JRfT Comes for a Visit!

While we were in Germany and head of the youth group at our church, there was a family there that was very special to us.  The Trees family is in the top 5 things we miss about living in Duesseldorf.  That said, we must have made an impression on them as well...Joanna (Joey, or JRfT) came to visit us for 10 days in February.  It was an amazing time with her, and we would love for her to come again and bring brothers Josh and Jethro. :)

I am a total slacker and took zero pictures while she was here.  Luckily, she took several and here are the highlights:

Her first day here, I thought we'd just relax, hang around Evanston for a bit while JT got over her jet lag.  Well, it was also Z's day off from school, and I usually let him choose what he wants to do, and he chose the zoo.  Yes, both Z & W went to the zoo in their jammies.

Can't come to Chicago and not get Chicago-style pizza!

I took Joanna to Bennisons (high end bakery) while Wyatt was a his swim & gym class, and we came back to the Y to drink our coffee and eat our red velvet cake donuts!  DELISH

Mommy reading to the boys

Joey taking Yannick downstairs to play with Buster so I could get dinner ready

Joanna went sledding on the last snow day of the year with Art and the boys.

crazy panoramic shot of our upstairs after dinner: Art/Shayna laying on the floor playing with Yannick, Wyatt in the fridge putting his cup away

The McF family lived in Germany for a time and knew Joey from IBCD.  While she was here, we invited them to come down and spend the night with us to visit w/ Joanna.  The dad, one son, and an exchange student (oddly, the brother of JT's bro-in-law) came for the night.  Art took them downtown CHI for a tour while I stayed home with the maniacs....uhh boys.  Here they are at the S. Blvd el stop.

Joey being crazy at the el stop

Art giving his guided tour

Everyone at The Bean (officially: cloudgate)

I made some heart shaped pink pancakes for J for breakfast

Wyatt finishing up b'fast and Z playing chess

Wyatt helping mommy vacuum. 

Art making sure the baby stays happy

Frank Lloyd Wright House tour.  We got a sitter for Nick and Wyatt and Art took the day off work.

No pics allowed inside of the house, but the outer was ok

We met OUR Joanna and her roommate Connie for lunch, since we were across the street from Booth.  The 3 of us (me, Art, JT) got taco salad bowl.  Joey thought it was very cool to be able to eat your bowl.

Part of Univ of Chicago.  As Joanna Frazier says "where fun goes to die"

Us signing postcards for Jemima and Josh bf Joey mailed them.

Joey and I took the boys, minus Zach, on a little tour of the Ba'hai temple.

We got a sitter and went to Pinstripes for the $2 burger night.  I went into some sort of functional coma b/c I bowled the WORST EVER.  First game, lost by 1 point to Art, with a low 128, then the next game was so low that I can't honestly type about it.

Me happy bf I started losing.

Joanna happy to be out on the town

Standard bowling shot for JRfT

See...something was majory awry!

Let Z skip school and took all 3 boys plus JT to the children's museum.  Wyatt's favorite part, the water room

Zachary also enjoying the water room.  YES, they BOTH are AGAIN wearing their PJs out.

Little Nick chilling in the infant area

Percussion for all

My little drummer in his star wars jammies

Zachary rocking out to some classical wearing his spiderman jammies

Cutie Wyatt in the music room

Oops, sideways!  Too tired to fix it.  Zachary rabbit, Shayna donkey (?) and little puppy Nick

Yannick would rather chew on the puppy face than pose in it

Cutest kitten ever! :)

Finally, a 5 point car seat for adults!

The next day, Joanna had to leave us.  She was in the USA for 10 days.  Spent one night in Naperville w/ an old InsideOut leader, before our time.  When she and her boyfriend came to drop JT off at our place, we took them all out to dinner at a yummy burger place.

It was a wonderful visit, and I hope that we will be able to see her next year, possibly in Duesseldorf!

No wait, I DID take one picture:

Joey reading to Yannick

Silly Shorts

It has been unseasonably warm the past few days...but not quite warm enough for shorts.  The big boys are desperate to wear shorts to the playground, but mean ole mommy says no.  So they take matters into their own hands by pulling their athletic pants up high enough to be shorts.

Wow, those are short shorts!  It almost goes with the red cape and "superhero" belt he is wearing

Wyatt not sure he is doing the right thing, but happy to copy his big bro!

Finally a HINT of spring

Not spring yet but today offered up a small hint of what is to come.  We took to the outside for as long as we could to enjoy the unseasonably warmish weather.  We do love the playground behind our house!

Happily swinging away

Zachary doing a great job as big brother, pushing Yannick and Wyatt happily swinging.  Big boys were wearing helmets because they had ridden their bikes for awhile around the park, and neglected to take them off.  Look at those two - NO JACKETS!  Lovely little gift that we know won't last.  We might even get snow again!

Zachary - 1st Awana Grand Prix

Tonight was the night!  The first time Zachary had a car in the Grand Prix car races.  Zachary helped paint a few more coats and mom did a lot of the touch up work.  We wanted to add some racing stripes, but Z insisted the only thing the car needed was Batman driving it.  Art found some Batman stickers at Target, and soon, the Batmobile was piloted by Batman and even Robin.

Zachary's car with the blue ribbon (for participation, not winning)

Here is Zachary getting to sit in the "starter box", where he would get to push the button releasing all the cars on their gravity-fed downhill race.

Zachary and Wyatt cheering on the cars

There were some great cars in the race, many vying for "best design" car. An air hockey table design, one that looked like bacon, a killer whale, an Egyptian sphinx, a rocket, etc

Zachary's car in last place.  Sadly, Zachary's car got last place every time.  Next year we will do a better job on the wheels.  He was very disappointed that 1) he never won (every car races at least 4 times, once in each lane) and 2) he came in last every time.  He said he wished he had not made a car, which of course was heartbreaking.  We'll see what happens next year.  All we know is that we were there FOREVER because both Zachary and Wyatt wanted to wait for the end so they could get cake.  I was tempted to just go buy some cake for them so we could just go home.  It was easily after 9pm when we went home.  Sigh.

ALLERGIC

Yannick's chart at the Dr.'s office now sports a bright red sticker that says ALLERGIC TO AMOXICILLIN.  Poor baby.  He has had a rough rough winter, being sick A LOT.  So much so that they did some blood work to ensure there was nothing odd going on with his immune system.  There is not.  The reason seems to be "he has two older brothers who bring home everything".  This seems to be true.  He's had pink eye (thanks Z who brought it home from Kindergarten but did not get it himself), numerous colds, fevers galore, and now an ear infection.  To treat the ear infection, a very common antibiotic, Amoxicillin.  It is widely used because it is RARE for anyone to be allergic to it.  Our son is.  MAYBE.  That's the drama.  His Dr. says that he is the 5th case of Amoxicillin allergy in 2 weeks, when normally he gets maybe ONE case per YEAR.  He suspects that Evanston has gotten a bad batch.  Yannick will be , unnamed, part of a report he has to send to the CDC.  Doubt we will ever hear of a resolution.  But to be on the safe side, our little Nick is considered ALLERGIC (in angry red letters) from this point forward.  The Dr. said, unless he accidentally gets it sometime and has no reaction we should forever consider him ALLERGIC.

Why the all caps??  Because of this:

Here's the worse part...it kept getting worse and worse until his whole body was one purplish/red mass, face swollen and red. He did not seem to mind at first, but by the end, he was miserable.  Sadly, he got more meds, some steroids to put him back to normal.

The odd thing was that it came on pretty slowly then just went nuts.  I saw a few bumps while we were at the zoo on Monday, and my first thought was "did he get some strange allergy or condition from one of the animals"?  Over night there were a few more bumps, then BAM, went nuts.

Funny story about the steroids.  I was not able to pick up the prescription until the evening, when we were on our way to Awana for the big Grand Prix race.  So we gave him the meds once we got settled there, around 7pm.  Then our friend Stephanie, a nurse, casually mentioned that steroids keep them awake. Oh no.  By the time we got home, he was wired.  Art and I wanted to wind down and watch a little tv, so we let Yannick just play downstairs with us.  By 10:30, he was showing no signs of sleepiness (his usual bedtime is 7-7:30!!!), but WE were tired so we thought we would just put him down and hope for the best.  Praise the Lord that he went quietly to bed.  Did not sleep for awhile, but did not complain either.  Note to self and others, give steroid doses in the MORNING!

Wyatt the Riot

Wyatt has a good imagination, we think.  Here he is, being part "baby bird" (which is his favorite cuddly persona) and part Batman, while sitting in his "command center", which is really Yannick's baby chair.  When he said he did not want to go back to preschool b/c he would rather play at home, I believe him.

Oh yes, and it's probably about noon here, and yes, he is still in his jammies!

Happy Valentine's Day

Not our best day.  Several of us were sick.  Art came home with the dinner (Zoba's), and went to bed.  Wyatt went to bed as well.  While Zach and I eating, the others awoke feeling better and we ended up all eating together.

Valentine's Wishes from all:

Awana -Grand Prix Car time!

This year at Awana, Zachary is in Sparks.  This means, among other things, that he is old enough now to participate in the Grand Prix car races.  For $10, you get a nifty block of wood, 2 axles, and 4 wheels.  It is up to you to make the thing awesome.  The night we got the car was the night I took him to Awana.  It was the first night you could get your car cut out into shape by the volunteer woodworking guys.  But first you had to DESIGN your car.  And what does Zach want...the Batmobile of course.  And he is looking at ME to draw where the necessary cuts should be, showing the men with the saws, where to cut.  Yikes.  After consulting wikipedia's site for Batmobiles on my phone, I did the best I could.  Thank the Lord that the guy cutting out the cars was a Batmobile freak and cut it out from memory which was very different from what I had drawn.  WHEW!

The race is at the end of the month, so Zachary needed to get started painting it.  We looked up hundreds of batmobiles online, and finally found what we wanted.  Here he is getting started.  Sadly, he got bored pretty quickly, and mommy ended up painting the 2nd and 3rd coats.

I also love that he is spiderman while he paints Batman's car.  Seems wrong somehow.