Daily life

 These pictures would have warranted their own set of posts, back when I first started this blog, probably accompanied by witty text and humorous asides that I'd spent the dinner-making time composing.

But this is now, and I spent the dinner-making time on the phone with my sister, so...you just get the pictures.   In this case, of my two little boys pretending to be caged puppies.  Woof!  (Which is the only animal sound that Luke knows, probably because he spends half his life making it.)

 A few days ago we had a blah afternoon stretching in front of us, and no friends were available to while away the time.  So I told the kids that we were going in a walk to explore a forbidden kingdom.  And I gave Abigail the camera (because she was being a total stinker about taking a walk rather than a bike ride).

And we were off to Tazana Land!

 Here I am with no makeup and hair that had not been brushed since the last time I ran.  I feel so brave whenever I post a photo like this.

 And this is Juliet in her gnome hat (because what else should you wear when you venture through a dark enchanted wood?  Aside from exceeding bright colors?) pointing out the dangerous troll lurking just out of sight.

 And a self-portrait.

 We came upon an ogre's den, but fortunately it was unoccupied.

 Our walk was so fun.  I was reminded again of how neat it is to watch my kids' imaginations run wild.  We passed the berries that would condemn you to forever remain in Tazana Land and never return to your home if you consumed even a single one (Abigail is really into Greek myths these days).  We tiptoed past the poisonous flowers that tried to lure you closer with their delicate scent so they could put you to sleep.  We passed mounds of upturned earth that would turn into trolls when they were touched by moonlight.  We carefully checked the bed of pink pansies to make sure that all were fresh and blooming, a sure sign that no hobgoblins were lurking nearby.  And we each carried a bouquet of Queen Anne's Lace, so that we could sprinkle it on the imps (crickets) and chant, "Tinkle-ah-tinkle-ah-tinkle-ah-top!" and turn them back into charming fairies masquerading as butterflies (thank you, Fablehaven).

 At long last we came to the end of the perilous trail, and lo and behold, we spied some evil knights approaching us!  We scurried away as quickly as we could, dodging the evil caterpillars of the Sorceress of the Night, and one of the knights caught up with us!  He called our names and we trembled in fear!  (It was Daddy, who had decided to run home from school that day!  Very exciting for us all!)

 And then we came home and made dinner.

And this little guy is so darling.

One day I passed Jooj sitting at her window "dreaming a dream" before bedtime.

 Little boys again...

And what the kitchen table looks like every day when Abigail gets home from school.  Juliet and I work on her things right after lunch, and Isaac is picking up so much of what Juliet is learning (he's actually better than she is on number recognition for a few of the numbers), but no matter how much we've done in the afternoon, it always becomes soooo alluring to be a big kid doing homework with Abigail!

Chicago with my honey

Neil and I got to sneak away for a day by ourselves this past weekend (we traded overnight babysitting with some good friends).  If you have children yourself, you probably know how wonderful and amazing this is, and you can probably imagine how eagerly we have been awaiting this opportunity!  We spent a looong time (many runs!) debating what we would do.  So many options!  We finally decided that we would go to Chicago, and then we had the fun of deciding exactly what we would do there.  We were really hoping to see a fabulous show, but there was nothing that we were super excited to see (we were really tempted by the The Magic Flute, since that's one opera that we both love but neither of us has seen live, but then we realized that it would be really hard to get up there in time, and as it turned out, we would have missed the curtain, so I'm glad we didn't buy tickets after all).

Anyway, long story short, we finally decided that we would just plan to go up Friday night, walk around downtown, eat yummy food, and keep our options open for the next day (we had three or four things we wanted to maybe do, depending on weather and timing).

Kind of a weird picture in the rain, but hey, we were having fun.

So we went to our hotel (the Hilton on Michigan Ave.), realized that the self-park was full and the valet parking was uber-expensive, so we went for our second option and parked underneath Millenium Park, which was a few blocks from the hotel but actually much more convenient for the other things we wanted to do (I was glad I'd double-checked on that one just before we left home).  Then it started POURING rain while we walked down Michigan, and I was super glad that Neil made us go back home and get raincoats, because it rained ALL NIGHT.  Anyway, we had dinner at Grand Lux, which was fabulous as always (Neil had an amazing steak and I had my favorite salad) and then we walked up to Water Tower Place and had fun in the LEGO store, and then we walked back down Michigan and I took a quick detour down a side street to introduce Neil to the glory that is Garrett's caramel popcorn (the pecan kind is my fave!)





The not-so-fun aspect of all of this is that I was having supremely horrible stomach cramps and trying to decide the whole time if I needed to go to the ER (and also trying to not make a big deal out of it because I didn't want to ruin the weekend.  But it was kind of hard to hide because I couldn't really walk).  So we eventually went back to our hotel, checked in, and then I just sort of lay there feebly for half an hour or so and then I got up so we could go see Buckingham Fountain since it was almost time for the last show of the night (every hour on the hour there is a really cool light show with classical music, i.e. 1812 Overture and the fountain goes crazy and shoots up like Old Faithful!  Very fun to watch.)  I convinced Neil that I felt well enough to go (not entirely true) and off we went...we even saw someone propose and we had fun thinking of all the dumb comments we could go make to them about being married, etc.

 Love this--so fun and so gorgeous!

 And then we went back to our hotel again, and I took a picture of the fact that THIS WAS THE ONLY BAG WE BROUGHT, which is totally and utterly wonderful because if the kids were with us, we would have filled the entire van.  Oh, the freedom of a single backpack!

 Then the next morning we enjoyed the fact that we could just luxuriate in bed and NOT GET UP at the crack of dawn....I think it took at least an hour after we woke up before we actually got up, and that was only because we needed to have time to run & shower before we checked out.  Then I realized I'd forgotten to bring any fruit for breakfast (both of us wanted to eat something light before we ran, but I forgot, so we ended up just eating granola bars) and then we went for this glorious run.  I love, love, love running in Chicago...it is always so awesome and so many things to look at and it feels like half the city is out there running and being awesome.  (I like to count marathon tech shirts and see who has run the most exotic marathon.)  And there was, of course, a race that day, so a bunch of streets were closed, and that was fun too, because it's always cool to run down an eight-lane road surrounded by skyscrapers and hey, no cars, go wherever you want!

Anyway, we ran over from our hotel in Grant Park to Buckingham Fountain and then ran along the yacht berths, where we amused ourselves by trying to find the most ridiculous yacht name, and then we ran past the Columbia Yacht Club, over the Chicago River, and down to the end of Navy Pier, where we paused and watched the gorgeousness of the lake.  Then we turned back around and ran back down to the Museum Campus, looped the Field, the Shedd, and out to Adler, which was CRAZY windy (if you've never been there, Adler is situated on this tiny little promontory and the wind just batters you and you feel like you could launch out onto the lake with hardly any effort, which makes sense because you're on a super-tilted walkway that drops off into Lake Michigan).  The gulls were screeching and the sailboats were out against the blue sky and the whitecaps were smashing and it was totally beautiful.  (And then we turned around and the wind was so bad that I thought it would take us forever to make it back to the hotel! I was really glad we only ran about 7.5 miles because of that wind, although originally I'd wanted to run a lot longer, but Neil reminded me that we were spending all the rest of our time walking around downtown.)

Once we got back we showered and then stopped off at a Corner Bakery for breakfast (although it was noon by this time) for a couple of delicious breakfast panini, and then we decided to walk over to Willis Tower and check out the lines for the Skydeck...

 ...which turned out to be two hours long, so we decided to just take pictures instead.

 And then we rode a water taxi down the river back to Michigan Avenue, and thought about going down to the Museum of Science and Industry to check out the U-boat (we have a season pass, but we've never done the U-boat because we always go with the kids and we didn't know if it would be fun to pay the extra $$ and then bring 4 small children into a very small space).  So we waited for awhile for a bus, but then realized that the bus was taking so long that we probably wouldn't make it back before we had to leave, so we went to my beloved Fox and Obel and Neil practically went crazy checking out all the goodies.

So we decided to have lunch there, and then we picked up a Jamba Juice on our way back down Michigan, and then we drove home.  It was wonderful and amazing and SOOOOO incredible (I really can't emphasize this enough) to spend an entire day with Neil where we were so focused on each other.  I felt like I was falling in love with him all over again--we held hands the entire time and it was just so, so, so delightful (coming home was hard!)

Catching up, yet again

I took this photo of Isaac the other night--he is always in these crazy poses when I go in to check on him (and it's appropriate for an updating post, because I've been feeling really crummy lately and spending half of my time asleep and the other half wishing I was asleep!)

Uploading pictures tonight, I realized I've only taken 18 pictures in the last two weeks.  18!  That is so not like me, but it's been a really busy couple of weeks for a few reasons:

1. Homework.  Oh my word.  I LOATHE supervising homework, and I have decades of this to go.  (I try not to hover, but I have to be in the same room with Abigail, or she totally goes off task.  Juliet, fortunately, is like a little machine who never deviates, so maybe Abigail will develop some more focus and then I'll be okay for a year or two.)
2. Running.  I can't remember if I mentioned this, but Neil and I are running a half-marathon in five weeks, and we're to the point now where there is a lot of running happening.  A lot.  This is always the point where I think, "no, I can never run a marathon when my kids are at home!" because I can't imagine doubling the amount of time I am squeezing out of my days to run.  I (almost) always love running when I'm actually doing it, but planning it in (especially the long runs) is a little crazy sometimes.
3. Homeschooling Juliet for math.  This probably shouldn't be stressful, because it is kindergarten, after all, but it still is.  Enough said because I get stressed even more just thinking about it.
4. Teaching.  It's a real time-sucker, especially because this semester I have some students who are, um, taking a lot of time.  I won't say anything more because this is a public blog.
5. The boys are really having a hard adjustment to the girls being gone.  (Have I mentioned this too?)  They're so used to having the girls around dictating what's happening that they seem to be a little lost, and they follow me around like small (angry) ducklings (angry because it's usually a loooong temper tantrum after the girls and Neil leave in the morning).  I'm really hoping they develop some more independent play skills, because I keep stepping on them when I'm washing dishes or things like that.

Wow, this is such a downer of a post!  Let's brighten it up a bit!  With flying babies!

And brand-new babies, because my sister had a baby!  I know this shouldn't be taking up MY time, because I am 2000 miles away and I did not actually give birth, but for a couple of days there it was really hard for me to think of anything else (she had an emergency C-section about four weeks before her due date).  And I also pretty much ignored the house for two days frantically making the baby blanket (in the picture below) that I should have started months before.  And you should read what my sister wrote about their new baby, because it is so so sweet.

 

Little boys are soooo cute

I can't remember if I've posted pictures of Lukey and Jooj like this before, but she LOVES dressing him up, and fortunately, he loves it too.  

I asked everyone to smile and Luke was the only one who cooperated, so I cropped the rest of them all out.  Fuzzy, but still beautiful.  And speaking of fuzzy, but beautiful...Blue Steel!  (I can't wait to see Magnum!)

Today, per somebody's request, we did a "big paper" drawing.  It kept everyone busy for almost an hour, but then people started arguing over different parts of the paper and I was really tired and dinner was in the oven, so I went and hid in my bedroom behind my bed where nobody could see me (am I the only one who does that?) and flipped through a cookbook of meals children would supposedly like (all I'm saying is whoever thinks that a two-year-old will happily slurp up lemongrass and shrimp soup for lunch hasn't spent much time around two-year-olds).

Anyway, when I came back, this had happened.  

And also I did this before I left.

All of which, of course, occasioned post-dinner baths.  Neil was shaving while the kids were going in and out of the shower, and Isaac was SO fascinated that I couldn't help snapping a shot of his little face.

And then this:

And then I picked up Mr. Flufferkinhead (have you petted your daily puffball today?)...

 and popped him in his bed.  Sidenote:  all my kids are really pretty good about going to bed and I am SO thankful for that.  (Some of them fight it more than others, but really, for most of them, give them a stack of books and they're silent.)

Oh, I just love this little face!  When I was tucking Isaac in tonight, I went to the door three separate times, opened it, and started walking through before he called me back with another request (more hug!  tuck my blankie around me!  I want to kiss you again!) and the third time I gave kind of a huffy sigh, and he looked up at me and said sweetly, "Is this just taking too long a time for you?" and I had to kiss him about a thousand times all over again.  

and then I rubbed my fuzzball one more time and turned out the light.

Now he thinks his name is "Huwicaine Isaac"

 This is the first time I can ever remember being affected by one of the hurricanes, so far inland (or maybe the first time I actually paid attention to the weather AND the news?).  But holy cow, it was hard to miss this one.

 I told the kids to go outside and run in the rain, and they looked at me like I'd finally cracked.  Really?  Giving them permission?  I practically had to shove them out the door, but then the idea caught on pretty quickly, and I snapped only a few shots before I was out to join the fun!