Tag: Fam

Posted on

Life-changing

NO, I’M NOT PREGNANT AGAIN! I just wanted to shout that out there, because I know that’s where many of your minds jumped as soon as you saw that title. Have no fear. And yes, all babies are miracles, but we’ve had plenty. No, this is something far, far better for our family right now.

THE BIG KIDS FINALLY MOVED UPSTAIRS!!!!!

Yes, that deserves to be shouted in all caps, because if you know me at all, you know how long I’ve been waiting for this. Oh, you don’t? Well here, let me explain…

On December, 31, 2013, Ryan stood in the kitchen and promised me that 1 year from that date, we would have a finished room upstairs (we turned our attic into a giant bedroom for the kids). At the time, we only had Della and Lana, so it was going to be the girls’ bedroom, and the second downstairs bedroom would become a guest room/playroom. I even painted on the wall leading up the stairs to the attic “Della + Lana’s Room ETA: 12.31.14”

Total cosmic jinx.

Fast forward to December 31, 2014, and there was no room up there. Not even close. Ryan had knocked down the only walls that needed to come down up there, but I think that was about it. I honestly can’t remember. This was supposed to be the easiest project of the entire house, since it was simply building a room that already had a full skeleton. We didn’t need to rip into any existing walls, replace any old wiring, nothing. Simply start from scratch and go. Ha.

Morrison came along the following spring, still no room up there. The twins came along after that, still no room up there. It was getting a little cramped in here, but nothing crazy. Many more people have lived in houses much smaller than ours and survived splendidly. We’re all healthy and happy, just cozy.

But lo and behold, some of the stars finally aligned in some miraculous pattern, and on October 27, 2021, IT BECAME THEIR FUCKING BEDROOM!! (see, i told you i’m behind on this blog…)

Sorry for the swear. We’ve just been waiting a REALLY long time for this, and my heart almost exploded with joy that afternoon. The kids had a half day of school, and I spent every minute I wasn’t walking to/from school rearranging, moving furniture, carrying furniture upstairs. It was exhausting, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I got them up there! Ryan did all the dirty work, I did the minor lifting. Teamwork makes the dream work.

So the big 3 now have a gigantic bedroom upstairs (the bathroom will come much later), the twins have their own bedroom that is also a playroom, and there are no more cribs in our bedroom! All toys are out of the living room, and the house finally feels like our home again instead of a nursery/daycare/insane asylum. It was touch and go there for a bit. 😉

The Christmas tree is finally back in its right spot!

Posted on

#summervacation2021

I know – summer vacation has been over for a couple weeks now. But you know how things roll around this blog by now. Posting only a *couple* weeks late isn’t bad! 😉

I have so many pictures to dump here from our summer break this year, I’m just going to break it up into a few different galleries. Not much explanation is needed, either – we were planning to go back to Canada finally but the border didn’t open in time for our trip so we did a couple smaller trips around here, soaked up the warm weather (thank goodness for air conditioning this year!), and enjoyed as much time together as we could. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the slideshows!

The start of summer vacation back in June and a trip to Palos and Peoria to spend time with family:

Door County and 4th of July:

A long-overdue trip to Eau Claire:

More summer fun around here, our third trip to Palos of the summer, our first trip to the zoo in about 2 years, and our first Brewers game in a long time:

We are now fully back into the swing of a new school year, so more about that will be coming up next. Stay tuned!

Posted on

The first one bites the dust

I don’t know how many times I’ve said it, and I know I can’t stop saying it, but I STILL can’t believe that Della is finished with elementary school. Our school year ended in June, and the notion that she’ll never be walking back to that school with us again just keeps boggling my mind.

As you know, we went back to in-person school for the fourth and final quarter of this school year. It was, by far, the best decision for us. I was perfectly happy with all 3 staying virtual and at home for the first 3 quarters, but by the time that last spring quarter rolled around and the school week switched to 4 days in person with 1 asynchronous day and the COVID-19 cases didn’t skyrocket and the nice weather started to arrive and the cabin fever started to set in, I was ready to send them back. They were ready to go back, too. And we were SO fortunate that Della and Morrison got to keep their teachers, whom we all loved, because they both went back in person, too. Lana’s virtual teacher ended up not even having her own classroom for fourth quarter so Lana couldn’t have kept her anyway, but she did start helping out with reading groups in Morrison’s class! Plus Lana loved the new teacher she got for that quarter, so win-win-win.

Last time wearing her last-day-of-school dress
Last walk home from school all together 🙁
One last pass by the dinosaur and purple giraffe house with all of them

I absolutely love our elementary school. Della has had nothing but wonderful days and experiences there, and I’m so sad it’s over for her. Our middle school seems pretty amazing, though, and I know she’s looking forward to her days ahead there. I just can’t wrap my heart around the fact that we’re splitting up. We won’t all be together anymore. She’ll be going there while the rest of us still go the other way. It’s just a fact of life, I’m fully aware, but it still tugs at me. The first piece of my heart is growing up and walking right away from me before my eyes.

Last walk to school together…

Thankfully the school calendar for next year is going to allow us to take Della the first couple of days before Lana and Morrison start. I already promised I wouldn’t get too close if she doesn’t want me to, wheeling the stroller with the twins right up to the 6th-grade waiting area. 😀 Once I have just those first couple dropoffs with her under my belt, I think I’ll be ok. My heart will get those few little moments to keep it full. The start and end timing of the different school days is just close enough that I wouldn’t be able to drop her off first and get over to the elementary school in time walking with everyone. I think if we drove we’d make it, but the walks to/from school are important to me. Believe it or not, I learn a lot in those short times together with all my kids.

Through those doors for the last time…

I’m going to miss her terribly. I know she’s not actually going anywhere and will be home right after us each day, but still. She’s mine, and I miss her when she’s not with me. I think it’ll be weird for the other kids, too, not having their leader with us. I told Lana she has an important role now as the biggest Rau kid at the elementary school. She’ll be in charge of getting Morrison at his door on those winter days when I drive to pick them up and they have to come meet me at the car. And she’ll have to help him get to his door on those same mornings. I hope she’s up to the task!

Oh, my sweet little peanut. I canNOT believe you’re a big middle schooler now, and I hate the fact that our school-days gang is breaking up. But, being the amazingly beautiful person you are, I can’t wait to see where this life takes you. Dream big, my love – you’ll do incredible things. ❤

Posted on

April 8

Was a big day around here. The big 3 went back to in-person school for the first time in 174 school days, and it was mine and Ryan’s 15th anniversary.

Last virtual reading group
Last day of virtual school for this crew!
Last virtual P.E. class together
Last virtual day picture with her teacher.
She adored Miss Safer at Richards!
Thumbs up – all done!

The kids are so happy to be back in the classrooms with their teachers and friends, and so am I! We were elated that Della and Morrison’s teachers switched back to in person, too, so they got to stay with them. Lana’s virtual teacher actually didn’t keep her own classroom this quarter so Lana wouldn’t have been able to stay with her anyway, and Lana’s new teacher seems wonderful. Plus, her virtual teacher now helps out with reading groups in Morrison’s class and Lana gets to see her for an hour each Wednesday during asynchronous office hours, so that worked out great. As much as I miss not having them here all day anymore, I feel with every fiber of my being that sending them back for this final quarter of the school year was definitely the right choice for us. Even the walking to/from school routine feels good again. We’ve still had asynchronous Wednesdays, so I do get to keep them with me those days.

Gotta celebrate with a Fun Lunch!

They hopped right back into the school swing, too. They unload their backpacks right when we get home, wash their lunch boxes and water bottles, do any homework (usually only Della), give me any papers out of their folders (usually only Lana and Morrison), then make their lunches and snacks for the next day after dinner. I absolutely love the independence they’ve gained in these chores. They enjoy making their own lunches and I don’t, so it’s a win-win!

First morning walking to school in over a year!

We didn’t have a big celebration for #15. Ryan sent me a beautiful flower arrangement, I hung up the decorations Lana had made for Valentine’s Day that we were saving for this, and I opened a nice bottle of sparkling wine before dinner. I put on my wedding dress, too, which Avit absolutely loved helping to arrange.

Lana’s anniversary present for us. She made it immediately when we got home from school and had me send a picture of it to her teacher. 🙂 It says “Here comes the bride all dressed in white.”

I say it pretty much every spring, but I can’t believe we’re in May already and nearing the end of yet another school year. Della and I had her middle school tour last night (what the?!?!?!). I will be a total mess the last week of this school year with all the fun activities and celebrations they have planned for the 5th graders’ sendoff from elementary school. Even though the middle school looks incredible and I know she’ll love it, it’s breaking my heart that we’re not all going to be walking to and from the same school together each day anymore, and she won’t be at the same school with any of her siblings again until her senior year of high school. I know these are all just steps in life, but they’re scary for me. I know my kids little, and I love it this way. I obviously won’t love them any less as they grow up, but I’m having a really hard time letting go.

So there we go. April 8 – it was a good day.

Posted on

Roaring ’20

2020, man. What the fuck happened??

The year started off so great: A new decade! So exciting! So hopeful! The next 10 years! Remember?

That train went off the rails pretty quickly, eh?

A global pandemic that’s killing millions. Mother Nature hating humankind – raging wildfires, a million hurricanes and tropical storms, floods, blizzards. Murder hornets. Swarming locusts. Economies on destructive roller coasters. Widespread unemployment and shuttered businesses. The bastard racism alive and well. Nationwide protests. An election that tested the foundation of this country and shook us to our core. Holidays spent mostly apart from family and friends physically but connected electronically. Social distancing. Zoom. Virtual. Synchronous. Asynchronous. Wear a mask! A new normal.

Safer at home and lockdown last spring were actually not that bad. As I’ve said time and again, being home and not having to load all 5 up to go anywhere is my specialty. The big 3 did great with virtual school during that time and got a couple chances to connect with their teachers again by the end of the school year, even though we weren’t in classrooms anymore.

{If you’d like a little year-end review of those posts, here’s what happened during weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and post.}

However.

As summer vacation rolled in and our normally relaxed, unscheduled days dawned, the coziness of all 7 of us being at home together got a little less cozy by the hour.

If I heard, “I’m on a call!” once more… If the boys ran through the house at top speed and crashed into something or each other once more… If the girls bickered over who went first for whatever or got to control the remote to watch whatever or just whatever whatever once more…

As a normally very even-keeled person, experiencing a constant, humongous range of emotions became exhausting. Happy! Crabby! Chilled out! Angry! Elated! Enraged! Loving! Crying! Laughing! I lost my shit more times than I have in my entire adult life before March of this year, and I began questioning things that I held as rock solid in every aspect before the stretch of time that was 2020. I honestly don’t know how I didn’t kill 1 or more of us daily.

Actually, wine. It was probably wine that saved all of our lives.

I kid. Kind of.

I had also planned to finally take all 5 kids to Canada with my mom and sisters for a vacation this summer, but obviously that didn’t happen with the border closure. We did take a couple of shorter trips within the Midwest, though, so those helped to get the ants out of our pants a little. And then Ryan went back to work in his building in August, and we started to slide back to a slightly reduced level of insanity. And rage on my end, I won’t lie.

As you know, when school started again in September we chose to keep the big 3 fully virtual. With the success they’d had at home last spring and the complete uncertainty of how everything was going to play out with in-person schooling and the spread of covid-19, we felt it was right for us. Fortunately it’s worked out great so far, with each grade having enough students choose fully virtual that each of their classes has a dedicated fully virtual teacher, not splitting her time between those students in class and those on screen. And again, that not having to get everyone out the door at a certain time each morning thing… I’ve gotten very used to it! We get to choose virtual/in person by quarter, and I think we’re going to stick with fully virtual all year. The kids all love their teachers, as do I; they’re doing an excellent job; and they haven’t missed a beat instruction-wise or socially.

And now here we are, the calendar about to flip yet again. The kids and I did get a little in-person family time before Christmas, and the rest of this holiday season we enjoyed here at home, the 7 of us together. I definitely don’t have the same excitement going into 2021 as I did coming into 2020, but I do have a take-it-as-it-comes attitude. I think that’s what 2020 taught us; well, me, at least – you have absolutely no idea what’s heading at you next, so take it as it comes as best you can. I count my blessings daily (literally, believe me!) that we all have our health, Ryan still has his job, I am still able to be home full time with the kids, the roof over our heads is still standing, and we can put food on our table.

(*click on each image in the gallery to enlarge it*)

  • Gobble, gobble!
  • So very thankful
  • New Santa bags!
  • School at Grandma & Grandpa’s!
  • Our own private Nutcracker party this year
  • Franz, our waiter, ha!
  • Starting off winter break with a breakfast of hot cocoa and candy canes
  • Snow day!

So, 2021, here we come. 2020, you can fuck off. We survived you, and we’re thankfully still going. As my grandma says, “Cherish the days. March on.” That, and I just restocked the wine cellar.

Posted on

Up North, annual #3

We took our third annual fall trip up to Eagle River last week, and it was another fun one. It didn’t seem quite as fun to me as the past 2, but looking back as a whole, I’m so glad we went again.

I’m not sure why the difference, but I think a lot of it had to do with the big 3 doing school up there. Lana and Morrison didn’t log onto their live meetings and Della was only on hers for 2 out of the 3 synchronous school days we were there, but they did still keep up with all their posted lessons on their own so they didn’t get behind. So that was a big chunk of their days. A prime example of the mobility of virtual school being both a blessing and a curse. 😉

Also, the pool at the resort was closed due to COVID-19 this year and they didn’t think the pool at the other resort that we used last year was quite up to standards, so we didn’t even bother taking swim suits. That was always a highlight of the time for the kids, so that was missing this year, too.

However, there were plenty of great times. Ryan took the big 3 on 2 cool hikes; I took the twins on walks around the resort grounds, which they loved; the deer friends were out in force this year, which we did miss last year; we had fires daily, which I loved; I played a number of fun games with our friends; and the wine was good and plenitful, a vacation must. We got a couple dustings of snow again, too, which make everything look and feel so festive.

So all in all, a successful trip #3 to Eagle River. We stayed in a different building than our previous visits that was right across from the playground and at the end of the little bay the resort is on, which was a setting I liked so much better than the other building we’ve stayed in.

Another big thank you to our friends who are our connection to this place – we’re already looking forward to trip #4 next year!

Posted on

#summervacation2020

Despite living during a pandemic, we managed to have a really great summer vacation. Screw you, COVID-19!

We started things off with a family trip over to Paw Paw, MI, for a nice 4-day weekend with my mom and stepdad. We’d never been to their cabin there before, and it was wonderful. (P.S. All of these trips will have their own gallery since we take millions of pictures, so please click on each pic to enlarge it if you’d like a better view.)

Two weeks later, my dad came up for the weekend to celebrate Morrison’s birthday, so it was fun having Grandpa in town for a few days. (Please see Morrison’s 5-year post for those pictures!) We were home for a few weeks after that, then I took the kids down to my mom’s for a week after the 4th of July. My sister and her kids drove back to spend that time, too, so we all had a great visit and got to celebrate my niece and stepdad’s birthdays. We hadn’t seem them for exactly a year, which is crazy!

A quick half week later, and we went on another family vacation. That never happens twice in a summer, so it was awesome. Our great friends found a last-minute rental opportunity about 3.5 hours north of here in Crandon, WI, so I said count us in! We definitely did not regret it. It was an incredible place with a perfect property and lake for the kids, and we all had so much fun.

A couple weeks after that, I took the kids back down to my mom’s for another week of Grandma and Grandpa days. We were the only visitors this time, and we celebrated Della’s birthday. Another round of relaxation and fun – just what we needed!

  • I’m in love with these clutch purses and mini pouches I’ve discovered how to make!

We also sprinkled in a couple treat days around here – Bookworm Gardens, hunting for sea glass, donuts and the playground at school, backyard fun (we finally have grass!), the zoo, and I transformed our front porch into a perfect little sitting spot that I love.

  • He pulled tooth #2 by himself already!
  • New glasses!
  • His first pair of glasses!
  • Glasses brigade
  • Can’t be left out!

So now we prepare for the start to our strangest school year ever. We’ve chosen to have the big 3 attend school fully virtually for the first quarter, because I can’t bring myself to make them the guinea pigs in all this. Our other option was a blended model where students go in person 2 days a week and virtual the other 3, but I’ll see how that works before sending ours in. If everyone stays healthy and school stays open the whole time, we’ll all be happy to send them back to the classrooms with their teachers and friends. But I’m just not convinced it will all work so smoothly right away. I want them back as much as they want to be back, but I also don’t need to take any unnecessary risks. Plus we don’t have an extra room for quarantining!

So, another summer break in the books. And an excellent one at that, even with masks, social distancing, and basically nothing operating like a usual summer. Who knows what these upcoming seasons will bring on all fronts, so I will cherish these last couple days like nobody’s business. Cheers!