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.

Jacks Birthday party

Due to circumstances beyond our control, i.e., weather, we had to fall back to our Plan B for Jack’s birthday party and have it in our basement. Andy found a great craft project that was just perfect for boys in range of 7-9 and there was plenty of pseudo-weaponry to keep them entertained for the whole two hours.

We celebrated Jack’s actual birth day with his grandparents with just a small party of pizza and cake. He opened up his presents from us as as well as the one’s from his Grandparents and his Uncle Mark. I would say he was pretty pleased with what he got.

No longer a seven year old.

Making a wish.

MMM… delicious cake.

The dog wants cake too.

The loot!

Some of the aftermath. A lot of what he received was Mega Blocks or Lego so it required some assembly.

I was a little leery at having so many kids in my basement, especially since we haven’t done too  much to redo it so that it looks at least a little presentable, but it was clean and safe and full of toys and there was plenty of room to play.

They were fairly well behaved and didn’t break anything or hurt anyone too much. They were all full of energy and were able to keep themselves entertained for the majority of the party.

We had a craft activity planned which went over better than I expected. they were able to calm down and pay attention and each made their own paracord bracelet to take home along with their gift bags full of goodies.

We had cake and ice-cream floats for desert and everybody sang Jack Happy Birthday. The time passed so quickly that they were barely finishing their cake when all the parents started to show up. All the parents were pretty concerned with how it went and relieved that it went so well. I think they were looking to see how bad it might be if they did the same thing.

These are Jack and Alex’s bracelets that they made themselves (mostly). They love them and wear them every day. I got an update and their friends still wear their bracelets to school the majority of the time.