The Baranko Family: 39 Years - What an example!

My parents and Matt's parents both have August 1974 wedding anniversaries, so they both are celebrating 39 years of marriage this month. Congratulations to both of you and thank you for being such wonderful examples! Luke and Claire, take notes, we sure are:)

Sibling love

We were able to celebrate with my parents on their actual anniversary, as we headed up to Wisconsin for the annual family reunion a day early to spend time with them. We spent the day at the Milwaukee County Zoo, then had a wonderful steak dinner at home. The zoo was quite the experience. Luke was being a real handful (read: naughty disobedient toddler), so it was not as exactly as I had imagined our zoo outing in my head. We started with some really unusual and awful traffic getting into the zoo. After an hour of sitting in traffic trying to enter the zoo, we finally were in and then it took about another 90 minutes I'd say before we actually saw one animal. Between multiple trips to the bathroom trying to get Luke to go and him violently resisting yet obviously needing to go, Claire crying because she was hungry, temper tantrums from Luke for various reasons, Claire pooping her pants, Luke pooping his pants, Claire throwing up, Luke trying to climb into the enclosures and getting time out, then all of us needing to eat lunch - we had a bit of a false start for the actual zoo activities. Thank goodness Mom and Dad were good-natured and easy-going about all of it, because it felt a little stressful there for a while. Matt and I are just hopeful that this is not a preview of our trip to Disney World in a few weeks!!!

This is Matt and I after a couple hours of the zoo:

The family reunion was nice. It is in Mazomanie, WI, which is about 3 hours away from our house, which is why it was nice to break up the drive there at least by getting half way there the day before. The reunion is for my grandmother's side of the family, since she was 1 of 16 siblings. With so many siblings, my Dad has a ton of cousins, and we have a ton of second and third cousins. This is a picture of my Dad and his first cousins - just the ones that happened to make it to the reunion this year - there's even more!

Here are a few updates from the week:

- Luke has learned how to throw a Frisbee, and he's really pretty good! He can throw it really far, I am quite impressed. Catching it is not as developed of a skill, yet. He instructs me on how to catch his throws though, "Momma, put one hand out and one hand by your side and catch the Frisbee." Yes, sir.
- It was the annual "Lake Forest Day" in our town, which meant a mid-week carnival for Luke. He is old enough to ride a lot of the rides now, and he had an amazing time. We went on Tuesday night and it ended up absolutely pouring so we spent a bunch of time huddled underneath one umbrella (all 4 of us) trying to wait it out so we could use up our tickets we bought. He ended up going on a few rides, grinning from ear to ear with happiness, and when we were driving home he declared "That was fun!" without us inquiring.
- Potty traning is still sticking. Pooping and night time are still the development areas (as we say at work about things that aren't going as we'd like). On the 75 minute trip up to Mom and Dad's house, which was really Luke's first real car trip not in a diaper, we stopped for Luke to go three separate times. The first time he claimed he had to poop, so we stopped at a gas station. Matt got him out, got him in the bathroom, got the little disposable cover thing out for the public toilet seat, got Luke situated on it - you know where this is going - and Luke strains to go a little and then announces "Nothing!". What?! So the second and third time he said he had to go, we literally stopped on an off ramp and he peed into the grass on the side of the road. Is that wrong of us? Matt was speculating on if this approach would work for Claire, too, when the time comes.

Pictures from all the activities:

Lake Forest Day - flying the helicopter ride

Going into work early one morning I saw this lovely sunrise

Taking a rest on the bench. This is a favorite pose for him, with his arms behind his head. He lays like this on his bed, too.

Puppy dog loves to sleep on top of stuff - here he found a comfy spot on my throw pillows.

You can't really tell - but she has crazy hair here after her bath.

Donna, Emil, Matt, Isolene, Luke & Claire all went to the Lake Forest Day parade on Wednesday. They also hit the carnival again now that it wasn't raining.