Finished with birthdays...for now!

The big day came and it went, Quinn is now 4!!! She had a great day and loved all of her presents, even though she couldn't remember, when asked, what exactly it was that she got! Thanks to all who sent cards and gifts, she loved them all and really enjoyed, I think, spreading out her birthday surprises! Quinn was also happy that her "best friend", Connor, was able to attend the festivities! Next on the docket...October birthdays!

Dogs and birds, birds and dogs...

This past week we've had some pretty interesting animal encounters. First, last Weds. evening as we are rushing to get Owen home from school and off to soccer practice, this little blue jay decides to check us out...literally! This bird was practically in the van! Then he flew over to the deck railing where he couldn't have been more than a foot away from me! Gavin reached out his finger to touch the bird and it pecked at him like he was a worm. This funny little thing stuck around for awhile, unfortunately, we were not able to stop for long and play because we were on the run!

Then, this morning I was standing at my kitchen sink drinking a cup of chai when this little brown dachshund appears along the neighbors fence line. I had never seen this kind of dog in our neighborhood before so I figured he was lost, and also that something was up with him because he kept bumping into the wire fence. We brought him inside and he was the nicest fellow. Not one bark, not on the furniture, tolerated the kids...perhaps a message to us from higher powers that we needed an animal? I called all of the appropriate authorities, went out and bought him a can of food and came home to a message from his owner. Aparently, "Bubba", who is blind...was forgotten about when she let her other dogs out this morning. The kicker...he lives across the street from us! The only house that I don't know who the neighbors are. In fact, if I didn't see the mailman delivering mail there on a regular basis, I wouldn't have thought anyone lived there. Small world...and perhaps a sign that we are not meant to have a pet?...yet!

Go Brewers!

This last Tuesday, James and I took the our "boys" (including Curtiss) to a Brewer Game courtesy of BBBS. It was a good time, a first for Curtiss, and we got to do some different stuff. James took us early so that we could experience batting practice! The boys thought it was neat and all three of them got autographs from one of the Pirate players (specifically, Freddy Sanchez). Then we ate and took our seats in the usual location, nose bleeds, which were along the third base line. The game started out well with the Brewers taking the lead in the first 2 innings and then it went downhill. We stayed long enough to see the Oscar Meyer Weiner Race but then hit the road because it was a school night. As we pulled into Manitowoc, the Prince Fielder hit a 2 run homer to win the game! Bummer that we missed it but a fun evening just the same!

We would like to wish the Brewers luck now that they have won their seat in the playoffs! Go Brew Crew!!!

Race day and Birthday all in one!

Today we did a lot of celebrating! First, James completed his first 1/2 marathon in something like 1 hour 50 minutes 18 seconds! The conditions couldn't have been better: 60-65 degrees, slightly overcast, no wind and lots of fans! He was really pleased with his time and we all are super proud of him! Thanks to all who phoned in their support and took time out to attended the event, it really meant a lot to our family! For more on the race and video clips see our running blog...


From there it was on to C.E.C.'S, for the princesses birthday! She had a wonderful time playing lots of games, winning lots of tickets and eating pizza! Quinn even got a picture with the mouse himself! Special recognition and thanks needs to go to Aunt Janie who saved the day and won like a million tickets so that Quinn could get the prizes "she really, really wanted"! I believe a good time was had by all and everyone went home tired!

Beaches, school, flowers and Birthdays!

We spent labor day weekend in Two Rivers enjoying a day at the beach and a sky full of kites. I didn't get many pictures of the beach because the batteries in my camera died, however, I know that mom got a ton which are posted on her flicker.


From the beach we went to the first day of school. The day itself went well, and the boys are adjusted and I think having a good year so far. Owen has Mr. Lehman for 4th grade and Gavin has Mrs. Cavanaugh for 2nd grade. Quinn was very sad when all of her 4 year old friends moved on to 4K, but because her birthday falls at the end of September she didn't make the cut off for her age. Oh well, I think that I will be happy she is a little older for her class someday. For now I have to try to find things to occupy her and keep her busy. The whole "Connor, the next door neighbor" is working out better than I thought!

Speaking of Quinn, her flowers finally bloomed and we have had fun watching the bees visit them on a regular basis. I am not sure how you harvest sunflower seeds, but we will try once the plants dry out a little more.


As everyone knows, Quinn's birthday is coming up(not as soon as she would like). Since Aunt Meg sent her birthday gift early, Quinn decided she couldn't wait and wanted to spread out the celebrating, so she opened her gift! She had a wonderful time trying on each dress and will look fabulous in the spring! Thanks Aunt Meg and Uncle Matt! The next big celebration takes place on Saturday where we are meeting up with the Maurer's and Seilers and going to Chuck E. Cheese. Wahoo!

My apologies!!!

I was just looking at our blog and noticed that I haven't published the recent work we've done on the attic. OOPS, I had taken photos but never put them up! Big sorry to those who diligently are watching our progress...
Technically we haven't done that much. James and I finished insulating last week (Hallelujah), and have begun hanging more drywall. Many thanks to Dad and Devon who helped us get it upstairs! For Labor Day I think we will be hanging even more drywall as that is the point we are at. I can tell you that it is not our favorite part of the process, especially since there is not one wall in our blessed home which is square! Even more dreaded is the mudding and sanding which comes next...ugh.

End of summer fun!

Here is the update for everyone on "the flowers" progress. I would also like to introduce, Connor, our new neighbor and Quinn's friend. As you can see both children and flower are growing like weeds and having fun to boot!

James and I finally hung our hammock that we received from Brooke and Jay years ago from their adventures in Mexico. It's already had a hole(which I was able to I sort of fix)! Ahhh the joys of having children! In any case all of us, even the neighbor..., are really enjoying it and have put it to good use!

In case you don't watch our running blog, we recently participated in a fun run with Lauren! It was a fun...but also an exhausting 5 miles along the lake shore! All three of us completed it with smiles on our faces and sweat down our backs. In other news, James is running the US Cellular Half Marathon taking place on Sept. 21st! So keep him in your thoughts!

Summer updates...

Summer is in full swing here, and with only one month to go before school starts, we have tons of things left to do. I wanted to quickly update everyone with some of the recent photos we have taken, accounting for some of our activities.

First, here is Quinn with her garden project. After planting seeds for a second time, we finally had some success and she now has something to show for her work. This is how big her plants are today, and with any luck they will only get bigger!

Owen completed his second summer of baseball. This year he was in a new league (sponsors were the Bandits) where they had pitchers instead of a pitching machine. He mostly played short stop and, all things considered ,played pretty well for his first year with real pitching. I believe the team went 7-9 which says a lot since most of the players on the team were 1st year players. James, as coach, was really proud of his boys and expects them to get even better as they become more seasoned! This is Owen on the field with the big "Bandits" at a recent home game, to celebrate the end of the season. I know you can't see him well, but they had a really good time!


July was a busy month, between holidays with the D's, anniversary parties in Indiana, birthdays and a trip to Devil's Lake in Baraboo we kept very busy. This is us at Devil's Lake. We did some geocaching along the north shore and had to climb some rock walls to get to our destination. Quinn amazed us by climbing the entire way herself! Stubborn and headstrong...I wonder where she gets that from!



Work on the attic is still underway. We finished the knee wall on the east side of the house and framed in a closet. Construction is at a stand still for the moment,until we can find some money to buy more supplies, but slowly the room is taking form.

Flood @ Mom and Dad's

Took these movies the day we left for Jon's cabin in June. We had had record rainfall the previous few days and this was the result. Mom and dad were not home to see it all and at first glimps, we figured the swing was gone. But, we were wrong! The swing still stands...barely! (the images were captured with my cell phone so the quality is not the best, but you get the picture...)

Phase 2 Done

The second phase of our attic project was completed this past week when a local contractor came in and put in new steps into the attic. The old steps required you to duck under the roofline to get into the attic and we wanted to bring the steps up the center of the room-to-be. At the same time, they installed a roof cap which was needed to vent hot air since we have insulated the entire third floor.


The framing for the new stairway took a chunk out of the corner of the boys' current room but was a lot less intrusive than we imagined. We're not sure if we're going to make it a closet or a desk area, but we have a lot more space remaining than we expected.


Next up is more drywalling and wiring and heating and cooling and insulating... point being, still a long ways to go.

More attic progress!

We came home from our relaxing week at Jon's in Minnesota and dove directly into our next projects in the attic. Feeling refreshed we decided to begin putting up drywall along the north wall. As you can see, this is us putting up the first piece. From there we spent the rest of the day struggling to get corners and angles to line up(ya gotta love crooked old houses!!!)! Then it was onto the west wall and ceiling. James did most of the drywall stuff while Owen and I put up the vapor barrier and Gavin and Quinn helped to clean up with the vacuum and pass daddy screws. The kids were there to support us the entire time and after a long day, 10 pieces of drywall were cut up and installed!

This past weekend we hung the lights and wired for electricity! James was really pleased when the lights all went on and the outlets all worked on the first try. He must be getting good(...don't worry, I won't let it go to his head!)

We got word that our contractor will hopefully be coming sometime this week to put in our roof vents and stairs! Please keep your fingers crossed that they come because we are pretty much done with projects that we can do until the stairs are in. I will keep you all posted as work progresses.

He's not 40 yet!

Happy Birthday, James! The end of May brought another year to an end for James! I think he still looks pretty good, he's 24 lbs. lighter and is on the right track for the rest of his life. We were joined by mom, dad, Devon, the Seiler's, and the Maurer's for his cake at the end of the day, and might I say the funny cards started to make their apperances. Jane took the prize for the funniest with the Maurer's in a close second! The boys and I surprised him with singing and a little cake at Charcoal Grille the day after his birthday...long story why that is, but I think all in all he had a good time!

Enjoy my tree with me!

Look at how "beautiful" our flowering crab apple tree is this year! It has not been this lovely for a few years. Unfortunately what happens is that it blooms during torrential rainstorms in the spring and looses all of it's petals before we have a chance to enjoy it. Since it is pretty dry around here this year, we have really been able to watch it come alive and smell the wonderful fragrances it is putting out! Wish you could be here to enjoy it with us!

And the rest...

That sums up what has been going on with us. I went to New York in early April with Mom for a few days. Photos of that trip are available on her flicker account. We went to the Kalahari with the Vater's and Seiler's right after that for a weekend! Great fun and we had the special treat of having Chris and Rob there to join us.

Baseball has started and the Bandit's are 2-0 so far. Owen is in soccer and baseball and Gavin has chosen to just persue soccer this year (thank goodness, less running!). James and I are running semi-daily and are thinking of running together in the 1/2 marathon in Appleton this fall. We shall see how training goes this summer.

Excitement is building for the Jon's Cabin weekend. Not many are going to be attending the annual trip this year so it will be fairly quiet which is something of a change for this family. We are praying for good weather and less wind this year! Please keep your fingers crossed.

We are also ready and excited to travel to Washington this fall to celebrate Rob and Ashley's wedding. Should be a fun adventure! It is our hope that it won't be too cold and we can get some Geocaching in in some of the larger state parks around Seattle and Bellingham.

A garden for our girl

Quinn has started a garden and wants us to keep a record of how her plants are growing so here she is with the start of her little garden. We will see if the seeds we planted will do anything. The white sticks are markers to show us where we put the seeds. See if you can guess what we planted...

Project: attic

As many of you know, our ever ongoing house project list currently is headed by our attic project. The attic, which is the entire third story of our house, is under construction in preparation to become the boys new sanctuary. We have got the majority of the insulating done, windows installed on the north and south ends, half of the knee wall in place and have started running the electrical. Right now we are at a standstill until a construction company that we hired can come and put in roof vents and help us to frame out and install a new stairway into the room (probably in late June, early July). Slowly but surely it is coming together and the boys excitement builds with the completion of each phase, especially when they are allowed to help! Like the Milana's, we are at the mercy of money and time so this project seems to be taking forever. I am sure that in the end we will be happy for the extra space!

Quinn's newest chair turns into an educating lesson

Grandma Maurer (or mom) recently gifted us by passing on this family heirloom. It is a "butterboat", which was used by her mother and grandmother. A butter boat is a dish that was used to "slap" and then store butter in once it was churned. I had to look up the purpose for a butterboat and found that turning milk into proper butter didn't end after the churning. Apparently the buttermilk separated from the butterfat has to be rinsed out. This will improve texture and flavor, and also help the butter keep well, since milk turns rancid more quickly than fat alone. Salt is usually mixed in for flavor and preservation. The rinsing could be done simply by washing in water, followed by draining, salting and working or "kneading" the butter with a pair of wooden butter hands or with bare hands. The wooden bowl was used by Yorkshire butter-makers to hold the butter while they "clashed" it - prepared it by hand. In any case, our butterboat is lovely and a great new accessory for our house!

Quinn has decided our butterboat is the perfect size to kick back and watch TV in and is now in the habit of frequently parking in the middle of the living room to view her favorite shows.

Time for teeth!

We have hit several milestones in the tooth department at the Maurer household.

First, Owen has begun his orthodontic treatment! Here you see him getting ready to get his palate spreader, more commonly known as a space maintainer. He now has more spit than you can imagine and talks with somewhat of a slur when he says some words. I keep reminding him that it will all work to his benefit in the future, he tends to be a little self conscious of his "horse teeth" at the moment. With any luck he will end up with a winning smile, just like his lovely mother!

Gavin lost his first and second teeth! Both of his lower central incisors came out within the span of 3-4 days. He was thrilled with his take from the tooth fairy and has since spent the money! Here he is at his birthday where you can just see the tiny hole that has yet to be filled in by some large teeth (I am only guessing since Owen seems to have some pretty large chompers in his mouth)!

Quinn has also taken some major steps toward better oral health. She visited the dentist and had her teeth cleaned for the first time and pleased the hygienist greatly in that she was a pretty good patient and sat fairly still for a 3yr old!

We also visited the G's

Somewhere in the past months, we also visited the G's! It was a fun overnight filled with car repairs (I put a new hubcap on Grandma's car), cleaning, games, bass fishing, church and visiting. Heck, James even lapped the house 8 or 9 times as we cheered him on! It was exceptionally fun because we were able to get both Grams and Gramps out of the house for church and then pizza! Not to be outdone by a restaurant, Grandma also put on a spread to feed a king before we came home and the kids enjoyed one of her over the top cakes! I came home about 3lbs. heavier from all of the hospitality! Can't wait for the next visit!

An attempt to recap...

As you all can see, we have been neglecting our blog for some time now. It is not as though things are not happening in Maurer-ville, in fact so much has happened that I will have to be brief so that this doesn't take me all afternoon!

I suppose I should start after our last update. Owen, Gavin and I (Jen) have all crossed our yearly birthday markers. Owen is now 9, I am now 30-something, and Gavin is 7. Although I didn't do much more than work on my birthday, the boys had a shared birthday party where they got to invite friends to an afternoon at the movies. We watched "Star Wars: A new hope" for the first time together on the big screen and thoroughly enjoyed it! The Seilers, Kate and Devon joined us as well for soda, popcorn, pizza, and cake. As you can sort of see, Liam enjoyed it so much he fell asleep! This party was great because I had no clean up and came home to no mess! I would recommend it to everyone!