Miss Independent

I have one independent little girl on my hands.  Every morning Liv INSISTS on choosing her own clothes, doing her own hair, getting her own breakfast and everything else in between.  I've been meaning to start documenting her outfits and hairdo's, but have forgotten until today.

This was her creation today.  I've tried to explain to her about patterns/prints and which colors go together, but she's 5 and thinks everything is great.  And she spent a long time on her hair this morning. She called it "the twisties".

32 foot slide

We found a new park this afternoon.  It had a 32 foot slide.  It was lots of fun!

The kids got going pretty fast and the end would shoot them out really far.

I even took a turn :)

We finished off the afternoon with a little picnic and enjoyed a few other toys at the park.  Cole loved this spiny one.  I have no idea how he didn't puke because it just spun in circles really fast.

The last year...

4 years for an Undergraduate Degree

4 years for a Medical School Degree

1 year of Pediatric Internship

2 years of Pediatric Residency

2 years of Neonatology Fellowship

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And, that brings us to today

1 last year of Neonatology fellowship left

Add it all together and it has been 13 years. 

That is a long time.

It's weird to think that in a about 10 months we will officially be done.

Done with everything that we set out to do.

I guess it is time to make new goals.

This is about all we have every known.

People always ask Shawn what he is going to do when he gets a “real” job.

We often laugh about this realizing that while technically he doesn’t’ have a “real” job, he has been doing real stuff a long time. 

Real stuff like helping a baby to breath his first breath of life, or telling a mom her baby only has a few more breaths left of life. 

He has resuscitated several drowned children, and stitched up hundreds of kids with cuts and gashes all over their bodies. 

He adjusts and implements life altering medication, fluid, oxygen and gases on children to help their bodies fight illness on a regular basis. 

He teaches lecture rooms full of people (many who are published and well respected professionals in the medicine community).

He puts tubes down babies throats and sticks needles all over their tiny bodies.

He stays up all night flying in helicopters to get sick babies (this one is notable if you understand Shawn's fear of heights and his sensitivity to motion sickness).  

Yes, he actually does “real” work and he is actually pretty amazing at it.

So I think we are ready for the last year.  Bring on the REAL job!

Lake Michigan

We are heading into our last week of summer and it's killing me.  Tonight I was able to snap a few pictures of the kids at the beach.  Hopefully I can look at these pictures in a few months when it is freezing outside and it will make me feel better :)

This beach had lots of fun toys to play on.

We also lucked out and the night before was a sand sculpting competition for the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.  We saw some amazing creations.  

Then we played some more and jump off whatever we could find until the beach closed.

summer video

The other weekend while the kids were running around the lake I remembered that I hadn't taken a video of the kids in a while.  I wish I would remember and take videos more because the kids LOVE to watch them and laugh at themselves.  So, I recorded a few quick videos and put them together in Imovie.  Be warned, this video is very shaky and totally needs lots of work.  But it is my kids and so I love it anyways.

No more training wheels

Tonight my baby learned to ride her big girl bike.  No more training wheels for our family!!!! 

 Liv did such a good job and was so proud of herself.

She even has a new battle wound to show off all her hard work.

The Weekend

This past weekend was nice and relaxing.  The weather has been perfect, mid 70s all week.  We spent lots of time outside and were able to take a trip to one of the lakes here that we love.

We also took the kids to the Urban Ecology Center.  This is a non-profit center that attempts to teach kids and families about nature and science.  We got to take part in the animal feeding class.  We learned about different kinds of animals and feed frogs, fish, and snakes.

We went to the Bayshore Chalk and Art Festival.  There were artist doing chalk drawings all over the road and lots of crafts for the kids to participate in.

We had lots of other fun in between as demonstrated by random pictures below from my phone.