"Unseasonably Warm Weather"

Those three words that every Midwestern wants to hear in March (or most any month of the year)...."unseasonably warm weather".  Yahoo!  We had a great time enjoying it.  We did our second trip, way more successful than the first I might add, going downtown to see the sights of Millennium Park (you may recall the blog post chronicling our fail trying to enjoy Millennium Park last November).  Anyway, the kids loved the new Maggy Daley Park - it really was amazing - but Luke's favorite part was definitely getting to ride the subway and El trains for the first time.  You never saw such a big smile on such a little kid, it warmed the soul!

Matt picked Luke up from school one day and brought his bike to ride home on, it was the coolest thing ever for Luke and his friends were very jealous!

Claire is sleeping with her Minnie toy car from K&C lately

Taking a visit to the Gurnee Antique Market (GAM) - look what rare find we found!

Luke "Take my picture on this chair Mom!"

Emil is a part of the Knights of Columbus and they host fish fries throughout Lent.  We went to one of them and it was delish!

The kids couldn't get enough of the fixin's

The ice skating rink is all melted - meaning fun to walk on

Then went to check out LF beach and all the ice is melted there, too, yahoo!

Just fun sand dunes to climb on!

The heat overcame this girl later after her nap, shirt had to come off

Puppet Show at the Lake Bluff Library

Lunch in Lake Bluff, Matt ate while holding the zonked out Clairebee

She woke up to eat after a bit

Got the kids new swim suits for FL and Luke was eager to try his on

And eat dinner and pudding in his new swim shirt

Puddin' face - gotta love the spork!

Stopping at the park on the way downtown, got in a few rounds of tennis (jk)

Waiting for the subway to come, Luke was excited but the loud trains were a bit overwhelming at first

I see it coming!!!

Riding the rails

Now transfer to the El (elevated) trains.  Also very exciting.

At Millenium Park - Cloudgate aka the Bean -Meh!  "Where's that new playground Mom?"

This gigantic park right next to Lake Shore Drive is a kid's dream!

The lighthouse slide was super fast - quite a thrill ride for the Stinkers

Claire was a little young for the park but she still had fun.  

St Patty's weekend so everything was dyed green

My sweetie pie

March Birthdays and such

I am sooooooo far behind in my blogging, but I like to back date so that nobody's the wiser:)

This weekend in March we had a couple fun events.  Now that we're in April, these snowy March days seem like a pretty long time ago - let's keep it that way weather-wise.

Matt took the kids to work at Baird & Warner with him while I had a brunch with friends

Luke shoveling out the garden in preparation for Spring planting, perhaps a little premature

March Birthdays!!

Cute preggers Katie!  She hardly even looks pregnant, but she is, she is!  Due in July.

Speaking of pregnant...Nikki's baby shower was the very next day!  Brad & Nikki are expecting in May.

The Luyster ladies

While I was at the shower Matt & co went to Reptile Rampage

Boat Show

A pretty low key weekend after the birthday festivities felt great.  Not too much to report on.  We went to a boat show...Rainforest Cafe...Matt & I went out for an amazing dinner with friends Olga & Dan..and we just kind of hung around.

A couple quick kid updates:

Luke has started to begin every sentence he utters with "Aaaaaactually..."  At first it was cute, but now I feel like he is correcting everything we say, which gets a bit old.  I had wondered where he picked that up from, but recently noticed that Huckle says that in the show Busytown Mysteries so that may be where he got that.

Speaking of shows, that makes me remember how cute he is when he hums along to the Octonauts theme song, he has a huge smile on his face and he sways his body back and forth to the music.

I think he would watch cartoons all day long if permissible.  As is, he doesn't get to watch them NEAR as much as he would like.  The other day he said "When you tell me I can't watch Octonauts right now that makes me sad, and you never want me to be sad, right???  So if you tell me I can watch Octonauts then I'll be happy, ok?"

The manipulation continues, like last night I was with Claire at the back door and he wanted me to come over to the playset and push him on the swing and so he said, "Well, who do you love more?"  What??!!  When I told him I loved both him and his sister the same he seemed unconvinced, secretly sure he was the true winner.  I hope Claire feels that way too, then I've really nailed it!

The only Claire thing that comes to Matt and my mind at the moment is that she is really sensitive to having a runny nose of any kind.  This from a kid who could care less if she sat in a poopy diaper for hours, didn't give any indication of double ear infections, can fall straight on her head and be totally unfazed - but yet a tiny little runny nose and it is a red alert!!  She goes around saying/whining "Got snots!  Got snots!" until somebody wipes her nose.  Repeat every 5 seconds for hours and hours.  At first we thought she was saying "Got knots!  Got knots!" about all of the knots she's always making in her hair.  But no, she could care less about her bald spot and continued hair knots - but that snot cannot be tolerated.

The boat show was fun, but the kids were climbing and touching everything! 

We found some really, really nice boats!  Very tempting to upgrade ours!

Rainforest Cafe was kind of fun at first, it was our first time there, but Claire got scared by the "show" with all the gorilla animal noises and we had to take her out of the restaurant completely.  Matt and I took turns so we both could eat.  My head tells me that eventually we will be able to go to a restaurant and eat with our children without it being a total s&!t show, but it is hard to imagine at the moment.

Whatchu looking at Willis?

Isolene's amazing kaleidoscope pancakes for the kids one morning.

This picture was taken last weekend, but I forgot to post.  These are from the Lake Forest Beach.  Aren't they beautiful?  

Ben says that it looks like an Arctic coastline, not suburban Chicago, because of the desolate scene with no human structures visible.

"Mommy play toys!"