Summer Update

This summer has been full of activity. One of the major updates from our family is that I have resigned from Press Ganey. Actually, I have resigned from working outside of the house. I have joined the ranks of the other stay at home moms of the world! While I miss the friends I made over the 7 1/2 years with Press Ganey, the clients I worked with, and the work that I did, this is the best decision I have made for our family.

There are quite a few things I have learned in the past 1 1/2 months at home. Jaden is the biggest cuddler you could ever want. Makayla can never get her fill of Mommy (even with me home all day!). Jonathan values me being home over going out to lunch (ask me and I will tell you the story sometime). The laundry will never be done and the floors will never stay cleaned. I think the biggest thing is the fact that we as a family are much less stressed and we have the ability to spend time together as a family now, instead of just trying to keep up with the household duties in the evenings and on the weekends.

Now that I have more time at home, I am going to try to keep up with this blog. I will get you caught up with this post and hopefully keep up from there!


Joe started the summer by taking a trip to Utah to race Mustangs. He really enjoyed himself.

Joe brought home racing shirts for all of the kids. I still think the little pink racing shirt on Makayla is just too cute!

At the end of June we drove to St. Louis to the Ciszczon family reunion. It was really nice to see some of the relatives we have not seen in a while. Some of them had never met any of our kids! They told me what the cake said while we were there, but I can't remember and I cannot read Polish...

The boys had a great time hanging out with their cousins. Jonathan and Jaden really love to "swim". I have a feeling I will be driving them to swimming lessons next year...

We went to The City Museum in St. Louis the second day we were there. It was this really huge strange place. It was made completely from recycled materials. It had all of these climbing structures, slides, ball cages, etc. It was really just a big playground for kids and adults. We were told that it is open to adults only from like 9pm -12am and that a lot of the 20 somethings in the city hang out there.

Joe got into playing too!

Here is a picture with Jonathan and Stacey in one of the outdoor ball cages. This was a huge step for Jonathan. He actually chose to go off with a group of the cousins (most of which he had never met), instead of staying with Joe, Jaden, Makayla, and me. We were really glad to see him stretch his comfort zone and go off with them. He was with them for about 4 hours and didn't have any attachment issues at all!

There were so many activities and heat (It was over 100 with the heat index that weekend) that the kids just crashed at the hotel!

In July Jonathan turned 6! He decided he wanted to have a group of his friends "come over to play in [his] backyard". Jonathan chose Star Wars as his theme, so we picked up the invites and all of the decorations. When we got to ordering his cake, he found out the only Star Wars cake they had just had a picture on the top, no toys. That would not work for him, so he decided that he would have a Finding Nemo cake with all of his Star Wars decorations. The Finding Nemo cake had little fish that squirt water. So that is what he got!

Here they are with the Darth Vader pinata. It was a beautiful day weather wise too!

It was a good thing we went with the large L couch. All of the kids would not have fit otherwise!

We played some games,

and ate a lot of food!

This summer Jaden has really gotten into dressing in costumes like his brother!

Now that we have more family time, we have more time for bike rides.

And camping!

I thought this was a really cute picture of Jonathan and Nathan during their visit. The way the blankets are makes them look like the shape of a heart.

Jonathan also started playing soccer this summer. He is doing really well. He is actually being aggressive and going for the ball. This is different than how he played basketball last winter.

Makayla has been enjoying the bike rides!

She also thinks her helmet is pretty neat. I just loved the fact that they had little helmets for her and it even has little flowers on it!

Now that I am home, I was able to hang all of Makayla's decorations. Her room actually looks like a little girl room. When Jaden saw the decal I adhered to the wall he said, "uh oh. Mommy we don't color on the wall. We color on paper." I had to try to explain to a 2 year old that decals Mommy puts on the walls is different than when he colors with crayons on the walls...