Scattered Thoughts

the pre-dance photos...

2012-02-13T08:55:00.003-06:00

Saturday while Clara was still in ballet (and I still had some natural light), I decided to take some detail photographs before the dance.

I started with the shoes I had just picked up for her. As luck would have it, she outgrew her dressy shoes about two weeks ago. So, I, of course, waited until the last possible moment to get a replacement pair. I picked up two pairs for her to try right after we dropped her off for ballet (a marathon day of 4.5 straight hours). They were the only two left in her size. I hoped one pair would work.

Jeff and I looked at both pairs and determined this pair the winner....
We were sure this would be the pair that she would pick. I took lots of photos of that pair of shoes.

I took two photos of this pair...
Guess which pair she picked.... yup... the second pair :-)

Mango sat on the couch watching me photograph shoes...
I'm sure she thought I'd lost my mind.

Some dress details...
One of my favorite things about the Daddy Daughter Dance is the timing. It's right after the holidays and right after all of the holiday dresses go on clearance. Clara and I pick a day and camp out in the dressing room at Macy's and try on every single dress left in her size. She has so much fun! And also because the prices are fantastic... I let her have free reign to pick out whichever dress she wants.

Here's the one she picked (the jacket is a separate piece)...
I'm not sure I loved it at first and may have even tried to persuade her against it at one point. But I remembered my pledge to give her free reign with the decision and let her pick it.

I ended up LOVING it and I think by the attitude in this photo...
she loved it too!

The part that stresses me out the most, is hair and make-up. I can actually do age appropriate make-up okay... but I stink at hair. I even considered making her a hair appointment, but in the end, I just couldn't justify it.

However, I think things turned out just fine...With some guidance from the woman at Claire's, we decided to go with a side bun using one of those donut things....
The whole style went perfectly with her dress and it was really easy too!

Showing off her nails...
Basketball was cancelled on Friday night, so after school we went and had her nails done. A woman who was there for her appointment got so excited about Clara going to the dance, that she helped her pick out the perfect color and was the one who suggested the glitter top coat. Very fancy :-)

And finally, the happy daddy-daughter duo....
off to the dance!!

Way to go Alex!

2012-02-12T08:09:00.004-06:00

Alex had a great day at ski club yesterday!!

First of all, he came home with this...
Third best time of all levels competing! He was so excited about this! He had managed to keep it a secret until he got off the bus. He had texted us about the race, but had kept all of his answers pretty cool, without letting on about his medal.

The other surprise he had for us, was that he got promoted up a level in lessons! He was very excited about this as well. He had thought that it was coming soon, but he didn't know if it would happen or not since we're so near the end of the season.

I have a bunch of photos to post from yesterday as it was Daddy Daughter Dance night! Clara and her friends went again and had a fabulous time! It's so much fun getting her all dolled up for this each year. I'm just sad that we discovered it so late. They don't have many years left of wanting to do this... but as long as they all want to do it together, I think they'll keep going at least a couple more years.

My friend and I took the "big kids" out to dinner. We had the worst service ever, but it didn't bother us a bit. It was nice to hang out and chat without someone hovering over us to vacate the table. It was a really good evening for all!

(today, my son has requested that I take him shopping so he can by a Valentine present for a girl at school... yikes!!)

I'm so over...

2012-02-09T11:01:00.003-06:00

... the snowboarding photos. I still have another day and a half that I haven't posted... but I'm over them. Time to edit and post something else. Maybe I'll go back to them... but, then again, maybe not. :-)

Last month was Clara's ballet class's parent observation. I ended up going two of the three days, but took very few photos. First of all, her class is pretty big now and uses center barres. I was sitting in the "obstructed view" section for barre work and had very few opportunities for a clear shot of Clara. I took a couple of photos but, there are barres and the limbs of the students at those barres in all the photos. I took very little video as well for the same reason.

I did get a clear shot of her during pointe...
This was my first official time to see her in her pointe shoes (I had peeked through the window on a couple of occasions). I took a couple photos, but then mostly took video. She was having an off night, so it wasn't her best outing.

Her teacher thought she was doing well enough to do center for the first time though! Clara decided to stand right directly in front of me so I could see her (she was so proud to be doing center). However, I only brought one lens and she was too close for me to get any full body shots (and too close to video as well). So, I decided to take some snaps of her feet in her pretty pointe shoes :-)

She has a long way to go with pointe, but she is really off to a great start. She has really started to take the core strength that's needed seriously and does crunches everyday. Her teacher complimented her over the weekend about how much stronger she's gotten recently!

almost done...

2012-02-07T13:36:00.006-06:00

I'm almost to the end of our winter break photos... I promise!

On Thursday, we woke up to a beautiful day...
(there's no one we know in the photo above, I just thought the sky was so gorgeous that I needed to snap a pic)

The kids had decided that they had had enough of lessons and they were ready to snowboard on their own.

So they got geared up...

And did a few runs in Totem Park...

Before heading over for the real deal...

They were so excited! They had the day planned, which included LOTS of snowboarding! Well... let's just say things didn't go as planned. It was the most painful thing I've ever seen, watching them try to snowboard down a green run. First of all... it took them FOREVER! I seriously could have crawled down the mountain faster than they came down on their snowboards. Clara gave up mid-run and just laid there in the snow, sobbing, hoping someone would just pick her up and carry her down. She was doing really well previously, but she totally lost her confidence and just didn't want to do it anymore... but mid-run was not the best time to decide this. She finally made her way down once she figured out that coming down on her own was her only option (unless she just wanted to spend the day up there). Needless to say, they were done after that run and we packed up and went back to the house... sigh.

2nd lesson...

2012-02-03T11:04:00.003-06:00

The next day, the kids had a full day snowboarding lesson. While they were gone, I decided to try something new at the spa... a 80 minute pedicure with a hot stone foot massage... it was wonderful!

Anyway, when I went back to pick them up at 4:00, I did see progress!
Until Alex wiped out...
And what do you do when you wipe out and your little sister goes zooming by you? You do what any good brother would do....
.... you throw snow at her as she goes by!

Clara was actually doing quite well at this point...

But now she's down...
And Alex is back up...
They were doing well enough to try a green run, but no one else in their group was ready. Their fabulous instructor, Nate, told the kids that he would take just them down after the lesson was over. Here's what the end of that run looked like...

It was painful to watch! Nate must have the patience of a saint! They took FOREVER to come down the run. They fell so many times! But they had their first "real" run under their belts, and decided they were ready to go it alone the next day. But for right then, they were EXHAUSTED and were ready to go home! :-)

snowboard lessons

2012-02-02T11:35:00.005-06:00

On Tuesday the kids were so excited to have their first snowboard lesson! We had only signed them up for a two hour lesson, because we weren't sure how well they would like snowboarding.

Turns out that they liked snowboarding a LOT, and two hours wasn't long enough for them to "get it". Thankfully there were two slots available in the all day lesson the next day! :-)

Crystal Mountain has such fabulous instructors! The kids have had lots of different instructors over the years and they've all been great. However, I think Nate may be one of their faves!

quick list...

2012-02-02T10:11:00.003-06:00

... and then I'm going to work on photos (so there may be another real post later!).

1. Alex's school has been selected to beta test a new piece of fitness technology aimed at middle school age kids. He, specifically, has been selected to sit on a panel of five kids representing the school during this beta test. They did their first interviews on Tuesday. They should be getting their product in about two weeks. Alex is really fired up about it! I'll post more about it when I get the OK to do so.

2. Clara has started rehearsals for the school musical. She found out at the first rehearsal that she's not just a townsperson... but that she was picked by the dance/drama teacher to be in a group that will perform special dance numbers throughout the show. Next week is her first specific dance rehearsal... she's pretty excited!

3. Alex has discovered the world of Minecraft! They played it at gaming club last night and he begged for an account all the way home. So, when we got home, he gave me the money for it and we signed him up. One of the teachers at school set up a server for their group and they were all on there, playing together last night. I'm thinking that Alex is going to need his own laptop or I will never be able to use my computer myself again!

4. Clara was sick all weekend and is finally coming out of it. It sure seemed like the flu with high fevers and such. Now she's just congested, but, honestly, that could be due to the springlike conditions we've got going on right now.

6. Bought Alex new church clothes for when he speaks in church this Sunday. Found out yesterday that they are going to have him wear a Bears jersey (he's speaking about the Souper Bowl of Caring), so I didn't need to go shopping after all! Oh well... he needed some dressier clothes and I got them at a really good price! :-)

5. Neither kid has school tomorrow! It will be fun to have them both home with nothing really to do!

Okay... I think that may be all for my list today! Now to edit photos!

Snowshoeing and snowboarding attemps...

2012-01-31T11:28:00.003-06:00

On January 2nd, everyone left us. Jeff's parents and aunt left to go back home and when they left, Jeff went with them. They dropped him off at the airport since he had to be in Las Vegas all week for work.

Before they left, Jeff got in one last morning of skiing with the kids. However, Alex had his worst skiing wipeout ever! He crashed so badly that ski patrol actually got involved and insisted on checking him out! Thank goodness for helmets though! He has dents in his helmet from where his skis hit his head. Thankfully, he was just shook up and there were no injuries. Without the helmet, it would have been so much worse.

After everyone had left, the kids and I decided to go out on an adventure. But first Alex had to try the new snow...

And then Clara did too...

They were calling it "dippin' dot" snow since it was snowing little round balls of snow!

We went over and rented snowshoes and decided to go out trekking across the golf courses there at Crystal Mountain....

Alex was the first to go down...I was next... but much later. It's a little tricky going down steep little hills while wearing snowshoes :-)
Here's a little video of our adventure (and the "dippin' dot" snow)...

As you can see, the weather was pretty rough, so we decided to head back home. It was really fun though!

In addition to the ski lessons they had gotten for Christmas, they also got snowboard lessons as well. Their lessons were the next morning, but you could pick up your rental equipment after 7:00 the night before. The kids thought that they would be naturals and wanted to get some practice in before their lessons the next day.

I'm not sure things went as planned...

It's deceiving... Clara looks like she got the hang of it right way, but that was so not the case. She had some pretty "epic" wipeouts, I just happened to miss them all with the flip! :-)

afternoon adventures...

2012-01-28T13:36:00.004-06:00

After lunch, the kids wanted to try the sledding hill again since this time it would actually have good snow!

As you can tell, the snow was coming down pretty good...

They were the first ones down with the new snow...
That made it tough for a while, until they packed down some good paths.
A near collision...

They had such a great time going up and down, up and down. We finally left them to keep sledding and after a while they walked back home... thoroughly exhausted!

Another list...

2012-01-25T12:14:00.001-06:00

No bullet points this time as I'm doing this on my phone and bullet points don't seem to be an option. :-)

1. Clara got the casting list for the school play. She's a towns person. She's not entirely pleased. Lesson learned though... if your teacher asks you if there is any particular role you want and you answer towns person, you shouldn't be shocked when that's what you get.

2. Alex just added voice to his guitar lessons. He's signed up for the Neil Young spring show, so guess what we'll be hearing a lot of!

3. Just got an email from church and Alex has been asked to do the "minute for missions" in front of the congregation in two services on February 5th. Perhaps I should go buy him some real church clothes. :-)

4. Clara has no school on Friday and we WILL get her science fair experiment done that day. Trying this again since last time I posted that here, it didn't happen.

5. As if we don't have enough going on, Clara wants to join Girls on the Run at school. I think it will be good for her, so we're going to try to make it work.

6. Alex's school implemented Hallway DJ this week. No more bells at the end of a class period. When the music starts playing, it's time to change classes!

7. Today is my errand day. I decided to go back to a store I was in a week and a half ago to pick up some things I opted not to buy at the time. Well... the store is gone. Seriously... do we really need another CVS right across the street from one Walgreen's and about two blocks from another one?

8. I'm on a whole wheat muffin making rampage. If you have any good recipes, please share! So far I've been making banana honey and pumpkin.

9. I'm a creature of habit and I've altered my errand day routine today. I'm regretting the switch a little... especially since the aforementioned store (which was the reason for the switch) no longer exists.

Okay. I've occupied this table long enough. Time to embrace the change and get out there!

New Year's Day!

2012-01-23T19:53:00.004-06:00

New Year's Day we woke up to rain... but given that there was a Blizzard Warning in effect, we knew things would change. We took our time getting around and had breakfast (I tried a crockpot breakfast recipe I found online... not thinking I'll make that one again).

When the rain changed to snow, Jeff and Clara decided to go out skiing while crowds were light (Alex was wrapped up in his new xbox game)...
I went along to take some photos and Jeff's mom came too!

Notice anything different between these two photos? There was probably only about 20 minutes or so between the one above and the one below...Yes! Clara has on new bright green pants! The pants she had been wearing were hand-me-downs that had no waterproofing left in them. With the rain and wet snow that morning, her pants soaked right through from riding on the chairlift. She gave us the hard sell and off we went to the ski shop to shop for pants. But seriously... it's no fun to be out in the cold in wet pants, so it wasn't too hard to justify the purchase.

While watching for Jeff and Clara, look who snowboarded by...... it's Crystal Mountain's Snow Tiger, Snowball :-)

Not sure what's going on here...
Waving good-bye...
We were getting cold and wet and decided to head back to the house for a while. On the walk home, we ran into Jeff's dad who was just coming back from dropping off Donna to meet us. Anne got in the car and went back to watch Jeff and Clara ski with Donna. Then when I got back to the house, Alex announced that he was ready to ski. So, when Jeff's dad got back from dropping off Anne, he took Alex over! Quite the shuttle service!

They skied for quite a while, came back for lunch.... and then had other things planned for their afternoon!

bullet points...

2012-01-19T11:45:00.004-06:00

I'm behind on posting photos from winter break and I'm nowhere near getting to the photos I've taken recently. I'm trying to keep up my posting momentum going by jotting down a few recent things...

It's official, Alex did graduate out of Rock 101, so he gets to sign up to be in a spring show!
Clara is auditioning today for her school's spring musical. She was taking it rather seriously even though fourth graders (the first year you can be in the musical) are almost always "townspeople" or something similar. She decided to sing Popular from Wicked for her audition... lol! She does it really cute here at home, but I have a feeling she'll stand there and mumble the words when she gets up in front of her teachers. Can't wait to hear how it goes!
Clara started basketball last week (Alex was supposed to but Jeff took Alex and a friend to Michigan for a weekend of skiing and snowboarding instead). She was the lone girl in a whole sea of boys! She held her own though! She came out embarrassed though.... when they scrimmaged at the end, she shot at the wrong basket and all of the boys laughed. Didn't deter her though... she's fired up for this week!
Clara did find the perfect dress for the Daddy Daughter Dance (after trying on over 20 different dresses... ugh). You've got to love shopping the sales after Christmas! So many leftover "holiday" dresses at such great prices! Given the great prices, I let Clara have free reign with what she picks out. The dress she picked was so not one I would have payed anything near to full price for, but for $11.98 we're both happy! She's totally in love with it and it does look really cute on her.
Alex started practicing with his school rock band last night! According to Alex they had a great jam session and I think they're having another one tonight. He truly loves his school!

I think that's all my bullet points for now. There are a few other things, but I actually have photos to go with those so I'll wait to post about them until I get the photos ready!

New Year's Eve...

2012-01-17T14:16:00.007-06:00

Our New Year's Eve was spent in way that's pretty typical for us... food, games and Shirley Temples :-) We had another Just Dance tournament (I'm pretty sure Clara was the winner), played some card games, ate guacamole and chicken nachos, etc., etc., etc,... the usual. I took no photos of the festivities though. That seems strange... but I guess I was either in the kitchen getting the next round of food ready or playing a game.

At around 11:15ish, we started getting ready to walk over to the base of the mountain. We got there in time to watch the parade participants ride up the chairlift...
Jeff and the kids could have participated, but decided to just be spectators this first year to see what it was all about.

Then we saw the glowing red lights snaking down the mountain...
I think the age is 16 to carry a torch, but you can ski or snowboard down without a torch. Jeff's not so sure about skiing without poles, so we'll see what he decides about next year. :-)

As soon as the last of the parade participants made it to the bottom, the fireworks began (and I took really crappy photos of them)!

Jeff had the flip, and the video shows them much better...

(Can you hear the Michigan midnight vs. Chicago debate going on the background?)

The fireworks went on forever... it was so cool!

Our two party animals at midnight....
... Clara looks tired and Alex looks a little crazed!

After the fireworks, we walked back home... but could we go to bed yet?? NO! And why? Because it wasn't midnight in Chicago yet! We still had an hour to go. The kids insisted on staying up so them could text their Chicago friends at midnight...
... they were just barely hanging on though!

It was a great way to end 2011 and begin 2012!

Another day...

2012-01-15T20:37:00.001-06:00

.... another "non-real" post! :-)

Spent entirely too much time today shopping for the perfect crimper and doing this to Clara's hair....

No real post today....

2012-01-14T21:34:00.001-06:00

...because in addition to a full afternoon spent at Clara's ballet classes, a large chunk of our day was spent looking for the perfect dress for the daddy daughter dance with the right amount of twirly-ness. :-)

sledding video...

2012-01-13T10:49:00.002-06:00

So you can see that I wasn't kidding about Clara not being hurt and that she did come up laughing after her wipeout! :-)

the 31st...

2012-01-12T20:16:00.005-06:00

The last day of 2011 got off to a fabulous start! Jeff and the kids went off to ski for the morning. And I headed to the spa with his mom and aunt! We had massages scheduled for that morning. Afterward we took advantage of the steam room and sauna.... soooooo relaxing!

We all met up back at the house for lunch. After that, the kids went to the indoor pool for a swim (supervised by Grandma and Auntie Donna).

Can you believe that after skiing and swimming, they still weren't tired?? So, we headed out to try the unofficial sledding hill our neighbors had told us about. The first tee box for the golf course is at the end of our street, so we walked down there and the kids started sledding...
They both had gotten new sleds for Christmas from my parents. Clara got a disk that had grooves on the bottom that made you spin as you went down the hill. And Alex got a Zipfy mini luge....
... he had seen one in Wisconsin when we went to Door County this summer and had really wanted to try it out!

It wasn't the best snow to sled on...
...you would hit bumps every once in a while that would send you flying...
(Clara was NOT injured during that fall and came up laughing... whew!)

Alex had a little trouble adjusting to the Zipfy at first...

... get one foot down when you turn...
and it's WIPEOUT....
Clara after another wipeout...
They had so much fun sledding....
... but they were soon ready to head back to the house because they were eager to start our New Year's Eve festivities!!

13 things on Thursday...

2012-01-12T10:58:00.002-06:00

I honestly don't know that I have thirteen things to write about, but it seemed to go with "Thursday" so I went with it. This is going to be one of those boring, wordy posts with no photos, but given that this is the closest thing I have to journal, I wanted to get a few things down before I forgot them.

1. Made the decision on Monday that I will not be attempting the photo-a-day project this year. I've failed at it for three straight years, it's time to give it up. Up until Monday, I had just happened to have taken a photo every day, so that was my decision day.

2. On Sunday Clara auditioned for her first ever non-home ballet school summer intensive. A group of her friends from class have been talking and decided to start auditioning together. There are a few more coming up. Now we're just waiting to see what happens (if anything)

3. This week Clara started rehearsals for the ballet academy production of Cinderella. She's a butterfly. :-)

4. Also, Monday marked Clara's first day to do pointe work at center in class! She's been limited to the barre before. She had had to do some pointe work at center in the audition on Sunday. So scary for her to have her first experience at center be in an audition!!

5. Alex is off to a fabulous start after break! He got the top score in his grade for their Code Worlds exam that they took before Christmas (Code Worlds is a math course with language arts).

6. I am really impressed with Alex's teachers at school! On Tuesday I get a random email during the day from one of teachers writing to let me know how well Alex was doing in class that day. That afternoon at pick-up, his homebase teacher stopped me. He wanted to let me know that Alex and another boy in their homebase had become really good friends and wondered if I minded if he put us in touch with the boy's parents so they could get together on the weekend sometime. How cool is that? I think it's great that his teacher cares that much! And finally, last night when I picked up Alex from game club, another teacher asked if Alex could join the band he was putting together. Right now it's one teacher on drums, the assistant principal on bass and the teacher that I was talking to and Alex on guitar! The thought cracks me up! They want to put something together to show the school to get people excited and then they'll start working with beginning guitar students. So far, this school has been an amazing fit for Alex!

7. I think I'm becoming addicted to pinterest.

8. There's a really good chance that my perfectly crafted after school activity schedule is going to implode quite soon. In addition to our knowns of Cinderella and Alex's spring young ensemble theater project, we have several more things that may or may not throw a wrench in the plan. Alex seems to think that he's about to graduate out of Rock 101 and will be performing in one of the School of Rock spring shows and Clara wants to audition for her school's spring musical. We'll see though... it's all speculation at the moment.

9. We will get Clara's science fair project experiment done this weekend (if I say it enough times, hopefully it will come true!). It's not due for a month, but the sooner she gets it done, the better!

10. ??

Okay... I didn't make it to 13, I didn't even make it to 10. But I think I got down everything I wanted to and now I need to go get something accomplished! I'm still working on our photos from break... I'll have those up later today!

Just Dance...

2012-01-11T10:14:00.002-06:00

the 30th...

2012-01-10T14:27:00.003-06:00

... started out like a typical day. Jeff and the kids hit the slopes early, and I lazed around with the pup for a bit. But then I had to get busy! Jeff's parents and his aunt were coming in later that day for our "Christmas" with them! I got dinner started and we all picked up the house.

Soon they arrived and the games began!

Phase 10...
And pool...
After a huge dinner of ham, kielbasa, pierogies and other goodies, it was time for presents...

Then we did birthdays...
Clara commandeered my camera while I was opening presents and took this one of me. This could possibly the first photo of me that I've posted here, if not, it's the first in a really long time. I can't promise that I'll post many more, but I'm going to try to be better about actually being in photos rather than just taking them.

After me, she turned the camera on her brother...
... who was thoroughly engrossed in the parts to his new Skylanders game he got for his xbox.

She took some other ones as well... but I'm not going to push my luck with posting them because I have a feeling that I'm going to be in enough hot water for posting some video of our Just Dance dance-off later! It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission, right? :-)

Finally, after presents, it was time for cake...
... and pie (butterfinger pie... a pinterest find!)

A fun, fun day!

the "sledding hill" video...

2012-01-09T13:55:00.002-06:00

the 29th...

2012-01-09T09:49:00.006-06:00

... was my birthday! I woke up to presents and handmade cards... what a great way to start the day!

Jeff and the kids went off to ski and I hung out with a book and the Mango pup...
After lunch the kids wanted to go out and play in the new snow we had just gotten...

Alex's mind immediately turned to mischief...and he started stalking his sister with a snowball hidden behind his back...

But she was on to him and readied her shield...
:-)

Then he decided to go for a different angle...

They had so much fun just playing outside...
I kid you not... they were out there for THREE straight hours! They got this wild idea to build a "sledding hill" on our perfectly flat backyard. They actually made a pretty decent (albeit small) ramp with all of their hard work! I didn't take any photos of it, but I do have video... I'll have to post that next.

That evening we went to our neighbors' house for a holiday open house! It was so nice to get to meet and visit with other people with houses in our neighborhood. We got to talk to the family that has the cottage directly behind us for quite a while. They ended up coming over that night and their girls played Kinect with Alex and Clara. Lots of laughing and lots of good conversation!

First day of vacation!

2012-01-08T20:15:00.002-06:00

On December 27th, Clara had her last Nutcracker performance. While she was there, we packed up the car so we were ready to head out of town. We were heading to our place in Michigan for a couple of weeks of skiing and relaxing!

We got in fairly late, so no skiing that night. The next morning though, the kids were on the slopes at 9:00 am for their private ski lesson. They got them as a Christmas gift. Alex has been having weekly lessons through the ski club he's in, but since this was Clara's first outing of the season we thought it would be good to start out with a refresher lesson. While they were skiing, Jeff and I ran to the grocery store to get our provisions for the next couple of weeks.

They skied for a couple of hours and then came back to the house to try out some of their new games they had gotten for Alex's Kinect....

Later in the day, Jeff and the kids all headed out to do some skiing...

A really good start to a great trip!!

Back home...

2012-01-07T18:59:00.001-06:00

After almost two weeks away, the pack is back in Chicago! Lots of photos (and videos) to come :-)

a couple of books...

2012-01-06T08:26:00.001-06:00

Some other photos I found while I was working on projects were some book photos...

The Ask and the Answer...
... by Patrick Ness

This is book two in the Chaos Walking series. Book one grabbed me and left with such a cliff hanger that I had to get book two as soon as I could. I flew through this one as well. Such a compelling story that you get so swept up in the excitement/chaos of it all. I will admit that some parts are tough. There is a character that I really don't like (it's not that he isn't well written, it's just that he's an evil man) and I get mad at him a lot (yes, I get mad at fictional characters) and have to stop reading. But then I *need* to know what happens next so I pick the book back up a few minutes later. I'm currently still reading book three... it's been a tough one for me, but I'll report back on that when I finish it.

A random library pick that I loved was...
Countdown by Deborah Wiles.

The book follows a 12 year old girl during the days leading up to and including the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I have read things and watched shows about the Cuban Missile Crisis, but they have all been from an adult perspective. This one really grabbed me, as it was written from the perspective of a girl.... a girl not much different in age from my kids. This book is an example of why I love historical fiction... it makes things real. It's not just some information in a history book, but something that happened (on some level) to everyone around at that time. Here is the story of a girl trying to balance friend troubles with the threat of nuclear war... it was heart wrenching at times. We bought copies as Christmas presents for both of our mothers. It's been interesting to hear their stories about where they were and what they felt during that time period. I think from what I can tell, this is the first in a series of books that the author is writing about the 60's... I look forward to reading more!

Alex's video...

2012-01-05T08:14:00.001-06:00

Watch at your own risk...

He turns the camera every which way and screams like a lunatic most of the way down!

Where Jeff finally found the kids...

2012-01-04T08:12:00.001-06:00

Just a little video so you can get an idea of how much ground they had covered!

the dunes...

2012-01-03T07:54:00.001-06:00

We didn't stay inside our whole trip! We were hoping for snow so Jeff and the kids could ski, but instead we had no snow and mild temps. So, on Black Friday, while everyone else was shopping, we took out to Sleeping Bear Dunes and the Dune Climb.

Alex was pretty excited...

First order of business was to climb to the top of the front dune and run back down...

Jeff and I had figured that they would just climb and run down for a little while so we didn't dress to walk through sand. After running down, they announced that they would like to do some of the trails. Again, we didn't think this would last long, so we found ourselves a picnic table to sit at and sent them on their way....
However... they never came back! 45 minutes or so had past so Jeff had to go out looking for them! He finally found them about 1 1/2 hours after they had set out! They had decided to hike to Lake Michigan!!

He called them back and soon they were running down the front dune again...
Alex had my flip running as he ran and created a very motion sickness inducing video!

Here comes Jeff...
I had to interrupt their viewing of Alex's video in order to get just a couple more shots...

And then it was time to empty the sand out of our shoes and head back to the house!

backtracking...

2012-01-02T08:38:00.001-06:00

While working on some projects for Christmas, I found a bunch of photos I never posted. One group in particular was our pictures from Thanksgiving.

Given that Alex had the opera both Wednesday night and Saturday night, we didn't have long to get away. So, we headed up to our place in Michigan on Thanksgiving morning. It was our first trip there as a family!!

One thing the kids were very excited about was that the house came with a pool table.

Jeff decided to show them how it was done...
:-)

Alex really worked at it...
... and is on his way to becoming quite the pool shark!

Clara? Well... we're just glad that no one lost an eye and nothing got broken :-)

Merry Christmas... umm... Happy New Year! :-)

2012-01-01T07:38:00.001-06:00

Cards have finally been mailed out and should have arrived by now, so I can finally post here!

Hoping you have a wonderful 2012!!! (And that I have a more organized year!) :-)

Happy New Year's Eve!!!

2011-12-31T22:39:00.002-06:00

Good friends from Texas...

2011-12-30T08:26:00.002-06:00

On the 18th, we were fortunate enough to have some good friends from our time in Texas come downtown to see Clara in the Nutcracker! Clara and "L" were in the same class at Sunday School and in the same preschool class. They happened to move to Connecticut the very same week we moved back up here. They stayed in CT a few years and are now back in Texas. They have good friends from CT who live here in the 'burbs, so they came up to stay with them and while here, wanted to come see Clara!

Before Clara's call time, we met them at the Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes.

The girls acted like they had never been apart...

They started goofing around with taking pictures...And really got themselves cracked up!
It was so fun to see them walk down the sidewalk to the theater together... side by side, chattering away. You would have had a hard time believing that they hadn't seen each other since Clara was (newly) 5 and "L" was 4 (almost 5)!

Christmas with...

2011-12-29T09:18:00.002-06:00

... Grandpa and Grandma Missouri!

My parents came in on the 22nd so we could celebrate Christmas together (and so they could see Clara in the Nutcracker). Thursday was a crazy day... mainly due to the fact that the orthodontist had forgotten to order Clara's new retainer and that wasn't discovered until she was sitting in the chair waiting to have her new retainer fitted (and did I mention that this was 1 hour before her call time at the theater AND we still needed to pick up her friend to take her with us?). We managed to make it to the theater on time (5 minutes early even!), but had to stop back by the orthodontist after the matinee in order to pick up her new temp retainer. Whew!

Friday, my parents went to see Clara in the matinee and came to our place afterward to have our Christmas!

Look at all of those presents under the tree....

See... Alex really did dress like Santa that day for school...:-)

Opening presents...
My dad had gotten a new camera, so he was busy taking lots of photos!

We had a great visit and got lots of great gifts! The kids can't wait to try out their new sleds when (if?) we ever get snow this winter!!

the Christmas skateboards...

2011-12-28T07:47:00.001-06:00

Not very exciting footage... but it's what the kids did all Christmas day...

... when they weren't playing Just Dance :-)

Christmas Day...

2011-12-27T07:50:00.001-06:00

We have a rule about Christmas morning.... they can go to each others' rooms but not before 7:00 and they can't come and get us until 7:30. Well... they followed the rules, but they were up and in and out of the bathroom starting at 5:45. They were just a little excited!

I didn't take many photos of the gift opening frenzy, but here's one of them opening their stocking stuffers...

The one thing Clara asked Santa for this year was a skateboard. And she got her wish...
She was soooo excited about it! And to make it more fun, we also got Alex one as well...
They spent a large chunk of the day yesterday skateboarding in the alley!

I was surprised, but Clara wasn't quite as fearless with it as I had thought she would be...
Alex caught on right away....But several of his school friends have skateboards and he's played around with them after school a little.

Clara was pretty dependent on Jeff for a while...

But then we made the decision to go in for a while and leave her out there to figure it out on her own. And, guess what... she did! She was even doing "jumps" by the end of the night (to be honest, they're not what you could call jumps in the least, but she was pretty proud of them!) :-)

Besides skateboarding, they spent a lot of the day playing with their new games for the wii and the kinect. They got quite the workout from Just Dance!!

Oh... Alex's big Santa gift was a Kindle Fire. Clara had bought one with her birthday money and loved it... so Alex wanted one too. I really think they're neat! I like that they can play their games, but I also like being able to download books from the public library. Since getting hers Clara has been reading even more! She really enjoys being able to pick up a new book from the library whenever she feels like it. And with Alex being such a voracious reader... it will be great for him too!

The skateboards are such a big hit that they've already been out skateboarding with the neighbors today... but now they're all over to play Kinect. Yesterday was a good day for the kids with family and today is a good day with friends!

Christmas Eve...

2011-12-26T10:02:00.003-06:00

The photos over the next few days are going to be a mess as far as chronological order is concerned! I got behind as Christmas was approaching, so I'll post Christmas Eve and Day stuff first and then go back and try to catch up on the rest.

Christmas Eve was a big day! First of all, it was the last day of my parents' visit (those photos to come later.. out of order, of course). We started the day with breakfast out with them before saying our good-byes. Then we went home to get Clara ready for the Nutcracker matinee.

Here she is waiting for her friend's dad to pick her up...
We were all going to see the performance that day, so the dad took the girls down early and we picked up everyone else to get there closer to performance time.

After the performance, we came home to our traditional Christmas Eve routine. First up, our usual dinner of Slow Cooker Taco Soup. Then since we were behind on baking this year, the kids baked. They had decided that Santa would like some banana bread this year. So, while they worked on that, Jeff and I wrapped presents.

After the baking, showering and getting ready for bed, it was time to open and read the last book... 'Twas the Night Before Christmas...
The kids then got their letters, milk and plates of cookies ready for Santa...
And I got the Land of Nod cinnamon "rolls" ready so they would be ready to go into the oven first thing in the morning...
And that was pretty much it! The kids were hyped up, but were asleep relatively early (10ish). Jeff and I had all of our wrapping to do, but I think we had it done by around 9:00. So, not too bad!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

2011-12-25T17:19:00.003-06:00

(I normally post our Christmas card on Christmas day... but given that I haven't gotten them mailed yet, I thought I would post one of the photos I took while trying to get our card photos instead... hopefully they'll go out tomorrow) :-}

random blurry photos

2011-12-23T13:31:00.002-06:00

:-)

This week has just completely gotten away from me!! I have photos to share from my camera but I've not managed to get them transferred to the computer yet. I did transfer some photos from Clara's friend's camera so I could upload them to our cast share site... so I thought I would share a couple here, even if they are really blurry!

Wednesday, after the matinee, they had the Nutcracker Children's Cast Party at the restaurant next door to the theater. The kids always look forward to this night! It's a whole restaurant full of kids! Clara had a great time with her friends.

Several of the professional dancers came, signed autographs and took photos with the kids...

Clara forgot her camera at their table so her friend took these for her.

I can't believe that tomorrow is Christmas Eve!! We have so much wrapping to do! It's been a busy week with Clara having matinees and both kids having school all week. At Alex's school the kids earned the privilege of having a dress down day today. Alex emailed his teacher last night to confirm the dress down down and this is the response he got...

We sure do buddy. You have my permission to dress as Santa Claus if you would like to. =b

Mr. Hoover

So, guess what Alex dressed up as today! You got it... Santa Claus! Not entirely though... he just wore his stuff from the Santa Hustle race on the 3rd. I wonder if his teacher was amused? :-)

Well... I need to get moving! Tonight we have our "Christmas" with my mom and dad! The kids can hardly wait for presents!!

December 16th... Angel in the evening

2011-12-19T10:07:00.003-06:00

Friday evening, we had to get the last traces of zombie make-up off, so she could transform into an angel for the evening Nutcracker performance :-)

It was picture night backstage, so Clara took her camera. She had great moms backstage that night and they took a ton of great photos with the girls' cameras. One mom took this great series of Clara getting her wig...
(that's why I've stopped worrying about her braids so much! they just have to be secure enough to attach her wig pins to, but they don't have to be pretty!)

Time for the wig...
And now her crown...
Almost done...
And there's my smiley angel girl...Her grandpa and grandma were in from Michigan to see the performance that night and our upstairs neighbor was there to see her as well!

December 16th... Zombie in the morning...

2011-12-17T21:20:00.002-06:00

Yesterday started out with Clara's school dance program. She was SOOOOOO excited about it! She's been talking about it for months now. Her class was dancing to Thriller and dressed like zombies...
Notice the pants? We found a use for Alex's ripped uniform pants! LOL!

The kids did a really great job and had a lot of fun!

Check back later to see what she transformed into next!

December 15th...

2011-12-16T11:36:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was the student matinee for the Nutcracker. With the early call time, Clara wasn't able to go to school, so we decided to make a day of it!

After the performance, we headed over to eat at the Walnut Room at Marshall Field's (still not keen on calling it Macy's)....
Thankfully my friend and I had walked over to pick up a pager before the performance, so we could get seated fairly quickly after they were done. It worked perfectly and we were immediately escorted to a table right by the Christmas trees...

For dessert, the girls ordered ice cream snowmen...
They were pretty cute! My friend and I split a piece of Frango Mint chocolate ice cream pie... YUM!

After lunch, we parted ways and Clara and I went off to find a present for her Nutcracker Secret Santa. Clara picked out something really neat! She can't wait to give it to her on Sunday.

Since Alex and I had already been there, Clara decided that she would like to visit the Christkindlmarket as well...
We made a quick run through and then were off 1) because it was getting pretty chilly and 2) it was time we picked Alex up from school.

December 13th and 14th...

2011-12-15T18:32:00.003-06:00

Not terribly holiday related photos these days, but they do reflect what was going on in our house.

December 13th...

Alex obsessing over his fantasy football line up...
He made it through the first game of the playoffs after beating his uncle! He was pretty excited about it. Jeff lost his game in the championship playoffs and I lost mine in the Toilet Bowl playoffs (not a good year for Mommy Dearest).

December 14th....

Wednesdays are my errand days and, most importantly, library day! I love library day! Even when I do have fines to pay at every visit... sigh.
The top two are Clara's (she reads mostly ebooks she checks out from the library on her Kindle). The bottom one is mine (the last book in the Chaos Walking series). And the rest are random books I picked out for Alex. I may end up reading some of his as well once I finish Monsters of Men.

I promise you, the photos I have from today are much more Christmas-y!!

December 11th and 12th...

2011-12-13T14:18:00.003-06:00

December 11th...

We FINALLY put the tree up! I was beginning to think that we were never going to get around to it. Our weekends have just been so crazy lately.

Jeff put the garland on...
with some help from Alex...
He wasn't feeling all that great. The kids were supposed to sing in a program at church that night, but with Alex not feeling well and Clara being run down with Nutcracker opening weekend stuff, we decided to take it easy and stay home.

Clara was extremely excited about decorating the tree...
(she's looking a little "Flash Dance" here because she had just came home from doing a make-up class in Broadway Jazz... the end of semester is going to be here before we know it and need to get those make-ups done - keeping caught up on make-ups has been the bane of my existence lately!)

Clara's little angel found a home...
Jeff and I were rather uninvolved this year. The kids did most (if not all) of the decorating.

Oh... and Mango isn't spoiled at all...
... is she? :-)

December 12th...

A semi normal day, except taking Clara to ballet early so she could fit in another make-up before her class began.

We did get some exciting news though! Clara's preschool friend from Texas will be visiting Chicago this weekend and will be at Clara's Sunday night performance! They had looked up the cast list online, bought tickets and surprised us with the news yesterday! They're staying out in the 'burbs with friends, but we're going to try to get the girls together before the show!

After dropping Clara off at ballet and while Alex was at his young ensemble group, I had time at home, alone, to sit in the dark by the tree....
... it's my favorite thing ... quiet and the soft glow of the lights!

December 9th and 10th...

2011-12-11T17:27:00.006-06:00

Yesterday I edited photos until my mouse died. Well... it didn't die, the batteries did. I went up and got two more batteries out of the charger and put them in. They didn't work... found out that the charger had been set to 2 instead of 4 batteries. I picked the half that didn't get charged... I figured it was a sign and walked away from my computer for the evening. :-)

So... backtracking to Friday...

Friday's post is all about hair! First we have Clara...
Ah... there's a smile!
It was dress rehearsal day for Nutcracker, so I had to French braid her hair. Have I mentioned that I really stink at French braiding? Well, I do. But since it's covered by a wig, I don't have to do a great job, but Friday's braids didn't look too bad...(got the right side in one try, but it took about six for the left!)

My friend picked Clara up and took her to rehearsal and then I was off to pick up Alex from school. He had another early release day and had to picked up by noon. He was in desperate need for a haircut, so he got one on our way home...I'm going to be so glad when his other teeth come in! Just having those four teeth up top in the front is killing me! :-)

Mango got jealous and wanted in the photo as well...I really think she was just seeing if Alex had any crumbs left from lunch!

Thursday, when we were at the market, Alex and I found this little angel...
Looks a little like the snow tree angel costume, don't you think?(photo from last year, taken by the children's ballet mistress)

So, I got Clara and her friend one for opening night. They got out of dress rehearsal at 4:15 and had a call at the theater at 5:30 for the opening night show. I picked the girls up and took them to dinner during that time.

They were anxious to get back to the dressing room, but they did let me take a quick snap before they disappeared down the alley to the stage door...Her friend's mom volunteered backstage that night and brought them home. They stopped for a snack and ice cream on the way home!

They even brought them flowers!She was getting a little loopy by this point...
veeeeerrrrrrry loopy......
December 10th...

I took a TON of photos yesterday, but I can't post them (yet, at least)! Clara went to ballet and while she was downstairs, I went upstairs. I had been asked to photograph the trainees' production of the Nutcracker Suite and yesterday was dress rehearsal. It was tough, but really cool. I got some shots that I'm really proud of and can't wait to share them when I can!

Clara skipped her last hour of classes and was picked up by her friend and her family. They took her with them to the Nutcracker Family Dinner! She had a really great time! She had her camera with her, but I don't know if she took any photos since she left her camera in her friend's car. From the dinner, they went straight to the show and got to watch the second act with the other cast members. She was one tired girl when she got home... but still incredibly wound up!

And then there's Alex...
Really crappy random photo... but it's him still half in his ski gear. He joined a ski club and yesterday was his first day. The bus left around 7:30 am and returned at 5:00pm. He had such a great time.... he's already asked us to sign him up for next week's trip even though he had something else that he had planned to do that day. He made new friends on the bus, which was great. The day starts with a ski lesson based on their level and then the rest of day is free for skiing (or snowboarding, if that's your thing). He loves to ski and is thrilled that he can do it more often now... plus he enjoys being part of a club with the lessons and other planned activities.

December 8th...

2011-12-09T09:13:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was a crazy day! For Clara it was tech rehearsal for Nutcracker, so I had to pull her out of school at 11:15. For Alex, it was a half day because it was Student Lead Conference day, so he had to be picked up by noon. I managed to get both kids and have time for lunch before Clara needed to be dropped off at the theater (thank goodness for cabs!).

After dropping Clara off, we were supposed to meet up with friends, but given a meeting that ran over and some missed connections, it just didn't happen (maybe next time!). So, Alex and I decided to make a quick stop at the Christkindlmarket on Daley Plaza....

There were lots of cool vendors (wish we would have been hungry... the food smelled wonderful!). The sweet shop was probably Alex's favorite though...
I had the wrong lens on for taking a shot of the nativity...
I have temporarily misplaced my wide angle lens :-}

After that, we went on home and waited for it to be time to go to Alex's Student Lead Conference. It went really well and we're very proud of the boy!

What the boy has been up to at school...

2011-12-08T15:23:00.003-06:00

The boy emailed me this video he made of the Rube Goldberg machine they were building at school for their "boss level" challenge...

... he was soooo excited about it! Unfortunately the machine "failed" during judging since the balloon that releases the weights didn't pop... but he still had a great time with the project! We are so fortunate to have found a school that is so "Alex" :-)

(Alex really enjoys adding sound effects to his movies!)

December 7th...

2011-12-08T09:27:00.004-06:00

Last night, after I picked Alex up from his after school game club (he just joined game club and he LOVES it), we rushed home to do some baking for his school's bake sale and teacher appreciation dinner.

We decided to make the easy, but fabulous, Brownie Covered Oreos that I found on Picky Palate. They're my "go to" recipe for school bake sales. But yesterday I had gone to Trader Joe's instead of the regular grocery store, so technically they were Brownie Covered Joe Joe's. I also couldn't resist picking up a box of the Candy Cane Joe Joe's...
Alex and I mixed, coated and baked them all evening...
They are so incredibly good! Alex especially loved the candy cane ones. Now all I have left to do is to get them to school!

December 6th...

2011-12-07T22:42:00.002-06:00

Alex very animatedly reading last night's book (Froggy's Best Christmas) to Clara...

Alex used to LOVE the Froggy books when he was little :-)

In other news... Clara had an orthodontist appointment yesterday (to fix a broken retainer... sigh) and the orthodontist pulled the rest of her tooth out! So she's snaggle tooth free!

December 5th...

2011-12-06T11:13:00.003-06:00

Yesterday at school pick up time, it became "one of those days"... sigh.

First off, Clara...

While walking home she announces to me that she lost a tooth today! I asked her to show me the new gap and when I looked in I was horrified to see snaggly bits of tooth still in the space! I asked her if she was sure she lost a tooth and she said yes, it was in her bag and she was surprised that she lost it since it wasn't even wiggly.

When we got home, this is what she showed me...
... approximately half a tooth... the rest is still in there! Apparently it's no big deal, but the dentist wanted to see her anyway... so we'll be off to the dentist on Thursday.

Next up we have Alex...

He looked completely normal when I saw him, but then, much like Clara, the truth started to come out on our walk. He slipped during recess... he was running to get the ball, put on the breaks and his feet went out from under him, so now his backside looks like this...
Thankfully I had a change of clothes for him since he was going straight to his young ensemble performance. The verdict is still out on whether the pants will come clean or if they'll become another statistic... but he did rip the sleeve of the long sleeved shirt he had on under his polo... that's a new column to add to my count.

I had to drop off Alex early for his young ensemble group, so with 1 1/2 hours to kill, I wandered around and did some shopping. It's not a great photo (or even a good one) but here's a quick shot of the tree in front of the Hancock building...
If it hadn't been so windy I might have tried to get a better one, but I was over it and wanted to get back inside.

The fall project of his young ensemble group is probably my favorite (until spring when I'll declare that the spring project is my favorite). In the fall they write an original work and then perform it. It always amazes me. Last fall I was completely blown away, but I had no clue what to expect. I thought I would enjoy it this year, but it wouldn't be quite so unexpected. Once again, it totally exceeded my expectations. They have some really talented kids in this group, both actors and writers. I was choked up, near tears for a lot of the performance. They based their theme on that of the professional theater's theme this year... in one moment, everything changed. To see these kids be so honest and insightful is just amazing. Alex had a monologue near the end and it took my breath away... not just the way Alex performed it, but the way it was written. He pointed out the boy who wrote it to me (no one performs their own writing) and it was almost unbelievable that it was written by a 13 year old kid. They are a truly talented group. A bonus with this year's fall project, instead of being over with this performance, it will continue to evolve as they turn it into a touring piece. After the holidays, we will learn more about when and where they will be performing it.

We stayed a bit for the party after the performance, chatting with the other parents from Alex's school. It was nice to get to catch up with them, especially since the boys get along so well and share so many interests.

Then it was time to run to get Clara from ballet. Once at home, they did their Christmas stuff... opening a new door on the Lego calendar...
and reading their book!

December 4th...

2011-12-05T10:17:00.002-06:00

Not a very exciting photo, but it represents something pretty exciting...
... we had our final production meeting for Nutcracker which means it's almost time for the shows to begin!! The kids also got their shirts and yearbooks which is always exciting as well!

The meetings... not so exciting... especially when for the first hour and a half meeting I was sitting on the floor (and that meeting was only supposed to be an hour). For the second one, I scored a chair!

After church, Clara had an extra rehearsal for Nutcracker and then was off to a birthday party for the rest of the day. Her rehearsal was supposed to be earlier in the day, but mid-week we got an email saying that they time was pushed back and the rehearsal time was increased by 1/2 an hour. That meant she would miss the party. But, her friend's mom was so understanding and since it was a very small "girls' day out" type of party, she pushed the start time back so Clara could attend the whole thing! We took her straight to the restaurant to meet them for lunch after rehearsal and then they were off to design custom purses, have cupcakes and play at the park! She had a great time (even with coming home with a red lump on her forehead from where she hit it when she wiped out at the park!).

Alex, on the other hand, came home after church and vegged. The boys decided to drive home from Indy after the game and finally made it in at 3:00am. He needed an afternoon with nothing much to do!

December 3rd...

2011-12-04T08:48:00.003-06:00

Just a quick post since we're running out the door to church and then an afternoon of chaos (rehearsals, birthday parties and meetings... oh my!).

Yesterday started out with the boys getting all decked out...
... for the Santa Hustle 5k! They really enjoyed it... especially Alex since they handed out cookies, candy canes and Hershey kisses at the aid stations! :-) Not really sure how they did officially since in their hurry to get out the door they forgot their numbers and their timing chips!

Once they were home, it was a mad dash to get them ready to head to Indy for the Big 10 Football Championship game! They made a last minute decision with some friends to go since it was Michigan State vs. Wisconsin (our friends are Wisconsin fans)...
With the boys gone and Clara at a full day of ballet (11:30-5:00!!)... I settled in to work on our Christmas card... and it's almost done!!

Okay... that's the Cliff Notes version of our day! Gotta run!

December 2nd...

2011-12-03T08:32:00.005-06:00

After taking Alex to school yesterday morning, I noticed the CTA Holiday Train schedule at the L station. I saw that it was running through our station that afternoon and, if the stars aligned, we would be able to make it! So, Alex and I rushed home after school so he could change out of his uniform and we could catch the train! He had had a tough day at school (large group project that is both extremely fun and extremely taxing at the same time... building a large scale Rube Goldberg machine) and needed a little Holiday cheer!

We got to the station in plenty of time...
Here it comes!!
It always amazes me to see Santa riding out there on that flat bed car in winter...
There was a little boy by us who nearly lost his mind... he was so over the top excited about seeing Santa and the train! That really helped boost our spirits! :-)

The inside of the train is incredibly decorated as well. Workers dressed as elves handing out candy canes, poles wrapped in red and white, tinsel, multicolored lights, Christmas music playing, North Pole signs...
... and the kids' favorites... the jokes...
At first I wasn't able to sit by the kids so Clara kept texting me jokes!

I love all of the signs...
And this one on the outside of the train...
We rode the train all of the way to the end of the line. It wasn't a photos with Santa day, but we did get to snap a couple of shots of him in his sleigh as we sat at the station...

Then it was time to board the train to go back south.

I finally got a semi-clear shot of the sign that I, for some reason, feel the need to photograph each year...Then it was time to change trains, so another shot of the outside...And time to say good-bye to the Santa train...
(I was so proud of myself last night for getting a photo of the front of the train AND the back of the train... until I realized while downloading the photos that I just took a photo of the same end twice since the train just reversed directions at the end of the line... LOL!)

We then took Alex over to church for youth group movie night (The Nightmare Before Christmas).

Clara and I took advantage of the emptiness of the garth to take a few photos...

Then Clara and I headed over to the Bloomingdale's building for dinner...
We had dinner and did a little Christmas shopping (actually we didn't do much buying, just planning) and then Jeff picked us all up on his way home from the airport!

December 1st

2011-12-02T10:01:00.003-06:00

The kids have been so excited about this day... the day our Christmas countdowns officially begin!

For the past few years, we've been getting the Lego Advent calendars. We usually get the City one... first because I think that's all that was offered and then last year, I didn't act fast enough to get the Castle one. This year Jeff and I picked up the Star Wars one early (thank goodness the Lego store has moved over by our church... easy pick up while the kids were in rehearsal for the musical).

The other countdown they look forward to is unwrapping a Christmas book a day. I'm pretty sure this is our 10th Christmas of doing this and the kids show no signs of wanting to stop. Some of the books have changed (the Elmo and Clifford books have been retired), but some of the classics have been there every year. I made a quick trip to the neighborhood used book store the other day and picked up a couple new surprises for them. I have no clue how many books we have total in our Christmas collection, but it's fun to have options to switch out from year to year.
This year our 1st and 24th book are wrapped in red and white. The 1st book is always the same nativity story book we've used since year one and the 24th book is always 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. The version has changed from year to year though. We started out with a board book, progressed to a regular hardback edition and now we have a beautiful, delicate pop-up version. Clara's books are the blue with candy cane paper ones and Alex's are the green with candy canes paper ones. If we had two boys, we could probably get by with wrapping them the same, but given the drama we had years ago when Alex unwrapped the Nutcracker Barbie book, we've learned to wrap them differently. Alex's still aren't finish though! I ran out of tape yesterday with just three books left! I'm going to make a tape run later this morning.

Alex had nothing after school yesterday and Clara had planned on doing a make-up ballet class. But I made a command decision that we should just all stay home and enjoy the 1st of December together. They opened the first door on the Lego calendar and built the little Star Wars ship. They unwrapped the first book and fought over the puzzle piece people like they do every year (the nativity book is a big board book with puzzle piece people and animals that you fit into the pages as you read... we all know they've outgrown board books... but this is just a tradition and they wouldn't have it any other way). Then we settled in on the couch to watch some Christmas specials together. It was such a nice calm way to usher in what always turns out to be such a chaotic month!

100% Chance of Rain

2011-12-01T11:40:00.005-06:00

In addition to my plan to do the Daily December thing... I'm also going to make an attempt to get caught up on random other photos I've taken over the past couple of months (key word being "attempt").

The kids were so excited this summer when they learned that there would be another fall musical at church this year! Alex was in it three years ago, but then they took a break for a couple of years. And, as luck would have it, the break started the year that Clara was first old enough to participate! Alex always had a great time doing the musical, so she couldn't wait for her turn.

This year they did the musical 100% Chance of Rain. It was the story of Noah and his family. Alex played Noah's son, Ham. And Clara was Noah's son Shem's wife (got that?).

I only took photos at dress rehearsal this year so I could sit back and enjoy the actual show.

We were a little early...
Alex took advantage of the empty stage to ham it up a bit...
And apparently generate some static electricity! Look at that hair!Warming up...
And then running through the show...

They had such a great time being in the show with their church friends!

(oh... I took a ton more that I didn't post here... but they're on facebook)

a random photo...

2011-11-30T07:59:00.003-06:00

... because I'm trying to keep my posting momentum up in preparation for another attempt at "Daily December" and I don't have much time to post today.

The other day I found these two locked in battle over the remote...
The battle of the condiments... Mustard Man vs. Ketchup Man. Who will prevail??

this girl...

2011-11-29T10:01:00.005-06:00

... makes me proud!

I have been struggling with this post for some time now, and I think I'm finally able to write it. I don't want it to come off as bragging, but I hope you'll see my point as you continue to read.

A little over a year ago, I got some flack about our decision to let Clara try school. This person was a "reading specialist" who had diagnosed Clara with severe learning disabilities related to reading just from seeing her play in the alley and hearing me talk about she just doesn't read like Alex. I knew in my heart she was wrong, but the seed of doubt was planted.

Letting Clara try school last year was a HUGE decision for us. For us, our homeschooling philosophy was all about finding the curriculum/experiences that would help them thrive academically. I totally believe that homeschooling can provide the best education for a child, BUT... there are a ton of factors involved. Clara was never one who thrived at home with homeschooling. She's such a social creature and pined for the school experience. She also struggled with being in Alex's shadow. I had a hard time with this as well. Certain things came very easy to Alex and I floundered when they didn't come as easily for Clara. I was constantly searching for the right approach for her, constantly doubting myself. Well, it turns out that school (and our neighborhood school in particular) was the right approach for her. She was out of Alex's shadow and was evaluated on just being Clara. Without that pressure, she flourished. She also has some anxiety issues which we worked on the year prior to her starting school. I feared school was make them worse, but to my surprise, school actually made them almost non-existent. We found out that Clara gets scattered when she doesn't know what's happening, when there's not a regular routine. With school, she knows exactly what to expect each and every day... her anxiety is so much lower now than it's ever been. We thought maybe she was just "growing out of it", but we saw it come back a bit again this summer when we had no routine. She has also found a wonderful bunch of friends at school. She has her fun friends that she likes to play with, but she's also attached herself to two girls who are the top students in her grade. She plays with them as well, but she also looks to them as her academic inspiration. She challenges herself to keep pace with these two and the three of them have been promoted up together to the next level in math! She also seems to thrive with outside motivation as well... school offers up all kinds of "prizes" for accomplishing different things and Clara is bound and determined to win all she can! She recently got to go to a special pizza party for earning over a certain number of AR points (they earn AR points by reading books and taking comprehension quizzes). She also did all of her summer reading for the library's program in just two weeks, because her school had an ice cream party for those who completed it. She loves having something to work toward... it's her "currency" as my one friend calls it.

So, all of this brings me to the parent-teacher conference we had a few weeks ago. We were getting her ISAT scores and I was dreading it a little. The "reading specialist" had expressed concern (that's putting it nicely) that Clara would fail the ISAT in reading and have to go to summer school, missing her camp. Well, given that you would have to score under the 30th percentile in order to have to go to summer school, I was more than a little offended by this. But, I still didn't know just how she would score... I thought she would do okay. But I was still comparing her to Alex (which is so not fair, but I still struggle with that) and figured that she wouldn't do great. Well... I was wrong! She received "exceeds standards" across the board!! She scored in the 85th percentile for math, and my little "struggling reader" scored in the NINETY-SEVENTH percentile for reading!! She scored high enough to qualify to take the test for some of the selective enrollment elementary schools (that is, if she wanted to - which she doesn't - and we wanted to mess with the good thing we've got going on - which we don't). Her STAR Reading report also put her well above grade level. I found out that Clara truly isn't a struggling reader, she's just different than Alex. And you know what... that's okay... in fact, it's great!

I'm not saying that everything is always going to be perfect and that school is the definitive answer on Clara getting a good education. But right now, with these teachers, in this school, with these classmates... it's the perfect place for her to be!

(And with this... I'm done with the wordy posts and back to more photos!) :-)

a farewell to acting...

2011-11-28T11:19:00.004-06:00

... or at least a "see you later".

(Alex in his costume for Boris Godunov at the Lyric Opera)
After much back and forth, Alex has finally decided to take an extended break from acting. He really enjoyed acting, but I'm not sure he ever did it for the "right" reasons. He got into it when we homeschooled and I think it had more to do with him needing a place to belong and some recognition too. He really enjoyed the camaraderie with the other kids (and adults) in the shows he was in. He also enjoyed the recognition he got. I don't believe that he was ever really that into acting itself. Now, with school and his neighborhood friend, he doesn't need it in the same way. In fact, it gets in the way of the things he really wants to do. He's not a big fan of having to leave his friend's house early to go to the opera. He does it and really enjoys it once he's there, but he would much rather hang out with his friend. The really tough thing for him is school. He truly loves his school and hates having to miss. With this one opera alone, he had to miss three half days. He was not pleased... especially since so much of what they do in school are cool group projects. Missing those afternoons meant missing out on something cool. He needed to do this one last opera for it to hit home though. He didn't think it would bother him much, but it did. Because of that, he began to turn down parts and decided to not even audition for things that he normally would have jumped at. We had our final talk about this after he got a call from an agency about a shoot they wanted him for. He asked me about the commitment and I told him that he would miss 1 1/2 days of school (1/2 to get his work permit and at least one day for the shoot). He said no. We talked... now we no longer check audition listings, we've removed him from the agency's list, we're just living life! The one thing that he's still part of is the young ensemble group. But I think that's more than just "acting" to him... he has two friends from school in the group and two from youth group at church.

I'm very proud of the boy for maturely making this decision. He is the happiest now that I've seen him in a long time. He's getting the recognition he needed before, but now he's getting it for things that are really "him". Academics are his thing and that's where his affirmation is coming from now. He is thriving in his new school. Socially, he's made good friends at school and is no longer constantly looking for a group to belong to. He has his group that he sits with at lunch, plays games with at recess or works together with in class. And he has neighborhood friend that he spends hours with on the weekends. Life is good.

So, tomorrow night is the last of it (for a while at least)... perhaps we need to celebrate the end of an era and the beginning of a new one! :-)

10 things... Alex edition

2011-11-07T12:42:00.006-06:00

Since the last 10 things list was all about Clara, I thought I would make this one about Alex :-)

1. The boy has been crazy busy lately! And it's been a good crazy busy... lots of activities with friends which has just been great!

2. Alex had his first official school dance the Friday before Halloween! He had a great time and came home exhausted from all of the dancing!

3. That Saturday night, Alex and Jeff went to the Chicago Wolves game with a friend from Alex's football team. The dad is the other coach with Jeff. They had a really good time together!

Alex and his friend from football...
:-)

4. Alex got his first round of testing back from school. Their school has an "advantage hour" each day. If you're having trouble in a subject, you get additional help during this time. If you tested above grade level in everything, you get to pick an elective. Alex got to pick an elective :-) Alex got his second choice for his elective... community service projects. His group is working in our church's community garden! It's funny how small Chicago can be at times!

5. Which brings me to my next photo....
Yes, another pair of uniform pants down, sigh. If you're keeping track, the count now stands at two socks, one uniform shirt and THREE pairs of khakis! I was so excited to see that when I picked him up early from school on Monday (he had piano run through at the opera). He had trashed them during their advantage hour trip to the garden.

6. This past week was dress rehearsal week at the lyric so Alex got to wear his costume. Here he is in the boys' dressing room....
7. That night was Halloween night. Alex had insisted all month that he was too old to trick-or-treat and he just wanted to stay home. That was until around 4:30 that afternoon. Alex got a text from his friend asking him if he wanted to go trick-or-treating in about forty minutes. Forty minutes... YIKES!! We had just walked out of the opera and he had NO costume. He initially wanted to say no since he had no costume, but I told him that he if wanted to go, we would make it work. So, after a quick stop at CVS, we were on the train home to come up with a costume!

8. We brainstormed on the way home and here he is...
Benny the (skeleton) cab driver from the movie Halloweentown! Alex came up with that on his own since I've never seen the movie.

Benny the texting skeleton...
Alex with his friend and his family passing out candy while waiting to go out trick-or-treating...
They ended up going to a neighborhood for a bit that passes out full sized candy bars. Alex was very excited about that! Clara was at ballet, so she didn't go out until much later.

Alex was very glad that he ended up going and had a great time with his friend.

9. Alex's flag football photos...
Flag football season is over. He had a really great time. They made it to the championship game, but lost. The team was made up of a bunch of really great boys and they're hoping to come back together as a team in the spring. Alex's friend (from trick-or-treating) ended up playing with the team their last two games after they lost a player due to an injury. They'd play football together for a couple of hours and then hang out at our house playing video games for a couple more afterward.

10. Alex ran the Hot Chocolate 5k again this year! I still have a hard time believing that he just gets out there and does it without training, but he does!

Well... I think that catches things up for Alex!

liar, liar

2011-11-01T19:59:00.004-05:00

While perusing the "new books" shelf at the library a couple of weeks ago, I came across Liar, Liar by Gary Paulsen...

My first introduction to Paulsen was Hatchet a few years ago. It was my contribution to the book club Jeff and I have... I had heard good things about the book and wanted to share my love of juvenile fiction with Jeff. I figured the subject matter would at least intrigue him. We both really liked that book and last year we suggested it to Alex and he read it.

This past summer, I read several other Paulsen books. They were unlike Hatchet, and more along the lines of Liar, Liar. I read Lawnboy (suggested this one to Alex and he read it too), Lawnboy Returns and Notes from the Dog. Actually, I guess Notes from the Dog doesn't really fit into that group, but it is very different from Hatchet as well. Liar, Liar, Lawnboy and Lawnboy Returns all teach lessons in a humorous way. The Lawnboy books are about money and, of course, Liar, Liar is about lying.

I didn't love this book as much as I have some of Paulsen's other books, but I do think it's a valuable read. I like the lesson about lying and I like how things don't necessarily all come together neatly in the end when the main character comes clean about his lies. He learns that there are consequences to his actions and things aren't all set right with just an apology. Damage is done when you lie and it's better to not do it in the first place rather than think you can fix things if you're caught. And to be honest, you'll almost always get caught. That's a concept that escaped me in my youth... that even if someone doesn't directly call you out, chances are, that they still know that you were lying.

Alex and I have had some conversations about this lately. When he got the audition notice for the opera, the paperwork states that you "must be available for all rehearsals and performance to be considered" and it includes a list of all possible rehearsals and performances. The rehearsals started the very next day after the audition. Alex already had plans to go out of town with Jeff for the weekend (the MSU game). So, what do we do? Do we go on with the audition and spring this information on them after he's cast? Do we call in "sick" the next morning? Or, do we tell them up front, before the audition, that he has one conflict over the course of rehearsals and performances? The last option sounds easy, except for knowing that they may tell us that missing that one rehearsal is a dealbreaker (especially since it was the very first rehearsal) and he should, therefore, not audition. We decided that calling in sick the next morning would be the easiest answer, but was it the right answer? In the end, we decided that we should be upfront about his conflict and deal with whatever answer we got. Given that Alex has worked with them before on two other shows and has previously never missed a rehearsal or a performance, they said that it was okay for him to audition knowing that he would miss that one rehearsal. Alex felt good about the decision, knowing that he could be upfront about where he was that day instead of having to tell more lies to cover it. They also continue to know that Alex is a responsible kid who knows what he's committing to and follows through. I know this is easy to say since it all worked out, but I'm not sure how happy he would be knowing that he told a lie in order to be able to audition. He genuinely likes being part of the productions and cares about what they think of him there. Also, life is about making choices and you can't always have it all. With this situation, he had to decide about which was more important to him, going to the football game or being in the opera. To him, going to the game with his dad was most important. He really wanted to be part of the opera, but was willing to take the chance of not being able to be part of it in order to go to the game. It's a tough lesson for kids (and some adults...lol!)... but it's a necessary one.

Anyway, back to the book, again, not my favorite Paulsen book... but one that's worth reading for the message it contains!

10 things...

2011-10-31T09:34:00.005-05:00

... about Clara turning 10!!

1. She was extremely excited about turning 10 for some reason. This is probably the most excited I've seen her for her birthday EVER!

2. The Friday before her actual birthday, she had her party. She decided that she would like a 50's bowling party, so we contacted the little bowling alley Alex had gone to this summer with his camp and arranged to rent all of the lanes. She had three groups of friends there... her school group (we drove them over from school... man, was it a riot listening to them all in the backseat!), a group from where she takes ballet now and a group from where she previously took ballet. Here she is opening presents....
She had a blast! Since we had the whole place reserved, parents and siblings were welcome to stay. Alex brought a friend so he was able to handle being surrounded by so many girls... the two of them did their own thing and were occasionally joined by one of the little brothers.

3. Clara got an Angry Bird from her school BFF...
It went everywhere with us!

4. The next morning was another birthday treat! Since she was officially turning ten that weekend, her ballet instructor gave her permission to go ahead and purchase her first pair of pointe shoes!! We went for her fitting first thing Saturday morning (she was still 9, but she wouldn't be wearing them until she was 10... possibly 11 if I don't get around to sewing the elastics and ribbons in soon).

She was so excited...She won't get to wear them much. They're trying a new approach where instead of waiting until later and going from flat shoes to doing a whole class en pointe, they start earlier and do only a little at a time until they build up to a full class. She's scheduled to start actually wearing them in class mid-November (again, only if I manage to get them sewn :-).

5. That night she went straight from Nutcracker rehearsals to a haunted house party with her friend. She was quite the party girl her birthday weekend.

6. Saturday night she was so wound up about turning 10 the next day that she had trouble going to sleep. She became obsessed with the fact that she *needed* something to wear the next day that would let everyone know that it was her birthday. We didn't have anything, so I handed her a sheet of mailing labels and told her she could make her own birthday sticker. This is what she showed us the next morning...
(spelling is not Clara's strong subject)

We had to vote on our favorite so she could wear it to church.

7. And wear it she did...
Fancy party dress, check. Angry Bird, check. Homemade "I'm 10 today" sticker, check. Ready for church.

8. She didn't know it at the time, but she had a big daddy daughter date that afternoon. For her birthday Jeff got season tickets to the Joffrey for the two of them. He took her to see Don Quixote straight from church. She loved it!

9. That night we had our little family celebration. Jeff and I had picked up cupcakes from Sprinkles while they were in rehearsal at church...
red velvet, lemon, vanilla with milk chocolate icing, carrot cake, caramel apple and peanut butter chocolate chip... yum!

10. Another birthday present from friends was a new hat and glove set. She wore them on Monday for her school birthday party. She was wearing a grey poncho that day which made her look a little like a flying squirrel...
:-)

Well... I think that's about all for now about Clara turning 10! The celebration is still continuing though as the grandparents still are coming in to celebrate over the next couple of weeks. I'm pretty sure that Clara doesn't mind dragging it out for as long as possible!

the meaning of life...

2011-10-29T21:55:00.003-05:00

I'm way behind on posting again... sorry!

Alex is part of an audition in theater group. As part of this young ensemble, they work on two major shows per year. In the fall they typically work on writing original works and in the spring they do an adaptation. Last spring they did Phantom Tollbooth and James and the Giant Peach (Alex was in James). This fall they gave the kids a list of several books they were considering for the spring adaptations. We had already read several of them, but there were a few that we hadn't read. Alex picked Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life from the list and decided to read it (he likes to read all of the books that they choose from). With some help from our favorite librarian, we tracked down the book (it was waiting on a reshelving cart) and Alex started on it. He loved it! And he insisted that I read it too once he was done.

I have to say that I really enjoyed it as well. It reminded me a lot (in premise) of the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Jeff and I had read that book several years ago as part of our book club that we do (just the two of us). In Extremely Loud, the boy, Oskar, has a key that his father left behind and the book follows his search to find the lock for the key. In this book, the boy, Jeremy, has a box with four locks that is left to him by his father, but has no keys. In this book you follow Jeremy and his friend, Lizzy, on their quest to find the keys and to find out the meaning of life. They meet many different people throughout their quest, each with their own ideas about the meaning of life. Alex and I had some really good discussions after we both had read it.

I love that reading and a passion for books is something we share. He's currently blazing through another book that he's insisting that I read when he's done... I can't wait! :-)

10 on Friday?

2011-10-21T09:40:00.006-05:00

Just doesn't have the same ring, does it?

This week spiraled out of control. Clara's pup was sick, so I spent a lot of my week being doggy nurse. She went to the vet yesterday and got a shot of fluids for dehydration and some meds and she's feeling some better. They think she got bit by something on Friday that caused an anaphylactic reaction (half her face swelled up) and that just caused havoc in her little system. Hopefully we're through the worst of it.

1. Speaking of havoc.... Alex is still on a mission to lose and/or destroy his school uniforms. Here are his pants from last Wednesday...
That's the aftermath of a game of capture the flag.

2. Earlier on Wednesday, I got to spend the day with my friend from California! We had such a great time together... it was so great to see her. Just as we walked out of her hotel, we noticed that the drawbridges were going up to let sailboats through. We decided to walk down to the river to check it out, up close and personal :-)
It was really cool to be right underneath the bridge as it was coming down. They raise each bridge one at a time. So, after this, we walked down and watched them raise the next one.

3. Our next stop was the newly opened Magnolia Bakery. Most of the times I've been by it, there has been a line out the door. At the time we headed over there, there was no line. There was also very little selection, but that was okay. I got the peanut butter and jelly cupcake and man, was it good! Peanut butter cake, with jelly filling and peanut butter icing! Yum! It was so good that I had to take the kids there on Friday for an after school snack. They both had the pumpkin spice whoopie pies...

4. We aren't normally in the loop on Friday evenings, but Alex had an audition at the Lyric Opera. One of his favorite things to do is be a super in the Lyric productions. (A supernumerary is an extra... non-speaking, non-singing role... a living prop :-) He'll be a Russian prince in their production of Boris Godunov. At the super auditions, you find out immediately if you're in or out and then go straight up to wardrobe to be fitted. Alex said that he gets to wear a big, perfectly round hat. Can't wait to see that :-)

5. Immediately after the audition, we walked Alex over to Jeff's office, because the boys had a big weekend ahead of them. They were off to East Lansing for the Michigan State vs. Michigan game....
Grandpa and Grandma met them there. They had a great time, especially since MSU won! (this is from Jeff's cell... he took a bunch of shots for me on the point and shoot, but I still haven't found the cord so I can transfer them!)

6. Clara got a bit of exciting news about ballet on Saturday! Hopefully I'll have photos soon!

7. While the boys were away, Clara and I had a bit of a girls weekend! We joined my friend and her daughter for an afternoon at Mary Poppins...
They had such a great time! Clara loved it, especially the Step in Time number!

8. Another cell phone photo from Jeff...
Alex and his burger that was as big as his head! He did manage to eat about 2/3 of it!

9. Hmmmm..... I'm out of things for this week and I've got to dash since Clara's birthday party is this afternoon!

I'll try to get it right next week!

Seedfolks...

2011-10-18T09:44:00.002-05:00

Sigh... a day behind... but I plan to post this in the morning to catch up for yesterday and still get my ten things on Tuesday done before the end of the day... wish me luck! :-)

This week I'm writing about Seedfolks....
It is really crazy how this slim little book keeps making an appearance in our lives. It was just meant to be that Alex and I should read it.

I have a friend from our time in Texas that loves juvenile fiction as much as I do. This summer she sent me a note that she had just read the book Seedfolks and thought of us and the community garden we used to be a part of here in Chicago. I thought it sounded interesting, but didn't give it much thought. Then, later this summer, I was at the library while Alex was volunteering and sticking sideways out of the row of books was Seedfolks. I wasn't even sure that this was the book that my friend had mentioned, but it seemed close to what her description was, so I checked it out. I couldn't put it down. It's a really quick and compelling read. I had wanted Alex to read it, but, as usual, he was in the middle of another book and it had to go back to the library before he got to it. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago... Alex's school decides that the sixth graders will be reading the book for discussion in their "home bases"! We just can't escape this book! :-)

The book is small, but powerful. It's the story of a community garden in a city (Cleveland) told from the perspective of the people who come to the garden. It doesn't start out as a garden, it starts out as an empty lot, filled with trash. But with the actions of one young girl, it slowly, but surely, becomes a garden. I like that with each new person, you learn more about the neighborhood and the people that make it up. Just like here in Chicago... you have the long time residents who have seen the changes in the population and those that are the changes in the population. You learn a little insight into the plight of recent immigrants. It all seems very real. It's not all perfect in the neighborhood with the garden, there are struggles and altercations along the way, but in the end, it seems as if everyone has been changed from their interaction with the garden. Each chapter is short and it's hard to not read just one more! I sat down to reread just the first chapter and ended up reading about six before I put it down. I'll probably read the rest of it later today. It may be a book that we need to own. I usually don't reread books, but there are a few exceptions, this may be one of them.

The other book I read this week was another juvenile fiction book, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place by E.L. Konigsburg. As I mentioned before, I really enjoy her books. This one gave me a bit of trouble at the beginning. Only because it starts out with the main character at a sleepaway camp with a bunch of "mean girls" who torture her. I'm always bothered by these portrayals of camp, because that was so not my experience with camp and neither of my children have had that experience in their years at camp. I get bugged by the generalization that at a sleepaway camp, you're either the torturer or the tortured. Clara, Alex and I have/had all experienced not so nice people at camp, but that's life! You learn to steer clear, make good friends and enjoy your time there. Anyway... back to the book. I hadn't really put this together, but this book relates to Seedfolks in that the main plot has to do with the changes to a neighborhood over time. The main character's uncles have been residents of the neighborhood from it's beginning and has seen extreme highs and lows. But the residents behind the most recent "renewal" effort, object to a project that the uncles started in their backyard some 40 years before. The book is about the fight to save this project. After I got through the camp stuff, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The main character is this book is a central character in Silent to the Bone which I read a couple of weeks ago. I don't think it matters which you read first since they happen at drastically different times in her life. Although, the order I read them in worked well, even if, chronologically, it was backwards.

I'm so excited... tomorrow is library day! I'm out of books to read, so I need to restock!

the prequel...

2011-10-12T22:32:00.002-05:00

It's late and I'm tired. So on "random video Wednesday", I give you the prequel to last week's video...

this tuesday's 10...

2011-10-11T09:22:00.005-05:00

I didn't do such a great job last week with my plan for a post a day. But I decided to keep going with what I have and hope to add the remaining days this week.

1. Thanks to the ipad training Alex is going through at school (they should get theirs this week! I think)... he now officially knows more about every piece of electronics in our house than I do. Last week when I was downloading photos from my phone, I came across a bunch of screen shots, like this one...
I had no clue where they came from or how you even take one! Alex asked to play with my phone at dinner Sunday night and he started taking screen shots. They had learned how in their training and wanted to see if it worked the same on iphones. My phone has been acting up lately, and, apparently, in my frenzied attempts to unfreeze it, I've been taking screen shots! :-)

2. Both kids had a day off from school recently. Although, not on the same day! Alex had Friday off from school. For his special day, we went to see Real Steel at the theater. Clara had off yesterday. She went to a friend's house for a sleepover (which turned into a slumber party). Her friend dropped her off at 12:15 yesterday and she was picked up at 12:45 by another friend so they could go to Nutcracker rehearsals (followed by class until 7:30). She was one tired girl last night!

3. Tomorrow I get to have breakfast with a good friend who will be in from California! I can't wait!!

4. Sunday I finally shot some photos for Clara's birthday party invitations (although, I doubt I'll get them printed in time to mail them out... so I'm emailing them for now). This is not the photo I used, but can you guess her theme this year? :-)

5. Alex's flag football team is still undefeated!

6. In Clara's dance class tonight, they're working on a tap dance to Single Ladies. It cracks me up! They have so much fun doing it!

7. This was the view out my front window earlier today...
The construction chaos next door is making us all a little nutty. Yesterday they were power washing the outside of the new building, making leaving our house like walking through a car wash. Today they were cutting up the concrete in the street... good times... good times.

8. In addition to the sock destruction mentioned last week... Alex has now officially lost one uniform shirt (he only had three to begin with.... as they are "unlocking" new colors soon) and has blown out the knee of one pair of uniform pants. Lovely.

9. These are evil...
Jeff bought them for me on his Trader Joe's run on Sunday. They are entirely too good. Thankfully (?) too much dark chocolate gives me a headache, so I must keep things in check.

10. Clara and I spent entirely too much time tonight looking for costumes for a dog that is too obnoxious to be taken out in public. She freaks out enough as it is... but being out with lots of people in costumes just might send her over the edge. She did okay last year, but she ended up tucked into my coat most of the night.

another book post...

2011-10-10T18:50:00.003-05:00

Last Wednesday I ventured into a new section at the library.... teen...
The blog I got the idea about a weekly book post from recommended this book last week. And I was in luck that our library happened to have a copy.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

The main reason I went looking for it, is that the blogger said in her review that this was what Suzanne Collins aspired to when she wrote the Hunger Games series. Alex and I are big fans for the Hunger Games series (well... at the least the first two books... third one, not so much), so I decided to see if I thought this was true.

It didn't grab me at first, but once it did... I couldn't put it down. I started it Wednesday night and had it finished by Friday evening. The main characters are Todd and his talking dog, Manchee (all creatures can talk in the New World). He lives in a town of all men, as all of the women were killed by a "germ" released by the natives on the planet. There are no secrets on the new planet as everyone can hear the thoughts of men ("noise"). Because of the lack of secrets, Todd has not been told the truth about the true history of their town (for fear that he would not be able to control his thoughts and the secrets would be revealed in his "noise") and he discovers it bit by bit throughout the book.

The action in the book is intense. And there is a bit of language. I think Alex could handle the violence in the book (although one part, in particular, got to me), but I don't think I'll have to make that determination just yet as he's started another book that he's in the middle of. I would also like to read the rest of the series first before I gave him the green light. I'm frantically hunting down the next book... I have put in a request at the library for the actual paper version, the Kindle version and the ebook version! The ending is a total cliffhanger, so I have GOT to know what happens next!

Random Video Wednesday

2011-10-05T22:35:00.002-05:00

I had no real intention for this to be "random video wednesday".... but it's 10:38pm and I haven't gotten the photos ready to post that I had intended on uploading today... so random video wednesday it is!! (have to keep the momentum up, you know?)

Anyway, this little gem is of my slightly off boy and his (bad) British accent...

This was from one of our family game nights on our trip to Crystal Mountain last month. In the video, both kids reference "portable mustaches"... that's from a whole different video taken earlier in the night... that may have to be my next random video wednesday post.

10 on Tuesday...

2011-10-04T10:13:00.002-05:00

This is another idea I got from another blog.... 10 on Tuesday. A bullet point list of ten random things... and I'll try to include at least a couple of photos each time :-)

1. Alex is playing flag football this fall and loving it! Jeff ended up being the coach of Alex's team (definitely not a planned thing, but he's really enjoying it now). The league that they are part of is really cool. They put a lot of emphasis on good sportsmanship values. Each week highlights a different value and a medal is given to the child on the team that is the "Sportsmanship MVP". Last week's value was courtesy. As coach, Jeff picks the player and awards the medal. Saturday, at the game, one of the other dad's came over to Jeff and told him that he should award the medal this week to Alex. He knew that Jeff would be reluctant to give his own son an award, but the dad felt that Alex really deserved it.

So here is Alex's medal...
(I think both Alex and Jeff are really proud of it!)

2. While we're on the subject of Alex, we had a wild ride over the past week. Alex got called by one of the big area theaters to audition for a role that ended up open at the last minute. Alex wasn't quite right for the role (too short - by about 3" - and too young - by about three years), but they still wanted him to come audition. It was really a stretch, but it was such an honor just to be called in by them. Ultimately, the role went to someone older and a little taller. However, that wasn't such a bad thing though since the theater is out in the suburbs.

3. Clara is now officially on instrument #3. She has joined the school band and is playing the flute...

4. Finding boys' socks in black in harder than it sounds. Alex needs black socks for his school uniform. I found black ones no problem at Target this summer... however, my son has discovered that if you pull a certain string, it takes out all of the stitches and the toe portion of the sock falls off. He did it once by accident and a second time to make sure the first time wasn't just a fluke... sigh. I have been in entirely too many stores and not found a good selection of socks yet. The Macy's on State Street has a huge section of boys' suits, but not a single pair of dress socks. Strange, no?

5. Coming up with 10 things is a lot tougher than it sounds!

6. Tuesday nights are leftovers nights... I love leftovers nights. (I can't get that sentence to sound right... but you know what I mean)

7. Tonight was bring-a-friend night at Clara's fun jazz/tap class. She invited her BFF and they had a blast! I thought that this post needed more photos, so I took one with my phone. It's pretty much pointless... Clara is behind her instructor and you can barely see her friend. I'm including it anyway, for a little splash of color :-)

8. Our church is doing a children/youth fall musical again this year! They had taken a couple years off due to some staff changes. They're doing a musical about Noah and his family. Alex is Noah's son, Ham. And Clara is "Shem's wife". That's right... none of the wives have names, so she's just "Shem's wife". :-) Alex had been in a couple of the previous musicals, but this is Clara's first one! They're both having a lot of fun with it.

9. I'm tired. I walk a LOT running kids around every day. This morning I managed to walk about 13 or so blocks before 8:10! I try not to complain, since it's the only real exercise I get. I'm just not a gym person.

10. Clara has a plan for the theme of her birthday party and she's thinking the 50's. She's on etsy.com right now, shopping for a poodle skirt. I may concede to one, if she promises to wear it as her Halloween costume as well.

trying something new...

2011-10-03T10:40:00.003-05:00

I've been a very bad blogger lately and, try as I might, I just can't shake the blogging slump that I've been in. So, after seeing this on another blog I read, I'm going to try something new.... a topic/theme a day. I have a few ideas written down, but I'm not sure which ones I'll use or which days I'll do them on (suggestions welcome!). I have decided that on Mondays I'll blog about books (or at least try to until I forget and abandon the blog yet again).

Since I just finished a couple of books this past week, this Monday I'll blog about what I've read.

As my real life friends know, I have an obsession with Young Adult/Juvenile Fiction. I truly love reading it. Plus there's the added bonus of being able to share my finds with my children. Clara is just now coming around to bigger chapter books, but Alex and I have been sharing books for years.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the library and picked out a couple of books for myself...
The first one I read was Lord of the Nutcracker Men by Iain Lawrence. I will admit that it was the word "nutcracker" in the title that caught my attention. Clara is obsessed with the Nutcracker and it is that time of year again. However, this book has absolutely nothing to do with the ballet. This book is about a little boy, living in London at the beginning of World War I. Prior to the beginning of the war, his father (a toymaker) makes him an army of nutcracker men. As the war begins, he father starts making French soldiers to fight his German nutcracker army. The boy is soon sent to live with an aunt in the countryside and the father goes off to war. The father continues to carve new soldiers for his son. But as the war progresses, the soldiers become almost too realistic, carved in the likeness of other soldiers or reflecting some of the horrors the father is witnessing. The boy puts them right into battle to fight the nutcracker men. I'll stop there with the description, in case you might read it yourself. It is a very emotional book. I first started reading it while sitting at Starbucks. I about caused a scene as this book grabs you emotionally right from the start. My eyes started welling up almost instantly. It think that it's a very well written piece of historical fiction. I would love for Alex to read it (the subject matter may be too much for Clara, not sure yet). I'll have to keep it in mind for him as the book is due back, and he's in the middle of another book.

The second book I read was Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg. I recently discovered her books and I go to her section when I'm not sure what else to pick up. I love a good mystery and her books always have mystery to them. This was a really good book that was hard to put down. Some of the subject matter (and it was the same with the other book I read this summer, The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World) is just a little mature for Alex. I'm not quite sure how to explain it. It's not bad or explicit, it just plays a key part in how the mystery all comes together, and I just don't think he would "get it" yet. I think I'll hold off on recommending it to him until he's a little closer to the age of the main characters.

Now, just two more days until I hit the library again! My plan is to pick randomly again, but if you have any YA suggestions, I would love them!

I found the Flip!!

2011-09-25T18:06:00.002-05:00

So here's the video that Alex made on his trip down the Crystal Coaster...

the crystal coaster...

2011-09-20T10:53:00.009-05:00

Saturday morning we woke up and it was rainy. We decided to go out for a drive. We thought we would head to a nearby town (about 30 minutes away) to check out the ski shop there and have the kids remeasured for ski season. But when we got there, the store was still closed for the season. So we picked a random local place to have lunch and then headed back to Crystal Mountain.

It had rained off and on and every time it rained they had to shut the Crystal Coaster (an alpine slide) down. Mid-afternoon it finally cleared up long enough for them to get the slide dry and the kids were lined up and ready to go! They had tried to go earlier in the day, but by the time they got to the top of the lift, it started to sprinkle and they had to run down the mountain!

Jeff and I grabbed our chairs we had brought for the drive-in movie the night before and made ourselves comfortable on the lawn to enjoy the break in the weather and watch the kids go down the coaster. (I'm very glad we had our chairs as I think we sat there for nearly three hours watching them!)

Beverage break....

Then it was back to the slide...

Wondering why they're holding their right hands that way? Well... they really wanted to record the ride down the slide with my Flip. I agreed, but they had to do a practice run first to see if they would be okay one-handed. They did great and they took the Flip with them on their next run! (Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure where the Flip is now... I'll look for it after I post this and hopefully have their video to post next.)

Alex really enjoys the coaster!
When it started to sprinkle again, they didn't want to risk having to run down again, so we left to find food. We ate outside by the golf pro shop and Alex ordered the special of the day... a hot dog topped with bacon and blue cheese!

Next we took a walk to the ice cream shop...
I think Clara's was called Rainbow or something original like that.

Alex and I both had cinnamon crumb cake...
It was really tasty!

After that, it was back to the townhome for another family game night! This time to play our new favorite family game... Phase 10!

cherry bowl drive-in...

2011-09-19T13:01:00.016-05:00

Well... it was another crazy weekend, with ballet, flag football, playdates (not sure 11 year old boys actually call them that anymore), church, fall musical rehearsal (at church) and Nutcracker auditions (Clara got in again!)... but we survived!

Now on to the Cherry Bowl photos...

After we finished our ice cream, the gates were open!
We really just love this place! It is so much fun and we have such a good time together there.

We picked out our spot...
... in hindsight, it wasn't the best choice. We had lots of spots to choose from, why we picked this one, I'm not really sure. It wasn't bad, but we think we've scouted out a better locale for next summer.

After some initial set-up, the kids ran off to play on the playground at the base of the big screen...
This place has lots of cut-outs to pose with, and they posed with them all...

Alex as a knight, and Clara as "Cindy"...
... that's how Alex referred to her... I didn't realize he was so close with her! :-)

Then to ride the rocking animals that they were entirely too big for...

We went back to our site for awhile...

And then over to pose by the cut-outs by the concession stand...

The kids picked out their treats and Jeff and I got a big bucket of fresh popcorn with real butter.... mmmmmm.

We ran into the owner on our way back to the car and started talking. He's super nice and ended up giving the kids tokens to play miniature golf (and an extra two tokens so they could take us "as their guests"). It was getting close to showtime, so we did a quick nine holes before settling back in. Alex and Clara sat in the back with the hatch open (took us until about halfway through the movie to figure out how to shut the lights on the hatch off, and that was only with the help of google that we did finally get it). Jeff and I sat in chairs right in front of the kids. It was a beautiful night to see Cars 2...
Jeff and I couldn't hear very well so we missed a lot of the movie... next time we think we're going to try bringing a little portable radio so we can pick up the audio on the radio station. We tried using the car radio, but it kept shutting itself off every 15 minutes. And we didn't feel like googling that to try to figure it out :-)

For the first time, we decided to try the double feature.... it was the last Harry Potter. We had already taken Alex to see it, but we all (except Clara) decided that we wouldn't mind seeing it again. Clara had no desire to see it, so we made her a bed in the back seat and she went to sleep. I climbed in the "trunk" to sit with Alex and Jeff moved his chair to a speaker in an open parking spot. He tried joining us in the "trunk" but it was just a bit too cozy. It was so cool to see again... especially since a storm was blowing in that night. It sure helped with the mood of the movie to see lightening off in the distance around us! We all (except Clara) really enjoyed seeing it again. Even if it did mean getting back to our townhome at 1:00am!

Day 2

2011-09-15T10:37:00.013-05:00

It's been another crazy week since I last posted! Friday I didn't have internet. I couldn't figure it out... I rebooted everything... my computer, the signal extender... everything but the actual modem :-) Jeff came home and pointed that out and within minutes I was back in business. Saturday, a photography friend was in from Montreal and we spent the day wandering around Chicago, talking and taking photos. I have a ton from that day! We had so much fun! This week I got called for jury duty on Tuesday. I got called in to a courtroom for jury selection for a case (attempted first degree murder of a child under 13... yikes!), but thankfully they found their 12 and two alternates before they ever got to me. I did spend pretty much a whole, stressful day there though. Yesterday I got a massage and was pretty much worthless the rest of the day :-)

Now back to the photos of our Crystal Mountain trip!

On day two we got up and out the door early. It was supposed to rain so we wanted to get to the river to play for a while before the rain came.

This is my one and only photo...
(I do have some video though)

The storm was rolling in so it was blowing sand like crazy! I just hated having my camera out, so I put it away. It eventually started to rain, so we packed up and headed back to our townhome.

After the rain, the kids wanted to go to the main pool for a while. As you can tell, we were some of the first pioneers to go there after the rain....
Clara has discovered an interest in basketball. She really wants to try it out.
She may take a class through the afterschool program to see what she really thinks of it.

Yes, Alex was there too. He was just being less than cooperative when it came to photos....
... he's that blue blob under the water on the left.

After a while we decided to head back to the townhome to get ready for our evening. The kids had been wanting to challenge Jeff to these mini games that were in our unit...

Then it was time to head out to the drive-in movie! However, we had no clue what time the gates open and we were entirely too early. We decided to wait it out at the ice cream place the kids had spotted earlier....
Clara was having trouble keeping the sprinkles on her cone...
All of the treats...
Clara - a vanilla cone with sprinkles, Jeff - butterscotch sundae, Alex - watermelon glacier (slushie with soft serve vanilla - blended) and Me - cherry glacier (I got mine as a float). YUM! They were so good! I took a ton of photos at the drive in, so those will be in the next post!

Crystal Mountain Day 1

2011-09-08T11:08:00.011-05:00

Last Thursday we left for one last trip of the summer. This time it was just the four of us. We went to our favorite getaway spot... Crystal Mountain in Michigan.

We didn't get a very early start and stopped to get groceries on the way, so by the time we got there it was about dinner time. We decided to go ahead and have dinner and then let the kids swim. We stayed on the mountain top this time and those condos/townhomes have their own pool.

They had it to themselves...

Once Jeff joined us at the pool, they started a new game. Jeff threw the basketball and the kids tried to catch it as they jumped in....

Needless to say, no one ever caught the ball! They had a blast though! I have some video but I haven't transferred any of our trip video to the computer yet.

The view from our unit was beautiful! Here are the kids on the balcony...
You can't really tell how nice the view was. After they showered and got into their pj's, we had our first game night of the trip. No photos, but some really crazy videos to come once I get them transferred!

first day of school....

2011-09-06T22:38:00.005-05:00

Today was the first day of school for the kids! They were both very excited! Alex was excited to be starting his new school and Clara was excited to see all of her friends again.

Alex was out the door first...
His school starts an hour before Clara's, so I have photos of just him since Clara wasn't out of her pj's yet.

It was chilly this morning and he was trying to stay warm as I took the photos...
One last shot as he headed out the door with Jeff...
And he's off....
Next it was Clara's turn to go to school...
That is the only photo I got of her! Her friend came around the corner as we were taking photos and she ran off to walk to school with her. Oh well :-)

Both kids had great first days!! Alex has a lot to get used to... being in school for the first time, a new school with a new concept, and changing rooms for all of his classes. He loved every minute of it though. Clara had a great time seeing her friends again and getting to know her new teacher. She's very excited about this new year!

how it's made...

2011-09-05T07:28:00.011-05:00

Alex loves that show. He loves watching the manufacturing process and seeing how things are made. On the last day of our trip, he got to see how things are made up close and personal!

On Friday morning we went to Sheboygan, WI to tour the facility at VPI. My parents buy from them for their business and they offered to give us a factory tour since we were in the area. Alex was beyond excited...
Here we were watching vinyl floor tiles being made....
The whole process is fascinating! Alex loved it! We also got to see how vinyl wall base was made as well. It was a great tour. The man giving the tour gave us such detailed descriptions of the process that even Alex didn't have any questions!

After the tour we went to the conference room to meet with the president of the company and some of the other employees. They gave the kids some goodies which was totally unexpected!

On our way out, the kids posed with the sign and some of their new goodies...
The president of the company also owns a restaurant in Sheboygan, so although he wasn't able to join us, he arranged for us to have lunch there.

It was probably a good thing he didn't join us as Clara was having a pre-lunch food crisis meltdown...
The view from our table...
The Duke of Devon....
It was really good! Dad and I had sandwiches, but everyone else had the fish and chips. They said they were really good. And the weather was beautiful... such a great place to eat outside!

See... a little food and she perks right back up...
From there, it was time to say good-bye to grandpa and grandma and thank them for such a wonderful trip!

We had arranged to catch the train back to Chicago to save them the trouble of fighting their way into the city and then back out, just to drop us off. It worked wonderfully! The train ride was so quick! We were back to the city in no time!

Here are the kids hanging out, waiting for our train...

And a photo of my dad being a photo ninja...
... sneaking around taking the last few snapshots of our trip!

Thanks again mom and dad for such a wonderful trip!

the jelly belly tour....

2011-09-04T16:28:00.007-05:00

We're back from our final trip of the summer! But before I get to those photos, I thought I had better finish up the ones from our trip to Wisconsin. :-)

Thursday morning we loaded up the car and left Door County. But before we did, I took a couple of quick photos from our patio....

Such a nice view!

We had other plans for the day, but things changed. So we ended up at the Jelly Belly warehouse a day early.

Here are grandma and the kids going in for the tour...
No photos of the actual tour because they aren't allowed. But to be honest, there wasn't much to take photos of. It's a warehouse. You ride around on a cute little train and watch videos about how Jelly Belly jelly beans are made. Very informative... but not much to photograph.

The highlight of the trip is the Jelly Belly store...
The kids had been planning this stop the entire trip! They had a couple things planned out that they wanted to get, but then found so much more at the store...
So many decisions!!

the fish boil...

2011-09-02T08:17:00.002-05:00

Wednesday night we headed to Ephraim for the fish boil at the Old Post Office.

Adding more wood to the fire...

Throwing the kerosene on...
and WHOOOOOOSH.....

... the whole thing goes up in flames! :-)

Everyone said the fish was really, really good. I'm not a big fan of fish, so I had fried chicken instead. But I can say that the potatoes and onions that were in the pot with the fish were very good! It was a fun experience to watch!

Here's the video (warning... the fish boil part was shot by Clara so it can meander a bit at times)...

Egg Harbor Fun Park

2011-09-01T08:03:00.006-05:00

Wednesday morning my dad went to play golf, so my mom and I took the kids to play some golf of our own... mini golf! You'll have to trust me that we did it, because I don't have any photo/video evidence of the event. But that's what happens when I'm actually playing too and there are a couple of groups right behind us waiting for us to finish each hole.

After mini golf, Alex wanted to ride the go-carts...

After witnessing his driving skills the night before on the video game, I was actually pleasantly surprised by how he did in an actual vehicle.

Next they played some trampoline basketball (a little footage of that in the video below).

And, finally, they ended up at the arcade.

Clara decided to take a spin on the big wheel and won the jackpot....

ONE THOUSAND TICKETS!!!

It took them forever to pick out their prizes and then we were off to the hotel for an afternoon of swimming at the pool!

bonus tuesday video...

2011-08-31T08:43:00.003-05:00

Since I'm behind with editing the photos from last Wednesday... I'm posting this "bonus" video from last Tuesday :-)

After the corn maze and dinner, I took the kids to the pool at the hotel. However, it started to lightening so they closed the pool. We ended up in the hotel's arcade and the kids were playing driving games (I was playing Ms. Pacman). Needless to say, I'm dreading their 16th birthdays (perhaps one child's more than the other)...

Tuesday...

2011-08-30T08:06:00.024-05:00

Tuesday started out with wandering up the coast through all of the little towns. We shopped along the way... Alex got a Beatles t-shirt at the Made in Britain store in Egg Harbor, Clara got MORE stuffed animals in Fish Creek.

We were just driving along when we spotted the goats!
I had noticed them the last time we were in Door County, but we didn't stop that time. This time we did!
The goats are on the roof of Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant.
We had already eaten lunch, so we just stopped, admired the goats and browsed through the "butik".
Next to the restaurant, was a little park with new friends to meet...
:-)
(FYI - I did not dress my daughter, I'm not even sure what to say about the outfit she chose to wear...sigh)

Ever classy... Clara decides to stick her finger up the poor girl's nose!

The kids, my dad and their new friend...
Okay... now they're all looking at me....
A stack of blondies...
After that, we headed back toward Sturgeon Bay and decided to make a stop at Schopf's Hilltop Dairy for ice cream and the corn maze!

We all decided to do one together...
It was a detective type game where you found clues and eliminated suspects at each checkpoint...
The corn was tall!
Clara needed a little break to study the map...
Speaking of the map... look at this thing....
... the maze was just incredible!!
Shortly after that photo we lost Alex in the maze... but somehow he made it out before the rest of us did!

I made the kids pose for a few photos before they went back in on their own...

Can you see how dark the sky started getting? We let the kids do the short maze since it really looked like it was going to storm at any moment.

However, while they were in the maze, the storm blew over...And the only rain we got (while we were there) was a few sprinkles as the kids came out of the maze.

Here's a little video of our adventures at the dairy...

House on the Rock

2011-08-29T08:35:00.027-05:00

Monday morning started out with a trip to the House on the Rock in Spring Green, WI. The website doesn't have a ton of info so here's the wikipedia page link as well.

The first thing you see as you follow the drive to the main building is this crazy collection of amazing flower pots (??? somehow that doesn't seem like the right word to describe these things). They're covered in dragons....
and giant lizard looking things...
Here's Alex saving his sister from one of the giant lizard things...
(they would both need saving soon after this when they riled up some bees that were living in the lizard's foot)

A lizard-less flower pot...
... but still incredibly cool.

We went inside and bought our tickets so we could start our tour....

The Infinity Room was really cool! Although I wasn't a big fan of the fact that it moved as you walked out into it! :-)

There was lots of stained glass throughout the house....

This panel was a favorite of Clara's and she asked me to take a photo of it...

Then we started getting into all of the crazy coin operated contraptions. This was a coin operated magician....

And one of the first coin operated music machines we came across (many more would follow)....
This was one of our favorites "The Mikado". The moving parts were amazing! This guy right here...... would turn his head and his eyebrows would go up and down.

It was dark enough in there that it is hard to see all that was going on... but you can see the drummer move and the girls fanning themselves with the golden fans...

The next big favorite was the giant carousel! Please forgive the video... I was trying really hard not to fall over! It's harder than you think to walk forward in a dark room while watching a brightly lit carousel turn in front of you! It still makes me a little dizzy to watch the video :-)

There were no horses on the carousel (some unicorns and such, but no horses). We had so much fun looking at all of the different creatures.

Of course, the kids' favorite HAD to be the bulldog...
Some of the other crazy creatures....
The amazing red chandelier thing in the next room....

And the three tiered doll carousel...... which Clara found appealing and creepy all at the same time :-)

There was one bathroom in the place that was full of doll displays. She started out loving it but shortly, she couldn't get out of there fast enough after becoming convinced that the eyes were following her!

Another favorite was the band and orchestra...

It filled a room!

The House on the Rock is amazing! I think we spent close to four hours there! You have to go realizing that it's more art gallery than museum though. But crazy, off the wall, art gallery. We totally loved it.

After that we loaded up and headed for Door County which is where we would spend the bulk of our week.

Of course, the kids had to hit the pool as soon as we got settled in....

One week ago today...

2011-08-28T08:57:00.003-05:00

... the kids and I joined my parents for a trip through Wisconsin. All five of us in the "family truckster"! :-)

We had a really great time together and I have lots of photos and videos to share. But for now, here's a little video of the kids in the pool at our hotel on our first day together....

Radtke Cousins...

2011-08-21T12:14:00.004-05:00

On the Sunday of our weekend in Michigan, we went to the Radtke Family Reunion. The kids have been before (with their grandparents), but this was the first year we were all there as a family.

Here are the cousins...
and the girl cousins plus Alex...
It was good to catch up with everyone! We had to sneak out pretty early as we had to drive back to Chicago that night. There's a traditional water balloon fight each year (from what we've been told). It had started before we left but I think we missed the main battle.

Here's Clara holding her little cousin....
... whether her little cousin wanted to be held or not :-)