Meghan had a gymnatics party at Gymkhana. Meghan and 10 of her girl friends spent 2 fun filled hours at the gym. Earlier in the year, Meghan attended a girl scout overnight lock in at Gymkhana and has wanted to have her birthday party there ever since. Last year she missed out on having a party because Michah was born. So this year we decided to go the extra mile for Meghan. I think the girls had the most fun jumping into the “pit”
I never thought I would ever say this… but I can’t wait until school starts. The kids have been driving me crazy. Summer camp is over so I have all three kids, all day long. I have to constantly be their entertainment and I can’t get anything done. It really is not as bad as I’m making it out to be. I do get to send the boys to daycare three days a week. But as soon as they get home, the kids start.
Meanwhile Michah is getting steadier on his feet and walks more each day. I have to watch him like a hawk to make sure he is not getting into anything he is not supposed to. Now that he is upright, there is a whole new world for him to see at his new eye level.
It totally amazes me what can hold Michah’s attention for a period of time. It could be the house fly that is just buzzing away. Or perhaps the flower in the garden. There really is something special seeing the world for the first time.
Dr. Ted is our pediatric dentist. I wish he was my dentist. His office has lots of neat stuff. There is a play room for the kids who are waiting. But I think the best part of the office are the TV’s mounted in the ceiling. When the kids are in the dental chairs they can look at a TV on either the wall or above them. There are always a variety of kids shows playing.
Yesterday, both Meghan and Mathew had their checkups. Everything was fine for Mathew. But for poor Meghan it was another story. A quick exam of her mouth showed one of her permanent teeth had erupted yet her baby teeth had not fallen out. An x-ray confirmed that there was another tooth just waiting to emerge. Unless Meghan’s two baby teeth were removed, they would cause the adult teeth to come in crooked and daddy to have a huge orthodontics bill.
So out they came. Meghan was a real trooper. A lot of the credit goes to Dr. Ted. He’s great at keeping the kids calm and working fast. Before we knew it, the two baby teeth were under Meghan’s pillow for the tooth fairy! In the morning, there was $6.00 from the Tooth Fairy. $5 for the first tooth and $1 for the second. What a way to start her birthday.
Not to much later, Meghan got an Enchanted Call from Cinderella with a special birthday greeting. Unfortunately, a little bit later, I had to leave for Emily and Andrew’s wedding. I’ll try to post some photos from the wedding in the next couple of days.
It has been one year since Michah was born. Hard to believe. So much has changed. It does not matter that I watched first Meghan and then Mathew grow through the first year. Michah’s growth has amazed me. I forgot to mention that he started taking his first steps about a week or so ago. Everyday he is a little steadier on his feet. Thankfully, Meghan has decided she is going to be a mini-mommy. It is funny to hear her praise the baby and try to take care of Michah. Sometimes, I think I’ve got to watch her to make sure she does not over mommy him! Other times, she is a big help and allows me to get things done around the house.
One Innocent Baby:
Plus One Cupcake:
Equals:
What a mess!
Summer has begun to set in. Meghan has started at summer camp and really enjoys the days. Mathew wants to spend the day there too but he will have to wait until next year. Everyday at camp, Meghan has a swimming lesson. By the end of the summer, I bet she is going to be pretty good.
Meanwhile, work on the lower level is nearing completion. There are several little things to get done but we need to wait for some materials to arrive before they can resume work. The main thing we need is the counter for the bathroom sinks. We are having a custom double bowl counter with integrated sinks made. The guy who does this is on vacation and once he returns it will be a couple of weeks before the counter is ready to install.
Meanwhile, I continue to work on albums, and weddings. There is just so much to do and so little time. I fear this is a summer that I will not get to enjoy the way I would like.
Monday I played hooky from everything and spent a day with the kids. For those of you who don’t know, around July 4th every year, Milwaukee plays host to Summerfest, the nation’s largest music festival. 11 years ago, it was one of my first dates with Sheryl.
The weather today was beautiful. Around 75 degrees, sunny with a slight breeze here in Chicago. So around 10:30 I (Sheryl was stuck working), loaded all three kids in the van and drove to Summerfest. Before we left I stopped at the bank for some cash. As we were pulling out of the bank’s parking lot, Meghan realized she never had breakfast and a Dunkin Doughnuts was in the area. $5.00 later we had 7 doughnuts (BTW, DD has free Doughnut Mondays in July!).
Off we were to Milwaukee. About 75 minutes later, we arrived at the park and ride lot where we met Charles and Harriet, my in-laws. The parking was free but he bus to Summerfest was $9.00. Eventually we arrived at the main gate. Much to our surprise as part of kid’s day at Summerfest, admission was free until 3:00!
My relief was short lived. Once we were in the door, there was plenty of ways to spend money.
$3 for 3 balloons for the kids
$20 3 subs and 3 sodas (1 in the souvenir cup) for lunch
$2 for the bounce house
$2 for the street act juggler
$9 to ride the skyway (1 way)
Total spent (without gas money) $50. At the end of the day, I had three tired kids, the photos and my $50 souvenir cup. But you know something? The kids had a great day and I’d do it all over again next year!
Did I mention, the Summerfest grounds were on the shores of Lake Michigan. Here are the kids at lunch time.
We let the baby loose for a couple of moments.
Here’s the juggler! Notice that very sharp knife.
A view at the Harley Motorcycle parking lot.
Four years ago today, my son was born. Suddenly, he’s four years old! Where did the time go. Yesterday he was a little baby. Today, he’s a big boy and fun to be around. Here are some photos from Tuesday’s celebration.
Cupcakes ready for his class at Kindercare. In the fall, he’s going to be moving into the 4 year old room.
After eating a blue cupcake. Blue is his favorite color because Thomas the Tank Engine is blue.
Here’s his cake. Same cake as last year. He knew it but was thrilled to have a Thomas cake anyway!
Baloo just doesn’t care!
I’m so sore and achy my aches have pains. We’ve spent the last three days furiously packing the basement to get ready for the demolition and renovation project to begin. Well all of that starts this week. It amazes me how much junk we’ve accumulated over the last ten years. We have a big dumpster sitting in our driveway that is more than half filled with our useless junk. There is still some more to go but right now I just can’t move another box! So for the next several months we’re going to be living in half the space we’ve become accustomed to.
Another milestone was reached over the last week. My birthday. Let’s just say that while I’m not quite old enough to remember when the Dead Sea was only sick, I’m getting old enough to remember when people were still mourning. We had a fairly low key celebration for my birthday. We thought we would try to go out for dinner but the kids did not cooperate. So instead we brought Pizzaria Uno in for a treat. Sheryl went to the store and bought a small cake. All in all a pretty quiet day.
Over that weekend, I shot Laura and Brian’s wedding. I’m still working on the photos so when I have a moment, I’ll post a few. In the meantime, I did finish the first draft of Jennifer and John’s wedding album. As always, you can view current and past albums on my website. Jennifer and John’s album can be viewed by clicking the link.
With the arrival of Michah last year, our bedroom situation became a little lopsided and unfair. We could move our daughter into the boys room and give the boys her room but some how that seemed to create more problems. No matter how we looked at it, we have three upstairs bedrooms which were all different sizes. Kind of like the three bears, A big room, a medium sized room and a baby sized room. When the kids get bigger, we foresee problems.
Next, our kitchen cabinets are falling apart. The previous owners must have known they were planning to sell the house so all they did was reface the cabinets to make them look nice. But, the shelves were still falling apart. There are other concerns through out the house which we wanted fixed and some things we just didn’t like.
As a result over the last couple of weeks we’ve been interviewing contractors. It seems that we have finally found one who will undertake the project(s) we want done. Part of what we like about these folks is they have already said there is no reason to build over the garage. We can solve our space problems with what we already have. Already they’ve saved us nearly $60,000!
We just have some terms in the contract to fix and make sure the statement of work is what we want. Then once we sign the agreement, we hope to be finished with phase 1 in four months.
Late this morning, I was just settling down at the computer to start the day’s work. I heard a dog barking from upstairs. I realized I had left Baloo outside and he wanted to come in. He sure is not the typical Labrador Retriever — he does not like the cold, rain or snow. I knew that if I did not bring him in, he would continue to bark until I did bring him in. I stop organizing myself for the day to come and went to the back door to let Baloo in the house.
When I arrived at the back door, there he was just waiting for me. Suddenly, I noticed the red stains in the fresh white snow. At first I thought Baloo had found an apple from the apple tree. Then I noticed the second stain. I took a closer look at the stains and relized they were blood. Alright, did Baloo catch a small animal? No, it was coming from his front paw. When I inspected it, I discovered he had broken one of his toe nails. So it was off to the vet to have Baloo patched up. Here’s our poor pitiful dog with has bandaged paw.
