Creepy!

Ok, so the other night Tim came up to bed and said I had to see what was going on in the hallway.  I did, and let me tell you, it was creepy at first, then funny and then just really cute.  Ready?  Here goes:

At some point after going to bed, Titus got out of bed and eventually fell asleep, like this, outside our door.  That's our Tidyboy!

Elijah is 10!!!

Yep, you read that right! Elijah is 10. Some of you are laughing right now. Why? Oh, you think it's funny that Eden's birthday was Tuesday and Elijah's birthday was well over a month ago. Yeah, well, it's busy in this little abode of ours; laundry to my knees, yard work on a 3 1/2 year neglected yard and consequently I end up with house work on a very neglected house, I clean 2 houses twice a month each (no, not mine) and I am trying to run a few times a week. Oh, and did I mention that the kids are home for the summer...that automatically makes everything weeks behind any would-be schedule. Somewhere in there I need to remember that I am an active neighbor and friend, we have been in the midst of Little League and are now starting All Stars, I have to make dinner every evening we are home and still have some resemblance of a marriage too, so fine, laugh, but I gave up the quest for Superwoman a long time ago. You can have it!

Now, where was I?  Oh yes, that long-ago birthday.  It was good.   Elijah got to drive down to Indianapolis for an eye checkup for the happy day! (All was deemed well for Elijah and his eyes and he even can go without his glasses for sports if he wants to)  Lucky for Him, he also had a party that night. 

 He is getting so big I can hardly believe it!

We love Legos around here.  This was the birthday gift of choice this year.  This and to go to a White Sox game.  Lucky kids that we have, he got both!  Tim and I decided to take him to a game and it happened to be a night game.  Doubly fun.  He couldn't wait, though secretly he hoped to miss school to go to it!

On White Sox game day, our friend Chris got us front row seats (technically 5th row) that were right behind the White Sox dugout on the third baseline.  We used the dugout as a footrest, perfect spot for a 10year celebration!  The journey getting there was ridiculous for sure!  Let me tell you all about it.

So I look up "Southshore Train Schedule" online and the first option gave me a schedule.  Rather than looking at all that schedule said, I looked for what time I needed to be at the Portage station and called it good.  It's not like I am a train regular, so what would I know about the possibility of there being "weekend" schedules?  I picked up Elijah at school and we moseyed on to Starbucks where he enjoyed his very first iced coffee (and might I add only for his birthday will he get one until he can buy them from money earned from his own job) and we headed for the train station.  We got there with what I thought was plenty of time to spare.  Wrong.  Remember the possibility of a weekend schedule?  Well, of course I was looking at the weekend schedule when I planned my trip and the train had just come and gone, little did we know.  The next one wouldn't come for another hour.  For pete's sake.  Really?!?

I decided I would try to make the train at the Gary station, knowing that the idea was for Tim to pick us up at the station downtown so that we wouldn't be taking 2 cars to park at the stadium.  If I make the Gary station train, we will be just fine.  Here's the trick.  I haven't a clue where it is.  I called Tim and just like Chloe would dictate a route to Jack Bauer, Tim showed me the way.  In some parts of Gary, as one might imagine, there are little to no street signs and because of that, I missed the turn to the train station and had to go around the long way.  I finally get to the other entrance of the train station but couldn't get in...because a train, my train, was stopped on the tracks, picking up passengers.  Dagnabbit.  If the first turn was more than a back alley entrance to a station, I may not have missed the thing.

So now what?  I thought I'd speed my way back to Portage and catch that train, plus then I wouldn't be in the heart of Gary after the game to get my truck.  I headed back and Tim said that I probably wouldn't make it.  I practiced submission you all, let me tell you, because every fiber in me said I could get there in time, no matter how long it took the first time and no matter what Tim said.  Good thing I listened, I suppose.  We had to change where we met Tim, but in the end, we made it to the park with time enough to spare to wait in the long line to use the bathroom.

Because we were so close, every time the Sox ended an inning while fielding, they would run in to the dugout and toss the fans the balls they had.  Twice Alexei Ramirez caught an inning-ending line drive to short and twice he tossed the ball to Elijah on his was in the dugout.  He was excited!  Can you tell?  Yeah, not so much, huh?  I guess he has a little of me in him after all!!! 

It was no picnic for me to get our boy to this game, for sure, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves once we got there and were glad to take our first "double digit" kid out for a special night, just the three of us.  Happy birthday, Elijahboy!  We are so blessed to have you in our family.  You have brought us 10 years of smiles and laughter and we can't wait to see what you have in store for the next 10 years!  We love you!

Maple Syrup Times at Deep River

Spring is springing and apparently that means it is maple syrup time around here.  We spent the day with new neighbors at Deep River Park learning about Maple Syrup and sugar.  Bridget and her daughter, Audrey (Eden's age) spent the day with us while her husband (I forget his name all of a sudden) and their son, Nathan (Levi's age) stayed at home.

The kids got to see a re-enactment of how Maple Syrup was boiled down ("back in the day") to make maple sugar.

They listened rather intently to the men boiling the syrup, then they got to taste some sugar.  It was different, but good!

Levi is showing Eden how he made an arrowhead out of bark, I think it is.  His creativity always captivates me!

This little guy was pretty good the entire time! 

They did well on posing for this picture because I told them they could jump from the ledge after I got a good one, and the ledge was 8 feet off the ground or so.

Posing for this picture almost killed them all...so it seemed!

The girls were getting crabby as evidenced by Eden's face.  Good grief, all I want is a few smiling faces.

This log was Micah's "baby."  Of course.

This guy is a friend of my new neighbor's and Titus was having a pouting moment.  This guy stayed behind to try and console a pouty Titus, which is quite hard to do and most men would run from...especially a strange kid.  It was very sweet.

Somehow he managed to get Titus to stand up and walk toward us.  I wonder what he said.

Ah, but he wasn't out of his funk yet...

And he was absolutely not going to take any part of mommy's photography!!!  I did eventually find out what the problem was, had to apologize to the poor guy and all was right with the universe again...just like that.

Chillin' in the gazebo.  Many weddings are held in this gazebo every summer.  It is a beautiful place by then!

Brothers...if only it would last...but sure enough, after I shot the picture, someone was upset with someone about something.  I guess that is enough fresh air for one Spring day!  We went back to my neighbor's house and had hot dogs, apple slices, carrots and celery for lunch and then played out in their yard until 4:00 that evening.  Hockey, basketball, football, soccer and even rode bikes.  It was such a full and fun day, and I got to know my neighbor while we were at it. 

Field Museum

Well, it has actually been a while since we went to the museum, but my pictures were all stuck on a memory card that just would not cooperate with me.  Good to know it isn't just kids and dogs that do that!

Tim had been working a lot in the days leading up to the "need" for some family time, and we thought it would be really cool to take them to a museum, and at that, the "Night at the Museum" museum.  Leave it to us to have just missed the free day and not be able to go when the next one comes around. 

With five kids you can hardly expect everything to always go as planned, nor can you assume that just because it's cold outside, and just because everyone knows they should, that everyone actually wore a coat when they went to the truck.  Clearly Micah was one of those darlings.

In case you didn't know, the parking for the Field Museum is the same parking for Soldier Field and being the devoted Bears fans that we are, we had to stop for pictures.

These were huge and cool and that's really all I can say about them...oh, and I am fairly sure they are man made.  Boy has God ever gifted the artist!  There is NO way these look fabricated. 
Oh, and I should make note that this day was primarily kid led.  What I mean by that is, my nature would insist that we visit every exhibit in the museum, making everyone simply "drive by" and look.  The kids determined what we went to see.  They determined how long we stayed at each exhibit.  Elijah had the map and was leading us around (we only had 1 wrong turn that I recall) and he even took most of the pictures.  The day was all about them and they liked that a lot!  What kid wouldn't?!?

This is Sue.  When we left for the day to go downtown, the kids had no idea and thought we were taking them to school, late.  Once they figured out they weren't going to school (marked by a stop at Starbucks) we told them we were going to go visit Sue.  Naturally they didn't have a clue.

Evolution is shrinking us apparently. 

I suppose I should document this some time, so why not now.  Look at the hand Titus has in his mouth.  Do you see anything odd?  Say, something wrapped around his thumb or his other fingers?  Well, if you do, it is supposed to be there.  Why?  I don't know for the life of me.  Nurses?  Amy, if you read this you can post potential reasons for this...Titus has, since infancy, sucked his thumb with a hair on it.  A purposefully sought out, preferably long to wrap around the thumb, disgusting and could be ANYBODY'S piece of hair.  It doesn't matter where we are.  He will pick up his blankie and search it for hairs.  He will go find a hairbrush and take one off of it.  He will find them on the floor...at the grocery store.  I am not kidding you.  OK, I'm getting nauseous. 

This was taken in part of the kids play area.  The corn cobs can be placed up and down all the stalks, allowing you to harvest the corn.  It was neat.  It was also something to majorly fight over.  "He has more corn than I do."  "Stop taking all the corn until I say 'Go!'"  "They're not letting me pick the corn."  And so on and so forth.  Corn picking was officially done.

All that sweetness from such darling little beings all because these two people fell in love!

When other kids were looking at fossils and other provided items under the microscope, our kids were doing this.  It was actually quite fun, and even funny!   I tried to get a good view down their throats and even up their noses, but for whatever reason, it didn't work out so well.

This is the dinosaur drawing competition that Elijah started.  This is #1.

We will then call this #2.

So naturally this one is C.  Figure out which one was drawn by Elijah, Tim and then me.  The answer will be at the end.

I had no idea whatsoever that a Giraffe had such a long tongue.  They don't lick your face to say "hello" do they?  I am certain there will be no one left to say hi to once this guy is done greeting you.  Sheesh.

We are were on our way out and had to stop here in front of the presidential head (not pictured) just like in the movie.  The kids had been great most of the day and were all so tired.  When Eden gets tired, she gets uncooperative.  See?

We let the kids chose to eat at Gino's pizza where you can write on any surface you see, or at Ed's where the waiters are rude to you.  They chose Eds.  Next time, we will chose a pizza joint where we can afford the pizza.  Holy.  Cow.  That's all I have to say about that.  For now.

These were the sundaes they ate for desert.  No, they were not on the dollar menu.  This is downtown.  We are so ignorant.  It was somewhat comical by this time.  The kids, however, had an absolute blast!

Just as we were leaving, it was time for all the wait staff to stop and sing and dance for everyone.  At the moment the song that they sang slips my mind, but they were up on the counter dancing, in the window areas and on tables...it was great.  Somehow I managed to snap this shot and then we were out the door walking a few blocks down the street to Moody where Tim parked the car.  Free parking saved our tails, let me tell you.

It didn't take long for these little ladies to pass out, and I was glad about that, even though it was quite early still.

 

When we got home, many of us got changed into pj's and we sat together to look at all the pictures and video we took from the day and we talked about what a fun day we had.  There is a reason we don't do things like this all the time...we'd be broke...but if Tim and I didn't pay attention to that small detail, we couldn't have planned a better time, short of a Disney vacation.  It was great.  I think it should become a yearly event that we do...the Downtown Ditch Day.  Oh, and Levi?  Well, he loves the fact that if he sucks his stomach in, people call him an alien he is so stinking skinny.  I think I can put my fingers around his waist.  

#1.  me (mommy, Michelle, Shelly)

#2.  Tim (daddy)

C.  Elijah...his is so much better!!!

Cheer Camp 2011

This was Eden's second year to do the Cheer Camp at school which is basically 2 weeks of practicing after school to be able to cheer for the annual Powder Puff Basketball game at school.  Friday morning I picked up her shirt and headed straight to JoAnn Fabrics for ribbon to make a coordinating pony tail holder thing.  I can't think of what you call them.  Anyways, I ended up making one for each girl in her group.  Everyone who was able to came to the game to watch her few minutes of fame. 

 Sometimes I think she was concentrating so hard on the actual cheering that she didn't look like she was having fun.  I know Eden better than that and I know she loved it all!

Eden is one of the smaller girls and has, for both years now, been one of the girls to be lifted like this.  The funny thing about this year was that the other girls holding her weren't paying attention to when to put her down, so it was a good 15-20 seconds that she was being held after the other groups were done.  That doesn't seem like a long time until you are sitting there, watching her make faces like "Am I done yet?" and seeing that the girls weren't planning on letting her down any time soon.  Cute!

She stood just like this the entire time...it really made me laugh because she would also bend her knees every time she clapped.  She was so in to what she was doing that her whole body moved in her own rhythm.  I loved it!!!

Looks well organized, doesn't it?!? 

Last year they got a trophy and this year it's a plaque.  She didn't care...she loved the whole thing and the plaque was just icing on an already perfect cake.