A little delayed but not technologically

Do you know what's crazy about this particular blog post?...two things. I am writing it in Seattle and with an Ipad instead of a computer. Can you believe that?

Well we' re in Seattle because we leave tomorrow for our Alaskan cruise. I can't believe it's actually here but we are vacationing without the kids (who are already enjoying their special time with Mom-mom and Pop), and not as part of a business trip. Crazy indeed.

As an added bonus, both my fam and Jer's pitched in to buy me an Ipad just in time for the trip, and all I have to say is THANK YOU FAMILY!! It's really the coolest thing I've owned. I can read electronic books, play games, do Internet, calendar and oh yeah..blog! Although I will admit my typing skills are much slower on this thing.

So here we are, sitting in Seattle wasting time with the coolest technology, waiting for our ship to come in. We were a little delayed as were our rerouted bags, but all that worked out.

I miss the kids and feel this strange sense of paranoia when they're not around me, like I accidentally let them wander off in the airport without realizing it, before I remember that they were never there to begin with.

This will be a strange difficult and wonderful week indeed.

Anatomy of an Art Meltdown

...ooh this finger paint stuff is kinda fun


getting annoyed, get it off my hands now Mom!


Oooh a brush, this is kinda fun too. Tastes bad though.


10 minutes of art is ENOUGH, Mom! I need a bath too? NO!

Mama Duck

It's like playing 'where's Waldo'....do you see our Mama Duck sitting on her nest of eggs, comfortably between our house and garlic plants?



She's been there for about a week or so. Yesterday I saw her and then went back later to take a pic and both her and the eggs had disappeared. I was worried that the neighborhood stray cat had gotten them, or even worse that we had missed the anxiously awaited parade of baby ducks through our yard.

Then this morning she was back. She had cleverly buried the eggs under a bunch of mulch, so well that even Jer and I couldn't see them.

Now THAT's a good Mama.

Play Day with Mommy

What's the best part about living 25 min from the nation's largest Children's Museum and having a membership? That we can ditch big sister at preschool and have a Mommy and Charley play day!

Yes I'm schvetzing in this pic don't even get me started on my hormones.

We've never done it before but yesterday was a fun first time, just us. Our weekly schedule had been designed for cleaning and chores while Tessa was gone, and that just wasn't working well, so we tweeked a few things. Charley needs some one on one time too, although he almost never gets any!

Charley is the perfect age for their huge toddler area, called the Playscape. He loved playing with water, sand (and thanks to the genius who put those two right next to each other) and many other tot friendly toys.

he LOVED the tunnels




For lunch I gave him the opportunity to enjoy some packaged yummy goodness....
but he wanted very little to do with it, and opted instead to eat most of my fruit
We also went on the carousel but those pics were all very dark. I'm not sure if he liked that part or not. Mostly he was stunned.

On the way out, we got big sis a magnifying glass at the gift shop and she was SO happy. She kept saying 'dank you Chawley!, dank you!'.....but in all fairness I'm not sure she knew what she missed because I told her we had gone to a babies only museum, tee hee.

Thanks to my big guy for such a nice day!

Happy Mother's Day

I never really thought much about Mother's Day aside from to buy gifts for our Moms. It didn't know how much fun it could be...until I was one! All the husbands I know scramble to make the best weekend for their wife...usually including sleeping in and good food and perhaps a gift.

The ladies on my birth board were all comparing Mom's day stories and I thought it was just so cool. It's like our second Christmas.

Our weekend was busy and fun. Friday I left Jer with the kids for a short while to run over to the chiropractor's office, and came home to this beautiful artwork
See the diamonds? It says "Mom, you are our shining light", and has diamond earrings stuck in! Original artwork by Tessa and Charley. Below is Charley's rendition of the Gulf of Mexico right now.

Saturday, Jeremy and Tessa worked outside in the yard planting our vegetables. Mother's Day is the frost date for Indiana so it's sort of become our yearly tradition. I will post later about our ever expanding garden (and you may wonder if we are going to become urban farmers?)

There were no action shots of the gardening, but here's Tessa with all of her gear.
Saturday night our friends the Chandlers unexpectedly volunteered to babysit and Jeremy went on a date! We were going to go to Bonefish grill but it was crowded with prom goers so we ended up at Melting Pot.

It's a fondue restaurant and I've never been to one (although we have our own dust collecting fondue pot somewhere). It was SO tasty and fun, I didn't want to leave. That might have to become one of our special date places.

Sunday we headed south to visit the family. We celebrated both Mother's Day and the joint birthdays of my brother Andy and his son Bob. It was a perfect day. I love going out to the country (to Becky's parent's house) for their family parties. It's literally a breath of fresh air for us and the kids love it.

I'm trying to pretend I have less chins...it's not working


Bob is FIVE, holy crap!


Jeremy and I got a little heated in our foosball game...he didn't expect me to be so good at it.



David, soon to turn 2




Tessa loves to play outside, so she was in heaven all day

Great action shot of Mark


One of the birthday boys




Charley trying desperately not to nap




Cheryl (Becky's Mom) giving Tessa a tutorial on driving the 'tractor'




both birthday boys


Mom getting lemonade spilled on her

For Janet and Barbara, our Colorado Moms, Jeremy had the great idea to send them deliveries of cupcakes from local bakeries. They both loved them! Looks good huh?...makes me want to jump on a plane.

Life on the Culde-Sac

So nice to live at the end of a quiet street, so we can ride bikes with little interruption. Tessa is really getting quite good.


This is what Charley does while she's riding. You can see he's getting a real workout pushing his car.

She'll go round and round the culdesac a hundred times and not get tired of it.
We watch for moving cars and she knows to FREEZE if she sees one, and wait for Mommy's instruction....still not brave enough to go down the street just yet.

Pray for Elmo

He's going to require months of physical therapy following a breakout of dachshund violence in the living room today. We are hopeful for a good recovery, although it's certain that his life will never be the same.

Who Knew?

Trader Joe's, what's not to love? Perhaps the world's best grocery store. Tons of healthy stuff, organics, gourmet creations, good wine and surprisingly excellent prices. Plus the staff wears Hawaiian shirts! (one time I wore a shirt from our honeymoon to Hawaii in a TJ's and got asked lots of customer questions)


We've been faithful patrons for years. When we lived in CA we did almost all of our grocery shopping there. Unfortunately our closest TJ's is a 40 minute drive, but we still visit from time to time, armed with insulated freezer bags.

I thought I knew everything about TJ's and their products until the last time we were there when a staff asked Tessa if she had found the monkey. Monkey?? They informed us that every day the staff hides a plush monkey somewhere in the store and if a child finds it, they get a treat.

Really?...In all of my years of shopping at TJ's have I never seen a monkey? I really need to start paying better attention to my surroundings!

So when we went out on one of our periodic 'Northside Saturdays' (think TJ's, spice shop, Pier One, Vietnamese food), Tessa and I had a mission. Trader Joes was really crowded so it took us a long time to navigate and search. We covered the whole store at least three times while Tessa yelled out 'monkey monkey, where are you?....ooh ooh ooh ooh ah ah!'.

Finally we found it way up high behind some cashews and Tessa got a free candy bar, a very big deal to a three year old.

It got me thinking about other things I never knew about until I was a mother...

-- pregnant and toddler parking at some grocery stores
-- Target and Meijer bakeries give free cookies to kids
-- Dum Dum suckers are EVERYWHERE
-- The riding toys at Meijers are only a penny...at Babies R Us they are $1.50
-- Asian restaurants have special 'training' chopsticks for young kids
-- The majority of my fellow moms drive vans whose doors open automatically,and those of us with traditional doors are in the minority
-- Ironically many baby clothing stores are not suited for stroller traffic
-- the cry room at church can be a crowded and social place
-- Waiters will always bring a kid's menu and crayons, even if your child is a sleeping 3 month old
-- It's socially acceptable to change a diaper ANYWHERE (same goes for breastfeeding)

I know there are more, but I can't think of them right now. If I do, I'll add on!