Twice a year

It seems as though this poor little blog has fallen by the wayside. It’s partly that I am so busy and partly because I have been super lazy. Winter has conspired to keep me out of my cold basement (though I confess I do have the means to get it super warm in my craft room) and upstairs in the naturally warm part of the house.

I have thought about discontinuing this blog because it does take a lot of work to keep it up and most of the stuff I just put on Facebook to begin with because it is faster and more accessible. However, part of me can’t give up this form of writing because it feels more like a journal and can be a little more in depth than just a quick status update on FB.

I don’t even know if anyone reads these blogs anymore, but I know when other people I follow post I am all over their family updates like a starved monkey. It’s not just the pictures I’m after (though they are fun to look at) it’s the stories and the getting to know a little more about the people I care about. I also think it would be fun to eventually publish the blog into a book and have it as a kind of history of my little family.

Anniversaries, Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays and various other everyday events have occurred since the last time I posted on here and it seems as though time has sped up and conspired against me in every way imaginable. It feels unfair that the older you get the more you can appreciate life and all it has to offer yet the less you get to because of all the responsibilities that get in the way not to mention the incredible exhaustion that comes from having to juggle work, family, and household obligations. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

We have hit our 9 year mark for our marriage and I feel as though we just got married yesterday. How is it that I have spent so much time with this man I call husband and I can still love him as much if not more than when we first met? I like to think it has to do with the way he treats me and our children. He does everything for me. I don’t mean I never have to lift a finger, but if there is something broken, he fixes it. If I’m not there to care for the kids, he can seamlessly step in and have fun doing it. If I’m stressed out he helps around the house and encourages the children to do the same. If I think it would be nice to redo  or update something in our home, he builds it, refurbishes it, or replaces it. He has learned to be an electrician, a plumber, a painter, a builder, a woodworker, a gardener, a landscaper, a tile layer, and a mechanic all in the name of making our lives easier and our home a better place to live. He is a child at heart and the children love him because he understands who they are and joins them in their silly games instead of brushing them aside. He loves me. I can tell by his actions that he loves me. I can tell when he cooks dinner on his only day off. I can tell when he does  laundry when I’m too tired to notice it hasn’t been done in a few days. I can tell when he holds me when I come home from work and when he lets me complain and listens without interrupting me. I can tell when we are both tired and sit on the couch and watch TV and he lets me fall asleep on him. I can tell when we laugh and joke together. I can tell he loves me when he looks at me. It’s not hard for me to love someone more each day when he continually shows me how much he loves me every day.

My oldest child turned another year older. He is in third grade and has developed a love of cartoons. He draws them constantly. Dragons, stick men, robots, and monsters. He has funny little story lines that go along with them. He is still the artist but has narrowed his medium and style down. He loves creating in many forms including Legos, Minecraft, paper, and materials that we would normally discard. He has such a large imagination that I don’t know how he contains it in his little body. He is energetic and loving and athletic and outgoing and funny. He  is half of my heart. How is it possible that he is not my tiny little baby anymore?

My younger son has also aged another year and has developed into a strong willed, intelligent, and hilarious little child. He is a people person to his core and is unafraid of making friends of anyone around. He is adventurous and willing to follow wherever his feet might lead. He is demanding of our time and expects love and attention when he wants it. He is quick to anger and quick to forgive. He tells me he doesn’t like to tread , but will proceed to read me six stories after the fact. He is Mommy’s little boy and Daddy’s little helper. He is the other half of my heart.

The holidays were spent at home where we love to be. It’s not often that all our schedules line up and allow us the time to be with each other to share in those loving  often funny family moments. I saved the majority of my vacation to take during the holidays in order to spend the maximum amount of time possible with my family. This also helps my attitude as I seem to be a lot more cranky the more I have to work. With more time off I am able to see my husband more and participate in my children’s school activities and accomplish more around the house. My overall mood is improved and on the days I do have to work I am a much happier person to be around. Even the dog like me more when I work less.

Both boys are in scouts now. I think it is less exciting for Alex now that he has to pay attention in all the meetings. He tries hard though and he does his best to complete his goals though he does like to complain (sometimes loudly) about it. Jack has grown into scouts. We had to push him to do his best at first, but now he understands that he has to get through the not so fun stuff to get to do the things he likes. He placed first in the Pinewood Derby this year, which was a goal for him. Alex didn’t place and it was a bit of an accomplishment that he didn’t cry when he didn’t win anything.

Each of the boys have developed friendships that occupy them both in and out of school. Play dates on the weekends are a common occurrence and one they both look forward to. Jack had his first slumber party for his birthday that was a smashing success for him if not for his parents. Alex had a few people out to a trampoline park and had the time of his life bouncing out all his energy with his friends. Of course, both parties were immediately followed up with family parties in which they each received way more presents than they probably needed or deserved.

This winter has been particularly brutal so far and has pretty much held us all hostage in our home. The upside to this is that it gives the boys (and the parents) time to try out the new WiiU game system we got from Santa for Christmas. It has been a roaring success. They would play it all day if I’d let them.

Both Andy and I turned another year older, though it doesn’t seem like enough time has passed that we are nearing the forty year mark. We celebrated with our good friends with a quiet night on the town at a nice restaurant that ended at an unbelievably late 10:30.

To end this super long post we had an almost 3 week long visit from Grandma Olive. It was nice to come home to somebody in the afternoon  and the kids got to replace their mom for a little bit of Grandma time. Alex would read her his stories from school and Jack would have a little extra help with his math homework. I think her presence may have had a calming effect on the boys because they didn’t seem nearly as rowdy with her here as they did when she wasn’t.

Meanwhile, we are anxiously waiting Spring to arrive so we can go outside and soak up the sun as well as get my garden going. The kids have sorely missed their rope swing which has been frozen for around two months now. I just miss the outdoors and the color that has been washed away by all the snow.

A Super long Update

Wow, has it been that long since I last posted anything on here? I am so far behind I’m not sure I will ever really catch up, but I will definitely try. I was considering closing this blog down, but it is as much a release for me as it is an update for my family on the goings on in the Konlock household. I will try not to be too redundant with pictures or anything that I have updated on Facebook, but just wanted to let everyone know that we are doing fine.

I think the last I posted was in March and we have had a few things going on since then. We took three, yes three, vacations. One to Florida for Spring Break with Andy’s brother Mark and his Mom Ann. One to northern Wisconsin with our good friends the Balistreri Family for the 4th of July. The third was to see my sister Amaryllis and her family in Wyoming who I haven’t seen since I moved to Wisconsin.All were good times and helped to create wonderful memories, which of course I caught all on film.

In between our constant vacationing we also had the boys in Summer school for reading, because every little bit helps, and playing Baseball for the NBAA (New Berlin Athletic Association) and ongoing scouting adventures. I’m not going to say they super loved any of it, but they were troopers and gave at least 85% effort. The agreement in our family is that they can choose which  sport to play but they have to play a sport because it keeps them outside and gives them a reason to get in their exercise. Plus, they make more friends then are just in their own school because they usually will do a mix up of all the different schools, and they learn good sportsmanship.

As for scouting, Jack is still a bit so-so on it, but he does enjoy spending time with his Dad and his friends. Alex is full on into cub Scouts as he has seen his brother participate for the last two years and has had to patiently wait until he is old enough to join. Right now he is pretty excited about being in the Cub Scouts and I hope he keeps that excitement.

We also got new bikes and really started to use them. There was swimming practice and birthday parties to attend. Play dates with friends and meeting new people. We spent the majority of the summer outside in the back yard either in my garden, on the rope swing or in the forest pretending. It was the kind of summer you remember when you were little filled with family, friends and fun.

All good things must come to an end though, and the new school year snuck up on us more quickly than I thought it would. Today I put my kids on the bus for the first day of school and as always it is a little bitter sweet. gone are the days of sleeping in  and staying up late to be replaced by scheduled everything and a calendar that always seems to be filled with bursting with all the new events that pop up unexpectedly or even planned way in advance.

Now is also the time where I regain some time for myself and can have a few hours a day to accomplish some of the things I like to do that don’t include housework or worrying about my husbands or my schedule lining up perfectly so there is always someone there for the kids. (Where would we be without Grandma and Grandpa Konlock to help?) Now is when I find the time to get back into my craft room and do small things like update my family blog,which had fallen to the wayside all throughout summer. So for better or worse, school is back in session and life is returning to some semblance of normal.

Tree bookshelf

A while back my husband asked me to help him come up with a design for a bookshelf to go in my youngest son’s room. He had drawn up several neat looking square or rectangular bookcases but couldn’t seem to design one he liked. I happened upon a single bookshelf that looked like a tree branch and that gave me an idea.

I decided to draw up a whole bookcase that was in the shape of a tree. Now I have seen other “tree” shelves online and they look really boxy or very modern or conceptual and not too much like a tree at all …

or they are super tree-like and incredibly difficult to manifest and just way too expensive or impossible to buy.

While I like the tree shelf above it was too small for what my husband was thinking. When I pitched him my concept he wanted a floor to ceiling tree that had storage available in the trunk as well as the branches. So this is what we came up with.

The tree was originally going to be on the third stud away from the outside wall, but my DH decided he like it better with the long branches on the right instead of the left, so we reversed this drawing when he started building it. The trunk was also changed to accommodate shelving in the center as well as giving him a place to attach the branches. I have to admit that I like the hollowed out look better too.

So here is the final product all put up in my son’s room with all his miscellaneous items on it. I thought he had a lot of books until I tried to fill this tree up with them. That’s okay though because he will gain more throughout the years and it is a nice place to store more than just books.

It was incredibly difficult and a very long process getting it all put together. The trunk was built first by cutting two 2x6 pieces of lumber to fit exactly the height of the bedroom. Once they were measured and cut there was much sanding and cutting and aggravation trying to get the inside shelves lined up and screwed in place. Then came the staining and polyurethane and the attaching to the wall. Not an easy process. It took both of us and let me tell you that it might not look like much but that bad boy is heavy.

The branches were individually pieced together, sanded and stained and screwed directly into the trunk of the tree in the room and also adhered to the wall with screws into the studs for added support.

This project was not too expensive, with all the materials coming in at under $50.00, but it was very time consuming and labor intensive. It took roughly four months to complete, give or take a few weeks. That shelf will probably never come out of our house. I love it though and more importantly so does my son.

Fun in the snow

Some random pictures of the Konlock’s enjoying the winter season.

Why do children love to be buried in things. Snow, sand, dirt, mud, water… it’s a mystery.

The dog loves the snow even more than the children.

In the far back part of the yard the children discovered a pretty thick layer of ice buried under the snow. They thought it would be a good idea to clean all the snow off and go ice skating with their snow boots.

I would say that there is a good two inches of ice that I am standing on. We had a huge rain and then an immediate drop in temperature followed by a snow storm. No time for the water to go anywhere.

I think the dog may have seen a squirrel or a jogger or really anything or nothing at all, because she’s crazy.

Where was this snow on Jack’s birthday?

Sadly, this picture was taken of Andy right before he ran over his 6 year old child who is just ahead of him on the hill with his snow tube, but like the brave child he is, Alex cried for a bit and then asked if he could still sled some more.

They are little troopers when it comes to getting back up the hill with their sleds.

No he isn’t going to hit that tree. We were hiking over to the other part of the hill and he was trying to sled down the path, but since it was pretty level it didn’t work out too well.

A good day of fun. Messing around a bit before heading home. You can’t tell but just past the bench on the left is a small lake. The danger thin ice sign is just above the kids.

Alex’s Birthday Party

We started the day off having Uncle Mark and Grandma and Grandpa Konlock over to open Alex’s gifts from us and have a family celebration prior to the party. We then all met up (with the exception of Grandpa) at Kids In Motion for Alex’s first friends only birthday party. It looks like a lot of presents, but it is really only six. (On a side note, I think Andy may have a toy buying problem.)

While I am getting to the point (already) of not wanting to have separate birthday parties for the kids anymore, since this was Alex’s first official birthday where he got to invite all his friends I felt like I couldn’t let him miss what Jack got to experience twice. He invited six of his friends from school (because that is the maximum amount of little boy energy I can effectively monitor) to Kids In Motion (the same place Jack had his first party) and they ran wild around the indoor playground for two hours.

They have tons of different rooms full of all kinds of activities and a big climbing place in the middle of it all. Alex got caught up in the magnetiles room and I had to push him a little to get out and enjoy his friends.

He is fairly happy playing alone as long as he likes what he is doing and I found that his friends gravitate towards him rather then the other way around.

Of course, they all just ran amuck and were completely sweaty and disgusting even though it was a chilly single digit temperature outside.

We brought in Pizza for the m since we had the party at a later hour then normal (from 5-7pm). We also had cake even though most of them were so excited to paly that they barely managed to get a bite down before they were off again.

They got to play a round of laser tag after they were done eating and near the end of the party. It was a big finish and everyone had a ton of fun.

I was worried about how Jack might get along with all the younger kids but he pretty much did his own thing and I found him periodically helping other smaller children do things. He joined in on the laser tag at the end, but was good about letting Alex have his time with his friends.

Afterwards we adjourned to Andy’s parents house where Alex opened all his gifts from his friends and then proceeded to paly with everything.

We let them stay the night with their Grandparents and their Uncle Mark. (Can you see how well trained they are? They know when they open a gift that they are to stop and pose with it so I can get a picture.)

2013 Pinewood Derby

I think that Jack may have a bit of a skewed sense of what the Pinewood Derby entails. Last year he won third place and it was the first time a Tiger scout had broken into the top three positions. This year he moved up a notch to the second place position and I am a little nervous that he if he doesn’t get first place or at least one of the top three positions that he may have a little bit of a meltdown. As I was watching the races all night long I kept calling him over to tell him he did a really good job, but that so did a lot of other people. You know, the whole winning isn’t everything speech. He would nod and say “I know Mom”, but then come back and ask me if it was possible to get a ribbon AND a trophy. LOL. That boy has more faith in his and his daddy’s ability to build a fast car than I did. Luckily, I was proved wrong.

Weigh in started at 6:00pm and this year they didn’t have to make any adjustments so they were assigned a number and the car went straight into the pit. They got a brand new track this year so there was a lot of uncertainty as to what to expect with the speed of the  cars and other factors. turns out lanes 1 and 3 are the fastest.

While Andy did the majority of the labor each year he increases Jack’s participation according to his ability to use the power tools and other things in a safe way. This year Jack chose the shape of the car and the paint design. He also used a saw to cut the rough shape of the car out and was able to sand a lot of it down. Andy did the fine sanding and the placement of the weights as well as the paint job. It turned out pretty neat.

Turns out that there are a lot of rules that I am blissfully unaware of that have to be followed in order to make the car eligible to race. One of those rules is that you are not allowed to move the axles of the car from the prepositioned place on the bottom of the car block. The three cars to the left of Jack’s in the picture below had their axles moved which increases the speed of the car. The judges did not catch this on weigh in and so at the end when all the race averages were being tallied there was a leader meeting on what they should do.

The fair thing was that since it wasn’t caught in the weigh ins before the races they allowed the three cars to take the places they earned with no penalty. In the defense of the three boys (who are actually triplets) the rules were never given out until about a week before the race and by then it would have too late to change anything and still get a car in on time.

While this made it unfair for everyone who did follow the rules, the design of their cars would have made them fast no matter what and they didn’t tell everyone what actually happened so there was no cause for anyone to be angry. Also, considering that they are all brothers and their cars are identical it wouldn’t be too far fetched to believe they would all race the same. Had they placed higher than 4th through sixth position the judges would have given them all a single trophy in order to make it more fair for the other racers. (Can you see how tiny Jack is on the far left compared to all the other boys? He is definitely not one to let his size get in his way.)

And again, while winning isn’t everything it is nice to know that when you follow the rules you can still beat someone who doesn’t (even unknowingly) and come out on top. I believe that is what is called a life lesson. Jack’s best time was 3.446 followed by a couple of 3.6’s and a 3.7, so he was pretty consistent. the first race was the slowest because he got so excited that he put the car on crooked and didn’t take the time to straighten it out. He was much more careful afterwards and did a ton better.

Can you tell how excited Jack is about his second win in a row? Next year should be even more interesting as it will be Alex’s first year in Cub Scouts and he is a bit more competitive then Jack, so there may be some sibling rivalry going on there.