And We're BACK!

Family of Four....

To say that life has gotten crazy in the last year, would be an understatement.  We went from a diaper-and-sippy-cup-free family of four to a family of five.  We've started that baby phase all over again.  I'm talking bibs, diaper bags, middle of the night crying, Cheerios on the floor, booster seats, crying, food on my clothes- full on baby phase AGAIN.  We were home-free.  Andrew was 8, and Aveya was 5.  We were going to Great America without a stroller and without any baggage.  People willing babysat for us because our kids were "easy".  And they were.  I could sleep in until 10 AM in the summer and on the weekends if I wanted to.  The kids could get their own cereal.  They played quietly in the toy room.  I wasn't worried that either of them would choke by sticking a marble in their mouths.  And yet, there was this little voice in my heart that kept saying that someone was missing. I'd look at a picture and see an empty space where this little person was supposed to be.

I always felt like someone was missing next to Aveya in this picture.

The baby belly

And, so Juliana came to be.  And despite the fact that adding a baby to our family has made things a million times more difficult than they were, I wouldn't trade her for all the sleep-in days in the world.


She created all kinds of chaos when she first came into this world.  She stopped breathing four times within the first hour of her life.  It was frustrating and scary.  They whisked her away from me and took her into the NICU.  It was hours before I got to see her again, but Ryan was able to stay by her side, and he was really good at giving me frequent updates on her progress.

  She has a HUGE, fiery personality that amuses us on a daily basis.  She sings, dances, claps, scolds, tattles, and is constantly MOVING.  She loves me almost obsessively- I can't be far from her sight, or the sound of "Mama? MAMA!" fills the house repeatedly.

Look at that little elf's face!  I can't imagine life without her in it!

Juliana was named after my favorite character in a young adult book called Flipped by Wendelin van Draanen.  I've read this book for years with my 6th graders, and it's a personal favorite.  Julianna in the story is everything you'd want your daughter to turn out to be.  I hesitated to use the name because one of my cousins has a daughter named Julianna, but she was fine with me using the name.  We pronounce it Julie-onna, and so I chose to spell it Juliana.

This is mostly old news for anyone else who's reading this, but this blog post is really for me.  I want a written document of this time in my life.  At some point, I'd like to print this blog out as a book, and I don't want one of the most important moments of my life to be missing from it!

Welcome to Mrs. Ziegler's Classroom!  It's still a bit of a work in progress.  Getting hired four days before school starts will do that to ya!

My beautiful Aveya Rose on her Kindergarten Orientation night.

This spring, I interviewed at Lake Denoon Middle School in Muskego, and I was hired!  I gave my resignation to Phoenix Middle School in Delavan, where I've worked for eleven years.  I knew I'd miss all my Phoenix family, but my tiny little family was struggling with the hours I was keeping. Ryan had to work late, and it seemed silly to keep driving such a long distance.  THEN- in August, the kids' school was hiring, and I went after that job as well.  I was hired there and had to give my resignation to Muskego.  So, I'm an elementary teacher now at Rolling Hills. It's incredibly different, but I do love it.