everything

Summer is so horrible. Fat people and humidity don't mix. Up until this week the weather has been unseasonably cool here, which suits me well, but this week things are starting to warm up to what summer is usually like here in the dirty south so expect to read much more bitching by me, hopefully accompanied by many pool pictures.

All of us will be in Milwaukee the weekend of July 4th. My 10 year high school reunion is the 3rd so we'll be driving up for that. I'll be attending the reunion with Heather as Andrew has no interest in going. Saturday we'll head down to Summerfest for music and a strongman competition and then we'll either watch the fireworks downtown or head back to Sussex to watch them at Sussex park. Sunday we'll go to the zoo or museum if it's raining and Monday we hop on home.

Dad came to visit the last weekend in May to help with the basement. He stayed several days, which was really nice since normally he's just stopping through as he lives his glamorous jet-setting lifestyle. He was hugely essential to the basement redo.


Working with Carter


In progress



I prepped the basement by cleaning out the bad side, reorganizing it and moving all the good side furniture over there. I cleaned it all, put some Kilz over the water stains and then painted the entire thing (with a tiny bit of help from Andrew and Carter). Once Dad was here we bought the rest of the supplies (I had purchased some earlier, on sale) and got going. We hung the ceiling, which took most of the time. We also put the door in between the two halves, filled in the drain hole with mortar, hung shelves, did a bunch of wiring, messed with the heat exchange made numerous trips to Menards, and one trip to Builders Warehouse where we drove around for 20 minutes lost because I was looking for it on the wrong street.











There's still lots left to do. I need to add trim to the stairs, put some sort of banister up, paint the stairs and cement, put molding on the door and paint the molding and door, recover the furniture, make curtains, finish carpet with transition strip, paint the stairs and floor and put vinyl baseboards up, but as it stands now it's certainly usable.








I love this one.

Other than that, we've been going to playdates, hanging out with friends, enjoying the basement and backyard and eating ice cream. Meghan moved back to the midwest, which I'm very excited about. I haven't had a chance to see her yet (she took a fabulous European vacation and is now on her way to try out for Wheel of Fortune), but I'm hoping she can come down to visit soon. She hasn't been here since the boys were small and it's definitely her turn to visit me. She's with her mom now, but will be in Madison as Dan has taken a position with the university. Hopefully I'll be able to see her much more often now.


Oz likes to pretend he's watching TV.

Andrew and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. We both forgot about it until the day before, which is super lame, so we did a not very anniversary-ish picnic with the kids.


Trying to eat a raspberry with a fork.


Super, duper cool climby death trap of fun at a nearby park.




Oz enjoys the park.


The one picture of me that's been taken in the last three months.


We went to the zoo today. The Peoria zoo sucks, as anyone of you who has been there can attest to, however they've been working on a $30 million dollar expansion for some time and the new part of the zoo is awesome. It follows with the current trend in zoos to have more natural looking habitats and walking paths, taking you closer to the animals and having much better landscaping. I was very please with it. Carter thought it was awesome.

Oz like the soda machine in the old part of the zoo best.


He was actually not interested in that camel at all (also in the old part of the zoo). I totally staged that picture. He ran off to try and eat some old food of the ground a moment later.

Lastly, Carter has been asking me to sew for ages. He watches me sew all the time and knows the ins and outs of my sewing machine (Have I mentioned my new machine? I bought it from a friend and it's leaps and bounds better than my old machine. I'm very much in love with it.) He knows what the pedal does, how to put down the presser foot and lift it up. He'll stand on the back side of my machine and lift it up and down for me. If I get up he hops in my chair and tries to take the bobbin in and out and messes with the thread to rethread the machine, twirls knobs and all sorts of cute and horribly annoying things.

Some time ago we went to the fabric store and chose some fabric for him to make a pillow. We were finally able to sit down today while Oz was napping and sew. He sat in my chair and I raised the pedal up so he could reach it. He sewed the entire pillow, stuffed it and then worked with me to close up the opening by hand. He was so proud of himself.






Watch the video, it's super adorable.


The finished product.

the kids scream, i scream, we all eat ice cream

I am a feedback type of person. I need perpetual feedback. Seriously people.

Happy news: Meghan is home! She and Dan moved back to the midwest. He'll be teaching at Madison again. Of course, she's leaving right away for a fabulous trip to Europe (in which I will go through horrible withdrawals not being able to talk to her every day), but then she's back for good. And a three hour drive is much better than a three hour flight!


Andrew took this picture, I have no idea what was so funny.


Yesterdays ice cream outing:



Oz wouldn't taste it.




(confession: i sorta think he looks a little like hitler when his hair is pushed to the side like this)

you'd think I wasn't online all the time

This is the last place I go to update, I present my lack of update since Carter's birthday as evidence. The whole uploading pictures thing seems so tedious at times and then I've been overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of catching everyone up on the past months. However, today it reached critical point so here I am.

We visited Wisconsin Rapids in January. Carter and Oz loved playing with their Grandma and Grandpa. Oz was a bit sick (it got worse when we got home), but Carter loved playing in the ridiculous amount of snow they had. Oz was not so much a fan of the snow.











Home and sick.



Carter discovered that he liked to take self portraits.



You'll notice in this picture he has a rash on his face. We've now identified that he has Oral Allergy Syndrome (OAS) to all melons, kiwi, bananas and pickles. Carter's allergist said it shouldn't get any worse than it is now, but I'm a bit worried about the banana allergy because he used to have no reaction and I've heard banana allergies can get pretty severe. The biggest bummer of it all is that he loves all those foods.

Hell froze over and Andrew started seeing a chiropractor (Oz, Carter and I have been going for since before Oz was born) and he discovered one leg was shorter than the other. Apparently it runs in the family.

Andrew's parents stopped by on their way to Florida.





Andrew is growing his hair out. I'm not fond of it, but he likes it. I think he looks a bit like one of the Gallagher brothers (But is not Oasis the greatest British band since the Beatles? Can we not vote on this?!).



In a worst mom moment I let Oz fall off the changing table at swim lessons and he got a fat lip.



He retaliated a few days later by head butting me and splitting my lip open.



Carter helped Andrew change the oil on the car.






We started teaching Carter how to ice skate. After months of waiting for Andrew to procure ice skates for Carter I went over his head and found a pair (for free nonetheless) and we took him. He liked it okay, lasted about 25 minutes the first time. Didn't like it so much the second time, but was able to take a few strides on his own.





Then he got sick, which caused him to actually SIT STILL (which just goes to show Hell must be in an ice age). He sat still enough that the cat actually came and laid down on him.



He also curled up with Andrew (Carter, not the Stuart).





We celebrated Purim with a most fun party. The boys dressed up as potato heads and we had some friends over. We put potato chips, temporary tattoos and fake mustaches in buckets for our mishloach manot and everyone brought a dish to share.



Oz is getting awfully big. Here's Carter at 10 months and Oz at 10 months.



He's cruising around all the furniture, using his walker and he just started standing without holding on.







Carter is not at all a toddler anymore, he's all preschooler. He's starting to really pick up on things and the talking is nonstop. He usually has pretty good things to say, but sometimes it wears on my nerves. He's very protective of Oz and is constantly telling him what to do "Use gentle hands with the cat or he'll bite you", "That's not for eating Oz", "No, you're too little, you'll choke", "The toilet is icky Oz". Sometimes he'll call him 'Little Fella' which just makes me want to die of the cuteness. And just recently he's started pulling Oz into his lap when Oz does something that Carter doesn't like. He'll hold Oz in his lap and tell him to use his listening ears and follow the rules because they keep him safe. This is what we do with Carter. I didn't believe it was sinking in, but now that I'm seeing it played back to me it obviously is. It makes me very glad that we don't yell at, ridicule or hit the kids because then that's what Carter would be doing to Oz. Maybe this good parenting moment cancels out my previous bad mom moment with Oz. Now only if I could get Carter to understand that it's my job to discipline Oz, not his.





Apparently Andrew's but is a good place to sleep because I've found both kids there, and funnily enough, they were both about 11 months old at the time. (Carter then Oz)



We figured out that we can stick Mickey Mouse potato head hands on our heads.




In February I attended doula training. Having a doula at my birth really made a world of difference in my ability to work through the pain and birth Oz. I'm excited to have the chance to empower women in the same way. I already have a few clients lined up and am working on getting my full certification from DONA.

Andrew is safe from layoffs at the moment, he is lucky enough to be working on a pretty good project in a pretty good building. I'm still working on the store, working with the AP group and watching kids here and there.






Phew.