First Win

Last night Emily's softball team won! The have previously tied and come close to winning, but last night they came out ahead, 25-17! They only have a few games left and I am so glad they will have at least one win under their belts.

Charlotte

This is Charlotte. She hangs out near our patio door at night. She catches bugs and quickly wraps them up. We like her.

Big City

My sister and I had a great time in Chicago. It was a short visit, I was away for 16 hours in total.  We survived driving in heavy traffic and didn't get lost once. We did have to have her friend parallel park the car. What can I say, we are used to pulling into a garage, not parking in a spot that seems just big enough for a shopping cart.

Once we arrived at her apartment we got ready for our night out. We walked to the train and took it downtown to the apartment of another friend. She had drinks and snacks on the roof top of her building. The view was fantastic.

I didn't take my regular camera so I snapped these with my iPhone. After awhile we headed to Maggiano's for dinner.  I ate the best mushroom filled ravioli that I have ever tasted. All of the food was fabulous. After drinks at the Hard Rock Cafe we walked to the Baton Lounge to see a show featuring female impersonators. I was intrigued as I have never seen anything like it.  As we were led to our seats I was thinking, "please let us sit in the back…."  Well, we were seated in the front row. Like right in front of the stage.  So close that I was pretty sure I would be able to tell exactly how much female impersonating was going on. I really enjoyed the show though. It didn't bother me too much that dollar bills were being handed to the performers right over my head. I was not aware that you  were supposed to hand ones to the ladies, and I just had 20's…. Maybe next time..

After the show we took a cab home, slept for a few hours and were on the road by 8:30. I needed to get home to the kids. I am hoping that Ava will forgive me for leaving her. As soon as I walked in the door Ava smiled, giggled frantically, and stuck her hand down my shirt.

Matt had his hash run this morning and it was a super hero themed run. He and our friend Nathan dressed as Ace and Gary, the Ambiguously Gay Duo. It is a skit on Saturday Night Live.

Matt ran though the streets in this outfit. So I was thinking that in less that a 24 hour period I attended a female impersonator show and Matt was running around town dressed as a gay superhero. Perhaps I need to start adding more money to the fund that I have started to pay for Ava and Emily's future therapy.

Tidbits

I am getting ready to head to Chicago with my sister. Her childhood friend is getting married in July and tonight is the bachelorette party. I am hoping that I am able to stay awake for the drag queen show which doesn't start until 12:30….in the A.M!!!

Matt is home with the girls overnight by himself. He is preparing his costume for Sunday's hash run.  He is dressing up as a super hero. I will post more on that later. I give you a bit of a hint on his costume… he bought bikini briefs and women's tights today.

We hosted a small get together last night. The cleaning and all the yard work that needed to be done has convinced me that we need to sell our house and buy something with a smaller yard and no pool. The contractor will be here on Monday to build the new deck so we will reevaluate after the deck is done. The market is not great and we paid top dollar for this house seven years ago, so we may be stuck here, but I figure it doesn't hurt to look into it.

I went to garage sales with my mom and the kids this morning. Found a sale that had tons of great clothes in Ava's size for fall. I purchased three pairs of expensive shoes, several outfits, and jeans for thirty dollars. I love buying almost an entire wardrobe for a season for what I would normally spend on one outfit.

One more thing… The poopsicles I made earlier in the week are a hit!

Poop Juice

If you know me, which I am assuming you do if  you read this blog, you know I am semi-obsessed with poop. I love a good poop story. I am horrified at the thought of ever being constipated. So I guess I am semi-obsessed with fiber as well. I get such a sense of accomplishment when Matt says to me, "Hey, whatever you put in that smoothie really worked." I am sure this is all too much information, but again, if you know me, you know I am a too much information kind of gal. Here is the smoothie I made yesterday.

I used:

2C Frozen Blackberries

1C Orange juice- if you want to get really wild and crazy use whole oranges and water!

2T Flaxseed meal

1 Banana

1C Water approximately- I just added enough water to thin it out a bit. Otherwise it was like sorbet.

Put it all in your blender and blend till smooth.

There is 22 grams of fiber in this culinary delight! Since there is no way I could drink all of this myself, I shared with Ava.

We still had leftovers so I made… wait for it…….Poopsicles ! You could also store the leftovers in the fridge and drink throughout the day.

I rarely make the same smoothie twice. As long as you are putting all good things in it, there is no way to screw it up.  Ava loves smoothies, she will even drink smoothies with greens in them. Emily is still not a big fan and prefers to just eat the whole fruit. I am working on her though.

I do realize that my obsession with poop and fiber is a bit weird, but I do have at least one friend who also enjoys a good poop story. No, I won't name any names…..

The Bather

This is the scene after most every meal in our house. Ava is a self feeder. She is fairly accurate at getting the food in her mouth, but still manages to get avocado in her hair, watermelon juice down her front, and rice stuck to the watermelon juice. Hopefully, someday we will be able to leave her clothes on her when she eats. Otherwise mealtime could get awkward.

Slacker

I have been slacking on my blog writing big time. I have a decent excuse though. About 4 weeks ago I came down with what we think was the flu. I seemed to be improving, but I had this cough that lingered on for weeks. The kind of cough that makes your spouse question their decision to marry you. The kind of cough that on several occasions caused me to vomit my entire dinner.

On Sunday night I promised Matt that I would go back to the Dr. I was sure he was going to diagnose with me with some awful disease.  I have a secondary infection. My immune system was down due to the virus and an infection took over. I did verify with him that he didn't think I had lung cancer or tuberculosis. He looked at me like I was insane, realized I was serious and referenced back to my clear chest x ray 4 weeks ago.

So no worries folks, I will begrudgingly take my antibiotics and I will be back to my old self in no time.

Father's Day

My children seriously lucked out in the dad department. I did too. I could not ask for a more involved husband and father. We plan to spend the day pampering Matt with a massage, fine wine, and a fancy dinner. Ok, not really, but lunch at the Olive Garden is close, right ?

Eleven Months

Today Ava is eleven months old. She is walking, talking, and for the most part a joy. I attempted to photograph her this morning and do an insanely cute post. Well, that didn't go so well. Here is what I got.

She has work to do you know. No time for pictures. She is 100% walking now and photo shoots are out of the question. At least this morning she was not going to cooperate. I am used to getting the "are you kidding me" look when I try to take pictures.

Her favorite pastimes are climbing on the fireplace, climbing on the stairs, and climbing on the sofa. Once she reaches a destination that is sufficiently high enough to make my heart skip a beat she likes to stand up and dance, preferably as close to the edge as possible. She has zero fear. We try to step back and hang out in the background and let her explore the world around her. As independent as she is, she still loves to cuddle, ride in the baby carrier, and sleep with us.

She continues to get most of her nutrition from nursing, but will eat most anything we give her. I have learned that giving a lot of watermelon at one time is not a good idea. Especially if you cloth diaper. Ummm, gross….

She has a few words that she uses consistently, banana, daddy, mama, cat, book, and a few others.

As this first year comes to a close I cannot help but reflect on what a joy Ava has been in our family. Happy eleven months, Ava!

Getting Creative

If all goes as planned all of these beautiful materials will come together in perfect harmony to make Ava the most gorgeous doll anyone has ever seen. If all goes how I expect it might, I will struggle to make a doll that doesn't hurt your eyes to look at. I don't know how to sew and have never made anything from a pattern by myself. What I do know how to do is buy a pattern and materials, hand it to my mom and say, " Yeah, make that please."

I like to think I have a good eye, just check out the wool yarn that I ordered for the hair. I have all the clothes planned out as well. It is just the technical side that I struggle with. I am little intimidated in the sewing department.  Look at the size of those doll making needles. One false move and you are missing a limb. But I am determined to learn how do to this. It can't be that hard, right?

This doll requires that I sew, embroider, and crochet. None of which I have ever done.  This may get interesting, I am picturing Matt on the sofa crocheting a doll wig, while I drink a scotch on the rocks.

Chicago, Cats, and Mondays

This past weekend we took a road trip to the windy city. Matt wanted to run a half marathon along Lakeshore Drive, so we decided to make a weekend out of it. We drove up to the Museum of Science and Industry. 

Ava was a bit whiny, especially toward the end of our time there. We stopped at the gift shop and bought her a ball. I like being the kind of mom that will buy their child a toy in an attempt to end the endless whining….

  Emily and Matt had a fantastic time. Matt could have stayed in the space exhibit all day. Emily loved the genetics area where they had  baby chicks hatching.

Our little vegetarian did not think too much of  the mama pig in a cage feeding her little ones. I thought it was pretty sad too.  She was happy to see the Soy exhibit though.

After a few hours at the museum we went to our hotel to get checked in. We stayed at the Hilton Towers which is just across from Millennium Park. All I can say about Chicago traffic is that it makes me want a stiff drink. All kinds of roads were closed due to festivals making GPS somewhat useless. But we got there and managed to self park to avoid the outrageous cost of having someone park for you. Our room was very nice. It had two bathrooms which is one more than we are used to. We could see the Ferris wheel on Navy Pier from the window in our room.

I sent Matt out for take out from Panera while Ava trashed the room.

We went to bed early so Matt could get up for his race in the morning. I have no idea how people who live in the city sleep. I guess they get used to the noise. I was up every hour or so due to sirens, fireworks, horns and other city noise. Matt was out the door a little after five to catch a shuttle to the start of his race. I thought about going to watch, but getting two kids up at 4 a.m. and putting them on a shuttle and then sitting for two hours while Matt is running is not on my list of what a good wife does. So we stayed behind, ate bagels, and watched cable t.v. Before we headed home we decided to go to Millennium Park to look around. I am so glad we did. It was my favorite part of the trip.

Imagine our surprise, especially Ava's, when we saw this dinosaur walking down the street.

After a quick lunch we headed home. All in all we had a fabulous time and I only yelled at Matt for going the wrong way once.

On the home front, Kramer is still in Emily's room on pain meds. He acts like he wants out of her room though which is an improvement. He is not acting lethargic and in pain like he was. Hopefully he is healing some. I will check in with the vet today. We definitely want to give him some more time to try to heal on his own.

I feel like I need a day to recover from travel, but that is not in the cards. Matt and I both commented this morning that we could use another 8 hours of sleep.

Oh I wanted to mention that I made it though 3 hours of travel, a crowded museum, fireworks, sirens, closed roads, a GPS that thought is was funny to take us on the one of the busiest expressways in the country, and I did not have one drink. What can I say, even I am too cheap to drink the liquor in the mini bar.

Kramer

The vet visit did not go well. Our naughty cat must have jumped down off something a bit too high, landed wrong, and fractured his hip. It is the type of break the normally requires surgery. Surgery that Kramer would most likely not survive due to his multiple congenital heart defects.

At this point we are going to keep him on pain meds and hope his hip will heal enough on its own. We just really need it to heal enough that he would not be in any pain. Kramer will be x rayed again in ten days to see if there is any improvement. If there is no improvement we will have to decide if we spend $2,300 to attempt a surgery that he may not survive. Our vet is has contacted a surgeon that could potentially operate on him, they will require an echo of his heart and chest x rays before they would operate.

This just flat out sucks. I have a ten year old that is in hysterics because her beloved cat may not make it and I have to decide how far we are willing to go to try to save him. Our vet is being great and said it is not cruel to keep him at home on pain meds for the time being.  My main goal is that Kramer not be in any pain.

Another consideration is that when Kramer was diagnosed with all of his heart defects the veterinary cardiologist gave him a 2-3 year life span. He is almost 2. I am so conflicted about what to do.

For now he is ok, hanging out in Emily's room on pain medication. It is easier to make decisions when you don't have those big eyes looking up at you. I hope this turns out ok. If you think of it please send some positive thoughts Kramer's way.

On a Roll

Three posts in one morning? I know, insane! I saw this article and wanted to share as it portrays how I feel most of the time in regards to my kids and nutrition.  I have often wondered why we have decided to feed our kids crap.

Comfy?

Yes, my friends, she is asleep.

Happy Thursday

It is shaping up to be a great day here at the zoo. I awoke to the sound of a cat howling, what you might hear if a feline is in heat. Except all the animals here are fixed so I knew something was amiss. Kramer, our cat with multiple heart defects, had somehow injured his back left leg. The other animals, sensing that something was wrong, would not leave him alone. So at six a.m. I am trying to figure out what to do while a frantic Emily is peppering me with " Will Kramer die?"  " Do you think it is his heart?"

We put Kramer in Emily's room so he can be alone. I called the vet and we will take him in at 11:00. Meanwhile, I was trying to get everyone ready incase they had an appt first thing. Ava was running around diaper less because I was too lazy to chase after her when she crawled away from me. She proceeded to pee on the couch. I am ok with the fact that we will not have nice furniture until the kids are on their own, or at least old enough to realize that peeing on the sofa is not funny.

I haven't made it to the store this week so we are running a little low on groceries. Ava was smacking her tray demanding a "NANANNA!"  I found some applesauce and tried to convince her she needed a spoon. She used her fingers instead.

Hopefully the vet will have good news and Kramer just has a sprain or something. Hopefully I won't have to take out a second mortgage to pay the bill. Hopefully I will make it to the store at some point today.

So midway thru typing out this incredibly interesting post the vet called. Turns out they can only see Kramer for his heart. Long story, but since Duke(our Boxer) was referred to this vet for his leg surgery and Kramer was referred there from the shelter where I work they can't see him for anything other than the reason for the referral. Even though he has not been to any other vets. Soooo, I called our vet that our dogs see for routine care and got Kramer in at 1:30.  I called the other vet back to get all his records faxed over.  I get that they don't want to take business from our normal vet, but Kramer has never even been there….

Anywho, I am going to try to get some chores done this morning and try to get some stuff around for our mini vacation to Chicago this weekend.

Acting Debut

For the past 7 weeks Emily has been participating in Junior Theater. The performance was last night. Unfortunately, due to busy schedules Matt and I were the only ones able to see her.  So I thought I would post the video here for all of you to see. Ignore the completely unruly almost 11 month old in the background. I spent most of the hour throwing puffs at her trying to keep her quiet. I wasn't all that successful. Emily is the angel that enters about halfway through the clip.

The Girls

Iron Chef

Last week Emily checked a cookbook out at the library. This is what she came up with.  She is now writing down ingredients for me to purchase so she can make some new dishes. This from a girl that claims she doesn't know how to make a PB&J.  There is hope after all.

Fridays with Kevin

Kevin thought sticking his head in front of the fan was hilarious. We thought it was pretty funny too. I think I would give just about anything to hear that silly laugh one more time.

Thursday Random

My cold is sticking around like a bad case of herpes. Seriously, I cannot seem to catch a break. I cough with such force that I fully expect my kidney to come flying out of my mouth and hit Matt in the head.

We are having a garage sale at my sister's house tomorrow and Saturday. I haven't gotten through as much stuff as I wanted to, but I am ok with all of it going to Goodwill if I don't get it out for the sale.

Speaking of my sister, her birthday was yesterday. Happy Birthday, sis!

I am adjusting to having both kids home all day. Emily has an issue with volume control and Ava is a light sleeper. Emily also needs to be entertained every second of the day. This summer we are going to work on learning the fine art of being bored. I do have some things planned once I get over this illness of mine.

I am off to sort through more crap, I mean really nice stuff for the garage sale. Hope you all have a great day :)

Dirty Dozen

Today marks the twelve year anniversary of my first date with Matt.  I could go on and on about how we are still in love and would do anything for each other. But what you really want to know is if the magic is still there, right? Well, how could it not be when he wears things like this:

I actually bought this shirt at a garage sale. How could I pass this beauty up? Matt loves it as much as I do. Maybe he will wear it on our next date. A girl can dream….