Ball

Why didn't toys come with warnings like this when my brothers and I were growing up?

A Couple Weeks' Worth of Posts...

A few weekends ago we drove all the way to the North side of the city to visit Kevin, Beth and Max. We played at the beach and went to the pool at their building. Here's Clara at the beach, with a little Henry on her shoulder. Do you think that's the angel Henry or the devil Henry?
Henry was almost fearless in the water.
Here's a family picture.
And here's new Papa Kevin with Max. Max, by the way, is younger and larger than Clara. Yes. It's possible.
Here's the view to the pool from their balcony. I'm never able to hang out on their balcony for very long.
The next night we took Clara to Ravinia for the first time. The music started and she promptly fell asleep.
By the end of the evening Henry was ready to try dozing too....though you may be able to tell by his expression that he's doing his pretend sleeping.
He took this photo of us.
And then we got a family photo....almost. Clara was still sleeping.
Later in the week I was looking for something to do with the kids outside. We tried out a new (to us) nature preserve. I told Henry to grab his hat before we left. He chose this cowboy hat of mine instead. Then in the parking lot he decided he was in a Calvin Klein photo shoot. I swear I did not prompt any of these poses.
Here we are trying to dodge mosquitoes. There was a huge old oak tree behind us, but our big heads got in the way.
Friday night Clara had another first- a Metra ride downtown.
We rode down with Pete's parents and then met up with Liz for some dinner outside. See the Bean in the background?
Henry loved it. In case you didn't know, the true name of The Bean is Cloudgate. Or maybe Cloud Gate. Not sure.

Henry was especially thrilled to walk under it. He likes going under and through things.
Family shot.
Clara talking to herself.
Our main purpose for going downtown was to hear Liz sing with the Grant Park Chorus. They perform at this cool pavilion a few times a summer. For the sake of the kids, we sat where there could be some noise and stretching out.
Then we rushed back to the train. While Pete bought the tickets Henry and I made a last-minute stop at McDonalds. He had wanted ice cream all night and I just couldn't stand to see the little guy disappointed. We barely made the train.
Saturday Liz came up to babysit and Pete and I headed to a wedding.
Kristy (the bride) is a friend of mine from school. She looked lovely. Later there was much dancing.
Here's me with the Kerri/Cari's. Cari (in the middle) is my co-teacher. She's also a Hawkeye, which is why we work so well together.
And now we're just about caught up...

Clara Bean

We were downtown Friday night and Clara was delighted to find herself face-to-face with a very cute baby in the "Bean".

Clara and Franklin Discover Each Other

What's that Clara's looking at?
Oh....it's just Franklin.
Oh, cute. She wants to pet him.
She really likes him!
Oh dear. She thinks she can eat him.
Okay...he got away just fine.
Oh No!!

Warning!

If you do not want to be shocked, do not- I repeat- do not click on the link to Will and Sandy's blog! I think we've all become quite comfortable with going there and just seeing the same old, year-old post. So....if you are happy and content with this arrangement, do not click on their link!! Don't say I didn't warn you.

Saturday

Backing up a little bit...we had a busy weekend, even before the long Saturday night/Sunday morning. The weather has been so weird lately- either too hot or too rainy. So Saturday morning Henry was badly in need of something active and different to do indoors. So we set up a "Mad Scientist" lab for him.
Here's his set-up. It included a variety of bottles with 4 different colors of water. He also had baking soda, cornstarch and vinegar. There were bubbles, test tubes and a variety of whisks, bowls etc.
He wore my glow-in-the-dark Harry Potter midnight sale giveaway glasses, his apron and his Steak and Shake hat (I suggested he might need a hat, and he chose this one). He also had a notebook and pen so he could plan what he wanted to do and take notes. In this picture he's drawing a picture of himself and his dad.
Here he's pouring some yellow water into a tube. He then mixed it with green.
Here he and Pete are mixing some colored water and cornstarch. Who looks more serious? I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but he had just written "sparkly" in his notebook. Actually I think he wrote "S P L". This was after he mixed some vinegar and baking soda, of course.
And now here are some Clara shots to fulfill the rest of your cuteness quotient. Sitting up in her crib.
And on her new ladybug sheets with her new Cat in the Hat outfit (thanks Marni!!!).
Yesterday we spent the day with Kevin, Beth and Max. We went to the lake and to the pool! Photos of that to come....

Not a quiet night

So I got home late last night, after a bit of partying with some of the girls from work. Add to that the time it took to catch up with Pete, nurse the baby and get ready for bed and I was in bed pretty late....only to wake up an hour later to weird lights flashing around the bedroom. It took me a moment to determine that it wasn't just the storm. I saw a firetruck drive by and when I peeked out the front door I saw this: I freaked out at first, thinking it was the red house where our nice new neighbors and their two young kids live. After I woke Pete and got outside I saw that the firefighters had gotten everyone out of their houses. I stood around in my pajamas in the rain for a bit, talking to the other neighbors and learned it was the garage of the yellow house that was on fire. We grabbed a t-shirt and blanket for some other people that were outside (and invited them inside, but I think everyone was just waiting to get back into their own houses). When we did see Helena from across the street I was pointing her out to some firefighters. She smiled at me and said "Good Morning!" This is the same woman who has brought live opera to our neighborhood- but that's a whole other story. She's so sweet. I couldn't believe in the midst of the rain, at 4AM, with her two little kids out of bed, that she was able to smile and say "Good Morning" to me.
When the owner of the garage came over to our little huddle I started to feel a little guilty. He said when he woke his son to get out of the house the little boy shouted "My R.C. cars!!" and started to run to the garage. Of course I'm glad the boy was safe, but I can't say I felt too bad about those obnoxious cars. I have, on more than one occasion, daydreamed about accidentally backing over them.
Here's how the garage looked this morning:
I think it's already been torn down by now. Someone said the family had just been redoing their family room and all of their furniture was in the garage. So that sucks. I'm hoping for a quieter night tonight.

Food and other things...

Firstly....Happy Birthday to Liz! I didn't bake you a cake, but here's a picture with one in it...
As I look through my photos of recent events it seems like we've been doing a lot of eating...so I'll just write about that. Here's Henry last Saturday. We went to Hot Tamales in Highland Park. I had to run an errand over that way, so it seemed like a good excuse. This is our second favorite Mexican place in the Chicagoland area. Please note that Henry rarely lets me take a nice picture anymore. Here's Clara. She's all "Yes! I love sweet potatoes! Give me a terrorist fist-jab!"
This one was taken Sunday morning. It was a gorgeous day and we were up early, so we went for a breakfast picnic. Henry's stuffing his face with a chocolate chip muffin.
Sunday night I grilled up some steaks from the Brewer farm. Grandpa Brewer is my cousin Katie's grandpa on her mom's side (are you still with me?). Katie's parents sent some meat and corn as a thank-you for letting her stay here.
The steaks were awesome and, aside from the part I cut up for Henry, I ate the whole thing. Actually....this entire dinner was donated. The asparagus was left in our freezer from the things we ordered from Super Suppers (with a gift card from friends at work when I had Clara). And the salad was given to us by Pete's mom before they left town again. I guess we did buy the wine and the tomatoes.
Here's Henry- fresh from Camp yesterday. He's spending his mornings this week at a Children's Museum camp. He really likes it.
I, however, do ridiculous mommy-brain things like drop him off with my nursing bra half-unsnapped and picking him up with my neon green Crocs on. Good thing he doesn't know enough to be embarrassed by me yet. There's plenty of time for that in our future...

Motein (rhymes with protein)

Henry made up a new food on the way home from dinner out tonight. He calls it Motein and described it as a fruit, which looks like a big red balloon with blue frosting on the back.
Here's a little interview we had when we got home:

Me: Tell me about Motein.

Henry: M- 'mot-t' and T and E and Motein and another E, then it's done. That means it's done.

Me: What is Motein?

Henry: Motein is a kind of food.

Me: What's it made of?

Henry: Frosting. It's made of meat. It's made of macaroni and cheese and mayonnaise.

Me: Where can you find Motein?

Henry: It's way in the back of our 'fridgerator.

Me: How do you know about it?

Henry: I just do.

Me: What else do you want to tell me about Motein?

Henry: Nothing else. Now it's done.

Me: Nothing else?

Henry: Nope. That's all about motein. It takes a little short time, like five minutes.

Me: How do you know about motein?

Henry: I just do. Now it's done.

Me: Does somebody make it?

Henry: Yeah. All kids and moms. But dads don't make it.

Me: What does Motein look like?

Henry: It looks like a balloon, except it's big like this. (gestures to the size of a balloon) This big.

Me: What color is it?

Henry: It's the part that you eat first is kind of red. It's red. Now it's done.

At this point in the interview Henry decided he was really done and he went outside to play baseball with his dad.

Lowes and Chagall

Here's a cute picture from our trip to Lowe's yesterday. Pardon the quality-I took it with my phone. We were there to buy a steam vac. I'm really glad I didn't have to push that big unwieldy thing around just to pick up some lightbulbs.
This morning we took a trip to Starbucks (really- I have to quit!!!) . Clara was on the floor in her carseat because I didn't have the carseat stroller with me. Then a woman came in and started talking to her. She said "you know, you're the reason Mommy needs coffee".
After fueling up, we went to the Children's museum. We had two purposes for going today. Three actually, if you count the weather. First- I wanted to talk to Henry a little bit and get him prepared for Children's museum camp next week. Second- we wanted to check out the new temporary Chagall exhibit. It was very cool. Jenny Y.- I thought of you.
Here Henry got to make his own American Windows.
Clara enjoyed looking about.
In this one you were able to make your own flower arrangements. This would have been infinitely cooler with real flowers, but it was still fun.
And here he got to become a part of the painting. There was a video screen so he could see himself.
This went with a painting of a violinist with a green face. It took a picture of your face and then you could "paint" it with different colors. It was cool, but actually ended up looking a little creepy. Still, I wish there had been a way to print it out.
Finally, the art project was making "stained glass" with clear contact paper and colored tissue paper. I wish they'd do more art-based exhibits like this! I loved it, and I think Henry really enjoyed it too!