days 28 & 29

These two photos go together so I'll share the info here about both. Alex LOVES Legos and has, for quite some time, wanted the Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 robotics set. However, it was nearly $300. He saved and saved (and had a big help for his paycheck he got from the play he was in) and was finally able to order his Lego set.

We ordered it on Monday and Wednesday we got the notification that it had shipped and would be delivered the very next day. Great news, right? Well... it was, EXCEPT that we're not home on Thursdays when UPS usually comes by. We usually see our driver at an appointment we have every Thursday morning, so we got the bright idea that we would ask him when we saw him if he could give us our package early. We did see him, just like we always do, however, he had a huge 150 box order on his truck and was running behind on his route. He was very sorry, but he just didn't have the time to look for it. Alex nearly burst into tears (he had planned his day around playing with his kit all day - doubling up on school the day before so he would have the day free). Sigh.

Alex spent the rest of the day running to the window every time a truck rumbled past. We finally had to leave and still no UPS. We were about a block from the house when the big brown truck came up the side street we were by... he pulled over and handed Alex his box...

He had found it on the truck and had put it in a special spot in case he saw us while he was out. It was lucky that we crossed that street just as he was coming up it! Alex was just beside himself! He was so excited!!! Thankfully, he had gone ahead with his school work that day and had finished up everything on his schedule for Friday... he had his box AND a day free of school work to play with it!!

Friday Alex did nothing but build and program.

Here he is with his "precious"... :-)
He is totally in heaven and hasn't stopped playing with it since he opened it. Right now it's a catapult that senses the colors of the marbles and fires them at the same colored targets. Fun stuff.

days 25-27

One of my current favorite things about project{365}... not having to come up with titles for my posts! Just list the days and I'm done! :-)

day twenty-five....
Library Day!! We love library day. Although this particular library day we almost checked out more books than I was able to carry home. I need a library bag with wheels... but I'm afraid that it would mean that we would have all three have our cards maxed out at all times.

day twenty-five...

really bad phone photo - I got a last minute invite to join my friend for a night at the Steppenwolf Theatre to see American Buffalo.... such a great show.

day twenty-seven...
Just a spoonful of peanut butter helps the medicine go down... :-)

Don't worry... she doesn't actually eat it off of the spoon... we put it on a dog treat and she's the happiest dog in the world... honestly, it's her favorite part of the day.

days 22-24

day 22...
Clara's first piano lesson.

day 23...
Jeff took Clara and a friend to the Loyola basketball game... they took the point and shoot and returned with an interesting collection of photos that may warrant their own post later.

day 24...
Alex and Clara in the glow of Clara's laptop... entering her newest webkinz online.

a couple more...

...from parent observation day for Clara's ballet class...


I'm still amazed at how focused she is on ballet... she enjoys other types of dance, but ballet is far and away her favorite.

days 20 & 21

day twenty...
end of term parent observation day at dance

day twenty-one...
lush bath bomb night... the only thing that keeps Clara's dry skin/eczema under control during the winter

two new pages...

I was just recently given the opportunity to work with the fabulous Emily Powers as part of her creative team.

Here are my two newest pages made with her designs...

Clara at eight
kit - Love Birds

Clara's New 2009 Ornaments
kit - evergreen
template - experiment #3
kraft paper - funky love song

canon ball!!!

Some more photos from their swim class on Tuesday....

days 18 and 19

day eighteen...
(taken with my phone)
The kids love to ride in the front car of the L train so they can pretend to drive. They rename all of the stops as we come up to them to fit whatever "world" they're in at the moment.

day nineteen...
homeschool swim class... after class each week, their instructor lets them each have a turn on the diving board (this week the boys had a couple of extra turns while they waited for the girls to get out of the changing room).

scenes from the swim meet...

As I mentioned earlier... we spent the whole day on Sunday at the kids' swim meet. Alex swam in the morning and Clara in the afternoon.

Here's Alex checking out the times on the board...
I have no good photos of Alex's starts. He started on the end you see behind him. I managed to miss the focus and have several crisp shots of the flags you see in the photo above, but none with Alex in focus... sigh.

Clara, on the other hand, swam 25's so she started at the other end of the pool. Due to there being very few people sitting on that end, I was able to get close and get some clear shots.

Here she is starting her backstroke...
and diving in for her leg of their freestyle relay...
Both kids had a great time and tried hard... however, we have a lot of work ahead of us with swim :-)

days 11-17

I had really hoped that by taking part in project{365} I would be prompted to post more often, but apparently that hasn't happened yet. Last night I did get my photos ready to post so I could get caught up though.

day eleven...
Jeff and Alex went to the Bulls/Pistons game at the United Center. I sent Alex with the point and shoot so I could have a photo for the day. Apparently at the game they filmed Jeff and Alex eating their dinners and played it on the jumbotron at high speed. Jeff found out the next day (after receiving several phone calls) that not only were they shown on the jumbotron at the game, but it was on the network broadcast of the game. I sure wish I would have been watching the game!

day twelve....
Totally cheated here. I took this for a blog post I wanted to do on my homeschooling blog. I never intended on it being my photo-of-the-day but I never got around to taking any other photos.

day thirteen....
There was a post going around on facebook that it was retro week and to use an old photo of yourself as your profile picture. I don't have a scanner (well, at least not one that is hooked up to a computer right now), so I photographed a couple of old photos so I could use one as my profile pic. This is the one I didn't use.

day fourteen....
Clara needed a new headshot, so I made an attempt at shooting a new one. I got one I think I'll use, but this one wasn't it.

day fifteen....
I tend to remember that I need to take my photo-of-the-day late in the day. This one was taken at the end of the day on Friday... one tired girl after ballet and swim team practice.

day sixteen...
Again... forgot all about my photo until late in the day. Here is Clara packing her swim bag for her first swim meet the next day.

day seventeen...
This is where we spent our WHOLE Sunday. This was Clara's first meet... so this was our first all day swim meet. Alex's age group swims in the morning, Clara's in the afternoon. I'll have a few more photos to post of the meet in another post.

days 8-10

This past weekend was our first weekend without the show! We didn't quite know what to do with ourselves... but in the end we did manage to fill the time :-)

With Saturday afternoons free, Clara was able to rejoin the tap class she had wanted to take with her friend back in November. She was so excited about it that she got her shoes out the night before and had them all ready to go....

Saturday was a bitterly cold day, so while Jeff and I were sitting around staring at our fireplace we got the brilliant idea to actually light it!
We have lived here three years now and finally added the gas logs this fall, yet we had still not actually used the fireplace.... until now.

Sunday after church, Jeff said that he was going to go for a run.... Clara said that she wanted to go too. We tried to talk her out of it given that the temp was in the teens and the windchill was around -2, but she insisted...
Jeff took her around a few blocks and then dropped her back off at home before continuing on with his run.

Well... I should get going so I can gear myself up for our busy week ahead!

snow day/snow night

Here are some more photos from our snow day and snow night yesterday.

Just one of the boy...
The girl was uncooperative, so I have no photos of her (she was upset that Alex had a snow shovel and she did not... sigh).

Then last night, they went over to their friends' house for a night time snow play date.

Here are the girls dining alfresco in January... Chicago style...

It was a pretty funny scene to witness. It is true that the cold really doesn't bother kids as long as they're having fun!

days 6 & 7

Here are my most recent photos for this project...

On Wednesday Clara had a trip to the orthodontist for an evaluation. Here is what they recommended...
Not quite sure how I feel about it but this was our second opinion and the second recommendation for basically the same course of treatment. We might have one more evaluation before we start this journey.

Oh... and yes! That was taken with my phone! I kept feeling the itch the rest of the day to take a photo for my "photo-of-the-day" with my big camera... but I kept reminding myself that this is project is not really as much about the photography as it is about capturing the moments in our lives. This was a big thing for us that day... and a blurry cell phone photo is what captured it best.

Yesterday we had our first real snow storm of the season. Alex and Clara spent quite a bit of time outside playing with their friends and neighbors...
Sadly, this was our last big playday with them as their moving truck is outside now to pack them up and move them down to sunny Florida. We'll definitely miss them.

project{365}

I've attempted the photo-a-day thing before and every time I fail. This track record almost kept me from making yet another attempt this year. I even thought about secretly attempting it and not telling anyone so if I failed again, no one would know. But I decided to put it out there... I OFFICIALLY PLAN TO TAKE A PHOTO A DAY EVERY DAY OF 2010. I am also cutting myself some slack and acknowledging that missing a day or two or taking the photo with my cell phone does not constitute a failure... giving up entirely (like I have in the past), however, does :-)

So... here we go...
day one: we play Alex's new Yahtzee game for the first time and he learns that the dice can be a bit tricky.

day two: the kids have several friends at the show!

day three: the final exit from the stage

day four: the day our poor aging black lab couldn't get up very well or walk (thankfully she was much better today).

day five: STILL looking at toy catalogs.

Let's see if I can make it past January this year! :-)

the final show

... sniff, sniff... it was sad to see it all end this afternoon. Thankfully Jeff and I got to go in to see the final show.

During warm-ups we got the chance to take some group shots.

Here's Karl terrorizing the kids...
the cast...
and a shot of almost everyone...
We were also able to take some photos during the curtain call (provided that I didn't use flash).

Here's Clara...
... and Alex...
Since it was the final show and after New Year's... they sang Auld Lang Syne...
(I'll admit to being a little... okay.. a lot teary at this point)

The final exit from the stage...
I finally made a second attempt to get a good shot of Alex and his "dad" from the show...
... now you can see the reason he had to get his hair dyed.

Just one final shot before we left...
The kids were really sad to see it all end today. They just can't imagine not hanging out with this group every weekend anymore.... but we'll be back into swim meets and playdates again, so maybe they won't mind so much.