wautoma 2012

the annual wautoma post is here!  for a little look back click here or here. note to self: go back and finish 2011.  the littles officially outnumber the grown ups now and we are ever-so-grateful to have had everyone able to join us this summer.  last year matt's parents put on a beautiful addition to the cabin and we feel so thankful to have the opportunity to take over the joint for one weekend every year.  thanks, k & k!  there is an obscenely long video at the end, so I'll keep the words to a minimum and let the pictures speak for themselves. this year's highlights include:
happy travelers- our three boys were top notch riders. minus a diaper change that warranted an entire wardrobe change for the peanut on our way home, we made it there and back with nary a tear. success.

delicious food - as per our becker family vacations, this year we switched things up and everyone served an entire meal. it's fun to see what everyone comes up with and it makes it so you only have to prep/clean-up one major meal all weekend!

swimming - the air temperature was to.die.for all weekend, subsequently making the water temperature almost unbearable.  the dads were nominated to take the munchkins swimming (you're welcome honey!) and they weren't exactly pleased, but I'm certain that the smiles on the wee ones' faces almost made up for the near hypothermia.

boat rides - the cabin/cottage/lake home (choose your fave) is located on a small no-wake lake in the middle of wisconsin.  as long as the christian camp is not in session, it is super quiet and very peaceful. it also means there is no water skiing, tubing, wake boarding, or speed boats for that matter.  we are all still able to ride on the pontoon together and go for a nice early morning breakfast cruise or pre-dinner turtle watching excursion. a special thank you to the parents who took all the walking/talking tots out for a ride while the rest of us packed up the cars. amazing what can be accomplished when there are no interruptions lovely little ones running around.

optional: actual boat movement


nature hikes - [nerdy teacher alert] I arranged for the little guys to go out on a nature walk to collect special things that could fit in their bags. my teacher voice came on full force as I passed out each labeled bag and gave directions for what should and shouldn't go into their sack. after being out of the classroom since april and not headed back for another year, I was pleasantly surprised that I still had "it" - woo hoo!  alas, a little dinner bell was being rung by my favorite four month old and so I handed over my teacher duties to matt, sarah, and shawn. sarah clearly took her teacher role quite seriously...I'm so proud.  after a little post-walk-we-saw-poison-ivy, hand washing session and some dinner, I took the six oldest out to the deck for craft time.  they all listened and followed directions marvelously...except my own two. isn't that the way it always goes? argh.  the end products turned out more adorable than I could've imagined and, more importantly, they were all so proud of themselves!

slightly insane parents - eight adults, nine kids, need I say more?

binocular story: sarah is taking her turn checking out the man who is fishing out in the middle of the lake in a small boat with two other guys. why is this a sight you ask? he is wearing nothing more than a speedo swim suit. oh and nice of him to stand up and put one foot on the edge of the boat for all to see. I mean, one wouldn't want to get tan lines whilst catching their dinner now would they?

family shots - we somehow got away without a bansemar family photo...how did I allow such nonsense?


trios
we managed to have nine kidlets in little bundles of three and each trio just happens to have one odd gender.  ironic...you'd almost think we planned it that way.  here are just a few of the many attempts at a group shot with each set.
the babies

the middle ones

the big kids

adorable children - and now for one of my favorites of each little in order from oldest to youngest.

in lieu of an entire group shot, here is one of all NINE munchkins sitting still and facing forward (notice I did not say smiling...we don't profess to perform miracles here folks).

and just in case the barrage of photos above are not enough for you, here is a little video I threw together.

Wautoma 2012 from robin kroening on Vimeo.

kissing cousins

eli and reece are 15 days apart.

I can't wait to watch their relationship grow.

p.s. the caption possibilities on this one are endless!

summer begins

with such an unseasonably warm spring, it feels as though summer began weeks ago.  but it's finally june and we are ready to go out and enjoy all that summer has to offer.

first on our checklist?  the park.
miles and henry LOVE walking to the park.  this summer they have decided that walking is much too slow, so we thought we would let them try riding their bikes.  miles' bike is so new that it barely has a speck of dirt on the tires and henry's is so old that the back tire is barely inflated.  oh well...we were off!

reece snoozed on the ride over, but opened those big baby blues as soon as we rumbled onto the wood chips.

henry is still our little daredevil. usually we are forced to hold our breaths as we let him try (most) new thing, despite our parental instinct to run and catch him along the way.

all four little legs pedaled their way back home and we rewarded them with their favorite: a "jooth boxth"


next up? tools.
the big boys strapped on their tool belts and joined daddy on his quest to finish siding the garage.  and by "their tool belts" I really mean their cousin's tool belt.  note to santa - these boys need tool belts (not tools).

even little reece got in on the fun.


baseball
I have been going to the watch our local team, the honkers, ever since my college days. back then my bff, laurie, and I would party it up intently watch the game on the sports deck. in our defense, it's not exactly the environment that encourages you to watch every play or any play for that matter. EXHIBIT A: the admission price gets you all the food and drinks you can handle EXHIBIT B: there are only a smattering of seats from which to see the game EXHIBIT C: you get all the food and drinks you want. need I say more. it was the perfect place for two friends to soak up summer and have a little fun. back to reality...these days we try to make it to a handful of games each year and (thanks to my generous dad) we usually are spoiled by having tickets to the luxury box. but when we received some free general admission tickets, we thought "why not?" the weatherman had forecast storms for later in the evening - around 9 or 10pm. perfect. that about maxes out our attention spans anyway. we parked about a mile from the stadium. kyle will balk at my judgement of distance, but you'll feel my pain soon enough. I loaded little reece up in the front pack and we set off. the company who gave us the tickets was also gracious enough to serve up a little complimentary hot dog/chip dinner outside of the stadium. we were there right as they were about to throw out the first pitch, so we had to shove our food in eat quickly before entering the game - "no outside food or drink allowed" - of course. we found our way to the third row, right behind home plate (yeah, it's not usually hard to get a decent seat), and watched no more than half an inning before the boys declared they were starving. kyle returned with...wait for it...another trio of hotdogs. he says he froze when he got to the counter and ordered the default (with no napkins, of course).  about ten minutes later we noticed the umps and coaches meeting out on the field. the announcer tells us they are going to see if the lightening moves out before continuing. lightening? yeah, we're out.

we quickly load up and then turn to go down the ramp when I lay my eyes on a giant black wall of clouds. it could've been a wall cloud, I'm no meteorologist. but, I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that debris was literally flying through the air. it was a total wizard of oz moment. all we needed was for the wicked witch of the west to pedal by. the skies were black and those big ol' giant rain drops were beginning to fall a little harder and a little faster. all I knew is that we needed to get our little family of five to safety. I grabbed on to miles' hand and covered reece's head, kyle clutched the hot dogs and little henry's hand, and we began an awkward two-year-old-in-flip-flops run/walk to our car with about 300 other people. [on a side note: having had a c-section mere weeks earlier I did not have "running with a baby strapped to my chest" on the to-do list. let's be honest, exercise hasn't even returned to my vocabulary.] we huffed and puffed our way toward the van. we had one last street to cross when the skies opened up and we were officially drenched. we threw everyone into their car seats and then kyle and I looked at each other and started to laugh. seriously. it wasn't funny, but it kinda was. we got pelted with hail on our drive home and were relieved to pull into the garage. [insert my lack of love for a detached garage here] my wonderful hubby made four trips with the umbrella to get us in as dry as possible.

so much for our first game. I guess we'll have to try another night...preferably when the forecast looks crystal clear.

finally: the toy bar and tummy time
loving the first...

...loathing the second. can you really blame him? I always feel so bad for the little ones when they are trying to get the hang of tummy time. the talking bubble would most certainly read: "seriously? turn me over."


there is a LOT of summer left and we are ready to enjoy every moment.  for now I leave you with this:
"say cheese!"

yeppers. it's a good one.