Great Day! Legoland and then Soccer

So we start out at LegoLand today.  Feild trip with Riley's kindergarden class.  So fun!!!  I just love being around these little people and listening to what they have to say.  Half way there, on the bus, banana (names have been changed to protect the innocent :) ) says, "I can smell legos.  We're almost there."  I told her that this was a very rare talent and I was pretty impressed.  It's not everyday you meet someone who can sniff out lego's in the air.  I was lucky today.  Found one. 

So we go about our day.  Ride the ride, eat lunch, go to the 4D movie, and then go to the Lego Factory.  This is where they show us how lego's are made (sort of...).  So the first part of the machine is called something like the Gizmonot.  Ralph, our tour guide, asks the kids if they can say Gizmonot.  They all yell it back.  He answers with, "what?"  They all yell it again.  Same thing.  Ralph does this one more time.  He answers again with, "what?"  Banana says to Ralph, "You know, we're little, and sometime little people can't say everything the right way."  So now we know why Ralph couldn't hear them.  Ralph started laughing so hard I thought he was going to hyperventalate.  Then Ralph started to talk about being brave.  He looked over at Clementine (again changing the names to protect the innocent) and asked her if she was brave.  She told him, "No.  I'm Clementine."  That took him a moment to process.  I guess Ralph wasn't ready for the wittiness of our group. 

So after Legoland we had our first night of Soccer.  Fun!  Much better than last year.  The kids are now playing with their friends on the team and having a great time.

Ben walked around eating Goldfish.

And then the boys decided to play in the dirt pile as if it was a sand box.  Wyatt was actually making dirt angels. 

When we got home I gave them a bath and had to empty the tub 3 times before we actually had clean water. 

I think I'm going to sit by the dirt pile every Friday soccer night.  They boys were contained and well behaved the whole time.





And you thought your family was crazy....

So we decided to have the family and the Preuss's over for a BBQ.  Great idea!  (The Gal's)

So we're kind of silly, what family isn't???

 We're playing wiffle ball.  Nice!

Ivy get's a home run!









Family Bonding.

And Then......

Nobody knows who actually started this, but it seems that Aunt Heidi might be the culprite.

 Jason stills claimes to be an innocent bystander.
Not photographed, but yet part of all the craziness... Alex.

And then we go back to normal.....like nothing ever happened.



Ben Makes A Bottle

4:00 PM - Benjamin comes up to me while I'm sitting at my desk with an empty baby bottle and tells me "Mommy.  UH OH.  Mess."  I ask him, "What did you do?"  He answers, "Make. Baby. Bottle."  I go into the kitchen and he spilled all the baby oatmeal all over the counter, chair, and floor.  The funny thing was the baby was sleeping.  Still can't figure out why he needed to make the baby a bottle to begin with???

5:30PM - He tried it again....  This time I heard the jug of baby water crash to the floor.  I go in there and he has baby oatmeal all over the counter again.  He looks at me at says, "No. Make. Baby. Bottle."  Ya think...

I'm not sure when I started having the 2 year old make the baby his bottles, but apparently I should have given him better lessons.

Mother Son Movie Night

Since Riley and Jason had their Daddy Daughter dance it was now time for a Mother Son movie night.  Wyatt's school invited all the boys and their mom's to enjoy a night out at the Fox Lake movie theater.  To keep with tradition Wyatt and I first went out to eat.  His choice was Friday's, but when he told me he wanted Mac N' Cheese for dinner I talked him into Chili's because it was much closer.  After he found out they have Mac N' Cheese at Chili's too he was game for the switch.

After dinner we headed over to the movie.  At some points of the movie Wyatt had a hard time with finding out the hard truth about how animals have to fight to survive in the wild and how not everyone makes it in the end.  Half way through the movie he was ready to leave, but I pulled him on my lap and we stayed til the end.  Since the movie has a happy ending he was glad he didn't leave.

When we got home I found this really great song that was in the movie, "That Man", by Caro Emerald on iTunes.  It has this great modern swing sound to it.  I highly recommend looking it up.  We down loaded it and danced around the living to it over and over and over.  Riley wanted to keep playing it, but sadly it was bed time.

A Couple Stories For The Books

• Riley, Wyatt, Ben and I are sitting at the dinner table and Ben gets this great idea to put his food in his mouth and then spit it back out again on his plate.  Ben has this way about him that, when he wants to, can make just about anything funny.  So of course Riley and Wyatt start laughing.  I'm trying to hold mine in.  So he does it again and again.  I look at Riley and Wyatt and say to them, "Stop laughing at him.  He thinks it's funny so he keeps doing it.".  Riley pauses for a minute then looks at me and replies, "But he is kind of funny mom."  How do you argue with that???  I just waived the white flag.

• Yesterday I go downstairs and poke my head in the kids room where they are playing.  "Whatcha guys doing?" I ask.  Wyatt informs me as he sits at the table drawing and Riley and Ben are lying on the beds, "We're playing house.  I'm the dad and I'm on a VERY important phone call.  The mom is dead.  Riley is the daughter and Ben is the baby."  I say, "Oh, well that's sad." when he tells me about the mom.  Then he goes on to say, "Yah. (with a "whatever" shrug to his shoulders) My name is, well actually, I don't have a name. but I'm on a VERY important phone call."  "Ok.  Maybe your name could be ........ Bob?"  "Yah.  My name's Bob."  I walk out of the room and he yells after me, "Actually my name is Pecker and I'm on a VERY important phone call."  "Pecker?"  "Yah, Pecker."  It's a good thingI wasn't in the room with him anymore because he was very serious about the whole thing.  I don't think he would have appreciated the laughter on my face.  Where does he come up with this stuff?

Spaghetti Dinner

First of all I want to thank the Chicago Youth for hosting the spaghetti dinner.  The food was good, but the company was better.  You can't beat hanging with friends/family and catching up with old friends.  We had such a great time.  Now for the stories...

Collin: Uncle Scott made Collin cry.  Not cool dude.  (In Uncle Scott's defense Collin had just woken up.)  Collin got his cries out on Uncle Scott and proceeded to be a willing participant in "pass the baby".  Everyone seemed to be a bit smitten by him.  Take him peeps - He's all yours.  I promise you'll be returning him by the end of the day.

Wyatt: I actually had to tell him, "Don't lick my toes!"  Gross.  He did make a new friend today, Brayden, and they were playing cars under our table, hence why he was so close to my toes.

Ben: Cherise took Ben over by Gregg to get his nuk.  Gregg says to Ben, "If you want your nuk you have to do a trick.  Dance for me."  Ben, "No."  Gregg, "Fist pump."  Ben, "No."  Gregg finally throws up the white flag and gives Ben his nuk.  Then he turns around.  Ben, "Hey Ree."  (Ben's nickname for Cherise.)  Ben proceeds to shake his booty followed by a fast turn (Ben's way of dancing.) and then laughs.  What a butt!

Riley: When we got in the car to leave and  Riley was having a real hard time buckling her seat belt.  She was getting really frustrated.  "I can't do it mom!!"  "Yes you can."  I moved Collin's seat over a little bit to give her more room to find her buckle and she got it.  Then she sang a song, "Mommy helped me buckle my seat belt. NOT!"  Real nice.  

I sum this up by saying that it was so nice to have dinner with my dad and the kids.  It was wonderful to see the smile on Michael's face all night long while working with the youth.  It was great to hear Alex's laugh through the open windows as we walked into church.  How great to sit and talk about vacation plans with Aunt Heidi.  And finally I have to give big props to our waiter Nathan Pusch.  Your hospitality was fabulous.  We wanted for nothing.  He even went the extra mile and tried to help Wyatt figure out the best way to east his spaghetti.

Precious Children

Yesterday I made a Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake. (From a Box.  Don't be to impressed.)  As the kids are eating a piece for dessert Riley's already trying to get another piece.  I suggested maybe we leave some for daddy when he comes home.  Her response to this was, "Maybe Daddy would like to leave some for his precious children."  

When they woke up this morning Jason said to Riley and Wyatt, "Hey kids, I have something for you."  Both of them jumped off the couch and ran into the kitchen super excited!  Jason had saved some cake for them.