April 22 - 30

As I am typing this I thinking how busy we have been but at the same time I can't really recall why.. We spent most of last week watering our new grass because of lack of April showers and then the entire weekend worrying that it was going to die because it snowed - only in Chicago... We have been working diligently on finishing Tyler's room. These are pictures of where we are to-date. We should be done with painting this weekend, window treatments have been ordered so we can get rid of the bed sheets - finally! But, the crib is going nowhere fast. Mike had a temporary moment of insanity Friday night and asked Tyler if he would like to start sleeping in his big boy bed. While I was picking up my jaw off the floor (we had not discussed it prior to this) Tyler said, "Yeah! Let's go to bed right now!" Well, 2 hours later, after much crying and several trip out of bed, Tyler moved back into his crib. Maybe in 6 months or so... I am happy to keep the crib crowded in the room if it means more sleep for all of us.

Mia continues to be a challenging sleeper. She sleeps through the night (sometimes) She takes naps (sometimes). She wakes at 5 a.m. and won't go back to sleep (all the time). She is just much different than Tyler. She is not really cranky so we are just going to go with the flow and know that in a few years we won't remember these sleepless nights. (Why do I keep saying we? "We" means me in case you are wondering. Mike is a very sound sleeper and I don't want to have to worry that is he going to fall asleep at the wheel on some country road so I keep our little party girl company at 2 a.m.) Still no teeth. I thought she may be teething a couple of days ago but nothing has progressed. Both kids are going to have Daddy's spring allergies and it doesn't help that we live next to fields and have wind like you would not believe. I would not believe it had I not just witnessed Tyler's huge playhouse fly across the lot next to us and end upside down. I don't know why I didn't take a picture but I am sure I will have another opportunity.

Mia is starting to get into everything. Her favorite activity is crawling from artificial tree to artificial tree pulling out the grass, scattering it everywhere and then trying to stick as much of it into her mouth as possible.

We had a couple of play dates last week. One of our friends has a little 3 month old baby and my friend Stacey was shocked at Tyler's love of babies. He begged me to hold the baby and just kept saying, "Mommy, Neveah is so cute!" He stood guard over the baby the entire time. It was so sweet.

We planted little trees for Earth Day last week. I will post pictures. Tyler calls them, "my baby trees" and he very carefully planted them in holes and then proceeded to run them over with his dump truck. Our vegetable garden should be interesting this year. Taking Tyler to the nursery is an experience because he keeps picking flowers for me to put behind my ear. It was one of those things that I did once that I will regret forever. I also have to be careful with him in the produce department because he will just walk right over and take a bite of an apple and put it back.

Tyler has become a puzzle freak. We just stumbled upon a 24 piece jigsaw puzzle one day and he became hooked. He literally does at least 10 puzzles a day and will sit for almost an hour doing the same puzzle over and over.

Yesterday the housekeeper was here and I was upstairs showing her something while Tyler was eating lunch. Realizing it was awfully quiet, I went downstairs and Tyler had gotten a bowl, a spoon and a half gallon of ice cream out of the freezer and had made himself a bowl of ice cream.

Me: "Tyler, what are you doing?!"

Tyler: "I got some ice cream for lunch."

And then he went back to watching Diego while he ate his ice cream

What a silly question Mom...

April 21

This is where you will find my kids almost every day at 6:30 pm.. If Tyler stands on his step stool and looks out the window in the mudroom, he can see Mike driving into the neighborhood. Mia, on the other hand, is still a little petite to see much. Mostly she has to watch Tyler's feet so she doesn't get her hands stomped on.

April 20

No, I didn't upload the wrong pictures. It's a balmy 65 degrees in Chicago and Tyler has decided it's time to pull out the sprinklers and play pool. Now before the grandparents starting thinking that he is going to get some horrible ailment from being cold and wet, we have hot water outside so it's really more like swimming in hot tub. Kids these days - so spoiled. I wasn't yet ready for Mia to take a turn in the pool so she sat on the sidelines eating pretzels.

April 19

Today we went to a Christening for Mike's cousin's son at an upscale restaurant. This is always kind of nerve-racking because you never know what the dinner setup is going to be, if the kids are going to take good naps and if all the planets are going to align. In other words, no matter how much you plan or how prepared you are, you feel utterly helpless in determing the outcome of the evening - a blissful family gathering or the dinner party from hell. I am happy to report, my kids had one of their better showings at a family event. It helped that they had kiddie cocktails, chicken nuggets and fries, ice cream sundaes and a magician who made balloon animals for the kids. It was a fun evening for all of us.

April 17

Today was another beautiful spring day so we took a drive over to Grammy and Papa Posch's house to play and have tea. Tyler LOVES going to Grammy's house because there is always a little treat hidden for him in the drawer in her desk. (There are many reasons why he loves Grammy but this has a cute little story to it.) One day Tyler discovered, as only Tyler would, that Grammy had a drawer in her desk that she kept candy in for when the grandkids visit. Well Grammy had to find a new hiding place because every time we would go over Tyler would remember the drawer and start gorging on candy so now there is just one (or maybe two) little treats waiting for him to discover. That is a actually fruit Tyler is eating with a toothpick, one of those little things you do with Tyler once and now that is the only way he will eat fruit at Grammy's house.

Maria hearts Mia.

We have a cat named Maria who loves people. You have never seen a cat like this. As I write this she is sitting next to Mike meowing because she wants him to pet her. The strange part is that she will greet perfect strangers in this same way. Well anyway she loves Mia. (By the way, I didn't realize how similar their names were until very recently when I tried to say their names in the same sentence.) Anyway, I digress. Maria will seek our Mia and lay down next to her wagging her tail. Mia thinks Maria is just the most wonderful toy. She smiles and giggles, lays on top of her, pulls her tail, tried to eat her fur and yank on her whiskers and the entire time Maria just lays there wagging her tail and meowing contentedly.

April 16

Every Princess Needs a Tutu

I have been wanting to post a picture of my latest creation but I had to wait until we finally got it in the mail and little Emma got to open it for her 1st birthday. Happy Birthday Emma!! I hope you liked your tutu. I started making these recently and am thoroughly addicted. Little Mia is going to have a closetful of tutus and I just know she is probably going to be the little girl who wants to play in the mud, won't wear a dress and hates all girly things. I figure if I start her early I can get my fill before she has a say in the matter.

April 15

April 7-14

No, I am not wearing Indian warpaint. I just had spaghetti for the first time!

What you can't see in this picture is that Mia is magnetically attracted to Mike's ac adapter for his notebook and will maneuver in whatever means necessary to find it.

When we first got our cats 4 years ago, they were only about 6 weeks old and we kept them in one of guest rooms until we were sure they knew how to use the litter box. Then we opened the door and each day they would venture a little farther until one night they made it all the way across the house and into our bed and that's where they have remained ever since. This is how Mia is with crawling. She has the capability to crawl anywhere she wants but she doesn't. Every day she gets a little braver. Finally, today she discovered that she could crawl into the dining room where Tyler has his train set and before I realized it she had destroyed the entire track system. Tyler didn't notice at first and then a little while later, I heard him in there saying, "What happened in here? What happened to my train set? Oh those naughty cats." I'll let him think that. I would rather him blame it on the cats than on Mia.

As you may or may not know, Tyler has strong opinions on hairstyles. The other morning, Mike brought Tyler into bed with us and Tyler looks over at me and says, "I don't like your hair like that. It is messy." Then later on, after I had my first cup of coffee and a shower, Tyler says, "I like you hair like it is now. I didn't like it this morning. Please don't wear it like that anymore." My mom told me that she loved when my brother was little because she could be dressed in her pajamas and not showered in three days and my brother would still say, "You look beautiful, Mom." Not around my house, I was laying on the floor with Tyler the other day and my shirt came up a little but and he says, "Mom, your tummy is big. Please cover it up." I swear to God, we do not talk like this so I don't know where he gets this from but it just cracks me up. I told him that he could say this to me but it's not nice to say it to anyone else.

April 6

Just a wonderful family day of going to the park, chasing geese, flying kites and trying to see how fast Tyler can pull the wagon before Mia falls out and splits her head open...

When I look at pictures of Tyler, I just marvel at the complete joy and lack of self-awareness a three year old has. When he is happy it shows from head to toe.

April 5

SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

Anyone who lives in the Midwest will tell you this has literally been one of the snowiest, coldest winters ever (and I have not gone soft from living in Arizona) this really has been a horrible winter and before today we had no glimpses of spring. Finally, a beautiful day in the sixties and sunny. It was like the whole city came out of hibernation. We went over to Lori's house to let the kids play and wish Eric happy birthday. This is Wyatt and Ellie playing. They look very vicious in this picture but they are the sweetest, most laid back dogs. For some reason, Tyler calls them both Tasha (which is my parents' dog's name). He will say to them, "Down Tasha. Bye Tasha. No Tasha!" But it's odd because when we are home he will tell me, "Wyatt and Ellie are my friends."

Tyler was playing on the computer today and something was not working right so I told him to wait for me and I would come over and help and he says to me, "Don't worry Mom. Trust me. I know what I am doing." A little while later he was looking for one of his toys and he couldn't find it anywhere so he says to, "I can't find it anywhere. It must be in Mia's mouth." He then goes over and begins to open her mouth and look around for the missing toy.

I asked him the other day how old he was going to be on his birthday and he told me, "Ty is going to be three." A few minutes later he came over to me and said, "I don't want to be three. I want to stay with you and daddy." Apparently he thinks we are already going to kick him out of the house. I told him not to worry, we would give him a free ride for a couple more years, at least until he is done with preschool, before we kick him out.

April 2

Mia is crawling everywhere but her sole purpose is to crawl to something that she can use to pull herself up. So far she hasn't had too many problems with toppling over but I am out of practice in childproofing. I forgot that crawling babies should be used as police search dogs. She can find the littlest speck of dirt or crumb or sticker and it inevitably ends up right in her mouth. We were at the doctor's on Monday (another double ear infection) and the dr is looking down her throat and says to me, "Oh, she has the paper from the exam table balled up in her cheek." I looked like the mother who had no idea what my child was into and Mia is just sitting there smiling while I am trying to fish it out of her mouth.



Mia's eyes are turning green. Mike is a little bummed because neither child really looks like him but I told him well maybe they are going to look like me but have your intelligence and athletic ability.

April 1

My beautiful, happy kids...