Settling In!

We are starting to feel like we are getting settled in to our new life in Kansas. The girls love their school, Mark and I are being trusted more at work (aka we are way busy), we are loving seeing "old" friends more often, also loving meeting new friends, trying to spend as much time as possible outside before the Kansas summer hits and stalking real estate websites!

Mother's Day weekend was extra special as JuJu & Poppy were here for a long weekend on their drive back to Illinois!!! The girls were in hog heaven with our guests. We even bought a new guest bed before they arrived so hopefully that will help convince them to come back ;).

Juliet really likes to take off her diaper and all clothing. She also really loves to wear underwear. She just can't hasn't mastered what to do without a diaper so we have been cleaning up a lot of messes this past month. I feel like we have a puppy.

Juliet took her first class at the Art Center. There was a water table in the room and a playground out back so she was pretty uninterested in doing art.

Their first Raintree school pictures!  Sweet Juliet won't walk in her classroom, she will only run. She get so excited she has to run anywhere she goes. When I pick her up in that short time I'm there I hear her teachers calmly, "walk Juliet" at least five times. Well one day she was doing her normal run, tripped and hit her poor little face right on the corner of a book shelf. She didn't learn her lesson BUT she does occasionally walk and her teachers get SO excited.

I wasn't smart enough to figure out the sibling schedule for pictures and didn't realize Amelia was getting her picture taken the same day as Juliet. i thought she was getting hers the next day and had already talked ot her about picking out a cute outfit.  I suppose in the long run I will love this picture more as it is 100% Amelia with a mismatched all purple outfit on and a random hair accessory.

It only took us girls three days to eat this whole bag of popcorn :)

We knew we would love living buy my mom and sister. But we miss the Lang family a lot. I sure wish there was a way to get all our family to pick one town and all live in :).

On Mother's Day I actually got the girls to actually wear cute dresses. Since Mark was doing all the cooking/grilling I just got to play outside with the girls.  Juliet's dress lasted for about 10 minutes then she was back to herself. Given that we are still renting I do hope we don't get kicked out for naked girls outside our unit ALL the time (perhaps that is because we live in a college town). This would be totally fine in your own backyard but plenty of people walk by our unit. Most of the smile so hopefully that means they aren't complaining to management.

And Amelia was being SUPER cooperative and let me take her picture. Amelia especially is really loving Raintree. She plays school most of the time she is at home and constantly wants someone to write letters, sound out words, do simple math additions, talk about her friends, etc. I think she has officially outgrown naps which I candidly was dreading. It does make for a good buddy to run errands with. I have her now hooked on having to go by the coffee shop before we can do too many errands. She just sits in the back and chats the ENTIRE time. 

Our sweet girls really have such a good time together. For the most part they are so sweet to each other. Juliet adores Amelia and wants to do whatever she is doing (hence the matching pig tails). Amelia (most of the time) loves helping Juliet out and mothering (aka bossing) her. Amelia is very into mom right now and to say Juliet is into her daddy is a complete understatement. I can't even get her out of her crib in the morning as she will just lay back down and ask for Dada :(. The nights I put Juliet to bed and Mark puts Amelia to bed you would think we were torturing them with how much they both fight it. The torture is worth it so I can get Juliet snuggles and Mark can get Amelia snuggles.

Happy 2nd Birthday Juliet!

Our little firecracker is two!!! And oh man is she a two-year old... Any given thirty minutes with Juliet can look like this; she tries to communicate something to us and we don't understand, she tries to do something for herself she hasn't yet mastered and struggles to get it done, she loses it, she flails herself on the ground, we try to talk to her and she loses it even more, we try ignoring her and the tantrum doesn't stop, her anger boils over, she kicks Amelia, she hits us, she throws whatever she gets her hands on, then the tantrum lessens in intensity, Amelia starts whining, we look at each other like today may be the day we totally lose it, we take a moment to sit on the couch and collect ourselves, little Juliet comes to join us, she gives us the most amazing/messy/sincere/full body hug you could imagine and in an instant we have forgotten the past thirty minutes and our hearts are melting. That is Juliet! In one moment she has you pulling your hair out and the next she is lighting up a room with her grin.

Juliet -  Keep being yourself! We will try our hardest to hold on tight to the parenting Juliet ride as long as you keep those grins and hugs coming! Fair deal?

Just give me time, I will eventually get it.

You want to tell her she didn't quite get it all on correctly?

I'm cute right now but really I'm just thinking about what I can do next.

Coloring outside the lines.

Charming Papa. And eating all his breakfast. Juliet still loves being fed. She will eat your entire dinner if you feed it to it to her.

Her birthday cake made by EE with love.

It's my birthday so if I want to pick at the frosting on the whole cake I most certainly will. 

What seems to be a classic moment these days; Amelia whining, Mark looking like he may lose it (we take turns playing this role), me smiling like this is of course how I envisioned having two young children and Juliet with an expression, "I didn't contribute to any of this."

The girls calming down after birthday cake. Amelia is such a great big sister to Juliet and was so happy to show Juliet the ropes on her birthday. Amelia helped her open her gifts, got excited for Juliet for each gift she got, told her when to blow out her candles and couldn't have been sweeter to her little sister.

Our little firecracker enjoying a warm spring day, meatballs from Basil Leaf,  covering the front steps in chalk with her sister and getting read to cheer on the Jayhawks in the Big 12 tournament!

Snow Day!

Blizzard of 2013, Blizzard of Oz, whatever you want to call it we sure were socked in! The timing was a bit hard as Mark was scheduled to start a four day deposition on Thursday morning at 7:30. We woke up Thursday morning to no snow but after looking at the weather report decided it would be silly for Mark to drive into KC. With our prisoner Mark tucked away in our bedroom with his phone, computer and view of the falling snow we went about enjoying what turned into a few snow days.... EE came over in the morning just as the snow was getting bad and with GranAnn living just a couple minutes walk away we had plenty of company.

Merrill and I headed out with the girls when the snow was still falling at a rate of 2"/minute. It was a little too much wind and heavy snow for the girls to enjoy it.

We spent the rest of the morning baking cookies.

The girls are so cute to each other when they are doing things they know they aren't supposed to be doing... Like when my mom caught them sitting on a pillow under our island and eating all the leftover cookie sprinkles. And Amelia was so excited to get to take daddy a plate of cookies.

Once Amelia showed us that there was no way she was napping, the two of us headed out to shovel the driveway. Amelia was in heaven with the deep snow, still falling flurries and all the neighbors who couldn't stop telling her how cute she is and what a great help she was shoveling.

After clearing our driveway we went to help GranAnn....

By Friday morning the sky was clear, roads were still packed, daycare still closed, Mark still locked in our room and the snow waiting to be played on. The girls started to get more into sledding and playing in the snow. Amelia of course knew well in advance that her favorite part of playing in the snow was hot chocolate (and homemade cookies) after coming inside. 

And maybe the most exciting part of the blizzard was when on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon Mark got a break from the deposition. Sweet Amelia kept asking when  her daddy would be done working so he could play outside with her (he IS way more fun than I am). So fun dad helped Amelia build her first snowman and was a total trooper getting the girls up and down the "hill" so they could sled their hearts away....

The mound outside of our place is the perfect size "hill" for little girls!

Daddy and his girls!

Been a Bit Busy

Since my last post a LOT has happened in the Lang household. My head is spinning a bit slower now so I think the order goes something like this; we got an okay offer on our condo and decided to accept it, Mark was offered an exciting job in Kansas City, Dad/Merrill came to Chicago for Thanksgiving, Amelia turned four with a purple themed party, Mark accepted the offer and settled on a January 2nd start date, I quite my job, the girls had their last show at Rainforest, I got a job offer in Lawrence, the moving logistics got sorted out, we found a short term rental in Lawrence, Mark quit his job, we boxed up our condo, the girls baked Christmas cookies with their cousins and JuJu, Poppy/JuJu/GranAnn were all in Chicago for Christmas, we said a lot of painful good byes in Chicago, the moving truck came and loaded our condo, with GranAnn's help we made the drive to Kansas, we celebrated New Years with EE, our stuff arrived in Lawrence, Mark started his new job, we settled into our rental townhouse and Amelia started her new preschool. This coming week we will transition Juliet into her new daycare until a spot opens up for her at Raintree where Amelia is. Then on the 21st I will start my new job! And during all this and going forward I will continue stalking realtor websites in the hopes that our new house comes on the market!

I have never used the term bittersweet more than in the past month. We left family but are closer to other family. We left the best friends anyone could hope for but moved to closer to equally wonderful friends. We left the only home the girls have known and the only life they have known but are staying strong and helping them understand what we gained in our new home and new life. We left runs along Lake Michigan for runs that don't involve going through Uptown. We left stable jobs for new exciting ones. We left a vibrant urban center but gained the horizon. We left the city that was the backdrop to a decade of memories between Mark and I but gained a town special to us both. We left Mark's home but gained KU basketball. I could go on and on. We are still in a bit of a cultural shock which isn't a good thing or a bad thing but just part of adjusting. I can't always allow myself to accept that we actually moved away from Chicago and like our good friend Katie said, "I'm just going to pretend like you are on vacation." I still am in a bit of denial and feel like we are just on vacation away from Chicago. Deep down I do know that we made the right decision for our family and this phase of our life but it will for quite a bit longer remain very bittersweet.

Here is a photo dump of life since our last posting....

Halloween 2012 - Girl Power

Amelia decided this year that her and Juliet should both be Supermen. It was a busy day between getting to wear costumes to daycare, a costume parade in the morning, a costume fashion show after nap and of course trick-or-treating in the evening.

Ready for daycare.

Little Superman fueling up on Cheerios.

Dragonfly, Spiderman and Superman planning their day.

Juliet walking the catwalk at the daycare costume party

Amelia was ready to hit the streets for trick-or-treating. She clearly is old enough to remember past years now so she knew what she needed to do to fill her pumpkin with candy. 

ready to go!

Amelia is a trick-or-treating master. She said Happy Halloween, please AND thank you at every house I  could listen in on. She wasted no time running between houses. In fact I couldn't get her stop long enough to pose for a picture with Sophia.

Juliet sans-cape. No clue what happened to it. She rode in her stroller for the first couple of houses and then quickly caught on and HAD to do what the big girls were doing. She would climb up each set of steps and stand there with a huge smile waiting for her treats. She wouldn't put them in her pumpkin so she walked up and down the sidewalk with her little fists full of candy.   

Backlund Family Rebellion

Thank you SO much to everyone who organized, brought food and thought of the idea to meet up in the Dells. The Wisconsin Dells are half way between Chicago and Minnesota so it was a perfect place for a Backlund Family Rebellion. I think next time we have to make a point to get a family photo so while so many of the family is unaccounted for in these photos we had an amazing weekend with everyone! I didn't get any photos actually in the waterparks but hopefully I will get some from others.

Well most of the photos I got were of Juliet because she wasn't quite old enough to keep up with the other kiddos. It worked out pretty well for her as she got spoiled by the whole family. Luckily for Juliet, JuJu is always willing to spoil her. This time it was reading Good Night Moon a bunch of times.

When JuJu had had enough of Good Night Moon, Juliet moved on to Aunt Amy.  Folks can't resist the baby of the family.

Then she moved on to Nana Gayle for a nice conversation over pizza.

We did manage to get all the girls together for a photo. Amelia, Ellie, Juliet, Georgia and Lulu after an exhausting day at the waterpark. With Juliet's hair getting lighter, Amelia is currently the only Backlund baby to be sans-blond. Those Swedish genes are pretty strong.

She tried so hard to keep up with the big kids....

and this is why we didn't pictures of kiddos other than Juliet. They were running to who knows where the entire time we were there. Nine kiddos under the age of ten (I think that is how old Dylan is) make for a fun, wild and EXHAUSTING weekend!

Girlfriends

This fall we have gotten lots of QT with girlfriends. Just when Mark didn't think he had enough ladies around we got to spend back to back to back weekends with the Meyer ladies, Mills and Ms. Hand! Maybe next time you ladies can plan your trips for the same weekend!!!

Amelia, Greta and Norah enjoying a picture perfect fall Sunday at the park.

We don't get to see Mills NEARLY enough so by bathing the girls together we got a  little bit more time for Penny's, wine and a very missed Chicago friend!

How many Kansas girls can fit into a tiny Chicago bathroom?

Seriously, putting your kids in the bath together is the best way to prolong a  fun night.

A posting about girlfriends would not be complete without a pic of Amelia's BFF Sophia. This was taken during their preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch. They appear to be having a serious discussion about the 2012 election.