how they spend their days as of late

 the big one is VERY into Angry Birds...

 the middle one is VERY into vvroooooming trucks...

and the little one is anxious to get moving!

marketing

so the sign went up...

 but the lu decided to do her part, too...

 see her sign?  it says for sale.  see her jar of change?  that is so when she sells the house she can make change, if necessary.  somehow she made a dollar off the of teenager next door who was walking her dog.

 'it takes a long time to sell a house, mom'

 an up close of the sign...

 crazy enough, it sold just a day later.  maybe it was her sign.

i like to think it was my welcome wreath that only took a day to make. 

i think i need to learn to 'edit'...aka, know when to stop. 

but whatev, the house sold!

thank you God for making our last 2 months here good ones, instead of filled with crazy showings.  the inspection is friday afternoon. 

after that i'm looking forward to just living & enjoying my family & friends.

some firsts to report...

-first solids for hugh...thursday, may 3rd. bananas.  big hit.  followed by sweet potatoes...another big hit.  the boy was ready to eat & i couldn't deny him any longer.

-first concert for luci & gus...the fresh beat band, on saturday the 5th.  luci LOVED it.  gus loved the first 45 minutes...then he was a bit overstimulated by it all.  also first adventure with chopsticks & sushi...our pre concert dinner (impromptu, as the spaghetti warehouse had a 30 minute wait at 5p?!?!) 

-first day of house being listed for sale (4p) first showing of the house (7:15p)...followed by the first offer (8:15p)...at full price...on monday, may 7th.

-first night in a big boy bed for my gus.  tonight.  so far all is well.  we'll see how the first nap in the big boy bed goes tomorrow!

 edamame

 chopsticks for 'chicken nuggets'...aka rock shrimp tempura :)

 she did great!

 this photo freaks me out a bit.  she looks like she could be 14, no?

good thing my lil gus is just hanging out, looking 2, enjoying a pretzel.

fresh beat band!  fresh beat band!
sorry the video is sideways.  notice gus flailing his arms.  and looking down admiringly at his batman shirt.  the boy is batman CRAZY.

and we are off...

all five of us, to my hometown.  my grandpa rosonke passed away on saturday afternoon...so instead of 3 of us heading to colorado to find a new town all 5 of us are heading to iowa.  wish us luck.  pretty much only the love of family could get me to attempt such an undertaking.  hour to the aiport, 2.5 hour flight, followed by another 3 hour drive.  if you are so inclined say a prayer or two for us all.

and a special thanks, and no coincidence, i'm sure, that grandma & grandpa pierse were here to help us get ready for the family trek.  and give us a bit of time to get things done for the house photographer who comes a week from today.  and to distract my kiddos while i go through little fits and tantrums.  they are so helpful that i have time to post an hour before we leave for the airport!

for now colorado will have to wait...my heart is in iowa this week.  or as grandpa liked to call it with that twinkle in his eye, iowaaay.  :)

Harold B. Rosonke dies at 85

Harold B. Rosonke, age 85, of New Hampton, died Saturday, April 21, 2012 surrounded by his family at his home.Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, April 26, 2012 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in New Hampton with Fr. Mark Osterhaus celebrating the mass. Burial will be in St. Mary's Cemetery at New Hampton. Military honors will be provided by New Hampton American Legion Post 38 and New Hampton VFW Post 5238.Visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.m. with a 5:30 p.m. scriptural wake service on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at Conway-Markham Funeral Home in New Hampton. Visitation will continue at the funeral home one hour prior to the service on Thursday. Memorials may be directed to the family. Online condolences for Harold’s family may be left at  www.conway-markhamfh.com.
Harold Rosonke was born on March 6, 1927 to Bernard and Clara (Schwickerath) Rosonke in New Hampton. He attended and graduated from New Hampton High School. Upon graduation, Harold enlisted in the United States Army serving during the Korean War. He received his honorable discharge and returned to Iowa where he was employed at Rath of Waterloo. On September 1, 1954 Harold was united in marriage to Myrtle Marvin at St. Bernard’s Catholic Church in Alta Vista. After their marriage the couple began farming in the New Hampton area. In 1958, Harold and Myrtle made their home on the family farm west of New Hampton where they’ve lived ever since. Harold was active with the farm until January 2012. Harold enjoyed farming, playing cards and especially enjoyed his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was a member of Holy Family Parish ~ St. Mary’s Center, the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Order of Foresters.
Harold is survived by his loving wife, Myrtle Rosonke of New Hampton; his three sons, Michael (Lori) Rosonke, Patrick (Linda Stejskal) Rosonke, James (Donna) Rosonke all of New Hampton; his grandchildren, Brittnee (Clayton) Pierse, Dr. Brooke (Sunidh Jani) Rosonke, Ben (Chelsi) Rosonke, Baylee (Andrew Reicks) Rosonke, Jeremy Rosonke, Brian (Becky) Rosonke, Tina Rosonke, Melissa (Ben) Holt, Joshua (Sarah) Rosonke, Lucas Rosonke, Noelle Rosonke; his 12 great-grandchildren; three sisters, Mildred Brus of Alta Vista, Leona Herold of Cresco, Lorna Gorman of New Hampton; one brother, Jerry (Malee) Rosonke of Mansfield, SD and one sister-in-law, Mary Rosonke of New Hampton.
He was preceded in death by his parents, his granddaughter, Kaitlin Rosonke; two brothers, Donald and Glen Rosonke and one sister, Florence Rosonke.

-2

my girl was a mess today when she arrived home from school. like total meltdown. i tried to ask about her day...the usual questions. "who was line leader? did they do a good job? what did you have for a snack? what letter did you talk about? who did you play with on the playground?"

she wouldn't tell me anything. clay told me lu was the line leader. usually she'd be VERY excited about this. but nope, just melting. all she would say was that she was tired, but she didn't want to nap (shocking).

we put the boys down for a nap & decided to snuggle on the chair with some wow wow wubsy. clearly she was feeling very insecure about something. with all that we have going on i thought maybe it was just upsetting that she came home to find her favorite room in the house (the craft room) completely dismanted.

after an hour of snuggling...
lu: mom. do you want to know what happened at school today?
mom: of course, yes! i do!
lu: i got something wrong.
mom: what do you mean? (genuinely confused...we've never had this conversation before)
lu: on a worksheet. i got something wrong.

so i went digging through the 15 papers she brings home daily. i look at them but have never, not ever, seen anything other than right answers & stars. i assumed (incorrectly, apparently) that they sort of the did the worksheets together...otherwise how could EVERY worksheet ALWAYS have ALL the right answers??!?!?

ah. but not today. today i found a sheet with a -2 on the bottom. they are learning the difference between long & short vowel sounds & she circled the bug instead of tube for the long u sound. she told me she thought the tube was a cap, so the answer must have been bug. but she was wrong & so ms. s put a -2 on her page.

oh my.

i'm still processing. i'm alarmed that:
a-she's gotten everything right this year up until today
b-that prek 4s get points (for lack of a better term) on stuff i was doing in 1st & 2nd grade
c-it really had a negative effect on her & shook her up

i'm grateful that:
a-she's a smarty pants, works hard & cares
b-that she is learning a ton & has built a lot of confidence
c-she had a learning moment (for lack of a better word) in the 'safe zone' of pre k when she comes home at noon.

and i could write more, but like i said, i'm still processing. and it's 10:40 and i need to go to bed.

thumper says

so i had started a state of the union this evening. then i heard the wise words of thumper (and his father) echo in my head...

"if you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all."

so i'm keeping my crazy to myself tonight with still fingers.

in the meantime take a look at my loves.

if could have figured out how to crop out the maternal fat stores i would have. but i couldn't. and i haven't worn makeup regularly in many months.

i'm all about being authentic. it's key for the health of my emotional state. i should probably be more gracious but there seems to be a fine line between graciousness & pretense to me.

i'm working on it. that AND my maternal fat stores. k, so not so much the maternal fat stores. but i'd like to. with all that free time i have. whatev.

y'all should be looking at my sweetpeas with my sweet parents anyway.

playing on the 'kindleone' (gus speak)

you'd never know it was an introduction ;)

rolly polly

who needs to dig for worms when there are rolly pollies to be had! roly poly...rolly polly...i have no idea how to spell it. when you touch them they roll up into a ball...oh the appeal! this little bug has seriously occupied my big two for countless hours over the last year. this morning there were what seemed like hundreds in our backyard and my girl was on a mission...

this is about 1/4 of the total she ended up with. GROSS!!!

all of that collecting tired her out & it when it was time to play in the kai lan sprinkler she set them all free :)

my girl the fashionista

the girl has developed her own sense of fashion in the last few months (year or so, really). my days of selecting pieces of clothing out of clothes i purchased for her to make outfits has long been over...and now i've lost sole purchasing privileges as well. my guess is that we will now shop together for her clothes until she's a....tween (gulp)...at which time i will retain veto power.

she's sportin her first belt here. see those colors? they hurt my eyes....but not hers! she digs her belt, her new jean skirt, and anything with lots of color. two different patterns of stripes + polka dots? you bet. lately she's been really into a dress, pants/leggings underneath, & a long sleeve shirt OVER the dress. I think to create that skirt/shirt/leggings illusion? i had no idea how much she had been coveting a skirt until a trip to Target...then it all sort of made sense...

oh. and she also only wears gus' socks. not a matching pair, but say one red, one green. we call that particular 'pair' our 'christmas socks'*. usually gus wears one pair (1 red, 1 green) and she wears the other.

and she lives for these boots. she wears them with pretty much everything. i'm often reminded of the stork from disney's robin hood...
really though i couldn't be prouder of her individualism & confidence. i'm taking it as a good sign! :)

*see those eggs up there on the fireplace? we also call those our 'christmas eggs'...

no babies were harmed

no babies were harmed in the making of this collage...

you needed a closer look...i know! i just couldn't leave any out cause they were all so stinkin cute!

my peas

i'm seriously neglecting you dear blog. most of my time is spent obsessing over where we'll land in Colorado...but i think i'm making some progress! we'll find out when i head out there later this week with hugh & my sweet mama. hopefully i'll drive into some little neighborhood & have the cottage green (our old neighborhood) just knowing this is it feeling...

i'm also just a very busy mama of 3 sweet lil peas. one of whom (& if i'm lucky it's only one) is always needing something.

not sure why, but this one won't upload correctly...so you'll have to turn your head. and i know it's not a good shot, but it is all 3 of my peas!

iah -> den

For you infrequent travellers out there, that means Houston to Denver. Yep. We are finally making the move out of the Houston area. To Colorado.

What's that? But we just moved you say?

Ah yes. I think that's what I said to my husband when he told me he was ready to go for it.

Since the announcement of the Continental/United merger we've been excited about the possibility of moving to Denver. Colorado is as close to the Holy Grail as it gets for Clay. And since I love the man, I was excited for him that his dream residence was an actual possibility for us. And it's no secret that I'm not in love with the 9 month summer & bugs here.

Then last year we found out baby Hugh was coming...we realized 3 kids plus visitors were going to be a very, very tight squeeze in our little house. It seemed as though the possibility of Denver as a base (like Houston is for us now) was at best a 2-5 year plan. So we found the perfect big house in the bubble and went with it.

Since February there has been talk of Denver opening to Continental pilots (the pilot groups are far from merged)...first it was, then it wasn't, then it was. We discussed it & decided it made the most sense to wait a few years for our house to appreciate, for life to settle down, and for there to be a bit more certainty with the merger.

Then Clay was gone for a week with the Navy & his wonderful mother came down to help me with the kiddos. Clay's dad came down when Clay got back, and I suggested Clay take them both out to breakfast. That was Tuesday, March 6th. He came home from said breakfast ready to move. We talked about it & decided to see if he could get one of the 35 slots open to him in Denver. I didn't think he would be able to.

He was. And just like that we were moving. He got the final news on Friday the 16th. Hugh had his first virus & it had been a rough few nights. I woke up & promptly got a migraine. I was in Hugh's room rocking him...trying to keep him from screaming in my ear...trying to meditate my way out of the migraine when Clay came in. He said, "don't want to interrupt your peace" (as if), "but we got it." I may or may not have burst into tears as soon as he shut the door.

So...here we go again. I'm still processing. 10 days is not a lot of time to get comfortable with basically re-building a life somewhere else. Not to mention selling a house & moving again. This time with 3 kids. One of whom is an infant. Physically & logistically it is going to be awful. I haven't slept through the night in over 4 months. Our house is functioning but far from staged on any given day. It is going to require a tremendous amount of effort.

That said, the biggest challenge I think is going to be the emotional one. I've never been a mama anywhere else. I've barely been married anywhere else. We've never been a family anywhere else. The Lu starts school in August...and I have no idea where. My last few months as the mother of a sweet infant are going to be spent in a moving frenzy instead of in that sweet baby bliss. I'm not sure how to make this okay for the kids when I'm not okay with it all the time.

I'm excited about seasons, snow for Christmas, having a bit of family in the area (my aunt & uncle live north of Denver), a happier hiking husband, and fewer mosquito bites. It's not that I don't want to go, just that the timing is extremely less than ideal for me. The last year has been an *sskicker. And now the next year will be too. That said I'm aware there probably is no ideal time.

Logically there are a few reasons to go now. The move will be paid for now, and wouldn't have been in the future. Interest rates are ridiculously low. And while our house here would appreciate over the next few years, our next house would be most likely be appreciating as well. And it would be nice for Luci to start school in the place where we intend to stay. Which is why I agreed to it despite having 3 kids 4 & under, one of them being my last sweet baby.

A successful marriage requires compromise. We've both made compromises. And as my wise mama reminded me, it's my turn...even if it requires pulling myself up by my bootstraps in order to carry on.

Now if I could just turn off the anxiety regarding the move that wakes up every time Hugh does in the middle of the night maybe I could get a bit more sleep. Staying awake for an hour or more after each of his wakings isn't helping. Nor is the migraine. I'm praying for the faith to know this is what we need. Sure easier to believe He's giving you what you need when it's something you wholeheartedly know you want & are ready for. I just pray that six years from now I've grown to appreciate CO as much as I have TX in these last six...

m'bigboy & his blankie

this is how he soothes himself these days - by smelling his blankie. which i have to admit, usually doesn't have a nice fresh clean scent. he seems to prefer it that way...
he also still has his paci for nap & bed time. he doesn't sleep with it all night, but when he's sick or upset or tired he really wants it. this day he was all three...upset, tired & sick. we've been fighting a bug for a few weeks now. i also suspect his molars are bothering him..he rarely sleeps more than 45 minutes unless i give him tylenol first. so i do. hopefully his teeth will come in soon & we'll be done with teething...he's not done well with any of them!

if i remember correctly, he woke up sobbing 45 minutes into his nap this day only to find dad & luci were out doing something special. without him. he wasn't happy. so i tried to get him to hangout with me on the bed thinking maybe he'd go back to sleep. yeah right!

oh, and he's very into coats with pockets these days. he often wears a coat or hoodie all day, even if it's warm out, just to have a place to put his hands.

two year old temper

did you wonder where gus was in that last set of photos? i had a nice photo of luci & hugh in there after all, so where was gus you ask? here he was, right by the chair.

i asked him to be in the sibling photo. he said no.

with gusto, i might add.

i think i asked again. i probably shouldn't have.

cause then he got quite mad. note the new location of one of his toolboxes.

let's just say it wasn't moved nicely.

hugh @ 3 months...

i think he's winkin atcha in this next one..

my baby boy is 3 months old already. actually like 3 1/2 months by now...but better late than never!

-he's well acquainted with his hands & likes to bring them together. he also likes to eat them. he's just starting to use them to bring toys to his mouth but it is a LOT of work!

-his skinny little neck is finally getting strong enough to hold up that big melon for several minutes at a time

-he's discovered sitting up right, and he'd prefer to not recline anymore, thankyouverymuch

-he's not a snuggler...not even when he's sleepy. he wants to be held so he can watch his big sister & brother, or the fan, or the wall...anything but the dreaded chin on the shoulder hold!

-he went in on tuesday to catch up on some immunizations & weighed in at a whopping 16 lbs 4 oz!

-as you might guess, he likes to eat. 2x each night still! we'll be working on this once i'm certain he's recovered from said immunizations.

-size 2 huggies lil movers, although i'm upping that to size 3 for the next shipment. i think he is also gonna need some special night time diapers if he keeps up this rate of eating...

-size 6m+ clothes...

-he loves his big brother & sister...if he's fussin and g or luci starts to talk to him he usually settles right down

-his social awareness surprises me for his age. he's already more interested in looking & smiling at me or seeing what his siblings are up to than nursing (oh so adorable but annoying at the same time), and is fighting sleep to stay up & hang out.

-he's got stinky lil fists, but he's starting to leave his hands open more so hopefully that sinky lil phase is coming to an end!

-he goes to bed around 7p and is up for the day between 6:30 - 8am usually. he eats between 10p-midnight, then again usually between 3a-6a for another feeding.

-some days he has great consolidated day sleep (one am nap, 2 pm naps), other days he takes 4 naps of 45 minutes or so.

-he's still sleeping in his miracle blanket but can get himself totally out of it if i give him enough time to fuss.

-his sleep routine consists of a diaper change, white noise, a dark room, swaddling, and then usually i rub his belly while humming a song. he usually fusses while i hum with it escalating until i finally leave the room. then he fusses another 5 minutes and is off to sleep. oh, and if i'm home alone with all three kids insert a holler or two...come on guys, it's your brother's turn to sleep...please be kind to each other OR HEY! i said be KIND and be QUIET! DO YOU HEAR MY WORDS!!! just depends on the kind of day we are having. obviously i strive for the former! i pray for a lot of patience & calm...and He's blessed me with ample opportunity to practice said virtues!

-he's a total spitter. like spit up everywhere at least 2x each feeding. burp cloths aren't usually big enough to catch it all...and it is usually projectile. usually in my hair, sometimes in my ear, almost always down my shirt...pretty much everywhere. i go through multiple shirts a day, and rarely mange to wear just one pair of pjs at night. all of this despite the prevacid! fun times!

-all in he's just a joy! this is the most relaxed i've been with an infant, and it is just nice. even with the sleep deprivation!

ps. anyone do a count of the times i used the word usually? ahaha...i guess it is a reflection of my knowledge that with 3 small kiddos at home there aren't very many hard & fast rules!