Kids say the darndest things....

I forgot that I needed to jot down a story from this weekend. Sunday, between church and the library, we went to the Panera downtown for lunch. There was a larger man who walked past our table (Dan was in the bathroom). Here's the dialogue that ensued:

Gabe: That's a big guy!
Me: Are you done with your soup? (needing a quick diversion, trying to ignore the comment)
Gabe: Mommy, that's a BIG guy!
Me: Would you like some more apple? (trying to distract him but thinking...there is no way this guy is not hearing this)
Gabe: (louder and more excited) That's a BIIIGG guy!
Me: Gabie, we need to be quiet now, OK? (feeling terrible now like we should just get up and leave)
Gabe: (slow and whiny, but still quite loud) Why are you tellin' me to be quiet, Mommy?"

At that point I actually did turn around and start packing our things. It was one of those moments where you know it's not funny and you shouldn't be laughing, but I almost couldn't contain myself. What do you do in these situations? You have to love and appreciate the honesty and innocence of it, because they really don't know what they are saying is anything but the facts. I'm sure it's bound to happen again, just not sure the best way to deal with it; I know this man heard what was going on and I just felt really bad!

Holly, you think YOURS is bad?

OK, so Holly just posted this celebrity look-alike game and was surprised that it brought up Jason Biggs as a match (on the third attempt). WELL......look who came up as a match for me....TWICE: Jeb Bush!!! What?!

I will say these are both terrible pictures of my chunky face (and actually, in the first one I was pregnant), but come on! Sadly, there is a bit of a resemblance....

Friday Adventure

I decided to take the boys down to the Children's Museum at Navy Pier on Friday. We get free admission through my work and "discounted" parking (still $20!) and it had been a long time since I had taken Gabe down. I would say this was probably my first major outing with the boys by myself, it's definitely more work, but it was worth it and a lot of fun. Although parking is expensive, it's attached, so it's easy to get inside. The museum has three big coat rooms, so we just put our coats an the stroller in there and I carried Caleb in the bjorn while Gabe walked. It's nice that Gabe is at an age where he'll listen and I don't have to worry about him totally bolting from me (though I still watch him like a hawk!). Gabe had a blast and Caleb enjoyed some of the baby areas, too!

We had lunch at Mickey D's and even got to see Bob the Builder, although we did not want to go anywhere near him nor have our picture taken with him. :-) All in all a busy but fun day; we'll definitely go again soon!

Library Membership

On and off for a while now we have been going to church at Willow Creek Chicago, the downtown branch of the one based in South Barrington. We really like it. Anyway, they meet in the Auditorium Theater in the city, which is just a block or two from the Harold Washington Library. The picture above doesn't do it justice, but it is an ENORMOUS, beautiful building. Dan's been wanting to get a library card for a while now, so we went after church today. Gabe was SUPER excited to look at all the books and pick some out to take home, so that was fun. There's also lots of other fun stuff you can do with a Chicago Public Library member, like check-out museum passes. We can also use it to go to the library in Oak Park, which is probably what we'll do most. I've never really considered myself a "library" kind of person (if there is such a thing), but I think it will be fun and maybe it will inspire me to stick with one of my resolutions: read more!

Cooking Kick

I've been on a big cooking kick lately; it's kindof therapeutic. You may be tired of hearing about my love for America's Test Kitchen, but this weekend I tried two more recipes:

Brown Sugar Cookies

Family Style Shrimp Scampi (for some reason it's telling me this one is "premium" content, so I can't post the link...and you might have to "register" for the sugar cookie one)

Both were good (especially the cookies, but you really have to follow their directions closely...but I did substitute light brown sugar for dark, bleach flour for unbleached, and salted butter for unsalted...so I guess I didn't follow that closely). We halved the shrimp recipe, because it called for a LOT of shrimp. I used to not like shrimp, but have become a fan in recent years. I'd like to make more fish at home; it was nice to have something other than chicken for protein!

I like recipe sharing (see Feather's blog for a good pizza soup recipe); anyone tried any other good ones lately? Post 'em on your blog or share 'em here!

Last post of the night....

Last Tuesday Caleb had his checkup and shots and was pretty fussy that night, which seemed normal. It took almost three hours to finally get him to sleep and it involved lots of high pitched screeching, but again I knew his legs were sore (knots where the shots were) and that crankiness is expected. Well, same thing the next night. And the next night. And the next night.

On night four of this (taking two - three hours to get him to sleep), I called the on call doc to see what she thought. This was after googling and finding lots of SCARY stories about reactions to immunizations (I would not recommend doing this). The doctor agreed it seemed weird that he would still be that upset and suggested I bring him in Saturday morning to make sure nothing else was going on. In the back of my mind I felt like maybe he was just being a stinker because he was pretty much fine during the day, and at night when he was upset he would be almost immediate smiles as soon as you took him into another room (particulary the bathroom to look in the mirror).

The doctor confirmed Saturday that everything else looked fine and that he still might be a little sore, or his teeth might be bother him (the top FOUR look like they are all ready to come through), but mostly that he probably is just not wanting to go to sleep. After cancelling our weekend plans with the Vances, he ended up going to be no problem Sat night at 7:30 and sleeping until 5:15. He did well on Sunday night, too, but last night it was back to THREE hours to get him down.

I've tried everything....rocking, walking, swaying, laying him in his crib, etc. Tonight, I put him in his crib and did not take him out for probably 45 minutes, most of which he screamed through. I alternated leaving the room and rubbing his back. He would calm down and even smile when I was there, but when I left it was like he could go on screaming forever. Finally I took him out (feeling like a big failure) and gave him the last bit of his bottle and he conked out.

Wow. I am at a loss with this one, and I just go back and forth between worrying that something is bothering him and wondering if he just needs some tough love. Anyone else go through this? It's definitely exhausting!

Meow and Tat

So, despite the destruction of my amaryllis, the cats have pretty much been re-integrated into daily life after spending portions of the last six months in their winter home down south (aka the basement). Caleb really gets excited when he sees them and Gabe loves them more than ever. Here are a couple pics....I need to get one of Meow, but I think Tat has become the fave because she has a little more mild personality than Meow (he's a stinker).

Amaryllis: The Aftermath

I absolutely love any kind of bulb flower, especially ones you can force inside during the winter. I haven't done an amaryllis in a couple of years, but picked one up this year and started it a couple weeks before Christmas. Just this week it started to bloom big, beautiful blooms. I had seen the cats eye it, but they had been pretty good around it. I had it sitting on the piano and this morning I heard what I knew could only be one thing...the cats had knocked it over onto the floor! I was so sad, but I knew it was bound to happen. I tried to salvage what I could (see last, sad pic), but we'll see how that goes. I wanted to at least keep it alive for a while and then try to force it again next year, but I don't know if it will work. :-(

Brotherly Love

Gabe and Caleb are starting to interact more now, which is really fun to see. Here's a little video I took of them the other day. Gabe got a little irritated because Caleb kept trying to swipe his juice. :-) I love that Caleb is looking right at the camera, but his little hand keeps wandering over to Gabie's cup. Too funny. I'm sure this is only a taste of what is to come! I put some other recent pics below, too.

I thought this was cute because Gabe was putting his arm around Cay Cay.

This one was Gabe trying to clean Caleb up with a wipe after he had eaten breakfast.

Chillin' with their beverages.

Sweet boys.

Dan's Newsletter

Dan doesn't usually share these on his blog, so I thought I would, just in case you'd like to know what he's up to.

http://circlerockmentoring.googlepages.com/MentoringMinuteJan-Feb08.pdf

Rhapsody

So, now that I've been driving to work three days a week I have become a little bit of a pop music listener. Shamefully, sometimes all it takes is a catchy beat or a nice melody and I'm pretty much sold. My taste in music is not really that distinguished. :-)

Anyway, I usually come home with a song in my head, and there's a website called Rhapsody (maybe I was just the last one to learn about it) that lets you play some songs for free (up to 25 a month, after that you can pay a certain amount per month). Here's my current playlist...a.k.a. songs that have been stuck in my head lately. Hopefully this link will work!


http://play.rhapsody.com/playlistcentral/playlistdetail?tracks=tra.17130386+tra.16588181+tra.15458104+tra.14155133+tra.7511826&title=My+Pop+Songs

"Once"

Anyone seen this movie? Dan and I watched it last week and I thought it was really good. It's one of those low budget movies that got a lot of critical acclaim and I think might be up for some awards. Anyway, I would recommend it...sweet story and great music. It's gets off to a little bit of a slow start, but it pics up once they start singing together (I think you can hear one of the songs when you click on the link). The actors are actually musicians and the story is told a little bit through the songs, etc.

Anyone seen any other good movies lately?

Best-Ever Hot Cocoa Mix

That's the cookbook's title for it, not mine. :-) One of my favorite shows on PBS is America's Test Kitchen on Saturday afternoons. They take traditional recipes and make them 100s of time to come up with the best way to make it. They give a lot of the rationale behind why they are doing things they way they do, etc. and also test lots of gadgets, kitchenware and various ingredients. For Christmas, Dan got me the 2008 cookbook. One of the recipes is for the captioned. We made a batch and it's quite good, so I thought I'd share. This makes a pretty large batch that you can store for quite a while.

3 cups nonfat dry milk
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 1/2 cups Dutch-processed cocoa (the best we could find was Hershey's "blend" of regular and dutched cocoa)
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix the ingredients in a food processor or blender. Mix 1/3 cup mix with 1 cup hot milk (that's supposed to be key...vs. water). It's really rich, so we've done it with 1/4 cup mix and it's just as good.

Enjoy!

The Girlies

So, the girls and I (my best friends from high school) decided that since we're all turning 30 this year, we would plan a little trip to celebrate. We started big (NY, somewhere warm, Napa, etc.), but landed on the good ol' Windy City. Given the impending arrival of Baby Jee and Baby Rhode, the location and timing worked out for the best.

We had a great time. We Pricelined the Sheraton near the lake ($75 a night!), so we were in a great location. We arrived late Friday night and went to Grand Luxe for appetizers and beignets (yum). Then Saturday we spent most of the day shopping Michigan Ave. and had tapas for lunch at Cafe Iberico.

For our wild and crazy Saturday night out, we went to Howl at the Moon (a dualing piano bar). Lots of fun! All in all it was a great weekend and so nice to spend time together (it's not often all four of us can get together).

Love you, girls, and Happy 30th to us! (Teara, you're up first!)

Pics by Gabe

You can view some of Gabe's masterpieces here.

I love the look on other people's faces when he's taking their picture. :-) He's definitely getting better at focusing on a subject, but still plenty of random too-close-ups.

Enjoy!

Six Month Check-Up

Caleb's six month check-up was today. Here's a quick rundown:

Height: 28.2" (95%)

Weight: 20 lb. 12 oz. (95%)

Head: I can't remember the measurement, but it was in the 75% percentile

So, he's a big boy! Time for a new carseat already. It's crazy that he's not this little infant anymore! He did pretty well for his shots and oral vaccine, and the nurse who did the shot seriously hooked me up with free samples...a total of 18-2 oz. bottle of ready to use formula and two free samples of Tylenol! Plus a free sample of Eucerin from the lady who did his weight (he has a little dry patch on his leg).

He was super sad and fussy tonight. He just went down at about 9:45 after a couple hours of trying. He had a big stinky diaper before he finally went down; I feel like that oral vaccine (rotavirus) always upsets his tummy. I can just hear it gurgling and growling. Poor guy.

She said he can have juice and water now in a sippy cup and we can start working up to table food (?!). Again, just crazy that he's already to this stage.

Belly Laughs

Here's a cute video of Caleb laughing at Dan. He loves being surprised or playing peek-a-boo. This is probably the hardest I've heard him laugh. Too cute.

The Bean

On New Year's Eve when Justin was here, we decided to take him downtown to see Millennium Park and the "bean" (Cloudgate). It was fairly mild when we left home, but by the time we got downtown, it was snowy and blustery! So, that meant we walked around for about 20 minutes and then left. :-) Actually, we parked in the building where I work, ate lunch there (Sopraffina - good food, but not very exciting...we did try Cafe 200, which is VERY exciting, but it was closed). Then we walked around the park, got some Dunkins to warm up, walked around a little more and left. Cay Cay was not too happy being covered up in the stroller the whole time.

Here are some pics of that and a few more from Justin's visit (check out Gabe in the last one). Justin, not sure if you check this, but it was nice having you here!

(Note: I surprised Dan for his 30th by inviting Justin, a friend Dan grew up with in Maine, out for a visit. He was going to just show up at our door, but a couple of days before I spoiled the surprise by calling Justin from Caleb's room while the baby monitor broadcast the details through the house. Not my finest moment.)

(Note #2: How cute is the hat/scarf/glove set Gabe's wearing? Handmade by Grandma Sandi for Christmas. The hat Caleb was wearing a couple posts ago was made by her, too. Thanks, Grandma Sandi!)

Computer Skilz

Are these posts getting a little overwhelming? Maybe I should ration them...

Gabe has learned to "point and click" now with the mouse, which means the computer has become a lot more meaningful to him. He LOVES going to PBSKids.org and playing the games there. If I bring it up for him, he can navigate to Sesame Street "Journey to Ernie" and a bunch of other things that he likes. When he gets stuck, I'll say, "go back to pbskids" and he'll click the little icon that takes him back to the home page and start over. It's dangerous though, because it keeps him entertained for a long time, and it's very tempting to just let him hang out there for a while! Everything in moderation, right? Someone also gave him a toy laptop, which he also has fun with, but now that he knows what a real computer does, I'm not sure he'll be as interested!

Caleb is 6 Months!

It's hard to believe that Caleb is already 6 months and we are on the downhill slope toward one year! He is still a chubba bubba (no stats yet, we go for his checkup on the 15th), as you can see from these pics I took while getting him ready for bed tonight. Still working on the upper teeth, which I think are REALLY close. He's been waking up at night for the last few nights and eating a LOT at night, which also makes me think he might be having that 6-month growth spurt.

About a month ago he started turning from his tummy to his back in his crib and also scootching all over the place in his crib (which is sometimes a problem because he gets himself into uncomfortable positions). And then he started going from his back to tummy again. So, I guess it all came back to him. :-) He can also almost get on all fours (gets his butt up in the air) and is pretty close to sitting up. He's jabbering a lot (ma ma ma, ba ba ba, etc.....just whatever comes out). Still very smiley to people, but he's definitely at that age where he likes to have someone's attention. So, if you're not looking his way or holding or entertaining him, he will make his voice heard. :-) He also loves looking at Gabe and always smiles at him.

Feeling Sentimental

Lately I have just really been feeling like I want to freeze Gabe at this point in time. There's just something about his personality and the things he says and does that are just so precious to me right now. He's been really good natured lately and sweet to us and Caleb. He is just on that cusp of leaving toddlerhood for littleboyhood and it makes me a little sad. This is going to sound really weird, but for our Christmas Eve eve (the night before we had our Christmas here) we had a nice dinner (Middle Eastern takeout) and Gabe got up and was dancing around to the Christmas music and just having so much fun and saying "dance with me!" and I just started crying because I know that time goes by so quickly and I just wanted to treasure and freeze that moment.


OK, I know this is turning into a really mushy post, but it's just something I've been wanted to record for a while now. Here are a few of his latest faves:

• Computer time (a separate post to come on that)


• Dancing any time there's music and always exclaiming "dance with me, ____" to whomever is around (when Miss D is here on Tuesdays they literlly spend the afternoon in his room dancing_


• Telling stories (that usually involve someone "bumping" into someone or "bumping" their head, not sure why it always involves "bumping")


• His new "Gabe" CD from Mimi (a CD that has his name plugged into songs, to which he dances)


• The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (the movie), which he watches with a stuffed version of the dog/reindeer that he got in the ER last Christmas

Dan also has a funny post here.

It's just been fun watching him grow and learn. I do feel like I may feel like this about every stage, but feeling especially sentimental about this phase, especially when I think about him going to school in a couple years!

Firsts

Gabe had a couple of firsts on Monday. Dan stays home with the boys on Monday while I work and he said that while he was putting Caleb down Gabe yelled for him to come and change his diaper (which is unusual because he hates to have his diaper changed). When Dan went in his room he had taken off his diaper (and it was poopy) and gone and sat on the potty (which made the potty very messy) and then gone back to his room. Yikes! It was a mess to clean up, but good that he tried to make the connection about going to the potty. Maybe we're getting closer?

Later that night I put Caleb down and ran out for a quick Target run while Dan put Gabe down. Unfortunately, Caleb woke up which put a stop to Gabe's bedtime routine. While Dan rocked Caleb, Gabe went up on the futon in Caleb's room and lay there, then told Dan he was just going to go lay down in his own bed. When Dan got Caleb down and went into Gabe's room, he had pulled the covers up and was sound asleep! That's definitely a first. :-)

More lists.....

I thought of a few more practical things to add to my New Year's resolution list:

• Revise and stick to our budget (does anyone use Quicken and do you have any thoughts one way or the other? In the past I've just used Excel with running tallies.)
• Keep track of the checkbook (it gets balanced maybe once a year...at best)
• Set up online bill pay through my bank
• Try to go paperless with bills / file and organize the paper that I do have
• Try to keep the van clean (that's a tough one for me - our van is usually a disaster)
• Try to sew something (I got a sewing machine last year, but after a couple attempts by my mom, I still don't really know how to use it on my own)
• Organize and print photos and dare I say, scrapbook?? (or maybe photobooks)

And I'm WAY behind on posting, so here are some things I need to post about (some of which I'll try to do tonight):

• Firsts
• Feeling sentimental
• Caleb's 6 months
• Computer Skilz
• Downtown and the Bean
• Pics by Gabe
• Brothers
• Belly Laughs
• Other miscellaneous pics

Christmas & Dan's Birthday Pics

Not that you care to see them all, but here are our photos from Christmas and Dan's birthday. I've been meaning to add descriptions / comments, but if I wait to do that I will never post them!

Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15143310@N03/sets/72157603606685428

What a year!

Wow, it's hard to believe 2007 is already over! It's really been a great year, and I feel very blessed as I reflect on all that's happened. I could never list everything I'm thankful for in this one post, but for starters, there's my wonderful husband, two beautiful boys, wonderful family and friends, our health and that of those around us, home, jobs....

I am always torn about making resolutions for a new year, and I usually opt not to, but there are some things I think I'd like to try to do this coming year - here's a partial list (I'm listing these partially so I can look back and keep myself accountable):

• Be healthier (continue Weight Watchers, start working out using my new step :-), just eat healthier/better foods and drinks)



• Make sure the boys (Dan included) eat healthier foods / more balanced nutrition



• Be more intentional about interacting with the boys (and limiting Gabe's TV / movie time, planning activities we can do together)



• Keep things in perspective / try not to get so stressed out about things and just focus on being content



• Put together that Household notebook, or at least the cleaning schedule to help me stay on top of basic cleaning, etc.



• Read more

There are a lot more things I'd like to do, but that's just a few. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I'll be catching up on posts in the next couple of days (Christmas, Dan's birthday, etc.), but in the meantime, here are a couple of pics.