRST PLACE in the regional competition and this coming weekend will be competing at the state tournament here at UWSP!

Gusser, Thea Bea, Reidster

Okay having three kids is way harder than I ever imagined. Gus, here is your formal apology....I'm sorry I haven't been keeping track of your accomplishments you are number three. Number three has many things that one and two didn't have, older siblings, experienced parents, all the fun that goes along with the older kid's activities etc., but unfortunately your parents have less time to keep track of things and take pictures of you etc. We love you a lot it'll just show in different ways.

So Gus, you got your first tooth on February 7th, bottom left and the bottom right followed about 2 weeks later. Yesterday, Martch 13th you started to really crawl after a couple weeks of trying to creep you even attempted to pull yourself up on things, you fell a lot!

You are a horrible sleeper. When I say horrible I mean absolutely God awful terrible. THE WORST. I'm sure you have a milk association with sleep, what's a mom to do? I wish someone would tell me. Sleep deprivation is torture. I keep thinking it will pass but you are already 8 months old little man come on!

You can say DADADADA and you have a very loud voice! You have the best smile, it's so big and you scrunch up your little nose! You are our missing puzzle piece, our right side book end that holds us all together as a final set.

Althea you are loving 4K and you are working with the college students on reading because you are so great at it! You love art, your friends Parker, Annabelle, Emily, Ellie etc. You really turned into a social butterfly and you absolutely adore your teacher and often ask when Ms. Wilke can come over!
You are enjoying dance as usual and have a recital coming up! I'm so excited to see you preform on the big stage!!!

You are a fabulous big sister, Gusser loves you so much and always has a kiss for you! I love your help with him and need it everyday!  You also love to have Grandma pick you up from school, she treats you to a Happy Meal and you are creating some wonderful memories together and that fills my heart so very full. You are kind and gentle a great student, and really nice friend.

Reid......you are working so hard on Destination Imagination right now. I know you are going to do very welll as a team. I'm so excited to see you perform!

3rd grade....wow. 3rd grade, time flies. 3rd grade has come with its challenges, for instance you becoming a bit of a class clown! Never thought that would happen! But we seem to have it all under control now :) You still love to read, you've completed Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and lots of other books...way too many to list. The days are long but the years are short little man who is no longer so little. I still love to hold you in my lap, and you are the best big brother. Gus absolutely adores you and smiles whenever you enter the room!

Gus and the Whirlwind that is Life

Well well well, here I find myself once again. I'm coming back to attempt to keep track of some of the milestones of my children once again! We've have added Gus to the family so I think I better start keeping track of some of the cool stuff he can do and when he does it!

On July 10th I received a phone call from my sister Lynn this is how it went.

Lynn: Mom said the baby is going to be born on Reid's birthday. Can you make that happen?
Me: Ha ha, yeah right, that is a week and a half before his due date. Both of the other kiddos were about a week past their due dates.

Well I woke up on July 12th, Reid opened his gifts and I pretty much went into labor and Gus was born a short time after that! It went quick and we went from a family of 4 to a family of 5 in the blink of an eye.

It has definitely been an  adventure, these past 4.5 months! I was in denial but I'd definitely say now that Gusser had some colic issues. It was tough on all of us but the smiles, laughs, and the connection he has with Reid and Althea showed us the light.

At his 4 month check up he weighed in at 14 lbs. 12 oz.!

The colic began to subside and he become easier to put to sleep around the 4 month mark. He loves to be held and loves when someone is talking to him!

He rolled over on November 29th, from his tummy to his back and we all got to see it!

Just in the past two or three days he is grabbing for everything, he has always liked toys but now is grabbing anything within his reach! I think he will definitely keep us on our toes.

Althea is loving 4K, and ballet and tap classes at DEC. She is becoming an excellent reader and can read many books on her own, we are very proud. She is a lover of art, art projects and collecting anything!

Reid is doing well in school, and played soccer and baseball last summer and is now playing basketball at the Y. He is into Pokemon, Magic cards, and of course still reading up a storm....Harry Potter (still), The Sister's Grim, and basically anything funny. He may do Destination Imagination again this year.

That's a quick recap, I'll be posting probably without pictures because of time constraints with a baby who takes super short naps and wakes a lot at night! But hopefully I'll be able to log on and simply keep track of the wonderful milestones that come along with our three busy kiddos!

Catch Up

We've got our first loose tooth in the house!!!
Reid's bottom left tooth is a wiggling!
Reid had a great kindergarden year, spent his reading time in Mrs. Hintz's second grade class and made some great friends. Summer has been a blast so far, lots of little trips and fun at the pool!

Althea is hilarious right now, talking non stop.
She says, "I love you." "You are the best mommy in the whole wide world." She has graduated from calling her brother Buddy to calling him Reid.
I don't think I ever did a potty update, but she was potty trained in no time, right around age 2. Super easy, that's why I probably didn't write about it!

2!!!!

I am going to start off this post by saying, "I'm sorry Althea." Not in a, "I'm a horrible mom sort of way, but in just a "I'm sorry, because I'm here, I'm taking all of you and all you do in, but I'm not writing about it," sort of way :) So I want you to know that I'm trying my best, and doing my best, and loving all the time we spend together and you are a fabulous, fabulous, wonderful little puzzle piece to our family. I love you more than you could know, and I sure LOVE 2. 2 gets such a bad wrap. I love 2.  People always say children grow up too fast, and that is very true, they do. But they have to right? Time moves forward, we all age, we blink and 2 years have gone by. But......I won't say I wish I could stop time, but I wish children just could be 2, act 2, for a little longer. 2 is awesome. Althea Kate you are 2 and you are smart, strong, wise beyond your years, you have a big sense of humor, you are beautiful, you are important, and you are loved.
Happy 2nd birthday and lets cruise on forward on this wild ride that we call year 3!

In an attempt to make it up to Althea and Reid that I haven't written in a year (sometime down the road when they may want to read this) I will be doing a flash back also with every post. Sorry I didn't document your awesomeness! We do still have a lot of pictures and video though.

She has lots of words, she looks out for her brother with all of her heart and talks about him, she calls him "Buddy," all day long while he is at school. I actually had someone come up to me in the store the other day because she was just talking and talking about "Buddy" and she said, "Oh my gosh, is Buddy her brother? That is the sweetest thing I have ever heard." That made my day.
She is often our dinner entertainment. She pulls her shirt up over her head and laughs or starts the refrigerator game music and runs around like a crazy person laughing.

Sweet little Thea-Bee-Ah on her 2nd birthday.

She is SMART. Yesterday we were on the porch and she was very concerned that there was melting crayon on the floor. (From a project Reid and I did along time ago while she was napping.) I asked her what she thought it was and her reply was, "Art." Simply but true, it is art. Crayon that I will not ever clean up or purposely get rid of because it is "art," to her. I LOVE it.

Since I haven't written in so long I could just keep going, but I think I'll leave it at that. Here are a few pictures and a flashback that I promised also!

Honestly, does it get any cuter than this? Our heart and soul.

Flashback Time: Althea's first birthday!!! 

Steps

This little girl took a few steps yesterday and walked across the whole family room today!

Getting down to Business

Just some business.....Althea took a step yesterday! She stands up, makes sure everyone is watching and takes one step and goes down. She did this repeatedly for our reactions! She has all four of her front teeth and the two top side molars, which she got before the front teeth!
Reid and I were doing science experiments today!....of course and he is just so funny. "NOW THAT IS A REACTION!!" came out of his mouth when the citric acid and baking soda combined!
Love these kiddos!

Just little things

Somethings I wanted to jot down.....At one year Althea was 29.5 in and 18 lbs 3 oz. Around October 20th she popped her first top tooth, it was her right lateral incisor. On November 23rd she got her right front tooth! Slowly but surely they are all coming in! Happiness for her right now is two nuks to hold in her hands and switch them back and forth, handing us books and having us read them to her, and being snuggled to sleep. She is attempting to hold her own with her brother. She lets him know when she wants something! She stands all by herself. The other day she stood from a squatting position with no help. I don't think she realized what she did and we all started cheering!
Reid is doing great. School is going well, although I've been getting little hints that he may be a little bored so we are working on that with his teacher. He loves reading more than ever and we've done a ton of science experiments in the last couple of months. His vocabulary is still expanding and his words are becoming bigger and bigger by the minute. He still says the funniest things sometimes and I wonder where it all comes from. The other day we made banana muffins and what impressed him the most about them...not their yumminess, it was the FACT that they were "crumbless!" Mom mom these muffins are absolutely crumbless, I don't even need a plate. He also was very concerned that Kevin was hunting and missed three dinners. Ha....Kevin miss a dinner, I don't think so! Hockey and gymnastics are filling his time these days. Fun fun!

1

 So I've got a ton of "She is 1 photos," but here are the chair pictures! She wasn't really in the mood, and wouldn't let go of her cards, but we still managed to get a couple of cute ones. My little tiny peanut, sweetie pie, sweet pea, sweet carrot, olive, bea, is ONE! ONE!

Here she is the birthday girl!!!

Most of these photo shoots start off like this, with my big helper :)

Wow! I really am one!

A little sleepy still but full of smiles....as long as she had her cards in hand.

Reid too!

These cards are so COOL.

My brown eyed girl.

Peek!

Halloween Fun!

A little taste of Halloween and what is to come. We went trick or treating downtown so I quickly snapped a few pictures!

4 Years Old

Here are a few picture of Reid at his friend party. We had a "water" themed party in our backyard. It was a huge hit!

Althea giving the birthday boy a little tickle!

This was Reid's actual birthday. We spent it in the UP at the Gwinn camp.

The Lake's gift to Reid!

This is where the love of.....Pokemon began, there might be a little love for his sister here too :)

Playing bean bags!

Gifts, gifts and more gifts, he sure is lucky!

His Star Wars Cake!

Sorting and listing and checking off, total Reid :)

Before I recap the summer I need to focus on one very very important thing that happened this summer. Reid turned 4! 4. Yes 4. Four years ago on July 12th we welcomed him into our quiet, close, tight, little world. He came in slowly but has never stopped since. I never knew that I could feel so much love for a little being, but felt it immediately.
Reid finished up preschool and is now on to 4K. He rides the bus every day, he seems to love it. He is a lover of learning. Facts are his thing. He loves books and I hope will forever love the art of language. He is starting to understand and do simple math. He LOVES Pokemon and spends a lot of his free time reading the cards and writing about them.  He loves lists, reading lists, making lists and catagorizing everything. He can count to 100, and now doesn't skip 13 and 14 :) We've recently discovered that he is starting to know how to spell. Yes it is pretty neat to see a little brain figure out things like that! He is in gymnastics right now and really likes it, and hockey will start at the end of October! Very exciting. His little sister can get the best of him, especially now that she wants all of his things and wants to be around him all the time! He loves to play with his friends and his cousins. The love and admiration for his cousins runs pretty deep. He likes to tell stories about all the fun times they have together!
We love you Reid Thomas. The last 4 years have been a wonderful adventure full of wild rides!

11 months

Althea is 11 months old! Why oh why did the time fly? This is so her right now. She tucks her bottom lip and says, "Hohoho." We also think she is saying, "Ball." She walks in her walker outside and can now walk behind her little cart.

So happy she might just jump!

Wide grins!

Brother helping by getting some giggles.

She loves to clap!

Little cutie pie. I know the flower on her head may be over kill :)

Tucked lip again, she always does this when she laughs.

Check out those beautiful dark eyes.

Belly laughs!

The photo shoot quickly turned into Darth Vader's day in the spotlight.

With a snap to the face and Darth's portrait we all called it a wrap.

All except for Darth.

10 months

...3 weeks late. Here we go! This little girl is SO amazing! See you in a week for the 11 month photos! Plus maybe just maybe someday I will do a summer recap since I've been absent on the blog for so long! Maybe, just maybe. Or maybe someone could do it for me? That would be AWESOME.

Ha ha, I'm hilar. Yes Hilar.

Where is your tongue? Where are you toes? Where is your belly button? All of these things she knows...so smart!

And it begins!...I want that camera!

Seriously, she loves food. She can out eat Reid in a heartbeat. Her feet look huge in this picture, but they aren't she still wears her 3 month Robeez and they have room in them. We shall call her Little Foot.

Loves to climb steps, it is her Everest. When she gets to the top she is so proud of herself.

So confident :)