The Trim

I try not to write about only one of our children, but Peter is just at that amazing age where you wish you could remember all the funny things he says. So here's my attempt to capture a few. But first let me give you an image of this funny, creative little man (who lived a few weeks bottomless to work on his potty skills).

The jagged drywall around the window without it's trim will serve as a before picture

The first story relates to the window trim, which I've been meaning to blog about. Remember when I used to blog updates on our house renovation ALL. THE. TIME? I suppose it's natural - and a good thing - that eventually you finish most of the projects so there is less to blog about. But anyway, the trim. Most of our windows have interior trim on them! The best story I never want to forget was a conversation between Peter and Nate and they came up from the basement shop with jams for the main floor windows. Peter is slowly climbing the basement steps behind Nate and says, "and those are the jellies?" Oh man did we laugh.

The playroom window, after, with curtains my mom saved from her time in Japan

Peter's first memorable airplane ride was in September. He loved it and these days, airplanes are central to his prayer requests. Perhaps I should call them prayer interjects. While someone is praying, he'll quietly say, "and airplanes." So whoever is praying will quickly add "we pray that someday soon we'll be able to go on an airplane together," or something like that. He also requested an airplane song before bed a few weeks ago, so Nate started singing Leaving on a Jet Plane. One line from the song got his brain thinking hard: Oh babe, I hate to go. We've explained many times that this is a time when it's okay to say that you hate something. A few days later, he looked me in the eye and in the sweetest most enduring way, said "I hate you mama." Oh boy. He also loves to ask (every time we sing the song), "what means babe?" We tell him that's what the singer must call his wife.

Sometime in the past month, Peter finally embraced potty training. We have a jar of M&Ms in our kitchen, so he'll come running in to announce his successes. He recently shouted, "I peed and pooped!  One M&M for pee and two for poop!" Helen asked him how many he gets and he replied, "Um, um, um...A LOT!" This was a similar computation he did back in August at Cora's school open house. Mrs. Douglas has a jar of starbursts for kids to practice estimation. Peter ran up and wanted to take one from the bowl (labeled For Eating) but I explained that first you had to guess how many were in the jar. He looked at it for a couple of seconds, then said "a lot."

I imagine this is the same concentration employed when he was trying to compute 1 + 2

One night the kids were having dinner with Oma while Nate and I went out with friends. They were talking about the difficult times in Puerto Rico while Peter was minding his own business. He all of the sudden started annunciating "Puerto Rico" pretty well, as the story goes. He occasionally says it now from time to time and it reminds me of the Fransisco scene in Elf.

On Saturday we were driving home from Home Depot (or Depots, as Peter calls it) and Peter must have seen some decorative candles lights in someone's windows or yard. He announced, "I saw some Roman Candles!" The only reason I can think that he would call them that is that last year, Cora's class went on a field trip to a local pizza place called Roman Candle, so now every time we drive by it, she get's excited and yells "There's Roman Candle!" It's just funny what a two year old stores away in their brain, only to pull it out six months later.

One last story. A favorite book of Peter's lately has been Dear Zoo. In it the child writes to the zoo, to send him a pet. The lion is too fierce, the camel is too grumpy, the frog too jumpy. Today he was playing with the camel from our PlayMobil Nativity set when I heard him say, "He's not too fierce. Guess he's mad."

We love your cheery soul and the way you make us laugh Peter (aka Buster Brown, Buddy, Pizza). And finally, a few more images of the newly hung trim!

Our bedroom 

Nate working hard while the kids eat breakfast

Guest room

Henry Vilas Zoo

Last Friday we went to the zoo. It was a chilly day, maybe 42 and cloudy, so there weren't a lot of animals to see. Leave it to kids - who always find the upside of any situation, to take fun pictures with the statue animals. These creatures are here no matter the weather! The best part of the four photos below is that I did not have to coerce, or even suggest, that they pose for them. I only had to keep them from slipping off Bucky Badger and the tortoise. Love you three, Louisa, Cora and Peter!

The Porkies

As is the Bosscher fall tradition, we made our way to the gorgeous Porcupine Mountains in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in mid-October. In recent years, Nate has been going online six months ahead of time to reserve the 8-bunk cabin, and this year was the same. Marcia (Oma!) joined us as well as 3 friends from church - a couple our age and a woman Marcia's age. What fun we had! It was chilly, but that's actually best, if you ask me, because it makes it cozy and helps us break into winter. This year, just like last, Cora and Louisa came, but Peter stayed home. Three years old is the minimum because there is a cast iron stove in the cabin, 3 mile hike to the cabin and short walk/stumble to the lake outside of the cabin.

Cora did exceptionally well this year, not asking to be carried at all on the hike. That was a massive improvement over last year. Louisa also did well, carrying her own hand-me-down backpacking pack from our neighbor Lea, who is now 14 years old. 

Tasty food, interesting conversations and beautiful hiking filled our short 36 hour visit to the Porkies. We hope to see you again next year!

Run With Me in Washington D.C.

There's nothing like an upcoming potentially-blogable event - our annual trip to the Porcupine Mountains - to get me to catch up on recent blog-worthy events...especially when you have this realization when your two youngest children are napping and dinner prep is done.

Whew. That sentence would make it seem as though I'm feeling long-winded, but I'm actually not. Which is probably for the best since I have to wake Peter and Cora in 20 minutes to go pick Louisa up from school.

So without further ado, the recent blog-able event: our fun trip to Washington D.C. Thankfully, we spent so much money on house-projects over the past year that we had enough airline miles to get the whole family to D.C. September 14-18 for the Navy-Air Force Half Marathon. Not that everyone had to come, but it's way more fun to run 13.1 miles when you know you have a cheering squad waiting for you at the finish line!

The race was humid (but not sunny), fun and a priceless memory for me and my dad to share. We're forever grateful to Nate and my mom for heading up the cheer-team. Peter rode the last couple hundred feet of the course on my shoulders and the girls almost jumped in too, but looked like they weren't sure it was actually allowed (or at least that was my interpretation).

Other than the race, we had almost four full days to enjoy D.C., which we packed with lots of walking, two trips to a wading pool/splash pad, some great restaurants, and of course a few Smithsonian stops. Louisa, my mom and I also made it down to Alexandria to visit our 2007-2008 stomping grounds, check out the art fair and look for deals at the Crate and Barrel outlet store.

Pajama airplane ride since our flight was delayed by 3.5 hours

Metro rides for a huge highlight for Peter and he still asks if we can go ride the train in Madison

Outside the Library of Congress

Inside the Library of Congress

Hanging out in the kids reading room, inside the Library of Congress

Yards Park has a great pool - only 12 inches deep, so perfect for kids

Just a sweet, happy kid

And an adventurous, daring kid. The one who hated swimming lessons has turned out to love swimming

Waiting for Mom and Papa to finish the race, while posing in front of the Lincoln Memorial

Cora at the base of the Washington Monument

Louisa supporting the Washington Monument

En route from the Metro to the Natural History Museum

"Hold hands!" was a common refrain with all the big-city walking. Apparently I thought it was more important to take a photo than enforce this with Cora 

The final stretch of the 1/2 marathon

Victory! And still smiling!

No surprise Peter fell in love with airplanes on this trip too. Pure fascination.

School + Pumpkins

It's hard to believe that it's been nearly one month since school started. Louisa seems to be enjoying first grade as much as she did kindergarten, which is a lot. Right next door to Lou's classroom is Cora's 4K classroom. In Madison, 4K is a half-day program; Cora is in the morning class (7:35-10:37), while Louisa is at school until 2:40. Nate usually drops them off together in the morning, but Cora gets to take the bus home, which is awesome. She enjoys it and Peter likes seeing the bus each day.

Yesterday after school I had pot roast in the oven and a pretty clean house, so I wanted to stay out of the house until dinner. The weather was finally cooler, which made me feel like it was a pumpkin patch kind of day. Nate came home to accept a Home Depot delivery (a piece of metal for our cellar door) AND meet a buyer for our pick-up truck (he bought it!), so the kids and I loaded up for a surprise outing. The whole way, Louisa tried to figure out where we were going. On the way home, everyone was very quiet (read: tired). I asked Louisa if the pumpkin patch was a good surprise and she said Yes, that was the best surprise ever.

The pumpkin patch was pretty cute - just a person's house 20 minutes outside of Madison. Nobody was around but they had a great self-service set up and lots of fun scare-a-crow type halloween decorations, as well as lots and lots of reasonably priced pumpkins, squash and gourds. I told the kids they could each pick 2 pumpkins, but they had to be able to carry them. Peter and Cora were immediately taken by the tiny 2-for-$1 pumpkins, so I didn't complain when they each picked four. Louisa on the other hand, saw the pick-it-lift-it rule as a challenge and picked the biggest one she could handle. Once my kids are too cool for pumpkin patches, I'm really going to miss how easy it is to surprise and entertain them!

They love these things

Walking the hayride trail

A new friend

I think Peter may grow up to be very orderly

Making sure we got them all

While You Were Out

Our trip to the Netherlands and Belgium was incredible, but the icing on the cake was the amazing hands our kids were in while we were away. Oma, Belle Mere and Papa shared the load and maybe I'll get the true stories eventually, but I think they did more than just survive - they thrived!

I didn't have cell service in Europe, so each night when I came back to wifi, I looked forward to seeing what kind of fun had been had that day. Oma had all three kids the first day, and they all went to the fire station to "meet the firemen without an emergency," then Peter went to Oconomowoc for 4 days. Cora and Peter were exchanged on Wednesday because Cora had to catch a flight to Washington DC! Louisa and Peter seemed to get along famously at Oma's while Cora was away. Not that they don't usually get along, but in our house, the third child, whoever it is, seems to complicate things.

Louisa was excited to tell me how often they jumped on Oma's neighbor's trampoline (8 times!), so I said something like, "cool! that's once each day I was gone?" "No," she explained, "some days we jumped twice!" They also made eclipse viewing boxes, lemon curd (Lou's favorite) and got to watch the Narnia movies of the books Nate has read aloud over the past couple of months. Louisa made her halloween costume - she'll be Reepicheep this year: she has already decided.

Cora's trip was filled with yummy treats and busy days with Belle and Papa, as they prepared a big shipment of goods for Sarah and Dan in the Ivory Coast. Tonight at dinner, Cora told us that she got to see the White House and the golden chair. I could be blanking, but I'm not sure about the golden chair...(Mom and Dad, you'll have to fill me in). Oh, and speaking of halloween costumes, Cora's may be set too. After their trip to Ikea, she was sporting a sweet Owl cape. If I ask Peter what he wants to be, no doubt he'll say a digger. Oh boy, that seems like a hard costume to make and wear.

Fire station play day

Purse and all

Spraying an apple of the top of a huge tire

One neighbor had a trampoline and the other has a puppy!

Peter learned to slack line with some help from friend Brian, at a Bike the Barns fundraiser breakfast

Louisa enjoyed tracking my flight as I flew from Brussels to Chicago on Sunday

Milk shakes make me happy too, Cora!

Papa helping Cora buy her carousel ticket

Admiring her ticket?

Posing with her ticket

Riding the horse with the golden tail. Maybe that's the golden chair?

Shadows at Yards Park in Washington D.C.

I do know that they missed us while we were gone, but I also love that they obviously didn't miss us that much. That is due 100% to the fact that Nate and I have amazing, loving parents who look forward to spending time with our kids. We're so very thankful for that, Marcia/Mom, Mom/Terry and Dad/Dirk!

The very best compliment I received about my kids was two years ago (so possibly outdated?!), from a nanny that we almost hired before Helen. She spent two hours with the kids and when we came home, said "your kids are really balanced." Perhaps it meant so much because I love feeling balanced? Either way, if they are still balanced two years later, it's due in large part to the other adults in our lives who love them so dearly and are willing to pour so much into them, even for 8 days in a row. Thank you, thank you, thank you!