back to normal?

whew! what a crazy fun week last week was!!! I love CHA time... although I'm very sad to hear that it will not be in Chicago again next summer. :-(

I had great fun hanging out with deann for nearly a week. On Wednesday I met her at the "L" stop in Evanston to get her and her big giant suitcase to my house. I had managed to catch the purple line there, but the way home involved three different trains. We did good though. We had a nice lunch and then did something that afternoon but at the moment I have no clue what it was! Oh! Now I remember! We decided to check out one of the scrapbook stores here in the city. We looked up their website, figured out how we were going to get there and hopped on the L. However, when we got there, it wasn't there any longer... it had closed on June 30th. It wasn't mentioned anywhere on their homepage... just a post to their blog.

We decided to walk through the neighborhood around there looking at houses.... and then ended up at Minnies for a snack. What a cute, cute place! I had been by it a million times and heard people talking about it, but I had never been there myself. We ordered ourselves three little sandwiches to share (chicken salad, cucumber dill and melted brie and apricot... yum). We ended up sitting there chatting with the wait staff for over an hour. It was really nice.

Thursday we thought we were going to go out on a little photo safari so we packed up our cameras and headed out. However, it was hot... so after a trip through the conservatory, we parked ourselves on a bench in the zoo by the camels and people-watched our afternoon away. By the way... we never got our cameras out. From there we stopped by Windy City Scrapbooking for a quick chat with the reps from My Minds Eye before heading out to dinner in Rosemont with Beth and Beth. That dinner was just too much fun!

Friday was the first day of the show. It was overwhelming at times but it was great to catch up with people that I only see once or twice a year at CHA. That night we went out to dinner with this crowd.... so much fun!

Saturday Jeff took deann and I out to the convention (which was a nice switch from taking the L there). It was another great day. I got to have a great chat over lunch with Amy Peterman. But not long after lunch deann and I began to run out of steam and spent a nice time chatting and laughing with Pattie and Lynn in one of the snack areas. It was a really, really good time.

Yesterday Jeff headed out to meet his parents to get the kids leaving deann and I here with no real agenda. We had decided not to go back to CHA so we had a late breakfast and then decided to go on my neighborhood's garden walk. It was such a beautiful afternoon and I just love being able to peek at the backyard gardens that, from the street, you have no clue that they exist.

Oh... and we did actually get out our cameras...

loved finding this gnome, hiding in the corner... apparently the gnome belongs to the wife and her husband had her hide the gnome for the garden walk because he's not a big fan of the little guy...
and a photo to prove that deann actually took photos...

not a great photo... but can you believe this waterfall??? gorgeous...

such a fun backyard... not only was there a train but they use cocoa mulch, so the whole garden smells like chocolate...


Not long after we got back, Jeff arrived with the kids so after deann got to meet the kids and hear a bit about their trip to their grandparents' house, we hailed a cab for her and said our good-byes! sniff... sniff... it was such a fun week!

Okay.... I have some kid news but this post is entirely too long already. I'll write a kid only post later!

Happy Monday!

i'm alone...

... all alone... well, except for the dog. We're back from Michigan, after driving there this weekend to leave the kids with Jeff's parents for the week. Our kids are now very happily spending their time as fish at the lake. My goodness they seriously cannot get enough of the water.

We got to Jeff's parents' house Saturday evening and as soon as dinner was over they wanted to go out and swim. Sadly, so did the dog and if you took your eye off of her for a second she would be inching her way down to the stairs so she could go in. However, she's 11 and the water was up higher this year so she could no longer touch... it was more stress than I needed. I was so afraid that she was going to drown!

Here's a few photos of the kids from that night...




You know, we wondered if it was worth it to buy our own masks and snorkels for our Hawaii trip... apparently it was since they used them non-stop while swimming in the lake.

The next day Jeff's brother, his wife, their 3 year old and their brand new baby girl came over for the day.

Have you ever seen an eight-year-old boy MORE in love with a baby???


My goodness.... cousin Brynn is only a month old and already has a stalker! :-)

And then one last photo...
... Clara's back splash dive thing. :-)

I really don't know what to do with time by myself. Today I got a pedicure and went out to lunch. It was nice to just sit and read a book. Then when I got home, another box of homeschool books had been delivered and I can't help but to sit there and read them all.

Well... this has got to be short since I'm meeting my friend, Tracy, for dinner in less than an hour. Sidenote... it highly amuses me to have a friend with the same name. Every time we call each other we get started giggling after saying "Hi Tracy/Tracie, this is Tracie/Tracy". Is that sad?

Okay... I'm off! Tomorrow Deann arrives at my house so the adventure begins!

'nite!

yay! Jeff's home!

We're finally all together as a family again... but not for long. We head to Michigan tomorrow to leave the kids with Jeff's parents for a week. The kids are so excited!

Not much to report about today. Alex spent the afternoon water testing his lego pirate ship...
(Meg... let Tom know we should finally have something to post to the Lego blog once Alex gets back from Michigan)

Other than that... it was an afternoon of unpacking, laundry and packing! :-)

Jeff and I get back on Monday so hopefully I'll photos to post then!

'nite!

elephants!!!

The kids were so excited when our friend Natalie asked us to join her and her daughter on a trip to the Brookfield Zoo today. See, Alex's favorite zoo animal of all times is the elephant and even though we go to the zoo on a regular basis... we never see any because the Lincoln Park Zoo no longer has any elephants.

So... first order of business today was to go see these guys....
... so exciting!

Then we wandered around for a bit before heading to the dolphin show.

Here's Clara waiting for the show...
And a couple of shots from the show (the first isn't very sharp, but I liked it anyway)...

It was a short show, but a really good one. Alex came out of it amazed and kept saying that he learned so many new things about dolphins from the show.

Next we grabbed hot dogs for lunch before heading to the Stingray Bay exhibit.

Here's a pic of the kids at the exhibit...
Alex was a little reluctant to pet the stingrays at first... but then he got into it. Clara was all gung-ho at first and then got spooked. I don't think Mallery had any plans to actually touch the stingrays! :-) Alex wanted desperately to pet one of the sharks, but they stayed under the waterfall the whole time.

From there we saw the big cats, Clara lost her second pair of sunglasses this year, the kids rode the carousel and then we snacked in dippin' dots. I have carousel photos but I ran out of steam before I got any of them edited.

I didn't post last night because I didn't take any photos. We had a big day though. After Clara's two week dance intensive, her instructor sent me an email about how well she had done and the potential he saw in her. Due to this, he wanted to continue to work with her this summer even if it was just for a couple classes a week in what remained of their summer intensive sessions. So, yesterday she went to ballet... and because she loves the tap instructor, she stayed for tap as well. After that I had to stop by the local tea shop for a Mint Julep Iced Tea.... yum! Then we headed to the park. I had only intended for us to stay for about an hour... but 2 1/2 hours later we were still there. The kids had made friends with a boy who lives close to the park and who had brought lots of toys to play with. They had a great time. I had my camera... but I never got it out.

Tomorrow morning I have a dentist appointment and not long after we get back... Jeff should be home!!!!!! Yay!!!

Clara is supposed to go to dance tomorrow afternoon but I'm not sure how motivated she will be with Jeff just getting home. Maybe he can go with and that will help.

Okay... I could ramble more but the dog is completely freaking out over the thunderstorms we've got going on right now and she's making me crazy!!!

'nite!

tuesday...

I can't come up with a title for this entry so "tuesday" it is! :-)

I actually took new pictures today!

Our neighbors invited the kids over to play in their backyard. City kids can make the most of a small space! LOL!

Here's the water slide....

hmmm.... I wonder what Alex is thinking....
Alex's turn for a splash down....
After dinner we headed out with the same family to Family Game Night at a park near us. The kids had a great time and it wore them out right before bedtime! :-)

They played some girls v. boys dodgeball...
pin the tail on the donkey...
They had a water balloon game all planned but the kids had all popped their balloons before they could ever get the game officially started! :-)

And then there was jump roping...

They both love to jump rope. They have smaller individual ropes now, but I ordered a big long one with our homeschool order! I can't wait until it comes in.... unfortunately it's backordered at the moment.

Well... I have two tired kids who are clean and ready for bed... I'm going to go tuck them in!

'nite!

feeding time...

I didn't take any photos yesterday so I decided to post some photos from our time in Missouri last month. I had these up in photoshop and partially edited for weeks now.

So, without further delay.... Clara at the Dickerson Park Zoo....


Clara loooooooooooooooovvvvvessss giraffes! They're her favorite zoo animal. We go to this zoo fairly often when we visit my parents, but usually the giraffe feeding area is closed. This day it was open.... she was thrilled!

An added bonus was getting to see their brand new baby giraffe...
Then since she was on a feeding roll... we were off to feed the goats....


Clara loves goats too. She always has.

It was hot and she was tired after gymnastics camp so we didn't last long. But we had a really good time while we were there.

Back to current news....
Nothing here. Yesterday was really low key. We went to gymnastics again last night. The kids really seem to be loving it there. Alex raves about the class as soon as he's done. Clara really enjoys it but doesn't rave. I think its because the class is tougher than what she's used to. But that's a good thing, right?

Okay.... I have to walk the dog!

Have a great day!

whew.... we made it!

Weekends are tough when I'm single-parenting it, but long, holiday weekends are even worse! But, it's Sunday night and the kids are in bed, so it looks like we've made it!

I forgot to post this the other day....
Jeff felt bad about having to be out of town (ummmm... country) over the 4th, so he sent us this package. It had candy, popcorn, blockbuster gift card and some little "popper" type firecrackers. The kids loved it!

We didn't do much of anything on the 4th. I asked the kids the open ended question of "what do you want to do today" and they both agreed that what they wanted to do was to get their science project kits out and play with them on the back deck. Well.... sure. I had thought we might join our friends at the beach for a barbecue but apparently, they just wanted to stay home and experiment. They experimented for FOUR hours! I no longer have any white vinegar nor any baking soda.... but I'm not complaining.

Yesterday we decided to use our gift certificate so we walked to the closest Blockbuster. It was Clara's movie pick and she was dead set on getting Barbie as the Island Princess not my first pick, nor Alex's but it was what she wanted. I also let them pick out a wii game to rent as well. After Blockbuster, we grabbed lunch and headed home. We passed the park on our way, so I asked if they wanted to stop and play.... they did and they lasted about 2 hours which was great! Once back home they exhausted my stash of craft projects... then it was dinner and movie time. Honestly, the movie really wasn't bad. I actually managed to sit through the whole thing which doesn't happen often.

Today was cleaning day. We needed to pick up the house plus fold and put away a bunch of laundry. I told them that we needed to clean, put away laundry, and play outside before we could play the wii game we rented. They agreed to this arrangement :-)

Here are some pics from our trip to the park...
Let me just give you some background on Clara's outfit. We have had both the shirt and shorts since March when I did some shopping for our Hawaii trip while visiting my parents in Missouri. They were not purchased as an outfit. The shorts did not go to Hawaii because we had no shirt to match. I loved the shorts and hated to see them left to rot in her dresser drawer, so while in Missouri last month my mom and I went on a mission one day to find Clara a shirt to match the shorts. We ended up finding two that we really liked, and that Clara really liked. When we got home from Missouri, Clara tries on her new outfit and declares the shorts too small and puts them in the give-away pile. I was sad, but the shirts we got were really cute and went well with other shorts and skirts. Fast-forward to yesterday.... while walking to Blockbuster, we pass a girl on a bike who was about Clara's age and guess what she was wearing? Yep.... the same pink striped tank top and pink print shorts that Clara has on in the pic above. So, this morning she miraculously discovered that the pink shorts do still fit and wore them, not with the shirts my mom and I bought, but with the pink tank top we have had all along... sigh.

Okay... back to the park pics! Clara brought her bitty baby, Lauren along...
They also decided to play a game they called "Queen/King of the Licorice Tower"....
... which got ugly at times...
Apparently the whole point was for the King or Queen to block the path of the other person so they could not get through... I thought there was going to be a brawl at one point.

Then they discovered the big map of the USA...
and asked me to call out the names of states so they could find them.

Here they've found Oklahoma!
It was hot and since we had been out over an hour and they were beginning to turn quite red, we came home and played our game. After that... dinner and bed.

And tomorrow is Monday.... and back to our usual routine! :-)

'nite!

Happy Fourth of July!!!

Last night was the big fireworks display at Grant Park... but given that we didn't want to fight the huge crowds we made other arrangements. We were going to just walk over to the lakefront and watch from there with my friend, her daughter and her mother.

We had to stop and pick up some snacks on the way to meeting my friend at her house. It didn't take as long as I had thought it might, so we were about 20 minutes early. We decided to hang out at the park down the street until time.

Here is Clara... determined to shake Alex off of the bridge...
and Alex showing me that he finally has the spinning barrel thing down....
After getting there so early, we played for a bit and then ran into a Puggle owner and got the scoop on owning a Puggle... so of course, we ended up being late to my friend's house! :-)

Then we walked over to the lakefront and staked out a claim here...
The kids had energy to spare so my friend's mom wore them out with games of tag, charades and simon says... I'm not sure how she had that much energy... I sure don't! :-)

Finally it was 9:30 and time for the fireworks.... but there was nothing. The kids counted down from 10 over and over... but still nothing. It was about 9:45 before they actually started (or at least that we could see). But they were worth it...
The kids ooohhh'd and ahhhhh'd, clapped and cheered! It was a good time!

Not sure what we have planned for today... we have a few offers but after not getting the kids into bed until well after 11:00, I'm not sure I'm real motivated to do much of anything! :-)

Have a Happy and SAFE Fourth of July!!!

ahhh... summertime

it finally feels like summer :-)

June just didn't seem like summer to me... with Alex's sleep-away camp, Clara's day camps, five doctor visits, Clara's dance intensive and three trips to the ER it just didn't have those lazy summer days of playing outside that I love.

This week things seem to be changing. We've managed to go to the park everyday this week. Today Jeff came home early so he could pack for his trip to London and then walked with us as we headed to a meet-up our friend was hosting.

The first things the kids did was head to the splash pool area....
and then they ended up in the sand area (caked with sand)... here's Alex's volcano he built...
Dark storm clouds were rolling in while the kids played. Finally around 5ish... the sky looked dark enough that we headed to our friend's house for some arts and crafts on their deck.

Here are Alex and Clara painting bird houses....

They turned out really cute! I'll have to take some photos of the finished products.

After the other family that was there painting had to leave, the kids all went inside to play. I think we finally started home around 7:30. Alex kept telling me on the way home that he had had a really great day! :-)

I'm ready for more fun, carefree summer days like this! :-)

Okay... off to tuck the kids in (finally!!!)!

'nite!

the push-me-pull-you

and some photo evidence that the kids are still alive. :-) We have added another trip to the doctor (Clara has a UTI so we were at the doc yesterday). But other than that... we're doing pretty darn good at the moment.

Although I did have a bit of a scare this afternoon while we were at the park. See those white handle things in the background of the picture below?
Alex was coaching Clara through how to slide further (or is it farther?) with them. He told her, while she was standing on the top rung of the ladder, to slide her hands out as far as she could and then drop. He meant for her to drop off of the ladder while holding onto the handles. However, she hung on just long enough for her legs to swing forward and then she let go, falling straight down in a seated position. Once she caught her breath, she let out a scream like I haven't heard in years and just kept screaming. I was just sure she was broken... somewhere! But she calmed down and stood up and then took off playing with Alex. Man... she had me scared though. Motherhood is not for the faint of heart! :-)

Other than more doctor visits, we've just been playing around at the neighborhood parks this week. Yesterday we went to a little spray park by us. I took my camera but never got it out. I need to get better about taking pictures again. I haven't done much since our chaos began when we got back from MO.

Well... I'm boring. I've spent most of my day (when we weren't outside) trying to figure out my homeschool order for next school year. I think I finally have it figured out! Woooo Hooo!

Okay... I'm off to the couch!

'nite!