cool shades

I took the boys to the shoe store (or, as Liam kept calling it, the "shoebox") this weekend to get sandals. Sadly, the sandals gave Liam blisters, so he hasn't worn them since, despite the big heat wave around here. But while we were at the shoebox, Liam picked out a pair of Spider-man sunglasses. It's funny how attached he is to them so quickly. Take a look at the day:

Fresh out of the shoebox, Liam insists that he put on his glasses right away:



Once we got home, he refused to take his nap without them. We thought he was going to acutally sleep wearing them, but he was satisfied just holding them:



When he woke up from his nap he immediately put the glasses back on so he could look cool while eating an afternoon snack of cheerios:



Luckily, in Liam's world, even the cool kids get to enjoy the simple pleasure of swinging without feeling dorky:

grandma and grandpa check things out

Liam and Max were very happy to get a Mother's Day visit from Grandma and Grandpa, who came to check the house out, kick the (metaphorical) tires, see what all the fuss was about. We had a nice visit. The boys especially loved showing off the yard. They led the way like it was some kind of nature exhibition. Not bad for a couple of (so far, anyway) city boys.

max frolics in the yard

He knows he's adorable, and he hasn't yet learned the humility to compel him to pretend otherwise. Here he is on Sunday afternoon, playing in yard and appreciating all the many hours of hard work it took for his daddy to mow the calf-high grass.

liam loves klaudia

...and I'd say she's pretty fond of him too.

a trivial pursuit

About every three months or so, St. Pat's Church holds a trivia night to raise funds for... the church? the school? Who knows? And really, who cares when it's this much fun? For the third time running (although we did miss one match that conflicted with Superbowl weekend), we were the trivia champions. We answered questions about classic cars, current events, the solar system, and, of course, famous mothers in honor of Mother's Day. My own mother continues to amaze us by being the only one to get most of the Bible questions right.


Years ago we had a volleyball team sponsored by MJ Package Store (my grandpa's liquor store) called Team Buzz. We've decided to keep the name, since we've always used our winnings to sponsor rounds for the next trivia night in the name of the store. We got Father to take a picture of our team. From bottom right, counter-clockwise: my uncle Greg, my aunt Janis, me, Mike, my aunt Chris, my dad, my mom, my sister Bethany, and her boyfriend Joe.

Go Buzz!

milk jug

Max befriended this milk jug after we threw it in the trash. He insisted on carrying it around for most of the evening. Then we threw it out again once Max was safely in his high chair eating dinner. Ah, milk jug, we hardly knew you.

daily dose of scary

So this morning I was making the bed, and the boys were playing nicely in Liam's room. Needless to say, "sectarian conflict" erupted, and soon there was full-blown howling coming from the room. I went in, and this is what I found:



He's been working toward it for a while, so I guess it shouldn't come as a total surprise that Max finally managed to climb on something. He got up there and it was fun for a while, but he couldn't get down, which was apparently what precipitated the crying.

fun with food

Last night we were having dinner, and Liam picked up a red onion and was playing with it. He stretched it out on the table, and said, "Look! It's a train track!" Then he held it up and decided it was a letter I:



Then he curved it on the table and said, "Look! The letter U!"



Then he made a letter O, but I'm sad to report that that picture didn't turn out. After that, he decided it was more fun to rub the onion on his face and in his hair. Still, the letter/train track thing was pretty imaginative.

max is talking

Max is really starting to communicate with us! Here's a partial list of the words he can say now:
Mommy
Daddy
Liam
Max
Rocky (the dog at daycare; all other animals are also called "Rocky")
thank you
uh-huh
yes
uh-oh
no
now
muchacho
uno, dos, tres
Keanu (kid at daycare)
one, two, three, four
Elmo (of course!)
Susie (daycare teacher)
stop
banana
Loni (my sister)
Papaw (my dad)
bye-bye
paci
hi
sit down (usually said in the bathtub)


I'm sure I missed some, so I'll update this list as I think of other words.

the end of the weekend

We're all plum worn out. Liam and Max are getting used to driving back and forth between our residences now. Saturday Liam asked me if we could drive by the Loop on our way back home. Or, as he says it, the Yoop. He loves to drive by and see all the big buildings. It's too bad that by the time Sunday afternoon rolled around and we were on our way home, both of them were conked out from a morning of fun playing (and having sand fights) with their cousins at Aunt Janis's house. I was feeling pretty worn out and toothless too (of all things, I bit into some sticky French toast, and pulled out one of my crowns!), but I did take this lovely image of the boys going down Lake Shore Drive to illustrate how we're all feeling lately. Don't worry, we were at a stop light!

max loves baby gracie

On Sunday morning we headed to my Aunt Janis's house to have brunch to celebrate my cousin Cole's First Communion. Much fun was had by all, but Max developed a special fascination with our newest cousin, Elizabeth Grace, age 2 weeks (give or take).

prom night

My brother J went to his senior prom on Saturday. Luckily, I was on hand to witness this big event. Doesn't he look handsome?

Liam and Max were a little suspicious of all the goings-on and picture taking surrounding J. Max was curious enough to stay nearby...

While Liam decided to go and hide on the porch.

Also, please note that Max is about two and a half feet tall. Then note how many Maxs would have to be stacked one atop the other to equal the height of J. Seriously, he's a giant!

max wants to help paint!

...or does he??



After much deliberation, Max decided he is happiest just using the paint cans as a perfect-size toddler chair and arm rest.

progress report

A lot of Mike's hard work on the floors this week turned out to be misplaced. Like a lot of projects in this house, we started out with one plan in mind and we've ended up with another entirely. Mike got the floor in Liam's room beautifully sanded and ready to finish, but the floors in Max's room and the hallway are too far gone. Next stop: the carpet store.

In other news, the living room is painted. Finally there's one room in the place that's our oasis from the circus colors of the rest of the house. Remember what the living room used to look like? Those colors, by the way, are MUCH brighter than they photograph:



Well, now it's a lovely blue, and the wall with the built-in shelves is antique white. Much nicer, don't you agree?



Liam would also like to demonstrate that the new wall color complements the new-to-us (thanks, Chris and Bob!) furniture that will go in that room:



If it looks a little dark, that's because it was night time before we finished. But it still looked great this morning. That's one room pretty much down, 8 rooms to go!

a wee elf

Liam decided that what his nighttime outfit was missing was a hat. I'd say he was right. In other news, Mike is hard at work on the floors. It's slow going since the paint from the floors keeps gumming up the sander, but he soldiers on. The boys and I will join him there tomorrow night. We can't wait!

"daddy did it!"

So my mother's big accomplishment for the weekend was to teach Liam that he should say "Daddy did it!" when he burps or passes gas. Apparently she really drilled it into him. I'm working while Mike and the boys are eating in the dining room, and so far I've heard Liam burp and then instantly blame Mike no less than three times. The last time, I also heard Mike tell Liam that he should say "Mommy did it!" instead. I'm pretty sure the rotten blame-tosser doesn't realize that I heard him. Oh, well. On the bright side, Liam isn't quite old enough yet for my mom to teach him how to cross his eyes for his class picture...

Update: Liam's getting creative now. I just heard him burp and then yell "Max did it!" Poor baby.

max is glamorous

the hand that holds the chalk

Have I mentioned that by this point on Sunday night, we're sore and exhausted? No? Well, it's true. My dad loaned us these awesome portable scaffold things that made a lot of the jobs much easier, but still we're using muscles we've forgotten we had. But I'm off topic. My sister Bethany came to see the house and pick up the boys Sunday morning, and she brought the boys a housewarming gift: sidewalk chalk. It got put to good use right away, and of course I took some pictures. I really like the way that this one turned out, with Liam holding the giant piece of chalk. It seems sort of lofty and important here: The sidewalk chalk is mightier than the sword.

four-wheeling!

The boys spent Sunday with my sisters at Bethany's house while Mike and I worked on the house. They played with the dogs (well, mostly just admired the dogs from afar), checked out the new baby pigs, and generally wore themselves out. When we came to pick them up, they were each passed out on an aunt on a couch. But they perked right up at the prospect of a four-wheeler ride with Aunt Bethany over to Yami's for dinner.

Liam went first, along with Klaudia, on the long, long journey to my mom's house. (For those who don't know, it's not exactly over the river and through the woods--though there are woods involved--because she only lives two houses down.)



Once he scoped out the situation for himself and saw that Liam was having fun, Max didn't want to be left out either:



Whee!

wallpaper collection

So far, we've uncovered no less than six different wallpapers in the house. First, the two fine examples from the dining room. See if you can date the remodel by the pattern:




And then there's Liam's room. As previously mentioned, there are four wallpapers layered one atop the other on one section of his ceiling. Why only one section? We'll never know. Even if the architects of all this papering left us a note underneath to explain the madness, we'll never find it, because we can't uncover the actual wall. From the top down, there's a white with blue and green squggily shapes, a lovely rose and blue stripe, a green with a subtle pattern, and one we think may have been pink. You be the judge.

demolition derby!

We spent most of the weekend tearing stuff up at the house. We removed all of the carpet from the upstairs, and check it out! There are wood floors underneath.





Max's room is the one with the big squares of crappy plywood in the middle of it. We're hoping an area rug and some strategically placed furniture will take care of the problem. We also took down the doors upstairs to be refinished. Mike started taking out some of the hideous pink trim in Liam's room so we could refinish it, but that plan came to a crashing halt once he realized that the plaster underneath was disintegrating before his eyes. We also scraped off the textured (cottage cheese) ceiling in Liam's room. All went fine on the ceiling and one side of the dormer, but when we got to the opposite side of the dormer, we found a nasty surprise: no less than four layers of wallpaper under the texture and over the plaster. So the texture's gone, but some of the wallpaper remains. We're hoping we can just sand it smooth and put enough paint over it to cover everything. Oh, and we put the first coat of beautiful blue paint in the front living/family room.

Here's Liam enjoying his first breakfast at the new house:

whirlwind trip

We had our closing on the house Wednesday, so now it's ours, ours, ours. Everything went fine, except that I started getting really sick Wednesday morning, and by the time the closing was over I was done for. I got the flu, and all the fun things that come with it. Then it turned out I have strep throat too. Yikes! But by Sunday morning I was recovered enough for us to make a trip to Indiana to do a "prep day" for the house. First stop, Hamlet, where Mike and my dad retrieved the furniture we had in storage there, and Max took a ride on Papaw's new tractor:



Then we headed to the house, where we unloaded the furniture and the things we managed to fit in the car on this trip. My Gram came over for a tour, and my aunt Janis happened to be driving by, so she stopped in with the kids to check the place out too. Then we adopted a divide-and-conquer approach: Mike and my dad went to Lowe's to get all the manly construction/painting/repair supplies, while my mom and I took the boys to the fabric store, where I ordered some fabulously perfect fabric for the kitchen curtains, and then to K-mart for basic supplies. The boys were great pretty much the whole time, but by the time I got to the checkout at K-mart, Max had had enough. He fell asleep in the cart but was doing the whole head-nod thing and waking himself up every five minutes, so I did what any caring mother would do:



It's the beginning of another busy week, and then the first full weekend of work on the house. We can't wait to get started!

we love daddy

Both boys have been trying to get as much "hold me" time with Mike as possible this weekend. We think they know that something is up from all the strange and unscheduled activities around here lately. Liam definitely knows. Well, sort of. My mom got them an Elmo sprinkler for Easter, and we put it up and told him he could play with it when we move to his new house. So he knows there's a new house, but who knows what that means to a two-year-old? Anyway, we've got three more days until we close on the house, and things are a little hectic on the home front. I'm only catching a chance to post now because the boys are napping and Mike went to the grocery store. So if posting is sparse over the next few weeks, please forgive us in advance: the logistics of moving two adults, two toddlers, and two cats two hours away is taking up most of our time.

happy hunting

Just a few quick pictures from the Easter egg hunt. The boys had a wonderful time, and were both fascinated by the idea of eggs with treats inside. Mostly goldfish crackers and toddler snacks, but still...

happy easter!

Liam spotted their baskets as soon as he woke up, and immediately called Max's attention to them as well. I told them they had to wait until Daddy got up to see what was inside. There was nearly a riot!



Once they finally got to explore their baskets, they were thrilled. They love Easter eggs, especially the ones with chocolate in them. Note Max's chocolate-coated grin--he got his fast little fingers on a Whopper and popped the whole thing in his mouth before we could stop him.



Next stop, Grandma and Grandpa's house, for dinner and a hunt...

easter eve

I've been trying to explain Easter and the Easter bunny to Liam. Not in a religious way--just that it's a special day and that the Easter bunny comes and hides Easter eggs and leaves Easter baskets for good boys and girls. I wasn't sure he was really getting it, but this morning we had the following chat:

H: Liam, tomorrow is Easter! Do you know what that means?

L: Rabbit's coming! Bring me Easter eggs!

The rabbit's coming, indeed.

cast your vote!

some big news

We're buying a house! Not just any house, this house:





My mom wonders if it would look better without the green shutters. I did a little amateur photoshopping to see. What say you, readers of Circus Forticus? Leave a vote for or against the green shutters in the comments.

stay tuned

I know I've been crap at posting lately. A lot's been happening--a whole lot--and I'll post about it all as soon as I get a chance. I'm not being cryptic, just incredibly busy. So stay tuned. In the meantime, check out our beautiful boys in their Easter outfits: