Chicken Noodle Soup

Yum. Dinner at The Depot hit the spot.

Dog Friend

We are getting some trim put in on our second floor. I know, what's the rush, right? We've only lived in our house 5 years now. Anyhow, the person working on it brought his dog over for the day to play with Storm. She was so cute. It was fun being met at the door by two big dogs. Too bad I couldn't tear her away from the ball to get a decent photo.

Chuck

A few weeks ago, the boys spent the night with Brian's mom. She took them to Chuck E. Cheese, which they love. She recently mailed C this picture. He must have left it at her house. I think it's just adorable. I know this could be one of the last times, if not the last time, he's going to want to go on this ride. I wish I could just make this growing up thing stop.

Skiing with C, T, J & M

Last week, Brian was in Colorado and LA. He came home Friday afternoon, and that night, we headed up to Wisconsin to go skiing with my sister and her family. We planned to get away for the entire weekend, but in the end, we decided to stay "local" and went to Cascade again. H is doing fantastic on skies. He's a total dare-devil and it's pretty close to impossible to keep up with him. He turns, can slow down, and is just becoming a very confident skier. It's great to see. C on the other hand turns into a noodle. He does great too, but is a lot more timid and wants to be pulled around everywhere. To top it off, he finally let go of my pole on one run, and ran right into a snowboarder. It totally embarrassed him and pretty much is when his day ended. Brian, who was suffering from a jammed thumb from a tumble, took him home early. We met back at Christie & Tim's for dinner. Brian taught the kids how to do the worm. I had to laugh when he woke up and mentioned his stomach muscles were killing him. But he did say it was too bad we didn't have a piece of cardboard laying around so we could really see what break dancing moves he could really throw down. Oh boy. Thanks for the great weekend guys!

Toasted Marshmallow Shake

When my sister was in town of the weekend, we decided to make some Toasted Marshmallow Shakes. Um, yeah. They were really good.

Found

Looks like M and H had a little fun on the computer over the weekend. I love finding photos like this. P.S. See the little green scarf around M's neck? She learned how to finger knit the day before. So cute.

Art by H: Frog Cup

H's class had to create an animal out of clay. He decided to turn it into a mug. There's a handle on the other side. Pretty clever, if you ask me. Unfortunately, a kindergarten boy stepped on his backpack (on purpose, I guess) and shattered it. Kids can be mean. H was crushed. He spent a lot of time on it, and was very excited to show us his final project. I spent a lot of time gluing it back together. There's one more piece to go, but it will be ok. Just don't try to pick it up if you come over.

Congratulations Jesse!

We are super proud of our friend Jesse! It's been fun watching him throughout his professional career, and I know he'll be great in his new role as Assistant Coach to the US National Soccer team.

Stewing

The boys and I had something to really look forward to tonight -- dinner at The Elsmo's. Melissa made an amazing beef stew and salad. H even had seconds. You'd think I never feed the kid. It was absolutely delicious. And sharing a weekday meal with this awesome family was a real treat. Thank you for a great evening.

Day Off

Today is President's Day. Which means no school for the boys. So I took a day off of work. I wish I could say it was relaxing. Our big excursion was a trip to Costco. Otherwise, I pretty much played referee all day long. There was a lot of alone time in separate rooms, Nerf guns taken away, and a Nintendo DS stylus even had to be removed from the mix. I know this photograph above is a bit deceiving. Want to know the truth? It was from yesterday. Oh well. It was still nice to be home today.

The Modern Wing

After dropping my sister and the kids off at the train, we decided to (finally) visit The Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago. It. Is. Amazing. What a beautiful, beautiful space. H said the entrance looked like fancy hotel. We knew we'd have only a little bit of time before the natives got restless, so we didn't get to really look very long. But we made it through the entire section, and even the boys were pretty into it. There's even a Kids Gallery, with hands-on workshops. For some reason, our boys never like to partake in that stuff. Weird. They do like taking pictures though, so we set them loose with our camera.Someone must have really liked this one -- I found a few variations of it on the camera.And, of course anything interactive is a big hit. Here's Being Not Truthful Always Works Against Me by Stefan Sagmeister and Ralph Ammer.

P.S. Admission is free the month of February.

Visitors

Around 12:30 yesterday, we picked my sister and her kids up at Union Station. They took the Amtrak from Milwaukee, and I've got to say, that works out pretty nifty. Our ultimate goal was to get to the Museum of Science and Industry. Last time we were there with them, J was about 3 years old. And, of course, it's still H & C's favorite place. But first, we stopped for lunch at Medici.
We didn't realize the Museum closes at 4:00. So we had to run around and try to see as much as we could. C was freaked out by the babies and body parts. He prefers the trains and planes. We ran out of time before we could see the Coal Mine and Submarine. But we covered a lot of ground, and will be back again.
They had to leave bright and early this morning after a little Valentine's Day breakfast, and we were all a bit sad. The visit went really fast. It was a great time.

Art by C: Snowman

Shoveling

I got out of work early today, and picked the boys up from school while it was still light out. They love the 15" of snow we got yesterday. I do too. I just prefer it on a weekend. When we have nowhere to go. Actually, I can't remember the last time we had nowhere to go. Forget what I said. Snow is a pain in the behind.
The boys decided they would shovel our back yard. I'm not really sure why. But they spent a good 20 minutes just kind of throwing snow around and building a pile by the fence. I was spying on them, and tapped on the window.
At least one of them paid attention to me.
But then, he decided to start a snow fight with me. While I was sitting inside the window. The nerve!
Next, the little one joined in. I like snow fights from this seat in the house.