Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Tuesday, June 24

Bouncing Back

Craig's mom was scheduled for carotid surgery last Friday so the family all came down Thursday night to be closer to the hospital for the 5 a.m. admission! Miriam had a blockage in her carotid artery and I had referred her to a vascular surgeon I trusted here in Milwaukee. She was in ICU by 9 and everything had gone pretty much as planned. The kids were excited to finally see mom's hospital, since they had already seen Grandma Linda's hospital when Baby Benson was born.

Miriam was awake and talking and recovering great. I took the kids home to nap and everyone else headed back to the hospital. She had a little episode where she started to cough and her blood pressure went up. Craig and his sister came home for dinner, let their mom rest and Craig's dad was planning to stay just a while longer. Craig got a call that they were taking Miriam back to surgery because her neck was much more swollen and they wanted to check things out. The coughing and high blood pressure were not a good combination on a fresh neck surgical site so the surgeon cleaned things up and she was brought back to her room.

Now Grandma Miriam is home and recovering like a champ! The kids did so well with all of our extra visits to the hospital and were even given crayons by the ICU nurses to draw pictures for grandma. Even thought it wasn't the ideal scenario, we enjoyed seeing grandma every day and having grandpa stay at the house.

In the waiting room - the tablet was a life saver to keep Drew occupied.

This is what you do when you have to go back to the hospital when it's almost bedtime.

They were pretty much convinced someone knew they were coming and purposely
put this kid-sized table in the waiting room for THEM!

The kids are adverse to coming in our bed. And those mornings when they are up
just a smidge too early, I always wished they would crawl into our bed with us until we are
ready to get up. Well, it was late after we came home from the hospital and to get them to wind them
down, I put a favorite cartoon on in our bedroom. They snuggled in and we moved them to their beds
 a short time later. Except now they are asking to watch that cartoon in our bed every night :/whoops!

Friday, June 13

School's Out

We were bumming about what to do last weekend because the weather seemed so wishy-washy. So we started out by having dinner at Friday's Front Row, which over looks the field of Miller Park. Drew was excited to be there but also confused as to why there wasn't any baseball being played and "how come Bernie Brewer wasn't going down the slide?" The kids worked off their dinner on the playground in the outfield of Helfaer Field (the old County Stadium). It is really nice play area for small kids - we basically dragged them off it and had to promise ice cream in order to get them in the car!

We also made a game-time decision to go to the Milwaukee Mile for ARCA fest - basically a car show and race. My friend had been talking about taking her 4 year old son there and that they had gone last year. When I heard there was going to be a monster truck show too, I was in. Drew has a monster truck book that Craig reads to him every night and he knows all the names of the trucks - Gravedigger, Jurassic Attack, Monster Mutt. When we got there, they had just started the 107-lap car race. Talk about NOISY!! It was so loud, I put Drew and Kelsey's hearing protectors on before we climbed into the stands - otherwise I was afraid they would be too scared to go in! But they really enjoyed all of it.

Summer break begins at 3 pm for us! No real plans for the weekend, maybe some softball. Since it's Father's Day Sunday, Craig has free reign to do what he wants. (Just hoping not to see rain and 55 in the weather forecast until November:))



Watching the grounds crew work on Miller Park while eating our dinner.

Hanging with Bernie Brewer (they look big/tall in this pic)


SO EXCITED for monster trucks!

A couple of street and motor bikes doing tricks.

Cookies are always good while you watch cars zoom past :)

Friday, June 6

The Weather is Finally Here!

We have just been soaking up the amazing weekend weather around here. We've been going for bike rides, jumping on the trampoline, swimming with the neighbors, and the zoo. And Craig is in his last 6 days of school and then all the schedule's adjust again for "summer hours" :) There's no worry about dropping or picking up kids; Craig is more flexible with his hours and then I don't get so anxious about my "on-call" hours. We are also gearing up for the kids to be starting 3K in fall. They talk about school a lot; we see it every day when we leave the sitter's house...but as soon as Kelsey heard that I would not be coming to school with her, she said, "ummm, I dough wanna go to school, mom."

Dad has to push when the battery stops - speaking of, they haven't been charging
all that well, anyone else have that problem? The battery is only a year old.

Went to the zoo to see their new "Sting Ray and Shark Bay" exhibit.

Waiting for the sting rays to swim by so you can pet them.

Watching the Macaques monkeys