Spinach!

Guess what? Clara is a fan of spinach! Here she is trying her very first bite.

And in other news...today we took advantage of the nice weather, and our last day before I go back to work for real. We went to one of our local nature centers. Here's Clara in her new sling, which she quite likes. Check out the fancy fabric.
And here's Henry posing by a cool old tree trunk.
And another video for your viewing pleasure. Henry likes to ask "what would he say?" about just about anyone or anything. Often I just tell him I don't know, or they wouldn't say anything. Other times he'll go ahead and tell you what the person or animal or thing is saying. Here he is doing that very thing with the one-winged bald eagle in the cage.

Notes

I have made a couple changes over in the links bar....in case you're prone to linking.
Will and Sandy have moved back up in the ranks, since Sandy has been posting a few updates now and then....and I anticipate more when the baby comes.
And I've added a link to Sandy's sister Sarah's blog. Sarah is mom to Zack and Drew. One of the recent posts has a very funny story about Zack saying "smack! jam!" which I think is hilarious!
And, here are a couple pictures of the kids:
Henry standing inside the box that our new t.v. came in (don't ask- that's a blog post for Pete to write). And Clara....just being excited about life in general.

A little break

Lately I've been dragging the kids along with me to school while my co-teacher and I have been trying to set up the room and get ready for this new little batch of 2nd graders. It's hard to get much done with an inquisitive 3 year old and a baby who likes to be with her mama. And I've felt badly about keeping them cooped up in the air-conditioned classroom during our last few days of summer together. So yesterday, after a quick stop in at school, Henry and Clara and I took a picnic to a new (to us) spot in Highland Park. I had driven by this park a few times when Clara was in the hospital with pneumonia. Even in the middle of January I could tell that it was a park with potential. It reminded me of City Park back home.
You can see that it's full of big old trees. You can also see my sweet picnic containery thing.
This part is designed to look like a pirate ship. The slide was excellent, though short. I don't know who decided that slides should be made out of plastic, but that was a bad decision. I'm glad to see that some people are regaining their sense.
This part was supposed to be a Swiss Family Robinson tree-house type thing. It was much larger than what you can see here. There was also a rowdy pack of bigger boys that I almost hollered at once when they plowed past Henry, but I held my tongue. There was one other cool structure that was wooden and shaped like a giant bulldozer. And there was lots of nice open area too. We will definitely visit this park again.
And now, because Clara was mostly in a backpack while we were at the park, and I therefore didn't get any photos of her.....

First Day

Today was Henry's first day back to pre-school/daycare, and Clara's first day to daycare too. Here are the requisite first-day-of-school photos:
Look at what a BOY he is...no longer a baby or a toddler.
Clara looks much more unsure in this photo than she actually was. She did quite well on her first day. I, on the other had, had a wee bit of anxiety.
This picture just fills my heart with pure love.

Wood or Silverware?

Pete and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary yesterday. Mom came to town and stayed overnight with the kids. It was a little hard to leave Clara (Henry has stayed overnight with grandparents before) but we knew she was in capable hands.
We caught the Metra downtown and had a little lunch and some beverages. The weather was beautiful for sitting outside.
The Chicago Air and Water Show was also happening, so we could hear lots of jets zooming past and we caught sight of a few in the bits of sky between the buildings.
Here I am enjoying a peach bellini. Yum.
We stayed at the Hotel Allegro- which has the bonus of being designated as a "green" hotel. They just refurbished the whole place recently and put a lot of emphasis on water efficiency and the like.
We just thought it looked hip.
Henry would have thought this wallpaper was pretty fun.
This is the lobby.
Here's our room. I think Pete's yawning.
After a little rest and (some cable-t.v. watching) we stopped in the lobby for their complimentary wine hour. I really enjoyed the big copper-shiny ottoman we were sitting on. I kind of want one in my house.
Then we took a cab up to a little restaurant called Vinci where we sat outside. I had some delicious pork ribs, and appear to be trying to tip the table over on Pete in this photo...The waiter brought us a complimentary sorbet dessert because we had mentioned our anniversary. We made quick work of that.
Then we headed over to the Steppenwolf theater....
...where we saw the play Superior Donuts. It was quite entertaining!
Here we are in the lobby at intermission.
And here's an awkward picture of the totally cool bracelet Pete gave me as a gift. It's made of old typewriter keys. He took extra time to choose the bracelet with just the right set of keys. This one has a P, B, H, and a ¢ (which we call "little C"). We may have to refer to the remaining letters when naming our next child....which leaves us with Victor or Ursula.
This morning we were very annoyed to find no open breakfast places in the vicinity of our hotel. So we finally took a cab up to the first Nookies (if you've been to Nookies with us, it's been Nookies Tree- the third) for pancakes. I had a summer special- Peach Raspberry with Almonds. Oh my word.
When we got off the train Mom and the kids had walked over to meet us. We had only been away about 24 hours total, but we sure were happy to see them!

Happy 5 Years Peter! I'm looking forward to many many more anniversaries with you. XO.

I could be happy the rest of my life...

Henry explained to me this morning why he could hear an owl outside and I couldn't:
"My eardrums are a little louder than yours, so I can hear things far-er away than you can hear."

Yesterday he shared this little biological tidbit with me:
"The ladder inside your body collects all the pee in a little container and then it goes down a special tube to your penis."
I asked:
"You have a ladder inside your body?" I wondered if maybe he was referring to his spine.
He said:
"Yeah. And all the pee goes there...."
It slowly dawned on me:
"Oh...your bladder?"
"Yeah."

Henry's current counting ordination goes like this: "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, nineteen, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-nine". I've tried to get him to put fourteen after thirteen, but he just doesn't want to do it. It's funny to me that it's wrong, but always wrong in the same way.

He is also branching out with his musical repertoire. Right now he's whistling while building a railroad track, but the other morning Pete came out into the living room and, instead of Van Halen, Henry was singing "I wanna live with the cinnamon girl! I wanna live with the cinnamon girl!"

Arrival and Departure

On Friday I loaded up the kids and drove to the airport to pick up my dear friend Amber. She came to town for a much-needed and well-deserved mini vacation.
As Amber is several months pregnant (5-6? She's due in December) we didn't do a whole lot of drinking and dancing. Rather, we just enjoyed each others' company with mellow activities. We made these blueberry crumb bars...
We got pedicures.
We played Scrabble while knitting.
We went out for a delicious dinner at Mia Francesca (thanks Amber!).
Clara gnawed on some bread...she's sprouting tooth number 3.
Amber was Henry's favorite. He gave her lots of grins, requested that she read to him, drew her a picture, held her hand across the street....and just now he asked me (again) "why did Amber have to go back home?"
This morning we went to the Botanic Gardens. It was a beautiful day....the temperature has barely reached 80 this weekend!
Here's Amber posing with Pete and Henry up in the waterfall garden. Clara and I had to stay down below, due to the stroller.
It was so great to spend some time just hanging with my amiga! Wish it didn't take such money and effort for us to get together! And next time we all get together we look forward to spending time with Jeff too. Then Pete will get to have conversations about things other than parenting magazines and facebook gossip.

Clocker Baby's Party

I generally don't do requests...but when Amber said she'd like some photos of Sandy's belly being measured with yarn, or Will drinking from a baby bottle- well, it wasn't really a request since those things didn't happen at this shower. Instead, Sandy's sisters and mom threw a beautiful, very Sandy-and-Will "green" baby shower in Minneapolis last weekend.
I don't seem to have gotten a good variety of pictures, but here are a few to get a feel for our trip.
Henry really liked playing with Zach- a nephew from the Zinn side of the family. I believe Zach is the one who gave Clocker his/her name.
There were several opportunities for everyone to get together, which was so nice. The weather was beautiful and we did lots of eating outside. This was taken Friday night.
The shower was just the ladies on Saturday (some of the boys went to a Star Wars exhibit at the Science Museum- Henry was spooked by the stormtroopers). Here's a picture of the colorful beverage and mints area.
I wanted a picture of the food, but really just got a nice shot of Will and Sandy's somewhat-newly redone kitchen. Isn't it gorgeous? They stripped and refinished all of the original woodwork, tiled the countertops and put in real linoleum. The colors all compliment the Fiestaware, and the kitchen really suits the house.
The green shower meant that Sandy got all kinds of wonderful things for the baby, like this organic cotton blanket knit by Aunt Joyce. She received other organic bedding and clothes, wooden and recycled toys, books, cookbooks... NO toys with lights or batteries!!
And she actually got two of these cute onesies! Everything seemed to be wrapped in its original packaging, or reused bags...which was great!
Later, back at the hotel, we took the kids for a little dip in the pool.
And on Sunday we were able to get a few cousins photos. The expression on Clara's face cracks me up!!
And, finally, we took a few pictures out front of Clocker Baby with his/her 3 already-out-of-the-womb Decker-side cousins. They were playing "so big".
Please....no more pictures.