Author: Jocelyn Rau

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They’re ALL in school!

ALL 5 kids are in school this year, and that just sounds crazy to even say.

The night before Della and the twins started school…

I still can’t believe the twins are in K4, going through those doors every day, just like their siblings. It definitely feels like the time is right, but it gets me daily seeing them run up the sidewalk to their door each morning with their little backpacks bouncing, then bounding out to me again after their morning session is done, just like the big kids always did.

The oldest and youngest started on the same day.

I love that time is moving at the perfect speed for me, too. It doesn’t feel like the days have flown by in a blur since each one of the kids was born. But it doesn’t feel like an eternity has dragged on with each one either. Everything feels like it is moving just right and I’m soaking up every day. I’m not sure why that is or why I feel like time is on my side when everyone else watches it race past, but I’m grateful for the cosmic juju that’s allowing it to be so.

The twins entering and exiting school by themselves for the first time!

The 2.5 hours the twins are gone in the mornings have allowed me to try to climb the steepest job learning curve I’ve had in 20 years, too, which has been both amazing and daunting at the same time. Some days, I’ve got this and am ready to tackle many, many years of it. Others, every email I get defeats me and I feel like I can’t conquer the seemingly simplest things. But that’s to be expected, so I’m not worried about it. Plus, it’s wine!

Finally Lana and Morrison’s turn!

These kids are incredible, plain and simple, and I treasure every day with them. Every walk to and from school, every joyous hug when they come running out of school, even the “meh”s that often emanate from the 4th grader. Thank you, time, for these days to cherish.

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Twelve!

Della turned 12 earlier this month, and she’s turning into such a grown-up kid! Notice I say “grown-up kid” instead of just “grown up.” 😉 Plus she’s creeping closer to me in height daily, which is beyond weird.

She’s going to be in 7th grade this year, and I swear some days it seems like she could be about a junior in high school. Not because of an attitude, thankfully not yet!, but because of the level of responsibility and self-awareness she possesses. She is 100% the leader of the Rau pack of kids, and we could NOT be luckier that she is!

An early birthday party in Canada this summer – lucky girl!
Reading all the compliments we wrote for her on the letters of HAPPY BIRTHDAY…

She loves playing outside with her siblings and the block friends, the little walking “field trips” that same group has gone on for the first time this summer, swimming, tubing, riding her bike, watching souped-up crafting shows with Lana and Morrison on YouTube, Harry Potter, Legos, reading, earrings, mystery nights at the museum, making quizzes for us on her tablet, Pete’s Pops, and sparkling water. Her favorite color is blue, and her favorite food is BLTs.

She’s looking forward to 7th grade, but not to anything in particular about it. She’s going to run cross country again this fall, which I know she’s excited about. I hope I can make it to her meets again with my new job, because I love watching her pride grow as she gets better and better.

The handprint quilt is finished!

Happy 12th birthday, our amazing, incredible, beautiful, smart, kind Della Jolee!! My little peanut sweet pea is getting so big! May you get everything you want and work for in life, my love, because you deserve it. We love you SO, so much!

ETA, we had her 12-year well check on Sept. 21, and here are her official 12-year stats:

Height: 5′ 3.5″ (90%)
Weight: 95 lbs. 3.2 oz. (54%)
BMI: 16.60 (25%)
Blood Pressure: 108/70

And a look back through the years with pictures and posts…

One!
Two!
Three!
Four!
Five!
Six!
Seven!
Eight!
Nine!
Ten!
Eleven!
Twelve!

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He’s seven!

Morrison turned 7 last month, and I swear to you, every time I think of it, I keep thinking he just turned 5. WTF?! Seriously, my brain is swiss cheese.

Last sleep as a 6 year old!
He held up 6 fingers in his 7-year-old birthday picture. See, even he doesn’t remember how old he is! 😀

But anyway, he’s 7! This kid is the biggest goofball with the biggest heart I’ve ever known. He is ridiculously athletic, and his dream is to be a track runner. I’m pretty sure we’ll make that one happen. He sprints like no kid I’ve ever seen, with his straight-hand arms going and everything. He’s currently in tennis lessons and doing great, and he passed level 2 of swim lessons just a few weeks ago. I wanted to get him into lacrosse with one of his best friends from school, but it was full. Hopefully we’ll be able to get him to run off a lot of his energy doing something or other this summer. If there was a parkour course near us, he’d be there constantly. Maybe he can just do his armpit farts and burps on demand for months on end. 😀

ETA: We had his 7-year well check on August 17, and here are his stats:

Height: 4′ 3.75″ (93%)
Weight: 59 lbs. 3.2 oz. (79%)
BMI: 15.54 (50%)
Blood Pressure: 96/58

He is constantly wanting to help, often doing things to clean up or put away or tidy unprompted. One of his favorite things in the world is helping his big sisters and winning their approval, and my heart about explodes out of my chest when I watch the 3 of them doing something together, each excited and happy to be working/playing with the others. Until someone starts bickering, then it can quickly go downhill, ha!

He is extraordinarily smart, especially when it comes to numbers. The nickname “stats” came to him a few years ago for his ability to recount scores, player stats, etc., with ease. He cherishes being part of whatever conversation is happening at the time so sometimes his information is a little off the mark, but I love that he still tries nonetheless. He really got into reading this year at school, too, and was in the top reading group in his class. He blew through chapter books like a pro. He loves Lego sets, video games, playing chess and other board games, and watching trick-shot stunts on his tablet. I started calling him “trick-shot boy,” because he’s constantly imitating all their moves, but he hated that. 😉

Grandpa and his mini-me

Happy 7th birthday, Morrison John! I can’t believe our first little boy is 7 already, but we could absolutely not be prouder. You are a friend to all, my sweetest sidekick, and I hope your desire to live right next door to me when you grow up never fades. Here’s to many, many more happy birthdays for you, my sweet boy!

Here are his past years’ posts, as well as his year-by-year pictures.

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Stepping back

So, guess what? No, I’m not pregnant again. I’m getting a job! After almost exactly a decade of being a full-time stay-at-home mom, I’m rejoining the workforce. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do to earn more money once the twins start school for a while now, and none of my possibilities or efforts were leading anywhere. Then suddenly, like manna from heaven, this literally fell into my lap.

I’m going to be in charge of the wine club responsibilities and helping with marketing for an amazing winery in Napa. I’ll work remotely from home (perfect!), I’ll still get to be present daily for the kids for school and everything (perfect!), I’ll get a yearly wine allotment (perfect!), and I’ll get to travel to Napa a couple times a year (perfect!). I’ve done all the editing and proofreading for this winery for a couple years now, and I’ve always wanted to play a bigger role for them whenever they needed it. They are really great people. So I was beyond shocked and honored when they tapped me for this, because never in a million years would I have pictured that any other role I’d play in the company would be as big as this one. I hope I do it well!

Unfortunately, that means I’ll have even less time for ye old blog here than I do now. It hasn’t been anywhere near as fruitful as it was when I started it for a very long time anyway, but now it’ll be even less so. The difference will be, however, that I’ll no longer feel guilty for not posting in as timely a manner as I feel I should. Or at all. This is going to be a full-time job that I’m starting, and I’m going to make it take the precedence it deserves. I’ll still try to post for the kids’ birthdays for posterity and update their individual pages when something notable happens, but that’ll probably be about it. If you follow me on social media, though, you’ll stay pretty up to date, since I post a lot of pictures there. They all feed into that Instagram area in the right sidebar here, too, so you can follow along that way as well if you just miss me too much.

Thank you for being such loyal fans all these years. I truly appreciate you making me feel like this little blog was even necessary at all, and I’m sure I’ll still see you around here from time to time. But wish me luck! I’m so excited about this opportunity, and I really hope I do a good job.

Like my grandma always told me, cherish the days, my friends. I’ll see you next time!

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They’re four!

Nat and Avit just turned 4, and it’s hard to believe there’s only 1 more year until they’re a whole handful of fingers old!

ETA: We had their 4-year well check on February 24, and here are their official stats:

Nat

  • Height: 3′ 6″ (83%)
  • Weight: 38 lbs. 6.4 oz. (70%)
  • BMI: 15.31 (39%)

Avit

  • Height: 3′ 6″ (83%)
  • Weight: 39 lbs. 3.2 oz. (75%)
  • BMI: 15.62 (50%)

Life gets easier with them by the day, which is saying a lot for how hard the first 2 years with them were. They’re full-blown little kids now, no more babies. It’s so much easier to do things as a whole family now instead of Ryan taking the big kids to do something and me staying back with the twins. I absolutely loved the newborn and baby phase of all of our children, but having the last round be 2 at once makes growing out of each baby phase much less bittersweet. It was just so much harder!!

Last sleeps as 3 year olds!

They are funny, smart, crazy, fast, energetic, loving, and I swear I can see them growing taller by the day. They got an extra-special week surrounding their birthday this year – Grandpa came to town for a couple days, then Grandma came right after him. Lots of grandparent fun for these guys!

Avit especially is kind of a whiz. He knows all his letters, can pretty much count to 20, and can read us The Very Hungry Caterpillar (i.e., he has it memorized 😉 ). He also gives excellent snuggles. Nat knows most of his letters, is also good at counting, and is a great artist. He has been coloring and drawing for years now, whereas Avit isn’t into that as much. We need to get them to start practicing writing their names. All 3 of the big kids were able to write their name when they went to K4, which is happening this fall for these 2!

I’m so happy they got into a morning session for K4, too. It was done by a lottery drawing this year because there’s always much more interest for morning than afternoon, and we got it. It just works so much better with our schedule, and hopefully they’ll keep napping until age 5 like the big kids did.

Nat loves Cuphead, Mario, his snuggies blanket and stuffed puppy Boo, being a kitty, and the color red. Avit loves Mugman, Luigi, his snuggies blanket, running around like a crazy person, and the colors yellow and blue. For their birthday dinner, Nat requested macaroni and cheese and Avit requested cocktail weinies and broccoli. They crack me up. They also live in their pj’s, just like Morrison used to before he started school. I love it.

Happy 4th birthday, Nat Jennings and Avit Jerome! We all love you so very, very much, and I can’t wait to see how our twins turn into big kids. You’re going to do great things, my littlest loves!

For a look back, here are their prior year posts:

And here are all the kids’ 4-year-old birthday pictures. I love these comparisons!

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Ciao, 2021

“Another year over, a new one just begun…”

I’ve been thinking for a while now what to write for my annual year-end post, and I honestly have no idea this year. After meeting COVID in 2020 and having life as we knew it flipped upside down and all around, this year was kind of – meh. We knew that the only way forward was through, so that’s what we did.

Not to say it was a bad year, just nothing really exciting. A look back ~

The Good:

  • Despite having COVID earlier this month (well, all of us except Lana, somehow!), we are all fully recovered and appear to have no lasting side effects so far. Ryan’s taste and smell aren’t back to 100%, but thankfully none of us had very serious symptoms.
  • Ryan’s job is secure.
  • Our houses are still standing and in working order.
  • In-person school is working out great for all the kids, even with a couple quarantine periods. Middle school has been much less scary for me than I imagined. 😉
  • Science! Ryan, the big 3, and I are now all fully vaccinated against COVID, and I got my booster just last weekend. The big kids were in between their 2 doses when we got COVID, and I fully believe even having that little bit of protection from the first dose helped them. They all barely felt worse than a bad cold. The poor twins were hit pretty hard, but fortunately they are better, too.
  • The big kids moved upstairs and the twins moved into their own bedroom for the first time in their lives!
  • We’ve paid down a big chunk of debt, which always helps one’s sanity.
  • The twins were potty trained this year, which also helps my sanity and allows us so much more freedom to do stuff as a family. No more diapers!
  • I lost my shit WAY fewer times this year than last year, which I’m sure everyone has appreciated.

The Bad:

  • I lost both my grandmas this year. I didn’t see either of them very often anymore, but knowing I’ll never get to again stings. I will be forever grateful that I got to have one last conversation with each of them before they died, but I’ll always wish I could’ve been there in person to say good-bye.
  • The global pandemic caused by COVID is still raging, and I don’t know that there’s really any end in sight. At least not for a while. Which reminds me, I need to get some new masks.
  • Politics in general, racism, unnecessary hatred, war. All topics that I’m not going to touch right now but that I’ll just leave there.

In looking at my list, I’m very thankful the goods outnumber the bads. That’s the sign of a pretty great year, right?

I will say, this winter break has been one of the best times I’ve had with our kids. This Christmas was exceptionally fun and magical, and I’ve just had an incredible level of happiness the whole time. We tracked Santa and loved all the preparations for him and the reindeer, we’ve played lots of games, had a couple movie nights, gone ice skating for the first time for the kids, walked to the beach to hunt for sea glass, and just hung out all together. The twins get a little bit easier daily, and watching all 5 of them play together and interact more as people instead of kids and babies is amazing. We got very lucky with this bunch, that’s for sure.

Here is a pictorial look at this winter ~

  • All at home to start the month thanks to COVID
  • St. Nick
  • Sick little COVID boy
  • Lana did school at home all month except for a day and a half
  • Grandma couldn’t come up because of our COVID timing, so I took all 3 big kids to the Nutcracker for the first time.
  • I had one of my grandma’s wedding rings made into my own – my engagement stone and setting on her band. I love it.

So there’s 2021 in a tiny nutshell. Not overly good or bad, but there. Like I said last year, this recent history has taught me to have an even more take-each-day-as-it-comes outlook than usual, which I think has helped me, personally, immensely. I do feel much more stable and optimistic going into 2022 than I did going into 2021, so we’ll see what it brings.

Good-bye, 2021. Thank you for everything, but it’s time to move on. Hello, 2022 – we’re ready!

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Up Nort-giving

We took our 4th annual fall trip up to Eagle River with our good friends last month, then 2 and a half weeks after that I took the kids down to Peoria for our family holiday. It was so great to spend time with everyone again after not having the big, fun family gathering last year.

So no, we didn’t spend Thanksgiving up north, as the title might imply, I was just trying to be efficient by combining all these pictures into 1 post instead of 2. Or lazy, whichever.

So, so much to be thankful for, not just on Thanksgiving, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking for the rest of this one (go ahead and click on each picture to open it up larger).

4th year in a row in Eagle River in fall – so much fun!

NOTHING is better than family!