Memorial Day Weekend!

As usual, we managed to pack in a ton of fun!

Friday night I took Ellie up to LA to see Ben Platt at the Dolby Theather for baby's first concert. Ben Platt was the original Evan Hansen in Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway and has been in a couple of movies, and recently released an album of original songs. I downloaded it, and we were listening to it in the car until it became her FAVORITE. As in, I finally had to tell her, I have listened to this album now 100 times on repeat, it's time to take a break. For me, going to see an artist I like performing an album I love is one of my favorite pleasures in life, and so when tickets went on sale, I bought two for us and hoped for the best. 

It took us 2.5 hours to get to Hollywood, and we parked almost a mile from the theater because my LA geography is not what it once was, but I knew that $10 for parking was less than we'd pay at Hollywood and Highland, where the Dolby Theater is located. Good news, she enjoyed the Walk of Fame. 

Please note, I did not buy the VIP experience. I'm indulgent, but not a total idiot.

Our tickets were basically up in the nosebleeds, but the view was great and the acoustics were awesome. Ben Platt put on a wonderful show, and Ellie was SO happy, singing and dancing along.

And we got home without being accosted on the street, or me falling asleep behind the wheel. Success all the ways around

Saturday, I went to goat yoga!

This is the same baby goat that Ellie met and loved when we were at the goat farm with our cousins around spring break, now 10 weeks old and quite a load. I went with two girlfriends and we did a lot more giggling and goat petting than actual yoga (which is fine, I don't care for yoga anyways.)

We spent most of the rest of the weekend swimming in our friends' pools, because we are lucky ducks. Sunday was Juddy-Buddy's birthday pool party, and Monday we kept the party going at Mike and Nicole's house. Sunday was rainy but the kids still had fun, and Monday was sunny and beautiful, the perfect long weekend afternoon. 

Lots of cheeseburgers, chips and dips consumed, lots of time with friends. On Monday Adam was in the pool from 11am - 6pm with only a short break for lunch. Needless to say, we've been putting them to bed early this week and having to wake them up in the morning. They have two more weeks of school after this, and while I'm ready for all the pool partying, I don't know that I'm ready for the rest of it. It feels like the month, and school year, has flown by!

Happy Birthday Grandma Rosie!

Our beloved Grandma Rosie turned 90 this past weekend, and we were lucky enough to get to head out to Wisconsin and celebrate with her. Would you like to hear about our comedy of errors in traveling? You know you would.

Mom's platinum status on American allowed all six of us (Dad had headed out earlier) to sit in the extra leg row seats for regular price, which is nice for containing children and giving Tim leg room. When we got on, I made mom help me and my short arms move some stuff in an overhead bin so that we could jam Sara's suitcase up there - damn you business traveling dudes who think you can put your giant roll aboard AND your backpack in the bins, like your feet are too big to be near your bag underneath your seat. If you think an angry short woman and a grandma won't rearrange your possessions, YOU ARE WRONG.

Anyhow. Another extra leg room seat perk is that you get early access to the beverage cart. About forty seconds after I get my nice hot coffee, Adam announces that he has to poop. So I tell him to hang on, and we start getting ourselves ready to exit our row and scoot past the cart. As I'm telling him to wait, hang on just a second, please sit still he knocks my coffee into his own lap and begins screaming. The flight attendants and everyone around us was very nice in giving us napkins and getting us to the bathroom, where he pooped, and then changed into the jammies that I had brilliantly packed in our carry on. All is well. Kids watch videos, I take a nap, Tim reads a book. Then as we are getting ready to land, Adam is playing Minecraft on the tablet and announces in between handfuls of Cheerios that he has to throw up. I was sort of mystified by this because he is not someone who gets motion sick (in the past) but lo, it was a-coming and I didn't get the barf bag under his face quickly enough, so he barfed on his clean pajamas. UGH.

The good news is that he calmed quickly, and was not too disgusting - we waited until I was in line to get our rental car to have Tim go and change him. And the nice thing about all being grown ups now is that Kari has a very nice washer and dryer for all of our barf and coffee clothes.

I would say the rest of the trip to La Crosse was uneventful but I did get REAL salty and rude to my poor mother and husband when we didn't stop at any of the first three Culvers we drove by. I was real hangry. Ellie now does a good impression of me demanding Culvers, so that's great. Oh, and as we were pulling into the Culver's parking lot Adam got car sick/motion sick yet again, but this time fully into a bag, and he then put down a cheeseburger, applesauce, some fries and a dish of chocolate ice cream with caramel sauce, and held it down for the rest of the drive. I truly think the 5am wake up call is a part of throwing him off his game - the early wake up may have been part of him also getting altitude sick in Montana, I think.

Our weekend was so nice. It was awesome to stay with Kari and Bennett and Leah, and just get to hang out as adults, while also enjoying what a true delight Leah is becoming. She's so cute and funny and fun. I also love how much my kids loved her, especially Adam. Sunday morning I woke up and he was out reading a book to her - I was amazed at how great his reading skills were!

Also, please enjoy Tick Tock Croc, who is actually Bennett's childhood toy. Adam latched onto it when we visited a couple of years ago and Bennett let him take him home. Adam used to carry the croc with him in the stroller, etc, but has lost interest over the past year or so. Good news: Leah LOVES him, so that delighted me.

Saturday night we went out for a nice dinner all together, which was so fun. It was wonderful to have a nice meal with our nice family, and thankfully in a private room where the littles could get up and down and out of their seats and go play instead of having to sit very quietly. Also, I got to spend almost the whole meal snuggling month old baby Sophia, who is a sweet little love. I was for sure the biggest baby hog, with Adam and Ellie running as close seconds. Adam especially was very sweet with her - with all the little girls, truly. Ellie was thrilled to be with her big cousin Hailee, including a surprise sleepover at Grandma Betty's house.

Rose Marie, Elizabeth Rosemarie, and Sophia Rose.

Sunday we got the Sunshine Room at Hillview, and Grandma had ordered two fancy cakes for her own party (she can also cry if she wants to.) We'd also had a nice brunch together in the morning, and the kids helped Uncle John mow the lawn on Saturday and ride bikes - so it was a ton of relaxed, casual family time.

I think it was strategic of Grams to get small, fancy cakes, because we just didn't have the space to put 90 candles on it like we might have with a Costco sheet cake.

She also let everyone jam their fingers in

It was so nice. We all got to visit and hang out and make each other laugh. I especially enjoyed when Leah told Grandma that she was going to take her card back for HER fridge, or when Clara was doling out animal crackers and told Leah she couldn't have any more, because she hadn't had lunch yet (they had already eaten pizza for dinner.)

Our travel home yesterday was mostly uneventful. Definitely sad to go, but happy that we'll see everyone in about a month. Until next time, Wisconsin!

Mother's Day.

I joke every year, with deadly seriousness, that as far as I understand it, moms of grown children want to hang out with their children, have them come back and all snuggle up on the couch. However, as a mom of small children, I spend many many hours of the day with my kids. Adam is in school from merely 8:15 to 11:45 every day, three and a half hours. Some people spend more than than that every day commuting to work. So, I love my kids, A LOT, but a treat for me is when I don't have to parent, or really participate at all. And Tim is a good sport, and so he takes the kids to his mom's on Mother's Day so that I can go do whatever, which today included breakfast in bed, a trip to the swap meet with my mom, and then a visit to the Korean spa by myself.

But I did get these quality letters from the kids, that make me laugh. The best part about kids is watching their little brains at work, particularly when they are a sweet and funny as Ellie and Adam.

It's true! I will keep him. 

"The best mom you can." It's like the A for effort when it comes to being a subpar parent, eh? I appreciate she sees that I'm trying my damn best!

The best however, is the ceramics they painted for me the other week, and the great menu provided by my favorite, cutest waiter and bartender (who also just happens to be the father of my children!)

Recitals!

As the school year comes to a close, so does our 2018-2019 season of music. Both kids got to participate in their spring recitals - Adam as a student of the Let's Play Music program, which teaches fundamentals to 4-7 year olds, and Ellie as an individual piano student with our wonderful Miss Bri.

Mimi and Poppy were lovely enough to come to watch the kids perform, and Grizz managed to catch Ellie's performance (Gigi and Sara were doing Special Olympic competitions, so of course, I taped the performance for their benefit.)

Adam's program started off rather badly. He was walking up to the front, then realized he didn't need his music books. He turned around to jog back to me and smashed into a chest bump with a little girl heading up front. Because he was tired and lacks emotional resilience, he started sobbing about how he didn't want to perform anymore. I took him out of the space so that he wouldn't have to torture everyone with his crying, and went out to the car to get Lamby, while he told me to put him down and leave him alone, that he was scared, that he'd never done a recital before (dude, I cannot leave you to scream in the church, I'm not going to leave you alone, I'm sorry you're scared, but you were in the recital a year ago, nutbar.)

The good news is after some snuggling with Lamby and lots of fidgeting during the performances of the first year students, he rallied for the piano portion of the show.

He was glad he went up to perform, and in fact, gave one of his hilarious "yes!" first bump gestures.

NAILED IT.

He said he was glad he got up and played the piano, and I'm glad as well. Tim was too busy crying with joy.

Ellie's performance was about an hour later, and she did a lovely job. I'm so proud of all of the progress she's made this year. I love hearing her practice during the week (when she's not whining at me and Tim about it - my fave is when she tells Tim he doesn't know what he's talking about, as though he didn't play piano for a decade.)

And we got to go out to lunch with Mimi and Poppy afterwards, then everyone took a much needed nap.

So now Adam will be on a break until fall. For the third year, the kids write and perform their own piece of music. Ellie will still take her private lessons over the summer, but with breaks for vacations and camp. My goal is to get everyone to sit down and practice at least twice a week so that we don't lose the skills they've gained. And in the meanwhile, maybe I"ll work on practicing more, as I am Miss Bri's worst student.

Girls Weekend!

A couple of months ago, I started thinking of how long it had been since we saw Becca, and how Hazel was turning one, and wouldn't it be fun if I could figure out a way to go to see Becca and Hazel and bring Ellie with me for a girls weekend? And lo, I remembered that I have many frequent flier miles, and one free weekend in May, so I cashed in some points and waited until a week before we left to inform Ellie that she was finally going to get to go to Chicago with me (because usually I go to try to be a helper after Becca and Brian welcome a baby, or I go to escape my own family and have bestie time.)

It was SO FUN. First of all, we packed it with lots of good activities, including going to the wndr museum, and to see West Side Story at the beautiful Chicago Opera House, and second of all, it was so fun to just be out and about with my very best girl. She's such a gem, and it's nice to have time with her, just she and I, out of our routine, without the nagging cares of every day, or the infighting with her and Adam. Plus to see her with three year old Benjy and almost one year old Hazel made me really appreciate what a big, grown up girl she is. She was such a big help with the kids (she LOVES being big enough to pick up Hazel and carry her around) and just the logistics of traveling with an eight year old is so much easier - she can drag the suitcase. She can sit and watch the bags if I use the restroom. She can figure out her own movies and entertainment. I mean, in a few months she'll be the same age I was when my parents put me on a plane from Boston to Chicago all by myself!

It was also such a fun treat to hang out with our friends, doing a lot of good eating, staying up late and goofing off and just having bestie time. When I'm with Becca, almost every night I laugh so hard that I cry off most of my eyeliner before bed. I can't believe we now have four kids between the two of us, and as I joked to her, can we even believe that the baby who once laid face down on the carpet and cried is now big enough to go to see West Side Story like a real grown up girl?

From the wndr museum: