spirit lake

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Coyote Territory

15 January 2017 Emerson

When your six-year-old admits to you she ‘has too much energy’, you know you’ve got problems. With temps in the 30’s today we broke out of the house and felt the sun on our faces for the first time all year! Emerson trudged around finding treasures and following deer and bunny tracks all over Papa and Gaga’s yard. At one point in our adventure she alerted me that we had entered ‘coyote territory’ and that was reason enough for me to lead the expedition back inside. I’m not sure playing in the snow would be quite as fun if there wasn’t hot chocolate to look forward to…...

Kindergarten Kid

6 September 2016 Emerson, Milestone

As of last week, Kindergarten is in full swing! What a difference a year makes — Emerson spent her last week as a five-year old full of confidence and total excitement for the start of a new year. While much has changed at Spirit Lake elementary over the past 25 years, some things have not changed at all… such as Mrs. Hegeman. I never in a million years thought I’d be able to say Emerson and I had the same kindergarten teacher! It fills my mom heart to see her skip down those halls and into her classroom every morning and up to this point I still get a big hug before she leaves me to start her...

Christmas (2015) in July

13 July 2016 Emerson, Family

Here I am, wondering how I’ll ever get this blog caught up after a nearly year-long pause…. what better place to start than Christmas? Now that we’re well over 6 months past the holidays, the stress has been forgotten and the amazingness has lingered. This past year was especially great as we got the one thing we wanted but the last thing we expected…. my sister. My dad seamlessly pulled off the surprise of a lifetime. After a lot of deliberation Jory had decided she wouldn’t make it home from North Carolina for Christmas. This would be a first and our spirits were low. Little did we know she and my dad...

TK: School Pride

28 September 2015 Emerson

September has left me feeling overwhelmed and unorganized in the midst of change and yet blissfully happy at the same time. So many proud mom moments already since my wild thing turned five earlier in the month. Exactly one week before her birthday was the first day of school or what I like to call “When we got our groove back.” Emerson’s excitement over going to school has been contagious and I definitely feel as though she’s in exactly the right place this school year. We finally have the structure that we’ve both been craving but didn’t have the willpower to enforce on ourselves. I’ve discovered a deep sense of satisfaction in packing E’s lunch,...

Summer Re-wind

6 August 2015 Emerson

When your car breaks down while you’re in Iowa City for a wedding and you’re stranded for at least an extra day what happens? You’re forced to slow down, realize it’s August, become nostalgic about your summer and possibly even update your blog. I’m going back-in-time for a summer re-wind to catch this thing up on some of the highlights over the past few months and also to capture everything we’d still like to do before the end of the summer. We’ve had some memorable visits to the Memorial Park splash pad this summer including several birthday parties and also many trips just because it was too hot to do anything else. One...