My Week In A Nutshell...

I have been trying to keep Alyssa busy with Camp Mommy this summer. I decided that maybe I should have a little fun too, and the other kids (when they are around...).

Sunday, Jon and the kids washed our cars

and then we all went to the 4th of July carnival in highland park. We go every year. We actually call it Max's birthday carnival, because July 4th is my nephew Max's birthday...

Monday we went to the beach with the crabbiest, should have left him at home, husband/daddy in the whole world. It was hot, but fun. We got 2 compliments on our sand castle/canal/ swimming pool for Alyssa (cuz she sat in it....). And even I, who usually does not sit on sand, got down and dirty with the kids. We also rented a family bike, which me and the kids LOVED. Especially Alyssa and Will. There was not even one inch of me that was sand free, and it was obvious from my driving on the way home... C'mon it's hard to just sit there and drive and not try to get it all off of you....

Tuesday everyone was back at work and camp. Alyssa and I spent the day at the pool, where she told a kid's babysitter that her belly pierce was "ew" and learned that her baby doll has a pee hole and can "pee" in the pool (along with all the other kids there). Alyssa got a surprise visit from the no longer grumpy daddy, and I unfortunately got purple lines on my back where I couldn't reach to put on sunscreen. Ouch. But I must admit, Alyssa is totally hilarious to watch in the pool, and my burns are totally worth it.

Wednesday.... another 94 degree day. I could not bear the thought of exposing my shoulders and back to the sun, so I took Alyssa to Make A Messterpiece. She made a bunch of messterpieces and plain old messes! She of course was a total nutcase, running around like a maniac, but guess what? It wasn't at my house, and I did not care. It actually was kind of fun, and I couldn't help myself... I made a messterpiece of my own! I also learned that Alyssa loves rain boots and desperately wants a pair. (They have rain boots there for one of their exhibits that involves goggles, rainboots, a raincoat, drums and paints... I was not mentally prepared for that one. Maybe next time...)

Today is going to be Wagner Farm. Alyssa loves animals and would like to see some "moo's"... I'm a little nervous, and am actually thinking of getting a pair of rainboots to wear on the farm. I don't want our feet to get gross and stinky. Who knows what we are gonna step in????

Tomorrow we will go back to the pool.....

What have you all been up to?

Busy, Busy...

I've been busy with the kids since they are out of school this week. Wednesday we went to Konow's Corn Maze, about an hour away. When we got there I was worried that they would get bored because it didn't seem like there was that much to do. But, they had a great time and we stayed there for 3 1/2 hours. They girls each brought a friend, so I had 6 kids with me..... thank god it wasn't a big place and it wasn't at all crowded (most normal schools are in session). Here are a few highlights from our trip....

It took us almost 2 hours to get home due to some bad traffic, but the kids had so much fun they didn't care. We scrambled to get dinner together, and then Emily reminded me that I promised her a sleepover. So the girl I had just dropped off came back to our house. They played rock band, watched tv, played a few games, and then went to bed. Of course the sleep part didn't happen till 11:00.

Yesterday, was gross and rainy so we (with the friend too) went to the most expensive candy store a candy store to spend Emily's gift certificate that she got for her birthday. She got a jelly belly pillow and a bunch of candy.

Then we went to Chucky Cheese and played there for a while. After that was home, dinner, Survivor, and bed.

Of course, my life couldn't be that easy..... Emily always gets sick the day after she stays up too late. So around 10:45, while the husband was out of the house hanging with a friend, Emily throws up all of her dinner (I'll leave out the details) on the side of her bed, bathroom floor and sink, and as I'm trying to clean up, Alyssa starts screaming her head off. So I do the back and forth thing. When Jon comes home around 11:30, I ask him to stay with Alyssa so I can finish washing dishes and cleaning up downstairs. As soon as I turn the water off in the kitchen, I hear Alyssa freaking out. Apparently she was very unhappy with her daddy, and did not want to be in the same room as him. Jon ended up sleeping in Will's room, I got Alyssa back to sleep, and then breathed a sigh of relief and went to bed myself.

NOT a fun night.

But, it's over. And now I get to start a whole new day of fun today.

:)

ALYSSA!!!!!!!!

I must apologize for not posting a blog yesterday... I was buried under a mountain of laundry.



Jessica is home from camp!!!! Totally exhausted, but back... and we are so happy to have her here with us again.

On a side note, check out this hilarious picture I found when I googled laundry pile....



I mean, that might be a load of laundry all on it's own.... it's HUGE! Definitely don't want to see the girl that those belong to. Holy Crap!

Anyway, Jessica came home monday afternoon. She was sooo exhausted! She went to bed at 6:15 and slept till 7:20 the next morning!!!! I guess I could have written tuesday's blog while the kids were at camp, but my head felt like it was gonna explode from the torture I call Alyssa.

It all started when she decided to wake up at 1 am and not go back to sleep. I turned on the Sarah McLachlan CD she likes to listen to when she goes to bed. It usually takes 2-3 songs. I heard the whole CD and she was still not asleep. Finally, not even sure what time, she fell asleep.... unfortunately it was in my bed, lying sideways with her legs on top of me.

So I woke up exhausted as usual, with a terrible migraine, and a pain that shot through my head every time I bent down. During breakfast, I left Alyssa alone for a few minutes to get Will's swim stuff together for camp. When I heard the loud crash, I ran downstairs and found Alyssa and the floor and the table and the chairs covered in milk and reese's puffs. She apparently didn't like Will's breakfast and threw his ceramic bowl (which he made himself and uses every single morning) onto the floor.

Later, when I recovered from that mess, I decided to take her to Border's to read books. She was hungry, so I gave her some lunch... (pasta). I looked at some books for a few minutes and when I looked back at Alyssa I almost lost it. Actually I think I told her that she is the worst child in the whole world. She chewed up the noodles and then spit them onto herself and her stroller and the floor.

I seriously wanted to just go back to bed and start the day over!!! Or even just go to bed and take a nap..... :)

At least I know today can't be any worse.

Although, you never know....




P.S. I was semi-productive today despite the migraine and crazy child, and had a really nice barbecue dinner with my sister and sister in law. Thanks for coming guys!

My Week In A Nutshell

I'm the kind of person that stays up late. I actually like to and need to stay up late. I like to have plenty of "me" time. The kids are in bed by 9:30, then I have house stuff to do... dishes, laundry... but then I get my "me" time. The house is quiet and clean and I can do whatever I want by myself. I usually write my blog at midnight or later, watch some reality t.v. or some on demand show that I missed, do some crunches.... and fold some more laundry on the nights I'm feeling very conscientious (spelling? computer says it's right, but it looks really wrong to me).

This summer is killing me! I am so exhausted at night. I've been falling asleep early every night! That means I wake up in the morning crazy early (any time between 3 and 6 AM) to a mess and still have not written my blog! That's what happened yesterday... no time to write it. It doesn't help that Alyssa isn't feeling well and I've been sleeping with her in my bed all night. Which by the way, is like not sleeping at all. Friday night, while Jon was out drinking $2000 vodka and $800 scotch with some buddies (actually was a shalom zachor, but I'm trying to get some pity here...) Alyssa had a difficult time sleeping. I finally got her back to sleep when Jon came home and woke her when getting into bed. I know it wasn't his fault... it was dark and he didn't know she was there, but still. He went to sleep in Will's bed (Will had a sleepover with Emily in her room) and I was up the whole night with Alyssa. At 5 AM I gave up on sleep. I took her outside for a walk in her stroller till she fell asleep. Then came home, put her in bed, and went for a jog/walk to work off my frustration. When I got back everyone was still asleep, so I read US Weekly on the couch and enjoyed the silence.

Anyway, enough complaining. Let me tell you what I've been up to.

I got in a fight with a random person outside of the JCC yesterday afternoon. He tried to scare me by coming right up to my car window and in my face, but apparently he didn't know who he was messing with.

I found a really cute website for camp stuff and ordered a couple things to send Jessica. They have lots of other stuff too. I highly recommend you checking it out...

www.smallfrypress.net

I watched my little boy and my nephew skate at their hockey class. Will looked so adorable in his hockey gear! Will has these big puffy hockey pants because he was getting bruises on his butt from falling. He looked like this little tiny guy in big hockey equipment... so cute. And my nephew was wearing basketball pants and those thigh highs hockey socks. It kinda looked like he was wearing shorts and tights. They looked so good... I might have to go watch them every sunday.

Emily and her friend had a lemonade stand. They made $15.11 on a very hot sunday. Only 2 customers weren't relatives. I made some baked goods for them too... People don't stop for lemonade stands anymore I guess.

Not even for this cute face...

Will played golf in our backyard while I laid out in the hammock. I'm thinking of taking him to a driving range. That might be fun for both us.

Oh, and I finally put batteries in the robot Will got for his birthday (3 months ago). It can do over 60 things. It can pick something up and throw it, it can dance, walk in all four directions, it can burp (so glad they added that), it says ouch when it bumps into things. Pretty fun to play with....

Last night, we went out for dinner. The kids wanted ice cream for dessert. The waiter asked if they wanted one scoop or two... So glad we said one, because apparently one scoop really means three. And Will and Emily were pretty happy about that!

A Day Out With The Kiddies

I went to the Art Institute yesterday on the lovely June 11th, rainy, 52 degree day with Will, Alyssa and my SIL..... saw a little Picasso, Van Gogh, Seurat, Monet, Renoir. The SIL and I were making a scavenger hunt for Jessica and Emily. It was actually kinda fun making up clues for each painting....





It probably would have been a little more fun had there not been some pooping in the Picasso's, a crabby "let's go" every few minutes, a pretzel that went flying, an attempt to break the security ropes, gameboy advance sound effects, and the need to take the elevator instead of using the stairs.

Seriously, not using the stairs! that was the worst! And this is why... It was time to leave. My SIL already left about 10 minutes before me. I needed to leave through the Monroe Street exit on the first floor. I was in the Pritzker Gallery near the Michigan Street exit on the second floor. I walk all the way through the impressionists, through the stone idol stuff, down a long hallway, took an elevator to the first floor, then got stuck by some stairs, took an elevator to the lower level, got directed by an idiot a security guard to go "up the stairs and to my left and down a long hallway" all the while explaining I had a double stroller with 2 crabby kids and still was told "up the stairs... blah blah blah" got back in the elevator and went to the first floor, looked at all the stairs, went back into the elevator and tried the second floor, and to my surprise was back in the Pritzker Gallery!!!

It took a lot of self control to not scream out in frustration!!! I asked a woman at the information desk how to find the fucking door the exit and she said, "Oh, take the small elevator over there to the first floor and the exit will be right there." AAAAARRGGGG !!! So I got downstairs and looked outside at the pouring rain coming down from the MICHIGAN Street exit. Of course we did not have raincoats, or umbrellas, or anything that might freakin help the situation so I decided to just run for it. It was a block and a half of crazy rain falling on the only person in all of Chicago without an umbrella. When we got to the car my kids were dripping, and I was totally drenched... my hair was looking pretty gorgeous let me tell you. The makeup... like a supermodel. Will actually said that he was too wet to move and I had to pick him up out of the stroller and put him in the car. Alyssa just looked at me with that smile... you know it by now. Head to toe... sopping wet.

I pulled out of my parking spot and said, "don't worry guys we'll be home soon, and I'll put you in some warm clothes." I looked at them in my rear view mirror and they were out cold.


Ahhh, to be a kid... to be able to fall asleep in a moment's notice.....


To be the Mom with the sleeping kids... that's pretty sweet too. So I drove home... cold, wet, but without any whining.

Fun For Free

After reading a blog yesterday morning, I decided that I was going to take my kids somewhere fun without spending a lot money. After dropping the girls and Will off at school, I took Alyssa to the library. She sat at the legos table with another girl, played on the computers, climbed on their new safari exhibit, and hit only one kid (so proud).

Then I took her home for a nap, straightened up the house a little, I stress the little, beat my old high score on bejeweled blitz, read a few emails, and when it was time to pick up Will... woke up Alyssa, grabbed some lunch for her, picked up Will and went to the kohl Museum. They had so much fun and it didn't cost me a penny ( I have a membership)... yay me! Here are some pics from our day....


(Alyssa was very hands on...it's a good thing no other kids were in there...)



She loved this bubble thing.



Will made me a sandwich at the pretend Potbelly's...



Alyssa eyed my sandwich...




made sure no one was looking...



and actually took a bite of the rubber tomato!!! The picture came out too blurry...otherwise I would have posted her hilarious reaction!






Alyssa telling us her peg tower is "big"... (new word)!



Will... getting competitive...






And yes Alyssa did ruin this wonderful design he made. And yes he did push her on the floor as hard as he could. That's how I knew it was time to go...

I drove home in some annoying traffic, grilled dinner, and went to Jessica's mishkan fair at school (if you don't know what that is... sorry, not explaining). She and 3 others had made an awesome mizbaoch hazahav (still not explaining), and for once I had not done it for them! (maybe a little direction here and there, but you know that doesn't count).





We came home to a quiet house at 8, thanks to the husband for getting the little 2 to sleep nice and early... so I decided the girls could have a late night with us...

I was playing bejeweled blitz on facebook (I had to because Jessica was playing on Jon's facebook and beat my score!!!!!), when i heard some crazy explosive laughter coming from the other room. I went into the family room to see Jon, Jessica, and Emily belly laughing while watching America's Funniest Home Videos, not the Bob Saget one, I think it's Tom Bergeron or something? Anyway, I decided to put facebook on hold and watch it with them. I am not really the laugh out loud kinda girl.... maybe a quiet giggle or a big smile. Jon and my kids are total laugh out loud people. I took a video of them so you could see for yourself....









O.K. understand that they were laughing a million times harder and Jon was laughing with them. I mean it did pull me away from facebook.