William

As promised, here's an update on the kids. WARNING: The happenings of 5 kids over 4 months will be lengthy...and photo heavy! I'm thankful to report the boys are doing well. William, suddenly a kid and no longer a toddler, has a vocabulary that stuns me several times per day. He loves to talk (which I'm quite proud of), but can wear me down with conversation just the same (my mom secretly loves the fact that I'm getting mine). I'm finding age three to be a bit challenging as well. After making it through the supposed "terrible twos" with no problems whatsoever, I'm discovering that we did not, in fact, dodge a bullet...it merely arrived a year later than expected. I'm amazed how I can be at the end of my rope one second, frustrated beyond belief, giving timeouts like candy, then completely enamored the next. He pushes my patience to the edge, yet fills me with joy until I nearly burst. Here's an update on William (since my last post) in pictures:

William discovered a love of the circus (much to my delight) shortly after Henry was born. We purchased our season pass halfway through the summer, but definitely got our money's worth. Here's William with "Miss Heidi," one of his favorites.

William with the Rosaires...

And with his buddy, David. David always does an awesome job of making his adoring fans feel special...last Saturday during the holiday light parade, David rode past, singing atop a wagon, and shouted out "William!" into the microphone (between verses of Have a Holly Jolly Christmas) when he spotted William waving in the crowd. 

William and Tate in the funny mirrors on closing weekend.

William, Tate, and Noah watching the calliope

Closing weekend with our good friends. Seven boys and four adults. Luckily we have brave friends.

First taste of cotton candy. Henry was only three weeks old, but we decided to take the boys to a circus festival in Mazomanie. It was a little smaller than we expected,, but William still talks about it, so I guess it was a good time. On a sidenote, William has added "Mazomanie" to his repertoire of places he's visited. Sometimes our train set makes a stop in Mazomanie, sometimes our firetrucks respond to a fire there, and sometimes we color pictures of Mazomanie. It's obviously a very exciting place.

It was a scorching hot summer, but nonetheless, we tried to enjoy the outdoors as much as possible.  This particular day ended with crying over melted ice cream, but the ferry ride was cool!

Devils Lake. We are lucky. Period.

William started Sunday School this fall. Loves it! We're currently practicing for the Christmas pageant. William is playing the part of "sheep."

Turning colder...

William and Maeve at the homecoming parade. King and Queen 2026.

Can't wait to be a T-Bird someday! (Although, the marching band is, BY FAR, his favorite thing)

In line for "Something Special From Wisconsin" at Pierce's. The second annual open house did not disappoint. William goes to Pierce's almost daily with Pa, so we had been looking forward to it for weeks.

The lovely reigning Miss America! If you remember, she was Miss Wisconsin at last year's open house! Let me tell you, though...nothing can make a mom of 5 feel frumpier than standing next to Miss America in all of her gorgeousness!

William brought along his picture from last year for her to autograph for his "scap book.".  She thought it was cool and took a picture. The two of them ended up on the front page of the Baraboo News Republic together...a banner day in the Moll household. You would've thought it made World News.

William adores the sausages and remembered them from Miller Park this summer. I'm sure they remembered him, too.

Bucky is the star of the show... the main attraction...our favorite guy.

Bucky stole the double stroller and took Charlie and Ikey for a wild ride! What a rascal!

Charlie is wondering who's back there?

Super fun!

For the record, this was an AWESOME Bucky. Here's William and Bucky singing "If You Want To Be A Badger"...

Miss Wisconsin 2012. Good luck!

Benny HATES the racing sausages. Charlie has never seen someone so tall in his life.

I have to stop this post for a second (the Bucky pictures reminded me), and tell another story from this summer. The same day as the circus festival in Mazomanie, Jason and I were feeling rather ambitious and decided to take the kids on to Madison in the afternoon for "Family Fun Day" at Camp Randall. I nursed Henry in the car (parked, of course), changed the kids into their Badger gear, and sat in a line that wrapped around the stadium, all for 2 hours of Badger fun. The place was packed (I think the news reported over 10,000 in attendance), so we got in line to see Bucky right away. The cheerleaders were there to hand out posters and take photos, so we passed some time posing with the ever-popular spirit squad. (Uncle was a Badger cheerleader back in the day, and William loves it when he tells Bucky stories, teaches him cheerleading "tricks," or Badger songs). Charlie didn't want to get back into his wagon after meeting the cheerleaders, so I decided to hold him...why create a scene, right? Famous last thought...

As we were waiting in line, Bucky strutted through the crowd (potty break?), obviously grabbing everyone's attention. As he returned to his post, ALL the kids saw him coming, parents were pointing, and Bucky, larger than life doing his animated thing, headed straight through the PACKED stadium. I suppose his big mascot head made a blind spot where he couldn't see something low to the ground...like the small orange car (Charlie's) on our choo choo wagon. With EVERYONE watching, Bucky hit our baby-train full stride and went flying. And I mean FLYING. Charlie's seat took him out at the shins, and he actually laid-out mid-air, landing on his face. I frantically tried to help him up, half checking that the kids were alright, half worried about the poor guy in the Bucky suit. Suddenly it was nothing but horror and mortification as I realized...OH MY GOSH, WE'RE THE FAMILY THAT NEARLY KILLED BUCKY. Am I surprised? Not really. At least his head never fell off.

It became a teeny bit funny on the way home as Jason and I recounted the event. The best part was, Bucky never missed a beat. I'm sure it scared him to death and hurt like heck, but he just jumped right up, brushed off his hands, put his paws to his face to show embarrassment, and, in true Bucky fashion, jaunted away. Oh my. It's amazing they let us near him after the incident. Besides THAT, Camp Randall was great! The linemen loved the triplets, William met some "real" football players, the kids crawled around in the endzone, and we even made the evening news!

Go Big Red!

Good sports

These girls were so nice...I wanted to bring them home with me! Nannies???

Benny loved the poms. Maybe he'll be a cheerleader like Uncle someday.

Notice Charlie out of his wagon...moments before the Bucky crash.

You'd never guess, right?

We're sorry, Bucky!

Ikey ready to run around the field with Paul Bunyan's axe.

Daddy with the boys.

From left: Benny with AJ Fenton (LB), Ikey with Ethan Armstrong (LB), Charlie with Chris Borland (LB), and Mike Taylor (LB). What's Charlie's problem? Doesn't he know Borland's an All-American?!? Taylor, too!

I think that's enough of an update on William. I'll have more on William's Halloween Party next week, but will close for now. Happy Thanksgiving! Updates on turkeys 1, 2, and 3 in my next post..

Goodbye North Aurora!

Hello again! And my apologies for yet another blogging lapse! You'll be pleased to hear I have no further complaints regarding our unsold house in Illinois. A nice couple from Chicago got an amazing deal on our charming little abode and we closed one month ago. Done deal. I don't really want to talk about the almost $90,000 we lost in the process, (it kind of taints my good memories of a very special place) so we'll just say that things didn't turn out exactly as we hoped. Our final departure was bound to be rough...I still can't talk about walking out of William's room or taking down his swing in the backyard without crying. I know how every room in that house feels, at every time of day, in every season of the year. Knowing those walls contained our most important conversations, heard our loudest laughter, and were shelter for our saddest tears made leaving hard. It's best our goodbye was swift...one good cry and out the door. It's still weird to think of someone else cooking in "my" kitchen, soaking in "my" bath tub, sleeping in "my" bedroom...but the exciting news is that we're moving on. Finally.

With that chapter officially closed we've picked up the pace on our remodel at hand. Time is still our biggest problem, but we try to use every spare minute to do something house-related. Unfortunately, those spare minutes are hard to come by. Jason usually ends up at the house after kids are in bed, working until midnight or later. I don't think I've introduced our "new" house yet, so let me give you a quick tour:

Big problem...I have to feed a family of 7 out of this teeny kitchen. There's no eat-in space, so we'll be "dining" in our dining room for every meal...sounds like a lot of work to me. I'm banking on peanut butter sandwiches outside during nice weather.

The only bathroom in the house...ouch. And how lovely it is.  I refuse to share bathroom space with 6 boys, so we're squeezing the smallest kids bathroom you've ever seen between the bedrooms upstairs and one more in the basement. A girl's got to have something to herself when so outnumbered!

Kind of nervous about the built-in. The triplets are a three-man wrecking crew...I might have to cover this with something protective for a year or ten.

Mark my words...someday Jason and I are going to have leisurely coffee and conversation on this sunny porch.

William's little bitty room. Jason has to duck when entering, but kids don't need a lot of space. I think it's "cozy."

Three cribs will fit just right.

From the looks of the sign, we'll have owned this house for 2 years yesterday. Found out I was having triplets October 18th 2010. Bought the house exactly one month later. TWO YEARS later...we're ready to get going. Best laid plans, right?

As you can see, we have our work cut out for us. These pictures were taken pre-gut (all rooms are now down to the studs), so it's current condition is slightly less "livable", if you can imagine. We think there's lots of potential...let's just hope we can bring out it's best now that we have the green light. We won't exactly be "home" for the holidays, but we're expecting to be moved in by spring, at the latest. I have tons to tell you about the kids (it's been 4 months since I've mentioned them!), so I promise there will be further updates this week. Until then, look out East Street....here we come!