Happy 1st Birthday, Alex (plus a 3 week recap)!

Wow – lots to catch up on – I’ll focus on the most important event and then go chronologically.
Alex turned 1 on July 2nd!!!! I can’t believe that it has been a year since I had him. I get nostalgic with every birthday, but the first is always even more sentimental just because it is so close to the time that I actually gave birth (not to mention, that I’m convinced that the first year is by far the hardest on a mother, but we won’t focus on that part). Anyway – we celebrated with Josh’s family and some friends the weekend before his birthday. In keeping with tradition, I made him a cake – I chose a monkey – not because it really meant anything, but more because it had a minimal amount of colors.

I did the balloon so that Alex would have his own piece of cake to devour. As you can see, that didn't quite work out. In fact, he hated it.



The week before Alex’s party, I was in NYC for a conference. The funny thing about the trip? There was no conference. Yep – that’s right – somehow I managed to get it in my head that the conference was on Thursday and Friday in NYC when really it was Tuesday and Wednesday. You can imagine my surprise (i.e., near panic attack) when I showed up and they didn’t have my nametag on the table. The good thing was that there was a different conference that Thursday that I did attend, so the trip wasn’t totally wasted and I was able to catch up with Christine and Colleen while I was there. We had a great time and it was nice catching up in the big city! Somehow, I yet again managed to drink too much each night I was there, so the mornings were a bit of a challenge (especially the one where I was on a train by 6 am), but it was worth it.

We flew out to WI on July 2nd, which was Alex’s actual birthday (I figure at this age, he wouldn’t know the difference, so I didn’t feel badly flying all day on his bday). We nearly didn’t make it, as daycare called literally one hour before I was supposed to pick the kids up saying that Avery had a fever of 102.8. Seriously????? I rushed her to the dr. and begged them to see her, which they did. They checked her ears and she didn’t have an infection and they took a urine sample ( I personally think that I should get mother of the year for getting a 3 year old to pee in a cup, not to mention for getting peed on during the process) and there was no infection there. It looked like it was just a virus, so we loaded her up with Tylenol and we were on our way. The flight there was rather uneventful other than the fact that my son is at the age where he does not want to sit still, which proves to be challenging on a flight where he is supposed to be sitting in your lap. Josh was kind enough to stand in the back most of the time and rock him to sleep, which was huge.

The trip was great – we had an awesome time. We arrived to this cute sign on the garage door when we got there, which was a nice little surprise - my mom's creative like that.






We celebrated both babies’ birthdays (Annabel’s and Alex’s) as well as William’s birthday on the 4th. And, yes – I made another cake – this time it was a fisherman (for Will) that just caught 2 fish (one for Alex and one for Annabel).



We celebrated by having a picnic lunch at the beach followed by swimming for all and then a nice dinner that night and some fireworks later on. Here are the babies yet again NOT enjoying the cake that I spent hours decorating. New rule - until they can prove to me that they will eat the cake, no more decorating. Who am I kidding? I'll eat the cake that they don't eat - I'm still decorating.



The rest of the trip was spent on the boat



in the lake




on the playground

in the kiddy pool





And, of course, wearing our sister's clothes because that's always a fun thing to do on vacation...


We also made it down to Milwaukee to visit with the girls and all of the kids. Wow – there were ELEVEN kids between all of us. It was great seeing them, but I’ll be honest – the next trip may need to exclude anyone under 30 and include a significant amount of wine. Thanks to Becky for hosting all of us at her house (which looked like this the majority of the day…)

Believe it or not, we were able to get a picture of all 11 kids together, which was pretty impressive...

Overall, it was a great trip. I am just now getting over my "return back to work" depression, but I'm thinking it still may take a couple of days (and a new job where I can have summers off) to fully get over it. :)