COLOR ME MINE - Spring Break Day 5

Okay, this really isn't a theme day, just an activity. The original plan was rollerskating, but the last thing I wanted to do was take the girls somewhere they could fall and get hurt. So rollerskating was out and painting was in.

The girls were happy to accommodate the change of plans. They are always asking if we can go to Color Me Mine and the answer is always, "no" for two reasons: 1)It's expensive 2)It brings out the worst in their mother, as you will soon see.

Color Me Mine is an art studio you go to, pick a ceramic piece to paint, pay an exhorbitant price, leave your finished product to be fired in the kiln, and then pick up a few days later.

The girls have actually done this a couple of times before. Once they decorated plates that we actually use and the other times they have picked random decorative statues that are pretty much useless. This time, I asked them to do plates again, so at least we can add to our eclectic collection. They agreed, so when we arrived they picked out some cute dinner plates to paint.

Going into this activity, I kept telling myself that I was going to "be good." You see when you paint at Color Me Mine the "paints" aren't what my girls are used to using. You have to put a good solid coating on and paint the whole piece otherwise you have a bunch of unpainted white spots and very faintly colored finished products. For the most part, what the girls expect is not usually what they get.

So we sit down to paint and Paige immediately becomes fussy and obtuse. She pretty much dips her paint brush in the paint and uses it to scribble all over the plate, putting about three dry strokes on it. Right then and there, I knew it wasn't going to be possible for me to "be good." I really did want to be the mom, that just sits back with a smile on her face, calmly watching her child paint, without worrying about the finished product or whether it's worth the money. But seriously, here is Paige who has begged to be here sitting down and absolutely putting no effort into her $25 plate.

So, here I go telling Paige, "to slow down, use more paint on your brush, make sure you paint the edges, don't leave any white spots, stop being so grumpy, do you really want to be here?, would you rather go home?, don't rub paint in your hair, etc. etc." Now I am not taking total responsibility for this, Paige was being a big pain but still I didn't really notice any other parents "directing" their children. Fortunately, about half way into it, Paige seemed to get over her little temper tantrum and was able to finish up with little interference from her mom. I didn't tell her what colors or designs to use, but I just couldn't help myself when it came to quality control---oh well.

After we finished up at the studio, we went right next door for ice cream, mom needed some sugar, bigtime!

BEAUTY DAY - Spring Break day 4

Day four and due to injury from the previous day we stayed close to home. We decided to go for a beauty and pampering day that began with the team effort of helping Ashley to shower and wash her hair without getting her leg wet.

After that we lounged around a lot, played with friends, made cinnamon bread and the girls had a lot of fun playing with the new laptop.

Then the beautification began. First up: nails. The girls got manicures and mini pedicures courtesy of their wonderful mother :)




Then we moved onto hair and brought out the hot curlers. Both girls got a "fancy" hairdo with big curls.Once we were all dolled-up, we went to a fashion show, sponsored by the girls at our church who modeled formal prom dresses. The show was very cute and the girls were great models. Ashley and Paige really enjoyed themselves in the audience and I was very grateful to have many more years before I have start worrying about prom dresses!

SWIMMING - Day 3 Spring Break

You want to go swimming but it is only 50 degrees outside, it's not enough to stop us---that is what indoor waterparks are for! I had a free day pass to the local indoor waterpark, so we headed off for a fun day at the pool.

Unfortunately, the fun only lasted about an hour and I don't have any pictures, which is a good thing because they might have blood or unconscious girls or even the paramedics in them.

Ashley slipped while walking on the deck of the pool and fell on the side of her thigh. I have no idea how she managed it, but instead of a scrape that you would expect from that kind of fall, she comes over to me with a 2 inch gash on the upper, backside of her thigh. Basically, the fall caused her skin to just split right open. Of course, it was bleeding so I signaled to the lifeguards that she was going to need first aid. I took Ashley to the first aid station, while a friend Ashley had invited to come with us brought Paige along.

In the first aid room, they start trying to clean up the cut, when Ashley tells me she feels like she is going to pass out, and then promptly faints in my arms. So then we have to lay her down and she doesn't come to right away. In the meantime, I hear a commotion outside the door and turn to see Paige, who has seen all the blood, faint herself. At this point, I have to leave Ashley bleeding and unconscious while I go help Paige. Paige has bonked her head but is conscious and crying. She can't stand on her own, so I have to lay her down right on the pool deck and try to get her calm.

Finally, Paige seems to be okay so I leave her lying down and go back to Ashley who has come around a couple of times, but keeps fainting, then starts to hyperventilate so she is now on oxygen and the pool staff has called 911. Of course, by the time the paramedics get there (less than 5 minutes) both girls are okay. Ashley is completely awake and they have stopped the bleeding on her leg.

In the end, the drama was high, but everyone was okay. Ashley's poor friend was a little bewildered by it all but she was very helpful with Paige. Ashley's cut didn't extend into the fatty tissue, so she did not need stitches. The paramedic suggested I just get some surgical tape and tape the wound closed on my own.

Of course, don't forget we are all wearing swimsuits during this whole thing, so I can't just walk out the door to go home. I had to take three pretty wobbly girls into the locker room and help them get dressed.

Ashley was pretty woozy the whole way home but we made it. Then I had to go about the business of cleaning and closing her wound. I will just say that I didn't like, it wasn't easy, but Ashley was a good sport as I tried to squeeze her skin together and tape it shut. There are definitely no future medical professionals in our family!

CANTIGNY - Day 2 Spring Break

Dave wanted to try and spend one day with us this week and Tuesday worked best for his schedule. In the morning, we went out to eat for breakfast. We love breakfast food!

We also wanted to do something we hadn't done before, so later that afternoon we went to Cantigny. Cantigny is in Wheaton, IL about 10 minutes from our house. It is the former sprawling estate of Robert R. McCormick, most notable as the owner of the Chicago Tribune. After his death, Cantigny was converted into museums and gardens open to the public.

The property is huge, but we hit three main areas. We toured the main house/mansion which is now a museum, very interesting. We also visited the other museum on the grounds---The First Division Museum, which for me was the highlight of the day. This museum is dedicated to the 1st Infantry Division of the US Army and basically presents its history from the Revolutionary War to Desert Storm. I was very impressed by the exhibits; they are top-notch. The girls had a great time and everything kept their attention.

The exhibit that made the biggest impression on Paige, was in the WWII period in which you sit in a landing craft, watch actual footage from D-day, then the front of the landing craft opens up and you walk onto a replica of Omaha Beach. It's pretty dramatic and amazing.

Outside the 1st Division Museum is Tank Park. The girls loved this. There is a big collection of tanks from WWI to Desert Storm. The tanks are spread around outside and kids are allowed to climb up and play on them. It is really quite amazing to be up close to these huge vehicles.

I can't recommend Cantigny enough and am glad that we didn't wait any longer to visit.

SCRAPBOOKING -Day 1 Spring Break

For the first day of Spring Break, the girls worked on their own scrapbooks. I found complete scrapbook kits on sale at Target for $3 each. Each scrapbook was 40 pages long and came with sticker, paper and a bunch of embellishments. The girls spent all day working on them. They spread out all over the floor and were busy, busy, busy for hours. They went through one glue stick, 1/2 jar of rubber cement, a roll of glue dots, and some Elmer's glue.

Paige made a storybook, writing her own stories to go with each page she designed. Ashley created a more traditional scrapbook with photos and short journal entries. They were both very proud of their finished products and couldn't wait to show dad.

Spring Break 2010

For Spring Break this year, we decided to stay close to home. Dave, of course, is so busy at work that he really can't take a vacation this time of year, plus with our upcoming Thailand trip we weren't about to "go big" for Spring Break.

SIDENOTE: I mention Thailand, hopefully. Our plan all along was to piggy-back a family trip to Thailand with Dave's business trip to India. Unfortunately, right now there are work visa problems between India and the US, which means there is a possibility that Dave will not get his work visa approved. If that happens then we have to decide what to do about Thailand, do we go anyway or do we wait until his visa is approved, which in order to accommodate everyones' schedules would most likely mean postponing until next year? To be continued...

Okay back to Spring Break. I have actually been looking forward to Spring Break. I really do enjoy having the girls home. I'm going to have a hard time when they are both in school full-time next year!

Anyway, for each day of Spring Break, the girls and I decided to choose a theme and do activities that went along with the theme. Stay tuned, the next few blog entries will be about our Spring Break "theme days."

I gave my blog a template face lift to represent my excitement now that I no longer have to blog using my 2003 desktop computer. Yep, that is not a typo--2003. In computer years, I was using a dinosaur! Now I don't want to disparage my old computer, because it was very reliable, never needed repairs and any quirkiness experienced was usually due to the user. It is now being completely turned over to the girls, so I am sure it's days are numbered.

Meanwhile, I have been liberated and will be using a brand new Dell Studio laptop. Hurray!!

We are also going completely wireless at our house, love it so far and am thrilled to say, "adios" to Comcast.

Saturday with the Girls

On Saturday, I went with Ashley and friends to a church activity called Faith in God for Girls. The theme was, "I Feel My Savior's Love." The girls went to three classes, in which they learned to decorate cakes, sing a song using American Sign Language (ASL), and made a framed scrapbook page.

I think they had a lot of fun and I was glad to go with them. What good girls!

After the activity, on the way home, we stopped for lunch at Portillo's (the girls' choice.) As you can see, that made everyone smile!

What to do....

What do you do with this much leftover popcorn from a Primary activity?

You make this yummy caramel corn.

What do you do with these beautiful strawberries that were on sale for $1/lb.?

You make strawberry freezer jam, because the jam you made last summer is already gone!

Primary Talent Show

A few days ago, the girls performed in our Primary Talent Show. I thought it was a cute program, with lots of great acts. The kids wowed the audience with music, song, dance, tricks, and humor. We really do have some gifted, talented, and creative kids in our ward.

The kids had us laughing, crying, smiling, swaying to the beat, but

mostly they filled their parents with pride.

My girls had been trying to decide what to do at the talent show for weeks. At first they were going to do something together, but in the end, they each chose their own individual talent.

For our family, Ashley was up first. Here she comes all "embarrassed."
She played the melody of "Ode to Joy" on the piano. She played it perfectly. And although I don't know anything about piano, I thought she did pretty well for someone who has only been taking lessons for 5 months.

After Ashley, it was Paige's turn. She did the "abc's" in American Sign Language. She also fingerspelled the name of a volunteer from the audience. Good job Paige!

In addition to their performances, both girls displayed some artwork

March MADNESS

Well, my brackets are crap. On the first day I lost three Elite 8 teams and after yesterday, both of the teams I had in the championship game are gone. My only hope is that with all the upsets, everyone else's brackets are crap too!

Every year, each person in our family fills out their own NCAA Men's Basketball brackets. Of course, Dave is the only person that really knows enough to make knowledgeable predictions, but as we have learned year after year, that doesn't always make you the winner. In fact, Paige is currently in the lead.

This year in addition to our family brackets, Ashley filled one out at school, which has made it all the more important to her. Her teacher is a big sports fan. Ashley is also a big sports fan. She has started watching ESPN in the morning before school! I know, what-ev-er!

Anyways, the downside of Ashley loving sports is the "fanatical" side it brings out in her. Let me end by listing some of the "lectures" she has gotten from mom this week:

-Just because a team is behind by 8 points in the first half, doesn't mean the game is over.
-If you are this upset, I don't think you understand the game.
-Are you crying? IT'S JUST A GAME!
-If you are going to have a meltdown over every play, you are not going to be allowed to watch anymore games.
-The brackets are just predictions. If you don't get the most right, it doesn't mean someone else is smarter than you, they just got lucky.
-If you don't stop it right now, I am going to tear up and throw your brackets away.
-You need to do your chores first, before you watch games.

Definitely, MARCH MADNESS

St. pAtRiCKs dAY TraDiTIoNs

The Irish eyes were smiling at our house yesterday as the girls and I celebrated St. Patrick's Day. The girls woke up to a trail of gold coins that led to a green treat for them to put in their lunches. Paige was a little disappointed to learn that her mom left the treats, not a real Leprechaun.

Fortunately, since green happens to be one of Mom's favorite colors, there was no problem finding green clothes to wear to school--no one wanted to get pinched!

After a busy afternoon/evening of post-school activities, we sat down to our annual St. Patrick's Day dinner--corned beef and cabbage. Oddly enough, the girls like the cabbage more than the corned beef, but I do have to say that this year's corned beef was the best I ever made.

And of course, no holiday is complete without a great dessert, the best part.

Chocolate Mint Ice Cream Pie.

Ashley was in heaven

Bus Ride

Yesterday, Ashley had an after-school activity so Paige had to ride the bus home alone. On days like this, I go outside to wait for the bus to drop Paige off. Yesterday, as the bus pulled up I noticed Paige was sitting in the back by the window. I smiled to myself because those are the seats the "big kids" or fifth graders usually reserve for themselves. I wondered how Paige managed to sit there without Ashley. I figured she must be an assertive Kindergartner.

When she got off the bus, I asked her about where she was sitting and she told me she sat next to Ryan. I asked her if she meant Ryan as in "the coolest boy in the 5th grade" Ryan. She said yes. Then I asked her how she ended up sitting by him, to which she replied with a smile, "I was on the bus and didn't want to sit by myself, so I asked Ryan if he would sit by me, and he said, 'yes.'"

Well okay then, just as I thought, she is ASSERTIVE.

Gametime

I am so lucky to have such a fun husband. If the opportunity presents itself, he is always up for a good time (I mean that in the most wholesome way possible.) On Tuesday, he got tickets from work to the Bulls game. So at the last minute, we dropped everything and headed to the United Center. The Bulls happened to be playing the Utah Jazz. Now, we like Chicago sport teams, but when it comes to basketball we are true Jazz fans. Did I mention that our seats were on ROW 4, right behind the Bulls bench. Yeah we were close and on TV if you were watching. And the Jazz won! Fun. Fun. Fun.


Paige is wearing the free Bulls t-shirt they were handing out at the door. We let her wear it, figuring she could distract from us cheering for the Jazz.


Ashley being a true fan and sports fanatic, didn't want to wear her shirt.

Okay, I had to include this picture of the half-time show. These are strength acrobats that have a show in Las Vegas and lets just say they do things that I didn't even know were humanly possible.

A Philadelphia Story

This weekend I went to Philadelphia to visit my sister Debby. I went all by myself, no kids.
Dave worked from home and took care of the girls, so I could enjoy a "girls' weekend" with my sister. Debby's significant other was on a trip to Japan so it was just the two of us and we had so much fun.

This was my first visit to Philadelphia and Debby was so generous and kind. She took me all over the city. We did tons of sightseeing and ate so much good food it's going to be with me for a long time!

Okay, if you would like to stop reading right here, go ahead, because the following is long, wordy and full of details. It's really more for my own record, so I understand if you get bored and it's not like I am going to know you chose not to read about every detail of my trip.

Okay, if you are still with me, I just have to put in this disclaimer before you start looking at pictures: I don't look good in any of these pictures. There are two reasons: 1)I'm next to my gorgeous, beautiful, skinny sister in many of them--I don't have much of chance in that situation. 2)A tradition between us is that Debby who loves big hair and make-up always styles me once when we are together. Well, this time didn't go so well. I had an allergic reaction to her make-up. My face, eyes, cheeks swelled up and I got an accompanying itchy, burning rash. Even now four days later, the swelling has subsided but my face still feels and looks like I got a chemical peel. Okay end of excuses, here we go....

PHILADELPHIA - SIGHTSEEING

We did our first day of sightseeing on foot. Here we are at Love Park in front of the famous sculpture.

We walked from the park through the heart of the city to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, not really for the purpose of seeing art, but to pay tribute to the fictional guy on the left. Yep. I had to do it.

Watch out Rocky! Here I come. Getting ready to make my run up the steps.

That little blurry person at the top with arms in the air is me...I made it


And here I come, down the steps

Now, I just have to say a word about this whole experience. No disrespect to Rocky, but those steps are easy!

On day two, sightseeing was by double decker open air bus. A little chilly in 45 degree weather but having a tour guide give us all the history of the city was so worth it.

The highlight of the bus tour was the stop at the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall

Our sightseeing wasn't all historical, we also went to a hockey game to watch the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs. This was my first NHL game. Debby's boyfriend, Sameer, arranged the tickets for us. We sat very close to the ice on row 11. It was a lot of fun, I have to say live professional hockey is very exciting.




PHILADELPHIA - THE FOOD

Downtown Philly has a pretty significant amount of residential space, so besides office buildings, there are lots of shops and restaurants around. In fact, everytime you go outside, the smell of food cooking wafts all around you. No wonder, I ate so much.

One of our first stops was Reading Terminal Market. One of the largest and oldest public markets in the country. Inside is filled with hundreds of vendors and thousands of people. It was very, very crowded. I literally could have spent days in there, but the crowds are a bit prohibitive. We did manage to enjoy Ruben and Pastrami sandwiches from a New York-style deli, homemade chocolates, and some hot German pretzels.

I also couldn't leave without making a visit to another famous Philly landmark---Geno's for a cheesesteak. I don't know what it is, but the Cheese Whiz on a steak sandwich in Philadelphia is better than any Cheese Whiz I can buy at the store. It's also really good on the fries.

Now I know I might be getting into trouble here, but I just have to say it--my cheesesteak was delicious, but I don't think it beats a Chicago Italian beef sandwich.

We ate at so many great restaurants. We had Brazilian churrascaria, sushi, and the best Mexican food I have had in a while. Here is Debby at the at the Mexican restaurant:

PHILADELPHIA - THE ACCOMMODATIONS

This weekend I stayed with Debby in her apartment which is right downtown across from City Hall. In fact, below is the view from her building, which happens to be called the Ritz-Carlton Residences.

The residences are adjacent to the Ritz-Carlton hotel and you can enjoy the amenities of the hotel such as room service, etc. but you really don't need to because the residences also have their own separate amenities. I was very happy to make use of the gym, pool, concierge, and car service. Talk about fancy.
Here we are with the Doorman and the Concierge in the lobby of her building. They were so nice and friendly, even if it was their job to be so.

Okay, so that is it. Are you exhausted from reading that? I am exhausted from doing it. And honestly, there was even more, but these are the highlights. I did miss my family and was happy to come home to my cute little girls and my slower-paced lifestyle. I certainly realize what a charmed life I lead to have a sweet husband who makes it a priority for me to have personal time. I am also so grateful for wonderful sister who is a great friend.