Go Wildcats!

We are so fortunate to live so close to Northwestern University and all it has to offer.  Even though we are nowhere near having college age kids there is still plenty of family fun to be had on or around campus.

Northwestern has a beautiful campus right on the lakefront in north Evanston.  One of my favorite walks/bike rides is up to what Eloise and I call "the most beautiful spot in town".  From this point you can see the campus, the lake, gorgeous trees, grassy areas, and all the way down to the city skyline of Chicago.  Also there are hundreds of boulders bordering the lake that have layers and layers of graffiti on them.  There are love letters, spirit cheers, poems, secret messages, and family portraits.  Eloise loves to read all the rocks and of course climb out onto them while giving me a heart attack.

We headed up to Northwestern recently for a morning of fun.  We showed Mike and Harriet "the most beautiful spot in town" and then attended a Kids Fare concert at the Pick-Staiger Concert Hall.  These concerts are 1 hour long and geared towards young children.  Having said that, I actually learned quite a bit myself.  The very talented music students perform and talk about the instruments and do silly things and make it pretty entertaining for their young audience.  This month's show was all about percussion instruments.  After the show, all the kids are invited on stage for an instrument petting zoo of sorts.  Good times.  Loud times.    There are still 4 more concerts scheduled in the Kids Fare series so check them out if you are able.

After the concert we enjoyed an easy breezy lunch in Norris Hall which is right next door and then the girls rolled down a "ginormous" grassy hill.

I'm pretty sure Northwestern also has some sports or something...

out on the rocks

chi city in the background

on stage at kids fare

100 kids + percussion instruments = this picture

on campus getting ready to roll

hallow-gleen

We had another fun filled halloween this year.  Eloise decided we should all dress up as glee kids. (Mike and I bailed) She picked Rachel for herself and we thought it would be funny to make Harriet a Warbler.  I had so much fun putting the costumes together, it is one of my favorite things to do every year.  I don't even want to think of the days when they won't let me do it anymore.

Eloise's was very simple.  Most of her costume was made up of normal clothes we got thrifting or at Target.  We decided we definitely needed plain white knee socks so I purchased those as well.  Eloise was very sure that they needed to be plain and white and told me several hundred times.  We made a little 'Hello my Name is' sticker and wrote 'Rachel Berry' with her signature gold star.  Also added an 'I heart Finn' button to really seal her identity.  Eloise played the part of Rachel well and loved dressing up as her favorite glee kid.  It was her dream come true. She recently told us that she will only be going to a high school and a college that has a glee club so could we please check to see if ETHS and Northwestern has one.  We'll get right on that, Rachel.

Harriet's costume was so much fun.  I got a used boys navy blazer and used red bias tape to edge around it Warbler style.  She had grey pants and a white shirt and I found the tie at Nordstrom (it's perfect match of Warbler colors temporarily clouded my judgment allowing me to spend as much as I did on a tie for a toddler's costume).  I made her Warbler patch by scanning the back of the Warbler CD (a favorite in our house) and printing onto photo paper.  Harriet had no idea, of course, who she was supposed to be but we got her to wear her costume by telling her she could dress up 'like daddy'.  Thank goodness that did the trick because I was fully prepared to submit a photo of her costume laid out on the table with no person in it.

The girls had a blast hitting all the houses that halloween night.   I just trailed behind laughing and being totally entertained by my little gleeks.

rachel berry

little warbler

a quick performance before heading out

trick or treating

the aftermath

go muppet yourself

Need a holiday gift idea?  Why not Muppet someone you love?  Last Christmas the girls and I ordered a muppet version of Mike as a gift for him.  Although he was surprised and tickled and thought it was hilarious, Muppet Dada has been adopted, for the most part, by the girls.

The second we opened the box, almost 1 year old Harriet exclaimed, "Dada!".  She instantly recognized that muppet as Mike.  Not sure if that is a compliment to him or not, see the pictures and decide for yourself.  Both the girls play with the muppet but Harriet is especially fond of him.  She talks to him and pushes him around in her stroller, feeds him, and asks him to please, please buy her a pony one day.
Now that she's getting older she is much more possessive in general.  She had a little friend over to play the other day and as the friend went right to the muppet, Harriet ran up and grabbed him away shouting, "No!  My Dada!"

If you follow this link to the FAO Schwarz website you can choose body, eyes, nose, hair, clothes, and go ahead and muppet yourself or someone you love.  Have fun!

Here are a few shots of Muppet Dada throughout the year.  I like to imagine an 80s pop tune playing in the background as I scroll through, a la movie montage.

it was love at first sight on Christmas morning

taking a closer look

still pals months and months later

taking a break for a refreshing beverage

going for a stroll

never enough hugs

see any resemblance?  

besides the blue nose, of course.

bike the ridge

Close to the beginning of summer we decided to get our bikes fixed.  They had been gathering dust and god knows what else in the garage for about 2+ years.  I am so glad we did.  Riding my bike makes me feel like a kid again.  I love it.

I remember on my first ride this year, hitting a little hill, which are the only kind of hills we have in Illinois, and actually shouting out, "Wheeeeeee!!" as I coasted down.

In my opinion, nothing compares to the beautiful lakefront bike path but this weekend Bike the Ridge came in a very close second.

Every year the city closes down Ridge Avenue, one of the busiest streets in Evanston to all vehicular traffic.  All morning and into the afternoon bike riders of all ages and levels of experience can ride along the stretch of road covering about 3 miles.  We headed up and down the tree lined street spotting neighbors, friends, the guys from the bike shop, former teachers, and even the Mayor.  The ride ended in the park complete with a fall festival.  We enjoyed live music, farmers' market, food truck goodies and a bounce house.

I rode with Harriet in a trailer and Eloise took to the street with her training wheeled bicycle and Mike riding alongside of her.   She has not had the easiest time learning to ride her bike and I will admit that I am the world's worst bike riding teacher.  While out practicing and lovingly teaching Eloise how to ride better I have been told I was being "too yell-y" and "super strict-like".  We had kind of decided to put the bike away for awhile because everyone was just getting frustrated.

 Riding on Ridge on Sunday with no hills, or sidewalks, or alleys, or potholes, or pebbles to maneuver around, Eloise got her confidence back and will hopefully feel more confident with her riding.  Right now there is no hurry but she told me Sunday night that she had so much fun doing Bike the Ridge and that she would like to do it again next year as long as I can "keep encouragementing her".

pumping up before heading out

cage on wheels

taking a snack break at the fall festival

biking the ridge

story starters

I have a confession.  Most of the time, I hate playing pretend with my kids.
I know.  I'm terrible.  I can hear their little imaginations being crushed as I type these words.

Here's the thing.  No one ever wants to do my ideas!!  About 20 times every day Eloise says, "Okay, guys what do you want to play, sing, or do?"  No matter what I suggest we always end up with a variation on roughly 5 different scenarios created by Eloise.  The scenarios have changed throughout the years but not before they are done to death.

My ideas are always something like, "Let's pretend Mommy has fallen into a deep, deep sleep on the couch and there is only one secret word that will wake her up--what is it?"  Or maybe, "Mommy is at the doctor's office in a deep, deep sleep and the doctor is trying to figure out what is wrong with her."  Or even, "We are all in a contest called the 'Deep, Deep Sleep Contest'--do you think you can beat Mommy?"

A couple of years ago my friend sent me a post she had come across on another blog.  I loved the idea and thought the day would come when it would be perfect for Eloise and even Harriet.  The author was in a similar pretend play rut so she came up with oodles of ideas to start different stories.  She printed them all out and and made a cute little game out of them.  You take turns drawing a story starter and let your imaginations run wild acting it out however you choose.

We did the same thing over the weekend and it was a huge success.  It is fun to pretend again!

You can make up your own ideas to suit your family's interests or genders and ages, but check out these downloadable ones courtesy of Penny Carnival.  Just reading them is kind of entertaining.  I'm sure we'll need to replenish ideas after a bit, but for now the creative juices are definitely flowing.

cutting out the story starters

getting ready to play

"one of you is a monkey the other is a 

giraffe.  you live at the zoo.  the zookeeper

drops his keys in your cage so 

now you can get out!"

"you are two dogs locked in a cage

at the animal shelter, waiting to 

be adopted"

"you look up in the sky and realize the rainbow

has lost all of it's colors.  how will you help the

 rainbow get it's colors back?"

I'm actually not sure which one they are doing here 

so I'll just say, 

"you are two girls taking a pretend nap on a gnarly

princess blanket.  your mom is yelling at you to 

hurry up because you are going to be late

for school.  you are both wearing tap shoes"

let's do lunch

*

Eloise is taking her lunch to school every day now.  I was pretty excited about this idea and put some preparations in order.

We picked out a lunch box along with coordinating water bottle, snack containers, thermos, and backpack.  We went to the store and got the organic milk, the organic apples, and all the healthy snacks and items that would be good for lunches and the daily required snack.  We made sure there were no peanuts in anything (which bugs the hell out of me and takes many easy options off the table).  We got a little frozen pack, naturally, shaped like a pink flower, that goes in the lunch box to keep things out of a botulism danger zone.  I got some cute little papers to write a note everyday.  I even sewed little reusable 'baggies' so we wouldn't have to waste ziplocs everyday.

Even I was starting to get annoyed by me.

As I am getting the 2011 version of lunch ready every day, I can't help but think of the 1979 lunches we used to have as kids, and laugh.  My dad would surely get a kick out of my version.

I'm sure my mom made thousands of lunches throughout our school years but my dad's lunches are the ones that stick out in my mind.  My dad's lunches were epic.

Some of my all time favorites from my dad were the always classic CheezWhiz and mustard sandwich.  A close second was the peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.  Bologna and Fritos were almost always present but a few times my dad broke up taco shells from the previous night's dinner and tried to pass them off as Tostitos in our lunch.

We were always a brown bag family.  Some days we would run out of brown paper bags so my dad would pack it in an empty bread bag.  There was always a handful of breadcrumbs lingering in the bottom, getting all over everything.   The whole lunch would be slip down to the bottom of this 2 feet long bag as we carried it, creating a nunchuck-like effect.  Incidentally, I think those might have been the same bread bags that we wore over our shoes inside our winter boots.

Sometimes we would be out of baggies so everything would be wrapped in aluminum foil.  I tell you, it was a hard week when a baggie shortage/foil lunch one time coincided with having some cavities filled at the dentist.

You wouldn't think that school lunches would matter that much to kids but I still think about the other kids' lunches that I coveted.  I always wanted a real lunch box and a  Campbell's Soup thermos.  I always wanted my sandwiches cut on the diagonal into triangles.  I always wanted a Capri Sun in my lunch.  I longed for a cute little note written on a napkin---or a napkin, for that matter.   I never mentioned any of these things to my parents.  I think the response would have been something like "you get what you get and you don't get upset" or  "some kids don't even get to eat lunch" or "when you have your own kids, you can make them whatever kind of lunches you want, Elizabeth".

Well, that is what I have been doing

Every day, as I pack the 'pefect' lunch with all the 'right' things in it, I know that somewhere, my dad is rolling his eyes and breaking apart a taco shell.

all packed and ready to go

these are the snack baggies I have been making.

they have been working great, so easy, and cute too!

the link to the tutorial is above

lunchbox action shot

chinatown

Recently, Eloise let me know that she has never ridden on a boat in her whole life!

Wait, before you call DCFS, we have remedied the situation.

We were staring down a beautiful day, had no plans, and Mike did not have to work.  We thought it would be fun to go on a little adventure with the girls and did just that.

We packed up a few things and walked over to the Metra station and grabbed a train to the city.  From there we took a water taxi down to Chinatown for only $2.00. The boat ride is just long enough.  Only a few minutes but there is a lot to see and the views of the city on the return trip are beautiful.  Thank goodness, Eloise can now cross 'boat ride' off her bucket list.

There is a great park at the Chinatown water taxi stop and the taxis leave every 15 minutes so you could just hop off and play for a bit or head in to Chinatown for lunch and some sightseeing.  We did the latter and I am so glad.

We walked around and looked at all the shops, had a delicious lunch at one of the many restaurants, watched someone making ramen noodles by hand, bought some souvenirs, and danced in the town square.  Well, Harriet danced.  We laughed.

We caught a late afternoon water taxi and did the whole thing in reverse.  Great day and wonderful end to the summer.

The best line of the day was when we were reading a plaque in the town square about how paper was invented in China.  I could see the wheels turning in Eloise's head and she said, "Mom, I think they invented pencils there too because all of my pencils say 'Made in China' on them".

Awesome.

harriet thoughtfully riding the train

here comes the taxi

taxi stand in chinatown

eloise's new favorite... bubble tea

harriet's new favorite... shrimp tempura

headed back to the city on the taxi 

with dada

the first day

School started last week.

Eloise could not contain her excitement for even one more day so it arrived just in time.  She was very ready to start kindergarten.  I thought we were too.

We all headed over to school on the big morning that seemed at once like it would never arrive and like it arrived way too soon.

Eloise picked out her outfit for the first day of school.  It was not something new I had bought especially for the occasion.  It was a two year old sweater dress on a 91 degree day chosen solely because it was the color purple.  We had received a letter the week prior from Eloise's future teacher.  In it, Ms. Lampa told us a little bit about herself and included the fact that she loved the color purple.  Eloise was adamant about wearing that purple dress and well on her way to attempting to secure the spot of teacher's pet.  She also threw in a purple headband for good measure.

We made it to the classroom and said all of our "hello!" and "how was your summer?" and "he got so tall!" as we milled around with all the other parents.  Ms. Lampa gathered the children on the carpet to read two stories and then we were told that the parents would be leaving.

The second story was "The Kissing Hand".  You've probably read it.  Basically it is about a little racoon that is going to school and is nervous about missing his mommy so she puts a kiss in his little racoon paw and tells him that whenever he starts to miss her to open his little paw and her kiss will be right there.  Stop crying already!

After the story, Ms. Lampa said she had a surprise for the kids.  She gave them each a Hershey's Kiss and told them they should take it to their mom or dad and tell us that they will be fine and that if we start to miss them we can see this little kiss.  I am openly crying in the classroom at this point.  Eloise brought us each a Kiss, bid us farewell, and we were on our way.  Kicked out.  Goodbye.

I wasn't worried about Eloise at all.  She is an amazing kid and so ready for this next big step.  I will admit that I spent the rest of the day in our 50% quieter house looking at that Hershey's Kiss and thinking, "That's it?"

I mean, I'm not sure what I expected, but I felt like rushing to silkscreen a t-shirt with the the phrase,
"I took my kid to kindergarden today and all I got was this stinkin' Hershey's Kiss".

The feeling was fleeting.  So far I am delighted with the school, thrilled that Eloise is so happy to go everyday, and proud of us for not messing up too badly for 5 whole years.

Onward and upward.

purple?  check!

can we start school now please?

storytime

my reward

and just to torture me, harriet has been 

walking around in school-ready mode for weeks.

slow down, please!

beans, beans the magical fruit: part II

I love coffee.  I love the taste, the smell, the act of preparing it, and the daily ritual surrounding it.  I don't drink coffee all day long but I can't remember the last time I missed my morning cup... and sometimes afternoon cup.  I have been drinking coffee since high school.  I owned coffee houses with my family for 9 years.  I drank coffee throughout both my pregnancies and two years of breast feeding.  (Neither of my children appear to be stunted.)  Listen, I love the stuff.  I would not be ashamed of the label 'junkie' in this context.  

For years now I have been using delicious, locally roasted beans and making my coffee with a French Press every morning.  In the summer, I make iced coffee using a toddy coffee maker.  All of this was going along just fine until I met The Saeco.

While home visiting my parents, I noticed a behemoth of a coffee machine on the counter.  They had just gotten it from my brother and he was extolling it's many virtues to them.  I kind of poo poo'd it thinking it was just another gimmicky machine using the pods or some other dumb, flash in the pan idea.  Then, I saw my brother push one button and I watched The Saeco brew the most beautiful crema topped espresso that I had seen in a long time.  Also, it was delicious.

We headed home and kept thinking about that coffee maker.  It was so easy, so delicious, so convenient. The only problem, it was pricey.  The price kept us from ordering it for some time but we talked about it almost every day.  Seriously.  Every day.

The next visit to my parents I stayed a whole week and took advantage of The Saeco for seven days in a row.  I was sold.  Now, to convince Mike.  I planned to make a few spreadsheets and maybe do a PowerPoint presentation to prove to him it was worth it if we just stopped going to the coffee house and maybe lived without electricity for a month or two.  Turns out, I didn't have to convince him at all!  Unprecedented!  Mike was already sold.

As a side note---just to give you more of an idea of the power of this thing---I witnessed my dad, who at 65 has never, to my knowledge, purchased anything for himself at a store let alone on the internet, come towards me waving a piece of paper on which he had written The Saeco's information.  He said, "What is it called?  Amazon?  Amazon dot com?  How do I order one of these for my office?"
Well, I'll be damned.

The night I got home from Toledo, Mike and I went online to order it from Costco and, I swear, as soon as I hit 'confirm order' we checked the front porch to see if it had arrived.  What seemed like an eternity of 4 whole days later we had our very own Saeco and we were in love... with the coffee.

My only concern is that it is too easy, too delicious, and too convenient.  Iced or Hot.  Day or Night.  For Here or To Go.

It has never been easier to be a junkie.

here he is in all his glory

reminders

 I was thinking about how Eloise talks like a 45 year old woman most of the time, how she reads chapter books on her own, how she constantly corrects my grammar (and she's right), and how she is starting kindergarten in just a couple weeks.

 I was thinking about how she is so grown up now and such a real little girl.  No toddler or baby anywhere in there anymore.

Honestly, sometimes being with Eloise it is easy to forget that she is just 5 years old.  Luckily she leaves little reminders like this in her bed for me to find.

she's still my

       baby in many ways

advice

One day you might meet a man who agrees to not only take you on a date to the Sing-a-Long Sound of Music but also agrees to wear costumes that you made out of curtains to look like the Von Trapp children.
 
If you meet this man you should marry him because he will love you unconditionally even during some of your craziest episodes (see above).  He will support you and encourage you and make you laugh every single day.

I took my own advice seven years ago today.  No regrets.

Except, maybe this photo.

mike's expression is priceless

happy anniversary

one night in lakeside

Don't go thinking we had a perfect vacation this year.  Sure it was fantastic and all but there was one night, our last, that will live on in my memory.   Now, whenever I get that, all too often asked, question:  'Liz, tell me about a time when you thought you might actually go insane?' I have an answer.

Mike left the cottage on Monday to head back to work and other family members were arriving for phase II of the week.  I was lucky enough to hang around for a couple extra days with my girls, but that meant that we would have to become roommates.  How bad could that be?

The first night went fine so I believe I went into the second night with a false sense of confidence.

Just to set the scene of our room:  Bunkbeds.  Eloise was in the top bunk.  I was in the bottom bunk.  Harriet was 3 feet away in a pack 'n' play.  Our bedroom was on the second floor of the house which included 3 other kids in nearby rooms and their parents. There were also people sleeping on the first floor.  When I retired to my bunk that night both girls were sleeping soundly.  Goodnight.

At some point Harriet woke up with a few little cries and couldn't seem to get back to sleep.  I got up to check on her, realized she had a dirty diaper so I decided to change her real quick.  Looking back, I think that this was the exact moment things started to go downhill.

Harriet got more and more upset which woke Eloise up.  She started talking to Harriet and telling her jokes and stuff.  I tried to explain in my best whisper-yell voice that I was attempting to get Harriet back to sleep and let's just quiet down and go back to bed please, lovely and sweet and precious child.  If you ask Eloise she might describe my phrasing a little differently.  Please don't ask her.

I put Harriet back in her 'crib' after giving her a  mysteriously hysteria-causing drink of water.  Of course she didn't want to go to sleep!  She could see us right next to her!  Also,  have you ever tried to put a baby back to sleep while a 5 year old giggled and told knock knock jokes to her nearby?  It doesn't work.  She cried and screamed and I just held her because I didn't want to wake up the entire household.

This scenario, and variations of it too grisly to divulge, went on for about an hour and a half.  I think it was an hour and a half but I wasn't entirely sure because I had lost my watch earlier that day.

Finally, I said 'fuck it' and decided that we would just get up and get packed and leave first thing after breakfast in a little bit.  Great plan.  I turned on the light, Eloise and Harriet read books and colored.  I proceeded to strip the beds, break down and bundle up the pack 'n' play, get everyone dressed, pack all the suitcases, and wait to hear some other signs of awakening in the rest of the house.

Nothing.

I ducked out of the room for a minute so I could find a clock and figure out what was going on.  The first thing I noticed once downstairs was that it was pitch black out.  Not a good sign.  I rounded the corner of the dining room into the kitchen and focused my eyes on the microwave clock.  Just because there was no way that could have been right, I confirmed the time with 4 other devices.

It was 2:15 a.m.

I hurried back upstairs, now, in a real panic.  I got into the bedroom just in time to see Harriet fall backwards off the bunk bed ladder she had climbed halfway up.  That went about as you might expect.

I announced that it was the middle of the night and we would all be going back to bed.  There would be no more talking or playing and we would just have to go to sleep.  As the words were leaving my mouth, again, in a very polite and loving way, my eyes traveled to the stripped beds and the now nonexistent pack n play.  Dear God.

The phrase, 'caged animals' kept popping into my head.

Eloise climbed back up to the top bunk, I threw her a fitted sheet and a naked pillow and said goodnight.    I told her if we both stopped talking to Harriet she would eventually just fall asleep (I was trying to convince myself). I think Eloise saw the fear and panic in my eyes because she finally, finally quieted down.  I lay down on the floor and Harriet, who had not received the memo about playtime being over, continued to wander around the dark room alternating between singing and crying and yelling.

The next thing I remember was waking up to daylight (!!) in the bottom bunk with no sheet or blanket or pillow.  Was I back in college?   I looked over to find Harriet asleep, face down, on the carpet also with no sleep accessories.

We all made it through the night.  Now, all I had to do was get everyone and everything into the car and embark on a 3 1/2  hour drive to grandma and grandpa's without falling asleep.  That will seem like a piece of cake.

the girls happy in their room on the 1st day of vacation.  

seeing this room again gives me a knot in my stomach.

cottage crew

We recently returned from a great, great vacation with friends.  The Cottage Crew consists of our family and two others.  We have been renting a summer cottage in the Harbor Country region of Michigan for 5 years now.  It is beautiful, relaxing, quaint, and convenient to the city---only an hour and a half away.

When you rent a house you never really know exactly what you are going to get.  Last year we had a terrible place.  I mean horrible.  I remember going in the house for the first time, kicking our shoes off, and, in feeling the dampness of the carpets, commenting on how nice it was that the owners had them cleaned before our arrival.
No.  We were so naive.  That wasn't the case at all.  The carpets were damp from mold and mildew and years of water damage.  That was just the beginning of our Tour of Disgustingness.  That place was awful.

This year's cottage was the complete opposite.   A beautiful family home with a gorgeous swimming pool, gardens galore, and a block and a half walk to the beach.  The most difficult decision each day was 'beach or pool?'  And... how early can we put the kids to bed?

We played, cooked, read, drank, swam, ate, danced, and enjoyed each other's company.  I was sad to leave and I can't wait to go back.

our cottage 2011

eloise asked me to stop the car and take

this picture as we were leaving

so she would 'never, ever forget it'

transport to the beach

I believe I'm politely saying, 

"honey, don't take that picture, please"

eloise and harvey and a friendly game

of bowling

croquet on the lawn.

just like the kennedys.

eloise and clara during our nightly, post-dinner

dance party

it wouldn't be a cottage vacation without

a trip to Oink's ice cream

ice cream + summer = happiness