“I Love My Family”

We headed to a fun bowling alley this morning before lunch with Great Grammy. They have $5 tot bowling every day from 10-noon but you gotta get there a little early to make sure you get a lane. It can get pretty packed in there. My kids were worried we’d be late again and not get a lane but those worries were for naught. They happily hugged each other as they stood at the front of the line, my boy giggling, “I love my family!” over and over again.

Then his sister bashed his finger and the moment ended just add quickly as it began.

This bowling alley rocks for so many reasons like the plush leather couches, lane-side service for all your drink and snack needs and the kid movie playing on the screens next to the scoring screens to ensure your minions don’t get bored and wander off between turns.

It was a great hour together and as it turns out my youngest is the most enthusiastic bowler of our group. She ended up bowling for everyone at the end.

We obviously need a sticker near the camera lense so we know where to look!

Tomorrow we’re tackling something a bit more involved than bowling…Six Flags Great America! Wish me luck!

Talking Buffalos

I love my night time snuggles with my 6 year old just as much as my 2 year old loves her mid-day snuggles on the couch with her sis. I love our snuggle time so much because it’s just us. It’s often time the only time throughout the day that we can carry on a conversation without being interrupted and it’s always a toss up as to where the conversation will lead. I like to let her talk, mostly, as I intently listen to her silly stream of consciousness or her inquiries about the world. It’s always been our special time and it lets me get a glimps into the inner workings of her mind. It’s a magical place in that mind of hers that harbors many deep thoughts and tons of curiosity that often leaves me a bit floored/smitten/entertained when I walk out of her room.

A recent bed-time conversation went like this:

L: “I wonder what will come after us?”

Me: “What do you mean? Like after humans and such? Like dinosaurs then humans and then…(shoulder shrug)”

L: “Yeah. Maybe talking buffalos!”

Me: “Hahaha! That’d be pretty awesome. It could happen.”

Like I said, I like the way she thinks! Life is good with a 6 year old.

 

 

 

Tooth Fairy Business

My daughter has been itching to loose a baby tooth for quite some time. Most of her friends have lost at least one and she was feeling left out. Well, as of this evening she is now officially part of the gap-toothed smile club and she is thrilled, less so because she’s now part of the club and more so because she can eat normally again and nobody is trying to persuade her to yank it out. She has decided that the idea of having a loose tooth is more exciting than the actual experience.

For a solid 16 days this tooth extraction has been front and center on her mind. On the fourth of July I was laying in bed with her resting up before the festivities began and she casually mentioned she had a bump on the back of a tooth. I asked her to show me and was surprised/horrified to find an adult tooth already well above the gum line behind her baby teeth. Turns out she had been meaning to mention it to me for a while but kept forgetting. Frankly I don’t know how I missed it myself during the handful of times I helped brush her teeth.

I was worried since her baby teeth weren’t even loose yet so I scheduled a dentist appointment for the following week at which point the baby tooth was of course starting to wiggle. The dentist said all looked well and so my girl ramped up her attempts to get it out. She complained about how uncomfortable/annoying/odd it was while I complained about how we should start saving now for all the orthodontic work our children’s teeth are going to require. I myself went through two sets of braces with rubber bands, an expander, head gear and retainers to achieve my lovely grin (Thanks Mom!)

Anyways, throughout the last two weeks my girl continued to tell everyone she ran into that she had a loose tooth and would wiggle it for them all to see. She especially delighted in torturing her Grandma Maggie, who isn’t a big fan of loose teeth, by wiggling it extra enthusiastically in front of her every chance she got and there were many! Punk.

Thankfully the tooth came out tonight while she was brushing her teeth. The pure joy on her face was priceless and her siblings were super excited for her as well. We immediately found a little pouch to put the tooth in and placed it under her pillow. After reading a story I tucked my excited little 6 year old into bed and spent the next 10 minutes with her discussing Tooth Fairy specifics.

We speculated on how many Tooth Fairies there might be (she thinks maybe one per country since that would be a lot of teeth for one little fairy to collect each night), what the fairy does with the teeth (I suggested she uses them to build her castle) and where she lives (she suggested the fairy might be a drifter of sorts with homes/castles in every town). We talked about how cool and weird it is to have a hole in your gums and how when you stick your tongue in the hole it tastes a little metal-like. She would have continued talking but I had to cut her off and end her snuggle time because her brother was yelling from the bathroom that he need some  toilet paper to wipe his butt and her little sister was in the bathroom bothering him. Like older siblings d0 she rolled her eyes, giggled, said goodnight and promptly fell asleep.

These sure are some fun times being a mom and I can’t wait for the morning!

 

 

 

 

 

Conquering the High Dive

Ahhh, there’s nothing like walking into the city pool, taking a look around at the droves of kids and parents and the piss-water pool and feeling quite at home. I grew up on the swim team and with my house right up the street from the pool I was naturally a pool rat. Chlorine essentially runs through my veins but before I start getting all nostalgic for my water-logged childhood I’ll jump right to the point of this post.

My mom and I took the kids to my hometown city pool yesterday. We try to go a few times throughout the summer since it’s got two large slides, a handful of kiddie structures, zero depth entry and a separate lap pool with diving boards not to mention a large sandbox with playground equipment and a kiddie pool. It’s pretty legit and quite the fun time as long as I bring along an extra adult.

So, after my 2 year old learned that if you don’t fight for your spot in line at the slide you’ll never get down it but before I enjoyed the low-key nature of the baby pool I was impressed by the ballsiness of my 6 and 4 year old children. Today was the day they tackled the high dive and by tackled I mean took it by storm, showed no signs of fear and jumped as high off the board before plunging into the depths of the water and returning to the surface with a smile of victory on their faces. Of course I cheered and snapped photos while expressing to my mother my surprise that I didn’t have to go retrieve my boy from 3 meters up.

My mom, though surprised as well, simply said, “They are your children, Colleen. You were the same way. You scared me to death constantly.”

Ahh, how life come full circle.

  He’s making sure I know just how stoked he is to be jumping off something so high.

My little lady is happy to watch. No need for any extreme behavior yet, thank goodness!

 

First, my girl.

Then little man. He made sure to jump as high as possible before plummeting.

Daddy-Daughter Dance

As a Mom I can’t help but love these moments. They’re the moments where my husband is pressured into some sort of school activity by our beloved daughter despite a deep desire not to participate. Last week it was her Kinder-concert where she belted out the little ditties her and her classmates had been working on all year. He was adamant about going to the gym after work and then taking our other two home to bed but when push came to shove he was there to support his girl and we wrangled the younger two the best we could, mostly they danced in the aisle.

Tonight it’s the Daddy-Daughter Dance. Again he was adamant about not participating but when he came home this afternoon to coach soccer practice he made the call that they were going to attend. I mean, how do you not go to a Daddy-Daughter Dance when you have such a cute 6 year old and you rock the at-home dance parties all the time? So, as soon as soccer practice was over, I threw a dress on my girl and braided her locks as she stuffed some pizza into her smiling face. She chased it with some milk, my husband with a beer, and after I assembled a quick wrist corsage I sent them outside to snap a few pictures.

The only reason they are smiling/smirking at me in these photos is because I was holding a very upset, pizza sauce covered 2  year old and they thought it was hysterical that they were leaving me to deal with her while they went off to party.

Oooh, and here they come pulling in the driveway now. Can’t wait to hear all about it… from both perspectives!

Per my daughter, “We were the best dancers there! And they even played the Frozen song!”

Per my husband, “It wasn’t that bad.”

I can’t wait to get the professional photos from school but for now I’d better go get my little booty-shaker in bed so she’s rested for her early morning soccer game.

Cheers!

Colleen (A Very Pleased Mommy)

 

Beer and Birthday Parties

Our weekend, which was fun despite the less than stellar weather, included a beer festival and birthday celebrations for our 2 year old as well as her future prom date.

Saturday we hit up Dark Lord Day at Three Floyds Brewery. Going to a beer festival while pregnant is not ideal but hey, someone had to drive and I was the prime candidate so off to Indiana we went early Saturday morning. Dark Lord Day is the one day of the year that Three Floyds Brewery sells its famous Russian Imperial Stout and more than 8,000 people showed up this year for the event. The gates opened up around 10:15am but people began lining up at 2am to be at the front of the line to get in. However, once in you have to stand in line again to buy your 4 pack of Dark Lord. It’s beer nerd heaven where male and female beer nerds from all around bring their favorite specialty brews to share with total strangers and eat their pretzel necklaces to try and soak up some of the alcohol they are consuming but basically by 1pm there are a lot of people slurring and stumbling. It was much more entertaining last year when I could partake in the fun and the weather was nice but hey, that’s just part of being pregnant.

We got home from the festival around 5pm on Saturday and I immediately began cleaning and prepping for our 2 year old’s birthday party the next morning.

We were suppose to have a picnic in the park for her birthday with friends and family but the cold and rain ruined that so instead I cleaned by house and had everyone over. Nothing like a little motivation to clear the clutter! I was keeping everything simple this year because the party was going to be at the playground so we just did a bagel bar with cheese sticks and a fruit salad for lunch and donuts and cookies for dessert. I was partial to the flower sugar cookie bouquets. It’s the first time I made them and they were so simple and looked cute on the dessert table. No fancy cake or cupcakes this year but the kids and adults scarfed the desserts none-the-less so I’m counting it as a win.

My little 2 year old was all smiles throughout her party although I failed to capture any of her delight on camera and she even kindly thanked all her guests after opening their gifts with a slurred, “Dank Doo!”

I must say that it’s nice having all our birthdays over with until December and just a handful of big events to look forward to over the summer months!

This little guy turned two as well and was a lot easier to photograph. We went to his house in the evening for his birthday dinner so it turned out to be a great day celebrating these two cute stinkers.

Was your weekend relaxing? Eventful? Whatever it was, I hope it was fun!

Cheers,

Coll

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Two years ago today, on a wet and dreary day just like today this little lady gracefully entered the world and has been charming us with her smiles and spunk ever since. She is a great snuggler, a lover of milk, shoes and swings and she knows what she wants and is not afraid to let everyone know what that is. She has gone through a butt scootching phase, an angry little girl phase and an “I like that!” phase that has kept us amused over the past two years. I can’t wait to see what this year brings. Probably a lot of stubbornness.

Happy birthday sweet Eleanor!

Here are some pics from over the past two years…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter Terror

How was your Easter? Ours was family-filled in the morning and friend-filled in the afternoon/evening. The weather was an awesome 78 degrees with enough sunshine to ensure my ginger husband got a little burnt and enough wind for kite flying. All-in-all it was a great day but I’m left with just one question…

Why do Easter bunny costumes look so darn scary? Not sure what I’m talking about? Google “Easter Bunny Costume” and check out the images page or just click here and you’ll see what I mean.

Go ahead. I’ll wait…

Ok, are we all on the same page now?

Sure there may be one or two that you might call cute but basically the rest are just down right sinister looking with their obscenely large eyes and open mouths sporting big, I’m-going-to-eat-you teeth. I will confess that I do get a kick out of the pictures I see of hysterical children being forced to pose with these bunnies. The sheer terror on their faces is enough to get me giggling but I do feel bad for them.

For example, this was our situation on Sunday:

My daughter wasn’t even out of the vehicle yet before she began screaming and crying and clinging to her siblings so there wasn’t an opportunity to even get her close to the bunny for a picture. It was awesome though and I’m probably a terrible parent to think so but hey, when you’re raising a bunch of little goons you get your kicks wherever you can!  My husband kindly took her straight into the Club while I video taped the affair for posterity sake and took some pics of my big kids and their big, we-love-the-sinister-Easter-bunny smiles.

Were you witness to any Easter bunny terror and what do you think about these costumes? I’d love to hear from ya.

I hope you got a few laughs on Easter, even if it wasn’t at the expense of a child who will someday be working out their rabbit fears in therapy.

Cheers!

Colleen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choo Choos, Cool Whip and Cookies, OH MY!

Whenever my kindergartener is off of school for a day we try to pack in as many fun things as possible to take advantage of the time we have together. Yesterday was no exception and I am still exhausted this morning from facilitating one activity after another but that’s A-Okay with me. It was a great day.

The kids had been jonesing to ride the Metra train again and asked to take a ride to The Choo Choo. It’s a little burger joint right off the tracks that delivers your meal via train if you’re lucky enough to get a spot at the counter. Unfortunately we didn’t get such a seat this time but we enjoyed our visit none-the-less.

        

The train was packed on the way  home but a nice fella gave up his seat so the four of us could pile in. I was very grateful not to have to stand with my minions. After our 2 1/2 hour, train themed adventure I whisked them off to the gym to find my sanity before heading home for soccer practice. After practice we dyed Easter eggs using the Cool Whip method just like last year.

       

Our eggs from last year turned out a lot better but that might be because I forgot to soak the eggs in vinegar. Oops! Oh well, we got a few good ones anyways and the dying only took 10 minutes, if that. I’m counting it as a win.

After shoveling some lasagna down their gullets I set the kids up to decorate sugar cookies. I just couldn’t motivate myself to decorate them with royal icing so instead I slathered on some frosting that only took a few minutes to whip up and let them get after it. They are mighty tasty with the buttery, powdered sugar frosting and piles of sprinkles and now we have some treats for any weekend visitors, like the Easter Bunny!

       

 

Today we’re off to have more fun. We have some birthday parties to attend both before and after the soccer games and I assume there will be the usual, random Saturday shenanigans that always round out our weekends. I wonder if I can sneak in a nap…

Wishing you all a wonderful, shenanigan-filled Spring weekend!

Cheers,

Colleen

 

S.O.S

Help! I’ve been taken hostage by my almost 2 year old. She is keeping me captive in our trampoline and insists on feeding me tea and cookies while making me ignore the real sugar cookie dough awaiting me in the kitchen.

Truth be told, I’d ignore making cookies to eat make-believe ones with her any day.

Happy Wednesday!