Bittersweet

I don't think I fully understood the meaning of the word "bittersweet" until after I became a mom. There's always this tug-of-war inside me as they move into new stages, new phases, new challenges. The one part of me is so proud and happy to see them becoming more skilled, confident, and interactive people. The other half knows that I'll never get these precious baby days back--that once a stage passes it is gone for good and I'll be left only with whatever memories I manage to store away.
These feelings are at the forefront of my mind right now since the past couple of days I've primarily been sorting through the kids clothes, switching out sizes (Lydia's mostly) and putting away the clothes they've outgrown. Everytime I do this I become pretty sentimental. It's fun to get the new clothes out, but sad that they'll never wear the old ones again. (I'm also always in shock by how much time/space/energy keeping kids stuff in some semblance of order takes!)Unfortunately, I neglected to sort out the gender neutral clothes as Joshua outgrew them, so I also had to take out all of his previously outgrown clothes and sort through them to find the items Lydia will wear too. As you can see from the photo, this created a chaotic living room which Joshua thoroughly enjoyed. :-)


Lydia is three months old today, and boy has the time flown. She's started laughing this week and when you hear it, you just can't help but crack up too! She's getting big (as evidenced by the new clothing size) and as of last week weighs almost 13 pounds and is a very long 25 inches!


All of us are doing well, although we wish spring would come back--we've been plunged back into very March-like rainy 40 degree weather. :-( But we're thankful that we're all healthy again and look forward to sunshines return!

A Day at the Zoo, the Animals are Fun

On Saturday the whole family headed out to the Vilas Zoo for the morning. Madison has a pretty decent zoo (that is free), and since it was the best weather we have had all year, we wanted to head out somewhere to enjoy it as much as possible. We saw a lot of animals, got a lot of exercise and just in general enjoyed a few hours outdoors.

We brought along the double stroller, but Lydia enjoyed being carried while she was awake, and Joshua insisted on walking almost the whole way. Oh well, at least we could carry our stuff in the stroller, and we did need to put Lydia in it when she fell asleep.


Joshua loved being able to run around, see all the animals and go wherever he wanted to. It's been a long time since there hasn't been snow on the ground!

Besides the animals, there is also a nice kids area with a little playground, a petting zoo (not open yet) and a Carousel (which has to be one of Joshua's favorite things). So, all in all it was a very fun trip for the whole family, and I'm sure that we will have many, many more trips here throughout the year.



As a side note, one of my good friends from Spring Arbor just got word from the company James works at that he has made it to the final job interview, so he and his wife will be flying out in a couple weeks. We're looking forward to seeing them, and hope that the job works out for them.


Love,
James (along with Liz, Joshua and Lydia)