Recently

Here are some snapshots from the past few weeks. 

Grace and Andrew have a love/hate relationship.  Typical siblings I guess.  Sometimes they will spend hours playing nicely and don't want to be apart, other times they just hit each other constantly.

Our legos have been getting a lot of use lately.  The kids love to build towers.  Then Andrew says "Oh no goodness!  My tower too big!" 

We finally got a little snow and Andrew helped me shovel.  Here he is upset that his mitten has snow on it.

Andrew is not potty trained and I am giving up until after the baby comes.  But I am starting to teach him that having a diaper on is just nasty.  Most of the time he doesn't care, but even he gets fed up and wants a soaking one off every once in a while.  Here he is one morning, he had taken off his jammies and said "Mommy.  You change me.  Now."  (Charmer isn't he?) I had to get a few pictures of the ridiculous look first. 

Right after this picture Kevin walked in the door and was like "What the hell are you doing?"

We had Mikey, Aunt Katie and Grandma Jane over for a playdate one January day and the kids had a blast.

Once in a while I do let Andrew wear underwear even though he doesn't really get it and the situation always involves Andrew saying "Oh no goodness!  I pee on my yeg!"  (He can't say "L"s) and me mopping up a puddle of urine.  He looks so cute in his undies though. 

Finally it seems like this blog is all about Andrew these days.  Little Miss Grace is doing well too!  She loves school.  She is taking drama and dance classes.  And we are busy planning her Fancy Nancy birthday party in March!

Here is a cute picture of her with the class "pet" Curious George.  Grace brought him home one Monday and by Thursday we had to do an activity and turn in a journal entry (complete with photos) documenting our time with the monkey.  Grace chose to dress him up in drag. 

goose poop and other romantic stuff on valentine's day

Happy Valentine's Day!  And more importantly,

Happy Birthday Amy!

So what is with the goose poop?  Not typical Valentine's Day imagery I know.

Well it is romantic, I promise, at least for me.  You see in August 2003, Kevin asked me to marry him.  The sweet man took me to Lincoln Park in Chicago and he had scoped out the perfect location.  Somewhat secluded, next to the pond, right by a bridge...it really was beautiful.  As we he kept suggesting that we sit down here and there.  I kept refusing.  Not meaning to be difficult (this time).

The problem was there was goose poop EVERYWHERE. We were all dressed up for a nice dinner and I didn't want to ruin my outfit by sitting in anything stinky. We did finally find a spot and Kevin pooped, I mean, popped the question. So every time I see the stuff it makes me think of my engagement. So that, my friends, is why goose poop is romantic. At least to me.

This picture was taken right after we got engaged...awe.

In fact, now that I am looking at this I am thinking this may not even be goose poop, but a more exotic variety of peacock poop.  Anyone out there know?  Betty - this is totally your department :)

By the way, the experience of taking this photo (at the zoo), enhancing it in Picasa, and uploading it to the internet has made me realize that perhaps I put too much poop on this blog.  Agree?  A reflection of life with 2 little kids?  Or maybe it is just proof that I have a (odd) sense of humor? 

Valentines Day Project

Because I like to make life just a little bit harder than it needs to be these days, I decided we needed to make Grace's Valentine's Day treats.  I kept seeing these pretzel treats on pinterest and thought they would be fun to try.  So we did.

You need pretzels, candy melts (picked these up at Michaels) and M&Ms.  You could also use hershey's kisses instead of the candy melts. 

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spread a layer of pretzels on a baking sheet and put one candy melt on each pretzel.

Put the baking sheet in the oven for 90 seconds.  I left mine in about 10 seconds too long and some of the candy melted through the pretzel.  Not a big deal, but I just had to pry them off the cookie sheet after they were set.  As soon as they come out of the oven, put one M&M on each pretzel.  You have to work fast.  So be sure to have your M&Ms ready.

 

By the way, check out the creepy M&M on the bag for this Valentine's Day.  

After the M&Ms are all on, you need to put them somewhere cold for the candy to set. 

We packaged these up in clear candy bags and tied with a cute red ribbon.  Hope Grace's class likes them!