Life is Crazy

Here's another quick photo update. Last weekend I went to Decorah for a Girls Weekend. I was supposed to run the Loop de Loop 5K (my first one really running it and had been training a bit) but it was cancelled due to flooding :(  but I came anyway and enjoyed some "time off." It was wonderful, but I felt distracted and a bit moody. As I was leaving the house in Wisconsin, I was signing papers for the bank for our new house, deciding on a new master bed, was thinking a lot about Ron, and was leaving Dave and the kids when I kind of wanted to just be together. I know, totally ridiculous....enjoy the weekend off!! :) I did have a good time and there are some pics below to prove it!

Our house dealings have been so frustrating. Our buyers who have been a bit difficult, need to respond to us on our response to their remedy list (small repair on our logs was requested) and then they said they want to move up our closing date. As far as the new house, the inspection turned up some issues (more than we were expecting but I keep forgetting they grabbed this out of foreclosure) and they didn't respond to our remedy list. I guess there was an email late last night from them (to our realtor) that said, "Let's talk."  I'm not happy. I don't know when I'm moving or to where yet. Dave is confident that it will work out but we also know they "said" they showed the house - our new house - over the weekend. What the heck?!?! 

We've started purchasing a ton of furniture, I'm trying to pack up more and more and I just want to feel confident or at least comforted with what is happening next. So, please pray for the next month to go smoothly in that regard. Thank you:) 

This week has been a little topsy turvy too...I forgot about Kate's dental appointment until the night before. Messaged to confirm my babysitter but she couldn't do it anymore. So the boys came along down to Madison for Kate's filling on Monday. It was a debacle. The dentist office is awesome, but Collin had a poopy diaper right before they were going to start (like, Kate has the funny nose on and was super ansy) the hygienist insisted I could change him there in the room. Ayden was everywhere and dumped Goldfish crackers on the floor. Collin was moving around and climbing on Kate's chair. And Kate was going crazy. She could not handle it. I don't know why I didn't know that was going to happen. I guess I thought that the laughing gas would mellow her out. Nope. 

She was kicking and screaming when they gave her novacaine. When they tried to just put that little bracket thing on the tooth, she flipped out. So they gave more novacaine. But anytime he came near, she went nuts. They were soothing and sweet but then honestly, he (very calmly and softly) got tough with her. That worked. But she was rigid, and squeezing my hands so much. Better than kicking and flailing like before. But either her pain or her anxiety was through the roof. They were maybe going to do a cap but did a filling. It wasn't as deep as he originally thought. She never had any enamel on that tooth, from birth and we've been watching, knowing we'd have to do this. If the spring of this year didn't give her issues with some medical procedures, we just cemented it with this little visit. Should be good motivation to brush and floss well, right? 

Then the next day, I was supposed to attend a Women's Night Out as an exhibitor for my Beachbody/fitness stuff and I was excited. But had given it so little thought. I forgot to dig deeper into my contacts for a sitter. Realized I was supposed to set up before Kate even got home from school and learned Dave was on call. I couldn't find anyone to watch the kids. And I couldn't bring them. So, I missed it. I was bummed, mostly because they asked me to get a table there. I know I'll do it in the future and I did get a lot done at home and that did feel really good. 

Today is gloomy and cold but good packing weather:) We have dance and church tonight, that is always a little stressful with timing and logistics but I love going to church, so that will be nice. It's a good mid-week pick me up! 

Then tomorrow is our last day all together again as Dave is gone all weekend for anesthesia meetings. :(  I'll have to plan on lots of movies/packing/sorting and then something fun for the kids and I to do if the weather is nice. 

Okay, that was more than I expected to type, here are some pics from my phone....

Ayden will wake up from his nap and you can often get him back to sleep. He cuddles up with you and then zonks out again (depending on other noises, etc) He is also wanting to cuddle/rock before bed too. Not his normal, but we are soaking it up.  

 Look at this crew. On my runs we have ample snacks and this time Katie's dog as well:) 

 The boys eating red pepper at their request.

 I went to the bathroom. This guy climbed up and was putting some powder on. The bedspread. 

 Lots of "packing" going on....

 Collin practicing writing his name. He prefers to do this on boxes or the driveway. 

 Every box is made into a rocketship, his favorite thing.

(backward "C", o, l, l, i - up above, and then n over the last l.

This is actually his name :) he's getting better and better lately. And I have also realized he learns, works, practices differently from Kate. I can already see how we need to "parent" each one individually. Collin needs more verbal praise, cues and "tricks" to get him to keep going. But once he is excited about it or feels some success, he goes, goes, goes... so interesting. 

I was so scared we would be buying whatever the kids broke/ruined....so far, so good.

 This is us furniture shopping with our children late at night. Not recommended.

He was in here a long time. And we thought...cool. We know where he is.  :) 

He loves grabbing his legs when he poses....do I do this?!?!

 Kate's room in the new house. The boys just tackled each other for an hour.

Possibly my SIL and I have a love of Moscow Mules:)

 Girls Weekend! 

Randee, Kylie, me, Mom, Stacey

 My almost-forgot Madison trip was good, I finally got my oil changed. The kids destroyed this lounge kids room. 

Poor Kate. She was numb for a long time. We did get ice cream afterward at the dentists suggestion. Look at that half smile! Her whole side of her face was red for a long time, she looked rough. 

I haven't taken a good pic of the boys recently, we finally got their hair cuts while shopping for furniture in La Crosse. Collin (who cracks me up all day long) looks so grown up. Ayden still just looks like trouble:) 

I didn't really take time to proof this...sorry! Love you all....

Suck It Cancer

Alright. So, lately we've been a bit...crazy, busy, overwhelmed...it's life, right? Let me try to briefly inform you about two things.

1) We sold our house. We have an inspection tomorrow, we close on November 4. Some people from Chicago are joining friends up here and will use it as a second home. They were a pain in our butts for awhile, but seem to have mellowed out. Thank you, God.

No, we don't know exactly where we are going next. ;) We have two possibilities right now. We found a large (like seriously big) house in a neighborhood north of here - same type of neighborhood, pool, pond, playground, slip on the big lake....but it is newer, less trees (more sunsets) and has a finished basement. Not perfect - the garage needs to be bigger. We have been in negotiations with them on this house for awhile. Very frustrating. Still might happen. But not sure.

If that doesn't happen, we have a large house in our current neighborhood that we can rent. We looked at it awhile ago, it is very large, on the big lake, has a crazy (to us) neighbor and it needs some work. But we could get a 6 month lease on that.

So, two great options. We are also going to look at houses tomorrow but are not excited about many of them on the list. We'll keep you updated. When I'm done doing this post, I need to get PACKING! (very sad to leave this house. I will be a wreck, but we do feel like it is best)

And now to the super sucky news.
Dave's dad, Ron, has cancer. Again. I'll be brief but in the days before Labor Day weekend, Ron went in to the hospital for some discomfort and they were expecting a bowel obstruction. Which there was. But in looking into that, they found pancreatic cancer. And it has metastasized to other places (liver, left adrenal). When we learned this, we canceled our camping trip and Dave was going to drive down there (9 hour trip?) Friday and come back Monday. But miraculously, Ron and Bobbi have a number of friends/connections to small planes. So a friend picked him up in Reedsburg, 35 minutes from our place, and flew him down. He was able to be there with them that weekend and luckily, Ron was discharged on Saturday and they had a fun time on the boat and at the pool with tons of friends! Perfect.

We couldn't get the kids down that time, so I escaped to Burr Oak to stay busy. We honored the opening day of Hawkeye Football and headed to Iowa.

Playing in the yard in Burr Oak

Please. No crazy plastic toys for these kids. Just give them scraps of what is in your garage. They are happy.  :)

Telling us what the clouds look like, Kate always sees super elaborate things;)

The following week brought some more pain to Ron due to a kidney that wasn't draining properly. So, he had a procedure to fix that. Much better, but not super comfortable either. Unbelievably, we were able convene the family in Missouri that next weekend. Dave had been in Waverly, IA all week working (yes - we were apart for that whole week, during a hard and emotional time. Boo) so he met us in La Crosse and I drove the kids to La Crosse Friday afternoon.

We stopped at Target for something. Okay, half a cartload. The kids screamed as Daddy came in the Target entrance to the store, it was nuts. He was upset because our buyers decided it was super important to talk furniture at that time (wtf) but we checked out, had to drive thru and grab some food (which was too hot to actually eat) and get to the airport!! Not fun. I was sweating, worried we'd be late.

We parked and had to repack bags and consolidate and get car seats out of his truck and drag everything to the terminal. Of course the parking closest to the terminal was under construction. But it is a small airport, so shouldn't complain.

When we fell forward through the door toward the counter, this sweet woman said, "You must be the Lenningers." Well, that made us laugh. Yes, this chaotic mess you see, is in fact, the Lenningers. How do you do? :)

She was great, the kids were excited (escalator!) and Collin desperately wanted to put his carry on bag on the scale and send it on the conveyor belt. Security must have been bored out of their minds, they were sweet and patient. The kids did great, we got all our junk through (carseats are fun. not) and got to the gate.

We figured we would board first (let us get situated, right? and the gal at the gate said we could) but people jumped up and boarded before us, so then we pile on and just sat in the first seats we could. Oops. This isn't Southwest where you board in groups and find your own seat. We were fighting with car seats and kids and my open carryon bag up-ended and spilled on the floor under the seats. Then someone said, "I think that's my seat." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, we grabbed everything and headed to our seats (scramble to find the boarding pass and actually look at our seats) we managed to get back there and then a stranger brought my bag with all the stuff crammed back in it. Oh. Except Dave's Oakely sunglasses. Those didn't get back in the bag :(  we noticed much too late.

The plane had 2 seats on one side and 1 seat on the other. We sat Collin in his seat near the window, Ayden on Dave's lap beside him. Kate and I were behind them. Very last row. They did great. We connected in Chicago and actually met up with Laurie! She flew in from New York and was on our flight to Columbia, MO. Though, I'm sure she would have liked to continue having a drink while waiting, she sat and helped mind the kids until we boarded:) We tried to let Ayden run around while he could. This time, our tickets were split up, but thankfully, Lou had a ticket nearer our group, so she flip-flopped with us (they loved that at the gate) and she sat up in an exit row and we were again in the very back row. :)

But we were split up funny. Kate and Collin were together. I was ahead of them with some stranger and Dave had Ayden in the one-seat across from the big kids. It was okay. Ayden was tired and done. Everytime he spotted me, he went crazy. Yep, he cried. Sorry, people. But he liked using Kate's LeapPad - total lifesaver. The big kids did great, I'm glad I took the brunt of Collin's seat-kicking for that flight (uff da). At the end, Dave handed me Ayden, he kept trying to get comfortable to sleep, but couldn't.

In Columbia, we deboarded the plane down steps to the tarmack (I don't know if these are the right terms) and Kate was in awe. What?! So funny. There was a storm coming, lots of lightning. She saw a bigger plane (still small) and it had steps down...she was like,"Oh! That is like for the President!" Sure, babe:)

Dear friends, Rich and Robin Mohl, came to pick us up. Two cars, so we got the carseats situated, loaded up and tried to beat the storm (about an hour ride to Ron and Bobbi's). We didn't beat it. In fact, it made our trip twice as long. It was crazy. The roads were covered in water some places, the lightning made us cringe and jump in the car, visibility was terrible (fog too?!!?) and I know Laurie and I wanted to pull over, but I wanted to go HOME more! Kate was great. God bless LeapPads. However, the boys did not as great...I assumed they's sleep the whole way. They slept half. And screamed the other half. So sorry, Robin and Dave!

The big kids sleep in a tent at Gma and Gpa's...they love it. We put Ayden down in a pack-and-play in a huge closet off our guest master. He fought it, which surprised me, but I held him until he was asleep. The adults convened in the kitchen, where we had drinks and bites of leftover steak - a Lenninger family tradition and delicacy:)

The next day we ran a couple errands, went for a walk, went to the pool...relaxed. It was simply gorgeous and we soaked up the beautiful weather.

Ron and Bobbi recently redid their back patio area..it is SOOOOO cool. We had a fire in the firepit, complete with marshmellows. The giant kind! And the fishing pole "sticks" :)

and wine:)

On Sunday, we planned on going to church but our boys had other plans. I had noticed they were probably getting sick before we flew down. They had some eye goop. Well, that turned into much more. Collin's throat must have hurt like hell. His voice was....indescribable. Hoarse and cute and it made you smile and cringe. Then Sunday morning, he woke up burning up and crying. We ran a bath and put both boys in to try and cool him down. Bobbi ran out to get more meds and we got them settled down. Looked up Urgent Care and Dave and I took them both to the first Urgent Care we could (9 a.m.) so no church:(  Collin had an ear infection, they both had eye infections. Prescriptions and recommendation for some Zyrtec for the flight home that day.

When we got back, we hung out on the back patio, the kids loved walking the path and "exploring." We grilled some brats and waited for family friend, Ron Falch to fly down from Prairie du Chein to fly us back home! Ron and Bobbi picked him up and drove him back to the house. We visited for awhile and then we loaded up to go home. Said goodbye to Laurie, she was staying through Wednesday.

The airstrip is in a state park about 15 minutes away. Pretty cool. I wasn't nervous until we got to the runway. Oh man...it's a small plane. All of us are in it...I think I prayed for about 3 hours straight that afternoon.

The boys fell asleep on that little drive to the airport (benadryl and zyrtec before we left:) and we thought they would sleep in flight too.....no.

Gpa Ron getting some special snuggles.

Once again....arranging car seats. We're having a party when we are done with these!

Kate was LOVING it. They had no fear Seriously, just excitement. The headphones did not fit Collin, but he was determined. Poor guy. Ayden had no headset, he heard the very loud plane.

Getting ready to go. Dave kept looking back and I would smile and give a thumbs up but I was so nervous. He knew it:) We hoped all our bags would fit, I packed from 1 large bag into 2 smaller in case we needed Bobbi to ship us one - but they fit!

Ayden did cry quite a bit, but literally, we couldn't hear him. So, that helped, but was heartbreaking. But I couldn't do much. I just prayed. The big kids did great. Bobbi packed us a bunch of snacks and they were a life-saver, they ate the whole darn ride. Ayden did have moments of calm.

The ride was incredibly smooth, best you can hope for I think. The sunset was stunning. It was wonderful to see God's creation from up there. Some great perspective.

I had taken Ayden out of the carseat for a bit, but as we neared La Crosse, I wanted him back in, he didn't fight me, thank goodness. This is La Crosse - do you recognize it?:) We also flew over Iowa City/Cedar Rapids, so cool.

We dipped abruptly to get down to land - oh man, that was nuts. But Ron is amazing and we had a smooth landing. Once we arrived, it was late, nothing was open on that side of the airport and they wouldn't let him taxi over to the commercial terminal. So we sat and had security drive Dave back to his truck and come around, then they opened the gate and were able to leave. Ron's plane didn't start right back up again. So, we loaded up and I thought, on no!!! Something's wrong and he is stuck here. Dave will have to drive him to Prairie and I'll take the kids back home. Ugh. So Dave texted him. I love this. Ron said, I'm fine. Go home. :)  So, we drove over to get my van and Dave took all the kids in his truck (sweet). I took my time. Then I saw Ron fire it up, taxi and I parked in the cellphone lot and watched him take off.

A special thank you to him for allowing us to get together. And a special thank you to everyone as we embark on some hard times and lean on the amazing community of friends and family we have. We know how blessed we are and we know we will see that in action more than ever. We are so grateful for the large community that Ron and Bobbi have in Missouri as well, you are our hearts down there when we can't be.

Please, please send up prayers for healing and peace. Here is the Caring Bridge site that Bobbi will update as she can https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ronlenninger

This week has been- 
Dave back to work,
Kate back to school.
Me running around like a chicken with my head cut off.
House stress but still - good options.
Kate starts dance next week.
Oh - Kate does NOT want to move. It will be around her birthday and she hates moving anyway....this will be interesting.

End of Summer Vacation & First Day of School

I really thought I posted this already...but I think it was just a draft and then I deleted it. So...yeah. Killing it over here :)  Again.... no time. Here's some pics!

One of the last days before school started. Classic childhood thing to do, right?

How we spend our mornings. Playing cars in the sunshine.

This guy. 

Afternoon outdoor play. They're camping obviously. We totally miss camping.

Some art outside. No need for paper - what a money saver...

They have a blast outside, this will be my hardest winter for sure.

Umm....possibly we drove over to Portofino some night.
Often Sunday and Monday nights, I don't have it together enough to cook. 

I went down to Madison for a playdate and we went out for lunch to a cool old-school diner/cafe. They were going nuts!

On the way home from Madison, we found a park.

Oh. And a Culvers.

I NEVER thought he'd go up that far!

Night before school, I think. Our pool is closed now....we didn't get there much, but we love it.
Also, this was by myself. Not my favorite way to enjoy a pool. 

They were pooped.

First Day of First Grade!
She's so pumped.

Oops. No haircut yet.

She's riding the bus. For now. 

We made it out the door - hurray!

What the boys did with Katie gone...

Home from a great first day!! Outside playing with the boys until supper.

School so far is great! The teacher she was assigned to took a different job 2 weeks before school started....so they were scrambling. But they moved up one of the Kindergarten teachers and that is who Kate got - Mr. Gassman. I don't know much, but he seems nice.

No homework so far! (which was surprising and is nice!) She has talked about some inappropriate stuff on the bus, we are not loving that. She wakes up okay. Up before her alarm the first two days, wanting to sleep more since. But it doesn't take much to get her up. She loves school. Our battle in the mornings is HAIR. And her wanting to watch TV and then not moving fast enough. But when Ayden is fussing and going crazy, I like to turn it on to distract him while I get her out the door. We'll figure that out.

Ayden wakes around 6:30 a.m. pretty consistently now, he is there to wave at the bus. Collin sleeps until about 8:15 a.m. Kate gets on the bus at 7:08 a.m and gets home around 4 p.m. Long day.

Dance starts next week - ah! It will get busier for sure. We are going to church every Wednesday night from 7-8 p.m. and that is when Kate's youth group meets. Kate and Collin LOVE going to church. Ayden usually ends up screaming and we have to go get him, he was very happy but mischievous last night, so cute but so naughty!

Kate is very concerned about her birthday and birthday party, we will be moving around that time (post to come!) and she is not thrilled. She has also requested a Laura Ingalls Wilder party....how awesome is that!

Okay, need to run...another quick post coming soon...