the boys think

It's a good day to curl up together and read a book.

hibernation

This is one of the windows in our dining room.




In case you can't tell, that's ice crusting the window. The INSIDE of the window. It's COLD! So cold that we're not going outside all weekend. The plan is to stay inside where (icy windows notwithstanding) it's relatively warm. Tomorrow we're going to order pizza (delivery, of course) and watch the Superbowl. We may not even do any laundry because the washer is in the basement, and it's COLD down there.

upward mobility

We took the boys to dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's on Tuesday night. The occasion was a visit from Mike's Uncle Ken, who lives in Colorado and hadn't yet met the boys. Dinner was, to borrow one of Liam's favorite new words, delicious, and the boys warmed up to Uncle Ken very quickly.

After dinner the real fun started. Max decided that he was ready to take a few steps. Four, to be exact, back and forth between me and Mike. He did it three times, and then promptly stopped when we called everyone's attention to his amazing...er, feet.



Liam had a great time too. Here he is with Aunt Erin at the end of the evening.

happy campers

Today the boys opened a present from their Uncle Matt in California. They were delighted to enjoy a mid-winter camping excursion in our living room.



Mike got in on the action too!



And then Max shouted, "Let the wild rumpus start!"



And the wild things rolled their terrible eyes, and gnashed their terrible teeth, and roared their terrible roars.

where there's a will...

We keep things on top of the dresser. Things the boys aren't supposed to have, like library books, bills, markers, and pacifiers (which they get at bedtime). Aside from the top of the fridge, the dressers have been our last bastion of safe-keeping. Well, not anymore. A few times this weekend, we've heard distressed cries of "Help! Help! Help!" coming from our room, and we arrive to find this:



Yes, that's our little daredevil hanging by his fingertips. He drags a chair over, climbs up to get what he wants (in this case, a pink highlighter that he used to write all over a bill that was waiting to be mailed), then loses his footing on the chair and is left dangling for his little life. We've moved our valuables to a different, higher location now. We'll see how long it takes before he figures out a way to get to them there as well...

let's put this one to rest

a silly commenter left a message that used max's command of the english language to talk trash about the bears. obviously, this commenter didn't feel too strongly about his or her convictions, as he or she posted as anonymous and didn't sign his or her name. who might have done this?

so let's put this one to rest, shall we?

this is a colt. oh, how cute, with the flowers and everything:


from wesellart.com.

this is a bear:


from first people.

'nuff said.

go fish

Sub-freezing temperatures, single-digit wind chills, snow-storm forecasts, and impending nfc championship games. i don't know about you, but in this situation, all i can think of is tropical fish.

thus it was that saturday morning we found ourselves at the shedd aquarium, the biggest aquarium outside of...the freaking lake, which is right next door. shut up. after bundling up the kids and hustling downtown, we arrived at the shedd just as it opened. unfortunately, we neglected to bring the necessary $6 in quarters to park in the plentiful metered spots along the lakefront between the shedd and the alder planetarium, so we had to leave the car under soldier field and hoof it. neigh.

we finally made it in, and we immediately had words with the shedd employee covering the centerpiece caribbean reef exhibit. he was kind enough to turn off his mic before ordering us away from the glass, so liam spared him a humiliating beat-down this one time.



after he had his fill of stingrays, jacks, bonitos, immature sharks, and other assorted pretties, liam expressed his interest in the pacific northwest wing of the aquarium. while the coral and anemones of this area were beautiful, some of the fish were not.

lovely:



not lovely:



we then entered the amazon rainforest exhibit, which i rather enjoyed. while it may be hard to tell from the pictures (due to the low-light environment of the aquarium, we had to fiddle with the exposure settings of the camera to make anything visible), many of the fish featured in the amazon exhibits have been residents in my fish tanks at home. liam didn't appreciate this fact, however, as he found it much more entertaining to yell at the turtles and scare the fish by hitting the glass.



oh, did i mention that we brought max along too?



at one point, liam started getting out of control, so he had to take a break by sitting in (strapped into) the stroller. what did max think of this development?



speaking of max, his favorite animals (aside from the pacific octopus, whose tank was too dark to take a picture of) were the king and spider crabs. mmm, is red lobster open on sunday?



and yes, i know some of the pics are fuzzy. i could tell you that it is the result of the increased exposure times necessary due to dark ambient lighting conditions, but instead i'll say it is because of artistic expression. snobs.

by this point, the boys were getting hungry, and we were ready to sit down for a while. so we headed for the food court, and by some stroke of luck, genius, or shedd attendant inattendence, we found ourselves in the oceanarium watching the dolphin show.

we went downstairs and picked a seat next to the underwater dolphin viewing area. liam had a hard time choosing between concentrating on his food and watching the dolphins, but he finally chose one. his food. duh.



by the way, yours truly took several videos of the dolphins swimming, and if you are interested, you can watch them here.

after eating, watching the dolphins from below, and checking out the beluga whales (sorry, no pics), it was time to go. however, it was such a beautiful day, we couldn't resist accosting an innocent passerby and getting our picture taken in front of the magnificent chicago skyline (not that the kids cooperated, but you get the idea):



then we went home.

TOTALLY UNRELATED UPDATE:

max isn't walking yet, but he's so so so close. when he isn't thinking about it (like when we get him to clap), he stands with no problem at all:

yay, liam!

Tonight we made great strides in the potty-training arena. After his bath, Liam used the potty! He did it once before, a long time ago, shortly after Max was born, but I think that was a fluke. This time was definitely not a fluke. He told me what he was going to do, sat down, got very quiet, and concentrated. Needless to say, he was very excited by the resulting applause. It's enough to make Mommy and Daddy very proud!

Update: Saturday night, Liam proved that he could do both types of "bizness" in the toilet! And yes, we shamelessly bribed....er, gave him incentives. A Hershey's kiss, in this case.

brotherly love?

...or is Liam just trying to get (and eat) every last fruit puff and/or cheerio that Max dropped in his high chair?? You decide.

a day at the museum

Saturday we took the boys to the Museum of Science & Industry. All week, we prepped Liam, telling him about the big train set he would get to see. He was in a very high state of excitement when we got there...and found out that the trains were closed for renovation. Of course they were! We did manage to find a couple of trains for him to admire, and we ended up having a good time overall. Here's a pictoral essay of our exciting morning:

First, we hit the chamber of bubbles (some oil exhibit--I guess that's the
"Science" part of the museum)...

Then, we went upstairs to admire the planes up close...

Liam walked through a giant beating heart...

And that was so appetizing we decided to stop for lunch.

The boys pose for mommy...

And then begin a rousing game of peekaboo:

And finally, at long last, a TRAIN!

Among the other highlights, we visited the fairy castle (a big hit with Liam because there were "phones" he could listen to), saw some antique fire engines ("Papaw's truck! Papaw's truck!"), and went through the exhibits on ships and racecars. Overall, a pretty great way to spend the morning, even without the trains.

more dinnertime fun

So last night at dinner, Max was whining. Incessantly. For no apparent reason. Finally I told him, "Max! Unless there's something actually wrong with you, you need to stop. Just stop!"

And my little angel looked at me, gave me a hundred-watt grin, and replied, "STOP! STOP!" And kept saying it. So now his word list is up to four: mama, dada, uh-oh, and stop.

Tonight, we decided to try to get him to say it again. No problem. He's actually quite proud of himself, as you can see in these videos. And as an added bonus, Liam wanted a video of himself too, so there's one of him singing the ABCs clearly and without all the jumping. Hope you like it!

ready for the playoffs

What can I say? We're a football family.

liam expresses his feelings at dinner

"I'm VERY mad. GRRR!"

Let it be known that it was NOT the sweet-and-sour turkey balls I slaved over for dinner that made him very mad. On the contrary, he ate three helpings of those (guess it was worth it to grate that apple!). Nope, he was mad because he unfolded his paper napkin and couldn't figure out how to fold it back up. But it's noteworthy because it's the first time he's ever told us how he feels, without prompting.

monkey see, monkey do

Max is developing into quite the little mimic. He'll copy anything that Liam does, within his (ever-broadening) abilities. Now, if Liam does it first, Max will:

1. clap his hands

2. shake his head

3. say "yum yum yum" (usually during dinner but occasionally when he sneaks in a piece of cat food)

4. repeat any kind of simple sounds (like mama or dada)

And of course, when Liam starts to cry (and that's when, not if!), Max turns on the waterworks too.

P.S. If you click on the image to enlarge it, you'll see my favorite part of this picture--Liam lurking in the background. He's probably trying to make sure Max doesn't touch, play with, look at, or otherwise covet anything that's "his," which pretty much includes everything in the building.

ABCs

Check out these videos of Liam singing his ABCs. Sorry if the video is all shaky, but he couldn't stop jumping in his excitement at knowing the song.

the bells are ringing

First sleigh bells, then wedding bells. Mike's brother Johnny got married December 30th. The whole wedding weekend was lovely, and in some ways even better than we expected. We ended up taking the boys, who were astonishingly well-behaved. And who, by the way, were almost unbearably adorable in their little suits! Johnny and Erin just seemed to be glowing every time we saw them, which is the way it should be. We hope the glow never fades a bit.
Here are a few pics of the four of us on the big day:

more firsts

Just in time for Christmas, Max has said his first non-mama or -dada word. He dropped his beloved zero (part of a number puzzle) and said "uh-oh!" And when I asked him to say it again, he did. We have language!

Also today, Liam wore big-boy underwear for the first time. They lasted about 15 minutes. It's a start, right? We also discovered that he can sing the entire ABC song. We knew that he knew all the letters by sight, but we had no idea he knew the song until he started singing it to us.

And a final music-related note. My birthday was last week, and Liam, true to his sweet-loving heart, sang "Birthday cake to you, Mommy" to the tune of Happy Birthday. That's my boy!

a taste of what's to come

The boys are ready to celebrate Christmas! Here are some pictures that didn't make the cut for our Christmas card (which will appear soon in mailboxes all over the country).





Only 12 more days!

something new

Both boys have done some new things over the past few days. Three days ago, Max started clapping his hands. And now he does it all the time! His new favorite game is patty cake. Two days ago, he stood by himself. Granted, it was for about five seconds and then he gave the classic cartoon look around. The expression on his face clearly said, "Hey wait! I'm not holding anything!" and he promptly fell down. He hasn't tried it again, but I'm sure it won't be long.

Meanwhile, last night was Liam's first night in a big-boy bed. No more crib for him! He's got a new bedroom with his favorite things (used to be our office) and he was excited to be there all day yesterday. He kept telling us all about his new room. We were a little worried that he would just get up and walk around instead of sleeping, but he stayed in bed all night long. This morning, he woke up, and I called to him from bed to ask if he was okay. "I'm getting up," he said, and got up and came into our (also new) room and climbed up to give me a hug.

And now they're playing nicely in Max's room. Full disclosure: I just broke up a giant screaming fight because Max stole one of Liam's beep-beeps, but they're playing nicely at the moment. For now.

O Christmas Tree

Sunday morning we packed up the boys and braved the freezing cold (no snow, though) to go to Hensler's Nursery and "help" my parents and sister get their Christmas trees. The boys seemed to enjoy looking around at everything. They each met Santa, but only Max would smile at him. To be fair, this Santa is particularly scary. Kind of like Bad Santa, but older and with a real beard. Liam wanted nothing to do with him, even when OBS (Old Bad Santa) offered him a candy cane. After meeting Santa, we explored the grounds. Liam and Klaudia bought some grain and fed a pony, which Liam really liked. We saw wild turkeys, a cow, horses, and reindeer. And then we trudged out into the field and chopped down the trees. Well, we watched my dad and brother chop them down. After the chop, my brother J gave us a primal example of man's domination over nature:



After we came home, we were inspired to start our own holiday decorating. Liam helped us with the tree...



...while Max did his part by "helping" with the stockings.



Happy holidays!