Awesomely Fun Day

Caleb, Lorelei and I went on an adventure today near home. First we visited the zoo. We got to see peacocks, cougars, turkeys, plenty of reptile creatures and more. Then we headed over to the playground where the kids played with some other kids while I spent some time taking photos nearby of the scenery. Afterwards we had lunch and hot fudge sundae's at McDonald's before heading over to the local forest preserve for a short nature walk. {Caleb even peed in the woods.} By the time we got home we'd spent over 3 hours out and about the town enjoying free activities. In fact, if we hadn't stopped for lunch, our entire day would have been entirely free. Regardless the cost, we had a great time and hopefully our whole summer will be filled with more fun days like this one!

On the road again...

On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again
On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again.

--Willie Nelson

Like the song says, we're headed out onto the open road again. Same destination as the last two weekends, but this time both the kids and I will be staying five full days! I'm taking them out of school for three days next week. I've never done that before so I just hope the homework overload isn't too great.

{The Very Trusty, Yet Very Dirty, Saturn}

We'll be back sometime on Wednesday evening. Hopefully I remember this time to take at least one picture every day for our 365 blog.

For the first few nights we'll be using a friends apartment who is not home. This is great! I'm glad we'll have some place where the kids can just chill and be themselves. Then on Sunday night -- I'm not sure where we'll be. I guess we'll figure that out as we go along. We have lots of visiting with family to do. We're going bowling at least one night. And we'll be spending time with my special someone before he heads off to Korea.

It's going to be an excellent weekend. I hope I've taken so many pictures that I run out of space on my SD card in my camera.

A Traveling We Will Go

Caleb, Lorelei and I that is.

Tomorrow evening, sometime late, we'll head off to visit family, help my cousin move and just have a rocking good time.

I had originally intended to leave on Friday mid-morning. Allowing me to avoid terrible traffic here during rush hour, but decided this afternoon that leaving in the evening, right before bedtime, is a better bet. The kids should hopefully fall asleep within an hour of our getting on the road. This means blissful quiet and the radio. Love it!

I am a tad disappointed that I'm not able to use my Zune in the car. Which was most of the intent for my wanting one. There is something wrong with the auxiliary input. PITA! Not something I'm willing to fix on a car like I have. Even at the expense of my favorite tunes.

The kids are excited that they'll get to see Grammy. Of course. What kid isn't excited for a grandma visit? And I know they'll be uber-excited when they realize we are also staying in a hotel. With a pool probably. And hopefully they'll behave while I help my cousin and her daughter move to their new apartment on Sunday. Which is just an awesome move for them and I'm so very excited for her!

I have no idea what the entire weekend will hold, but it is going to be a lot of fun. And I'm sure I'll have some pictures and a few interesting tidbits upon our return.

For now -- I really need to clean out my car. Wash laundry. Find various odds and ends. Get together all the Christmas presents. And try not to lose my mind. Mission -- Impossible.

Couldn't Post Just One

I was going to use one of these pictures for the 365 blog -- but I couldn't pick just one. I mean afterall, these are my babies. How could I have picked one over the other? I couldn't. So, here we are today.

And yeah, the Christmas tree -- it is still up. But the rest of the house {besides the kids' rooms} very clean. So, I'm cool. The tree will come down or self destruct eventually.

We didn't do much this weekend. It was one of those chill at home and be glad you don't have to go out into the cold kind of weekends.

Friday night we had a pizza, popcorn and movie night.

This afternoon the kids and I danced and goofed around to music on my Zune. We had a blast singing and being silly.

All in all -- good weekend, did nothing.

Earmarked

Today was a day that I earmarked to get some things done. Like cleaning bathrooms, dusting the downstairs public areas {which is the entire downstairs}, getting all the laundry washed/dried/folded/put away, vacuuming, sweeping -- basically I planned to clean all day.

But, I'm not. I'm here updating our blogs.
The kids are sitting quietly on the couch watching Iron Man.
George just ordered a very late lunch, or very early dinner, from Pizza Hut for us all.

None of us is feeling very active. None of us is feeling rushed or pressed to do something. None of us is doing anything even remotely important on this cold, chilly Sunday in February.

I guess that's not so bad.

But, tomorrow, I'll pay for my laziness today. And that's not much fun.

Though maybe tomorrow, while the kids are off of school for President's Day they'll feel inclined to help mommy around the house. Okay, right, seriously doubt it. But stranger things have happened.

On a better note, I'm taking the kids to visit my side of the family in two weeks! We haven't seen anyone since New Year's and I know my mom is very excited that she'll get to see them. My cousin is moving and could use a little help so I offered to come up. And because I'll also be in that area this coming weekend without the kids {leaving them to daddy for a few days} I agreed I'd take them along.

This means, everyone will FINALLY get their Christmas presents from us! Boy, will I be glad to get those out of the house! {Along with that pesky tree that is still standing tall and proud in the dining room!}

Another Lazy Saturday

This has been a pretty lazy Saturday.

The kids let mom and dad sleep in this morning, so by the time they had breakfast it was already after 10AM. I got the kitchen cleaned up a bit and started some dishes while they ate.

I finally decided that I needed to cut all the tags off the clothes we bought the kids a couple of weeks ago. When I got that done I decided to see if the kids would be up for an impromptu Christmas photo session. They were!

Got them dressed in clothes that at least at the same color and said screw brushing the hair or trying to get Caleb's from standing up in the back. Put them in front of the tree and turned on the camera. Two pictures in and the batteries died.

We didn't have any more batteries and the kids wanted to take the clothes back off. So, that was the end of that. But, as you'll notice in the header, the two pictures I did get were worth it.

I went on Scrapblog.com and whipped up that header image to email out to our friends and family for Christmas. Decided I liked it so much I'd also feature it here on our blog. And uploaded it to our Flickr account.

The rest of today the kids have just been playing like they usually do on weekends. About an hour ago I turned on ABC Family and called them down to watch some Christmas movies with me. They're having popsicles as a snack and we're having chili mac for dinner before they get showers.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Monday, Monday

It's the last Monday of November! We had a busy weekend, hence the short little list posts.

On Saturday we hung out at home until it was time to go and see George's sister perform as the lead in her high school production of Grease.


The play was really well done and by the time it was over Lorelei was pretty much asleep on my shoulder. <3

Sunday we hung out at home and finished our Christmas tree. It looks really nice now that all the ornaments are hung carefully in just the right place. We each got one new ornament this year and someday when the kids have homes of their own we'll give them "their" ornaments to decorate their own trees. Lorelei got a pretty ballerina with a feathery tu-tu and Caleb got a little "man" made of baseballs. And, for the first time ever, we've put lights out in the yard to decorate for the holidays! This will be only our second Christmas in the house since we bought it five years ago.

Today was a regular old school day. We did wake up however to a light snow which put me in a panic because neither of the kids had boots. No boots, no recess. So, I dropped the kids off at school and then George and I went over to Target and picked them up the size we assumed would fit based on the shoes they currently wear. Apparently, that was a good guess and they are both pleased with their new boots. The snow melted though, so they were entirely unnecessary -- this time.

While we were at Target, we saw this:
It's a Crock Pot Buffet Cooker. If we had anywhere to store one, I probably would have picked it up. The crock's themselves are only 2.5 quarts, but there are THREE of them. It's a crock potters dream!

I've got my crock pot going tonight with some faux BBQ Chicken. Here's the recipe if anyone is interested:

Ingredients:

1 20oz bottle of Diet Coke
2 cups of ketchup
2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breast

Directions:

Mix together the Diet Coke and ketchup. Pour over chicken. Heat on high for 5 hours. Shred chicken before serving. You can put this with mashed potatoes and a vegetable, or put on buns for something less formal. Totally delish!

Bears vs. Packers or Packers vs. Bears

It's that day in the football season where Sunday means the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers play each other.

Mom grew up in Titletown/the Frozen Tundra and Dad grew up in Bear country.

When Caleb was a baby my family used to joke that they were going to get us nursery gear all in green and gold. When Lorelei was a baby is was a Packer's cheerleader outfit. Both threats were mostly empty, but dad said, "Over my dead body. I'll just throw it away." Which always got peels of laughter. If we happen to be with my family during a game a lot of good natured ribbing takes place.

If you ask Caleb which team is his favorite, he's already figured out how to reply without being offensive to the Green Bay or Chicago side, "I like the Packers (or Bears), but I also like the Bears (or Packers). They are both my favorite." Smart boy.

Thankfully, when it comes to baseball, our families agree...Go Cubbies!

Friends For A Visit

This afternoon we had family friends over for a visit. They have 5 beautiful children, two close in age to ours. In fact, her 2nd oldest and Caleb were born about 5 days apart from each other. Since they live a little over an hour away we don't get to visit all the time, but we can see each other about once a month when our schedules match up.

The kids had a blast playing, chasing each other around and being loud and obnoxious. The grown-ups enjoyed some conversation, itty baby time (their youngest is about 2 months old) and we all ended up spending some time cooking in the kitchen together.

It was a great, relaxing way to spend our Saturday. Looking forward to being able to do it again sometime before Christmas if time permits!

Pajama Party & Weekend Plans

Lorelei and I are attending a mother/daughter pajama party tonight at the school. It's only from 6-8PM, but it should be a good time. Games, food, girly stuff.

Caleb was a bit disappointed that he couldn't come too, but George told him they could have a guys movie night instead with popcorn and that totally perked him up. I think the plan is to geek out with some Star Wars.

I'm going to take Lorelei over to Target or something after school and we'll find some cute pajamas to wear and get her a pair of slippers for the evening. I don't have anything pajama-ish that I'd actually wear out in public and I think it would be cute if we matched. Not sure we'll find anything matching, but I still think it would be cute.
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We don't have much planned for the weekend. George is going to play disc golf on Saturday morning with the boys and then he's promised his devoted attention to getting projects done around the house.

Top of my list is to get the master bedroom walk-in cleared out and useable, the hall closet the same and then maybe get a few boxes out of the garage and unpacked. I'd also *maybe* like to work on the paint jobs in the kids rooms. I thought of a cute idea for Caleb's room that won't require completely repainting it and I might do something similar in Lorelei's room if she'll settle for mostly yellow walls.

Regardless, I'm glad it's Friday. This week has just been strange because of the kids having Monday and Tuesday off for conferences.