late post: popi's birthday

Saturday night, we dropped the boys off with a babysitter and headed to scenic Crown Point for Popi's 40th birthday party. Because Popi is Greek, my mom thought she would "honor" her with a skit about the three Fates. Of course, in my mom's version, one fate is a weaving drunk, one is a cross-dressing giggler, and one is obsessed with creative ways for Popi to die. Note the horrified anticipation of Bethany and Stephanie in the first picture. The second picture is of Marlene, Doug, Loni, Kent, and Maria just after the skit ended. Sadly, I was too busy taking video of this momentous occasion to get a picture of Doug with his full balloon-breasts (before Loni's character popped one of them with her giant shears). I'll leave it to your imagination, readers.

slumber party

Today at school, Liam had a mock slumber-slash-reading party at school. So of course, tonight he wanted to sleep in a slumber bag all night. I'm not feeling so great, so I thought, "Why not? At least it'll keep me from running up and down the stairs all night long, trying to get them to go to sleep." Immediately upon gaining consent, preparations began:


Once the bags had been put into satisfactory sleeping positions, they relaxed and watched Little Einsteins (their new favorite, which has nearly completely supplanted their brief but passionate affair with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse):


It took a while, but they finally fell asleep. Here they are, dozing peacefully, which is kind of a surprise considering the unexpected power of my camera's flash when it's on the nighttime setting:


P.S. What happened to spring? It seems like we just turned off the furnace, and now it's suddenly hot enough to need the A/C! What gives?

P.P.S. Confidential to Mom: I think I may have stumbled upon a good birthday gift idea here.

a much better trip to the park

After watering our flowers with our new watering cans (love that JoAnn Fabrics!), we went to the park again last night, but this time we did it the smart way: Max rode in the stroller, Liam walked, and I brought the camera and a book. The sky was doing some interesting things, since we were about two hours ahead of a big storm (it's still raining off and on today). The boys were unusually cooperative with the camera, so I got some good shots this time.

the next big thing

This project is going to last a loooong time. We're pulling all of the river rocks out of our flower beds, and replacing them with mulch. The mulch will not only be more attractive, but it'll help keep our plants from frying in the summer (think: hot stone massage, only hotter). We've been working on the first bed for a week, and we're only about halfway through. It's slow going. The rocks form a nice, thick layer on the top, but go down about six inches into the soil too. And there's no easy way to take them out. We've been doing it by hand, but plans are in the works to build a sifter (like an adult version of the sandbox toy) that will increase productivity greatly. Even with that, it's going to take at least the rest of the summer, and probably into next summer, to finish. And once we're done, we're still going to have the challenge of hauling them all away (above: the rock pile we've gotten so far). Take a look and see what we're talking about:

meanwhile, in max-world

Max has had a rough couple of days. On Friday, he got injured at school, and came home with a bruised cheek. On Suday, he was running on the sidewalk and fell and hit his head, giving himself a big goose egg and scraping his forehead and cheek. (He hit really hard; he's lucky that's all he ended up with.) In between, he managed to get into lots of stuff, including a purple marker, which he proclaimed, "Tasty!"

bicycle! bicycle!

I love to ride my bicycle, I love to ride my bike...

liam plays hooky

We were joined by cousin Kelsey for the day on Friday, so we let Liam take the day off school to play with her. Their morning was spent riding their bikes up and down the sidewalk, helping Mike make dinner (in the crockpot), and creating some impressive sidewalk art, followed by an alfresco lunch on the deck.




After lunch, we got our helmets on and rode our bikes to the park -- a much more pleasant experience with a six-year-old and a four-year old (well, almost four!), as opposed to a four-year-old and a two-year-old. At the park, Liam and Kelsey raced around like crazy, found inventive ways to teeter-totter, and discovered an overactive water fountain. Fun!

we have "fun"

Ah, summer. It's the time when kids ride their bikes to the park, play until the sun sets, then come home tired and dirty, ready to fall into their beds after a nice bath. Right? At least, that's what I thought would happen.

The reality was much different. The boys did indeed ride their bikes to the park, and they played, and they came home wiped out. That much is true, but it wasn't quite as bucolic as it sounded up there in the first paragraph. Let's start with Liam. The whole way to the park (yes, all block and a half of it) he would ride up ahead, then stop and wait for Max (and me) to catch up. Then he would ride off again...or would have, if he could have figured out that pedaling backward instead of forward merely engages the brakes. This resulted in tantrums at approximately three-minute intervals, complete with yelling, throwing his arms up in frustration, and sometimes even hitting the bike. He got so he had a nice little rhythm: ride, wait, brake, throw fit, repeat.

And then there was Max. To be fair, he's still in the early stages of learning to ride the trike. The trike we have is a Kettler, and some of them come with a parental pushbar, like this one, that allows the adult to help the kid without constantly bending over, saving untold strain on the back. Unfortunately, we didn't shell out the extra dough to get one of those. Instead, I decided to grab a hoe from the garage and wedge it into the bucket on the back of the trike to help with the pushing. That part worked great, and I think Max may even be getting the hang of pedaling now. The part that didn't work so well was the steering. He got his father's penchant for rubber-necking, and the whole way to the park (again, yes, it was a block and a half; but what I haven't told you yet is that it took 30 minutes each way) he was looking anywhere but the sidewalk. Dog behind a fence? Max drives straight into the road. Mailbox spotted? Max veers off into the grass. And so on. Endlessly.

Needless to say, by the time we got home, I was thoroughly frazzled from all of the fit-throwing, bike-hitting, awful-steering shenanigans. That's one "fun" thing that I may never attempt on my own again, or at least, not until they've both mastered the art of bike riding.

(Sorry, no pictures, although I'm sure you all would have loved to have seen the makeshift hoe pushbar.)

we ride bikes

Nothing says "holiday weekend" quite like a long bike ride! This morning, Mike and I made the trek into Chicago at an incredibly early hour to Bike the Drive. This 30-mile ride goes up and down Lake Shore Drive, which is closed to auto traffic just for this one morning each year. It was really interesting to see how the Loop has changed (most notably with the Trump building) and to revisit my old neighborhood up at Bryn Mawr. And the views going back south toward the Loop were just incredible: Lake Michigan on one side, parks and Lincoln Park Zoo on the other, and the skyline spread out in front of us.




I wish I could say that the ride south of the Loop was as interesting, but I'd by lying. Once we got past the Field Museum and Soldier Field, it was really kind of boring until we got down to the Museum of Science and Industry. The last leg of the ride, north from the Museum of Science and Industry to Grant Park, was the easiest segment (thankfully, because our butts were pretty sore by that point!), and the view got interesting again once we were back in view of the lake. After we finished, we braved the crowds at the post-race festival only long enough to pick up our t-shirts, then we got out of there and started the drive home to pick up the boys, who stayed happily at Yami and Papaw's house, and spent their time shopping, playing, and getting good and dirty helping with the gardening. So far, it's been a great holiday weekend for us all!

[word redacted]* chipmunks!

So I'm quietly working at the computer this morning, while Mike is out in the kitchen making lunch. Suddenly, I hear him say in a low, strangled tone, "Holli, get out here." I rush in, thinking he had hurt himself. But no--I mistook the fury in his voice for pain (thankfully). He pointed out the kitchen window at the two chipmunks sticking their heads out of their hole. "Those [redacted] chipmunks! I've filled in that [redacted] hole a million times, and they [redacted] keep coming back! And I don't just loosely fill in the hole; no, I pound that [redacted] in as hard as I can. But they keep coming back, those [redacted] [redacted] [redacted]. [Redacted]!"

The chipmunks were nice enough to say in the same position while I went back to the bedroom to get the camera, then came back out and took a few pictures through the kitchen window.

As I sat here typing, I heard Mike slam out the front door, no doubt scaring those [redacted] away. After a couple of minutes, he slammed back in, and yelled out, "Okay, it's 11:30 and I filled that [redacted] hole again. Let's see how long it takes those [redacted] to get out of this one!"

Anybody got any chipmunk-removal tips? Other than "get a real [redacted] cat that will hunt those [redacted] down," as my husband suggested?

*Editor's Note: Hey, people, this is a family blog! But I will tell you that there was quite a creative variety of redacted terms floating around. While Mike was truly outraged, it took me a long while to stop laughing long enough to report this breaking news.

Update: By 4:00, the hole was back. Probably sooner, but that's the first time I checked.

king of the hills

Max is getting really into climbing lately. The other day he ran out to the farthest corner of the yard to climb the stump out there, then came back to climb the remains of the stump my dad chopped up, then ran out to the driveway to climb our small hill of mulch (we're still working on getting the rocks out of the flowerbeds so we can put the mulch in).

we get dirty

The boys "helped" us plant the rest of the geraniums, along with some seeds, including basil. Mike and I are really looking forward to some homemade pesto in the weeks ahead!

liam gets tickled

At the drive-thru at DQ while we were getting their post-program ice cream (otherwise known as the pre-program bribe offer), Liam suddenly exclaimed, "Look, Mom! That dog is driving the car!" And sure enough, the dog was also ordering some frozen treats. Liam thought it was the funniest thing he'd seen in a long time, and insisted that I take a picture so we could share the fun with his dad later.

spring program!

As I mentioned, the boys had their spring program at school on Tuesday night. It was so exciting! They got all dressed up in their little suits (which they wanted to wear) and off we went for an evening of entertainment, joined by my mom and Loni. First up was Max's class. All of the kids are under three, and it was the first time the school had a group that young perform. I have to say, they did very well. Max didn't sing at all, which was kind of a bummer because he'd been constantly practicing their three songs (ABCs, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star)at home for a couple of weeks. But he sat there happily and watched as his classmates sang, and he applauded politely at the end of every song.



Liam, on the other hand, had a total turnaround from the last program, when he sulked, sucked on his finger, and refused to participate. This time, he sang with gusto, did all the motions enthusiastically, and grinned widely when he spotted us in the audience during the first number. You can see it in a couple of the videos (ABCs added to the album, by the way) -- he'll be paying attention to the teacher who's directing them, then all of the sudden, he'll turn toward us and give a big smile.


After the singing part was done, we all adjourned to the brand-new Fellowship Hall. It's a new addition to the Wesleyan Church, and it's really nice. Plenty of tables and chairs and banquet areas for the adults, and for the kids, not one but two slides built into the walls. The slides go from one floor down to the next. It's very cool. The boys enjoyed several slide rides, and Loni even took a turn on one of them (which she reported was "very dark and curvy").



It was a busy night for the boys. Despite the fact that they had dinner before the program, they were happy to join us at a new pizza joint in town. They each had a couple of pieces of pizza, and Liam commandeered about half of Loni's sandwich and chips (we suspect that he's getting ready for a big growth spurt). Then we topped the evening off with a quick stop at DQ for ice cream, which we ate on the floor at home while the boys watched Little Einsteins. As soon as the program ended, I hustled them up to bed, where they were asleep as soon as their tired little heads hit their pillows.