Fun on the Farm at Curtis Orchard

(Last Sunday) -- Our last stop before heading back home to WI, was Curtis Orchard (http://www.curtisorchard.com/). It was too bad we were all so worn out and we had long drives to get back home because I think we would've enjoyed it more. Caleb fed some goats and we visited the Cafe, Bakery, and Country Store. They had a lot of goodies there - homemade preserves, honey, and of course their famous apple donuts to name a few. Mmm... makes my mouth water just to think of them. There were also lots signs and murals depicting scenes from the Wizard of Oz! Of course we took a few pictures while we were there.....

How tall is our little apple?

Slide in the barn

Yes... I'm related to those people

Caleb loves anything with a steering wheel

My little honey bee

Feeding a goat....

.... and his friends

Uncle Rob was showing off

One little monkey swinging on a bar

One very BIG chair

Aunt Sam and Uncle Rob

Caleb and his Aunt Kelly

Watch out for the crazy bus driver!

The Nikolai Clan (minus Peter)

Weekend with the Nikolai's

Last Friday, we went down to Champaign, IL to spend some time with Tim's side of the family. Rob and his wife, Sam, welcomed us into their cute, little apartment where they fed us and let us sleep in their spare bedroom. (Side note: Sam is an AMAZING cook! Considering she has to avoid gluten and lactose, I was surprised that she came up with such delicious meals for all of us. Way to go, Sam!) 

Tim's parents and sister also came up from Troy, IL (pretty much by St. Louis) on Saturday. We enjoyed catching up and just having quality family time. The kids were hilarious. Caleb loved writing letters and spelling names on the white board and Sonya playing with various relatives.

Goofy Caleb

Sonya loves her Uncle Rob

Caleb in his cool pirate hat that he got from Sam and Rob

Love those BIG, beautiful,blue eyes

Silly faces with Aunt Sam

A tired Caleb (Aunt Sam didn't seem to mind too much)

Dancing with Uncle Rob

So blessed to have such a happy baby!

Playing with Aunt Kelly

Caleb LOVES Papa's car!

"Papa, what are you feeding me?"

Grandma and Grandpa Nikolai with the grandkids

On cloud nine

 Swinging

Escalators are pretty cool... "Hi, mom!"

Say "cheese!"

Uncle Rob and Aunt Sam absolutely loving their niece

*Watch for more pics to come from our trip to Curtis Orchard......

Visiting Kankakee River State Park

Looking for something fun and free to do? The Kankakee River State Park in Illinois was just the break we needed while on our way to visit the Nikolai's in Champaign, IL. We packed some fruit and bought subs when we got closer to the park. Then we had a nice little picnic. They actually had little pavilions for the picnic tables which kept us from roasting in the bright, hot sun. There were also some nice hiking trails so we decided to go for a bit of a walk and take some pictures along the way. 

Carrying Sonya in my Baby K'tan

 Caleb on the bridge

View from the bridge

Kankakee River (view from the lookout point)

Sonya is checking out the orange little butterfly fluttering in the flowers

Tim and the kids

Michelle and the kids

Family photo with the tripod

Tim was trying to go for a silly picture and I was trying to get Caleb to look at the camera again. A failed attempt as you can see.

Tim, Caleb, and Sonya (a sweet sight to see)

One of my favorite family pics

Adventures with Sir Harry Ka

Maybe it's funnier in person..... but my son has the most amazing imagination and I just had to share.

Since Caleb doesn't have school on Fridays, I decided we were still going to have school at home. So on Friday, we worked on lowercase letters and had a mini Spanish session. I think Caleb LOVED it because last night, he wanted to play school again. He got out the notebooks and the old baby wipe container filled with crayons, colored pencils, etc.

Tim: What are we going to do today, Mr. Nikolai?

Caleb: My name is not Mr. Nikolai. It's sir. Sir Harry Ka. (It was so hard not to laugh. He was being so serious.)

Then he proceeded to take charge and told us we were going to read a story, go outside, then come inside so we could eat fruit snacks. So he read us a story and I decided to play along and get into character.

Michelle: (raising my hand) Sir, I have to go to the bathroom.
Caleb: Wait! I have to call the doctor. Where's my phone?
Michelle: I really have to go.
Caleb: Just a second, I'm calling the doctor. (He finally located his toy cell phone).
Michelle: Sir, I think I'm going to pee my pants.
Caleb: Ok, I just talked to the doctor and he said you can go to the bathroom.

After that, it was time to paint. Caleb got us a bucket of pretend water and we used crayons to paint pictures. I drew a stick person of Tim (with glasses of course).

Michelle: Teacher, teacher! Look what I drew!
Caleb: Good job, honey.

At some point, Caleb called me mommy and I had to tell him that that wasn't my name so he decided to call me "Hey kid... lady kid."

Tim and I decided to ask him all sorts of questions and found out that he has a house with 100 rooms, 10 dogs, and 1 kitty. His car is a silver Honda (with a silver button to open the trunk) and he has a garage that is silver and tan.

Michelle: Are you married?
Caleb: No, I'm not married. I have no son.

Tim and I were just cracking up. If that wasn't enough, we went into his bedroom to play "outside." Caleb held my hand because I said I was scared and didn't want to walk by myself. As soon as we were in his room, Tim and I started tossing around a toy chicken from a farm set. Then, Sir Harry Ka said he had a surprise for us in his closet. We were trying to guess what it was.

Tim: Is it a turkey?
Caleb: (opening up the closet door). Yes! You're right! It's a turkey.

Tim: Are we going to eat it?
Caleb: That's a great idea! (walks up to Sonya who was laying on her belly, with her butt up in the air. He then pretended to munch on her) Mmmm num num num. (At that point, Tim and I were laughing so hard we were crying!)

Finally, we went back "inside" to have a snack. Guess what flavors of fruit snacks there were! --- "lemonade, cherry, mint, strawberry and mint and cherry and mint and strawberry strawberry."

I had a fun day at school!

Fun with Grandma and Grandpa Pauly

Ripon Good!

On the way to my cousins' wedding reception, we stopped at Ripon College. Since it is Tim and my alma mater, we wanted to check out the new updates they made to campus. I can't believe it's been 4 years since I graduated from there!

Posing by Todd Wehr Hall

I think Caleb would be able to recruit a lot of people with that cute smile!

Union Memorial Lawn (unless they changed the name)

Let me count the ways...

Oh the things I don't miss about my job!

Rushing around in the morning to get everyone ready

Driving 40 minutes both ways

The crabby customers

The escalated calls

The not-so-family-friendly sick time

The stupid questions from customers

Having to pump during my break and lunch

Losing my freedom to new policies and procedures

Staring at a computer all day

The constant migraines

Oh... and sir, your debit card number is NOT your account number
Thank you for calling and have a nice day!

First day as a Stay-at-Home Mom

Ok... so first day on the job as a stay-at-home mom. Is it everything I've hoped for? Well, Caleb was crabby this morning and didn't want to get up right away. Sonya wasn't wanting to eat her morning cereal and started gagging on it so we skipped that to try again later. Next on the agenda: dropping Caleb off at the Y for his second day of 4K. He didn't even say goodbye to me. :-( I came home half-expecting to feed Sonya and have her nap all morning while I got lots of things done --  like she did last week for me. Guess what? That didn't happen. She finally fell asleep about 15-20 minutes before we needed to leave to pick up her brother from school.

We got home again and little mister didn't want to eat lunch and went straight to his room and laid in bed. I don't know if he was really tired or not, but finally convinced him that he needed to eat. So we had lunch and read a few books. Without prompting, Caleb went to take a nap while I was stuck with a very wide-awake little girl. She only napped for about 20 minutes again this afternoon. Gosh, I'm ready for my own nap. Why won't she sleep? I think she's teething -- those little pearly whites are ready to make an appearance soon!

Overall, I know that it's not going to be easy.  --  Even though I'm not getting paid in dollars or cents, it's still a full time position. My new job description:

I'm a mentor and a teacher.
A coach and chauffeur.

I'm nurse and librarian.

Some days: the barber.

I'm a mother and a wife.
I'm a daughter and a friend.
I'm a chef. I'm a maid.

The list never ends.

Being at home all the time will be physically draining especially with a 6 1/2 month old that just wants to go and demands my attention while my little 4 year old boy is trying my every nerve while developing his independence.  I'll probably have some days where I wish I could just be at work to escape the mayhem. Well, maybe I'll have moments like that every day. No matter what, this is way better than being away from my kids for 10.5 hours a day and letting the daycare raise them for me. Is it all worth it? I think so.

Sonya -- Saying da-da

Sonya -- Rocking back and forth on all fours!