flowers!

We've got some. It's a most welcome development here at Longing for Spring HQ.

happy easter!

We hope you had a lovely weekend. We spent Sunday in Naperville, where the boys got great goodies in their baskets (yard darts! but not the kind that will put your eye out like I had as a kid!) and had fun doing a hunt and generally hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

And here's the best part: Barb and Kevin kept Henry overnight, and Erin and Johnny took Liam and Max, so we had a rare child-free evening. I'm sure you're dying to know how we spent it, right? Well, let me tell you, it was maximum romance. Or we went down to the basement and cleaned out a whole bunch of boxes of old toys that needed to be donated without a chorus of protests, then hauled everything out to Mike's car, got gas, dropped the stuff off at the donation bin, picked up some grinders for dinner, and came home and watched basketball until it was time for bed. It was definitely one of those two.

Anyway, here are some pictures from yesterday.

this is how we roll(er coaster) in the country

Mike had to work today, so I took the boys to my parents' house for a lunchtime cookout and early Easter celebration. They were extremely pleased by the new coloring books, colored pencils, and LEGO sets they got ... but even more impressed by my dad's midday entertainment offering. Behold!

ad max

Unbeknownst to us, apparently they did some sort of contest at school in which the kids all made ads for local businesses, and then a bunch of them got printed as a special circular in the Pilot News. We didn't find out about it until one day last week, when Max brought home the circular and was all, "Hey look, my drawing is in the paper!" Nice work, Max!

state parks project, part 4: pokagon

We are sucking other people into our parks enthusiasm now! Potawatomi Inn at Pokagon State Park in scenic Angola, Indiana, was running a half-price special in honor of the time change, so we booked a kids suite with beds for six people. Not wanting to waste a bed, I asked my aunt Laura if my cousin Jimmy could come along, which led to Laura deciding to just book a room and bring all five of her kids. Then my aunt Janis got in on the fun and booked a room for herself and her four kids, so it ended up being a Fort/Kruyer/Holiday weekend.

A word about the inn: Wow! It was seriously impressive. (That photo above is of the back side of the inn from one of the trails; I didn't even think to take one of the front!) Aside from the beauty of the building and its rolling lawns leading to a sweet beach on Lake James, this place had all kinds of amenities. The kids enjoyed a pool with huge windows overlooking the lawn/beach (the adults did NOT enjoy the pool so much because there were approximately a million kids in there at any given moment and the acoustics of the room were overwhelming, to say the least, but the area itself was beautiful); a game room with arcade games, air hockey, ping pong, and foosball; and a library with books, board games, and those table-size checker sets that you rarely see outside of the porch of a Cracker Barrel restaurant. Speaking of restaurants, there was also a very nice one of those, along with a smaller cafe offering pizza, sandwiches, and snacks.

We got to the park in the early afternoon and set off for a hike before check-in time. We ended up hiking a loop that included Lake Lonidaw, lots of wooded and marsh areas, and Hell's Point, the highest elevation in the park (1,123 feet). There were lots of photo ops, which the boys were into almost as much as they were into squabbling and poking things with sticks, and by the time we got back to the inn, Mike and I were ready for a nap, while the boys were raring to go once they realized the Holidays and Kruyers had arrived. The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of taking the kids to the pool and figuring out dinner plans while Brady took his kayak out on the lake to do some fishing (crazy kid, that water was COLD!). We ended up ordering pizza, which the kids ate in Laura's room while watching cartoons and playing video games, and the adults ate in Janis's room while chatting and watching some sort of basketball contest involving IU.

At sunset, Cassidy, Kelsey, and Emma asked if I could take pictures of them by the lake, and Henry came along because he had some sort of shell dispute with Gracie and needed to find more shells. The girls were happy to help him search, and in return he served as the A so their YMCA would be complete.

I woke up early the next morning, and after Liam and Henry woke up too, we decided to head out to watch the sunrise. We were totally unprepared for how cold it was (shocking, I know), and I got more than a little windburned, but I think it was worth it.

After watching the kids eat cold pizza and Cocoa Puffs (yarf, the breakfast of champions), Laura and I decided to take Henry, Gracie, and Elly along for a guided hike and bird watch. We saw (and heard!) lots of red-winged blackbirds, a couple of hawks, wood ducks, cardinals, and robins. More on the birds if/when Mike decides to post since that's more his area than mine.

By the time we got back to the room, Mike had packed everything up and loaded the van, but Laura was planning to take the kids for one last swim, so we pulled a switcheroo: She took Henry, and we took Jimmy, while Janis took her kids and the older Kruyer girls on the hike we did on Saturday. We ate brunch in the inn (delicious!), then set off for one last hike through the marshier areas. It was amazing how much difference our kid swap made. Seriously, instances of "no" and "stop" were down at least 95 percent, and enjoyment level for the adults reached its zenith. So peaceful! And a great way to end our visit, because we got back to the inn just as Janis and Laura had finished loading their cars and were ready to head home. A perfect little getaway!

See also: SPP 1, SPP 2, SPP 3.

greek to me

I think I may have mentioned that Max has spent part of this year doing an independent study on Greek mythology. He and his buddies have been putting together a presentation for months now so they can share everything they've learned with the class. The presentation has sort of ballooned out of control at this point; there are more than 100 slides. No wonder their teacher hasn't been able to find time for them to actually DO the presentation yet!

Anyway, it's a really creative and funny project, and while I'm not going to give you the whole 100+ slides, here is a selection of ones that made me laugh. (I'll put the text below each one in case you have trouble focusing on colored text over colored backgrounds like I do.)

Things you should know:
All right, let's just get one thing straight. These stories are CRAZY and confusing, but some of them are very interesting. There are brothers marrying sisters, everyone is fighting 24/7, and last but not least (actually, it's probably least), there are people throwing their own children off of mountains.
You've been warned!
Another thing: There are over 90 SLIDES!

Gaia/Gaia (Mother Earth), continued
Ok, back to what I was saying. Gaia pushed plates of stone to make mountains, and she invited the stars (Uranus) and the underworld (Tartarus), and the sea (Pontus) to come join her. Pontus and Ouranos/Uranus however both loved Gaia. So they always fought. But Gaia didn't like her relatives always fighting so she put a stop to it. She married Uranus. See I told you there was brothers marrying sisters! Pontus was mad but soon got over it.

Tartarus (The Pit of Evil)
Tartarus is too evil to talk about. So goodbye.

Cronus/Saturn
FYI Cronus is probably the most evil thing on the face of Gaia (or the face of Tartarus) because he absolutely DESTROYED his father (Uranus) and ate his kids. Ok let's get this out of the way 3, 2, 1 GROSS!!! When Uranus stopped taking care of his kids Gaia got mad and asked the titans if they could K.O. their father. So Cronus did. Gaia gave him a scythe and he gave his father a dirt nap. After that he married titan Rhea and had 6 kids. They were Gods their names were Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. I'll talk about them later.

Cronus/Saturn (continued) (#too much spotlight)
After that Zeus was raised on Crete with the nymphs and satyrs until his mother came and told him he should get a "summer job." Then he went to Cronus's temple as his cupbearer. He introduced the Olympians to drinks. Until one time when he put some disgusting herbs in Cronus's drink and he barfed. He barfed a godly barf. HURL HURL. That started the biggest war in the history of wars. If only Ares were here.

Aphrodite
Boring (for me at least), why do I waste my time writing about the beauty goddess? Answer: I DON'T KNOW. I guess I just have to. Well anyway Aphrodite can be the girl of your dreams. If she wants you to love her, you will. If she's angry at you she will make you fall in love with a toilet.
She trolls you when she's angry! She'll make you fall in love! (with a toilet)

Polyphemus
POLYPHEMUS IS A SATYR EATING FREAK.

dress it up

I'm on a pretty serious home improvement kick. The past couple of springs, when lots of people do Lent, I've done this thing with my friend Val called 40 Bags in 40 Days. It's all about decluttering your house and donating/getting rid of stuff you don't need. I don't take it as literally as a bag per day (though some people do); my focus is more on deciding whether I can/will use something, getting rid of it if I won't, and actually putting it to use if I will. What this has translated to in practical terms is a lot of little projects. As I go through each room, I'm fixing all the little things that bother me on a daily basis, though never enough for me to make time specifically to deal with them. Like getting new curtain rods because the old ones are bent from boys hanging on them. Then busting out the sewing machine (yes, I have one! I use it approximately three times a year ... if I have to) and hemming the curtains to keep them out of the way of the vents. Or doing touch-up painting. All these little things that register only on a mildly annoying level, but now that I'm doing something about them, the relief is palpable.

Anyway, today's little project involved dressers. We bought a pair of dressers at a junk store (the now-defunct Angie's Junque Garden, if I recall correctly) when I was pregnant with Liam, then we (mostly Mike, because I was pregnant) stripped them and refinished them, adding these chunky round wooden knobs that were perfect for little kids. They've been great dressers all these years, and they now belong to Max and Henry, respectively. But in the past few months, a few of the wooden knobs got stripped out (because big boys are much rougher in pulling drawers out than little boys are).

Long story short, I decided to replace the knobs. I let Max and Henry pick out the new ones, and since we here at CFHQ encourage the thwarting of traditional gender roles, the results are pretty spectacular.

Henry's dresser, during and after:

 

And Max's dresser, during and after:

I feel pretty sure that these fabulous jewels won't be in favor for a really long time, but that's OK. They weren't expensive, and they make the boys happy ... for now anyway.

by request

Who's in charge of this grocery list? Apparently we are failing in our ice cream and SpaghettiOs procurement duties.

grumpy jack

I did a home sleep study this week, which meant not one but two after-school trips to South Bend to obtain and return the equipment. Tonight we decided to stop at Loni's house afterward to see Lon, Lilly, and Jack. Lilly and Henry immediately ran off to play, but Max, of course, was much more interested in hanging out with Jack, who happily demonstrated his new skill for us (rolling over), then got cranky when it was time to be held. His crabby face here cracks me up. "I will tolerate you, but only because I can't get away from you by rolling over, and I don't yet know any other evasive measures."

spring in indiana

Don't worry, Henry. It might be a blizzard this morning, but by the weekend you'll be out in your t-shirt ... again.