Once, many months ago when the big boys were complaining that it is not fair that they have to go to bed and the adults get to stay up, Art uttered a phrase that became set in stone " one day we will let you put yourselves to bed and mommy and I will go to bed; you can stay up and play". Today was that day. Crazy yes.
After the VBS performance we came home got the boys ready for bed, and played for a bit. Yannick went to bed a bit before 9am, which was plenty late for him. Then Art played computer games with the big boys while I worked at catching up on the blog, until 9:30. Then Art and I went to bed and gave Z&W instructions on turning off the lights and getting into bed quietly when they were ready (so as not to wake their little brother). After being in bed for about 5-10 minutes, I decided I would like to have the monitor on downstairs in case one of them fell asleep on the floor or couch then woke up scared in the night. As I walked downstairs, they were playing with their sticker books. They both were telling me that they might go to bed soon. Z: "I'm pretty tired, we'll probably go to bed soon", W: "I've yawned like 3 or 4 times, so I'm pretty tired too". So funny. Then Zach mentioned that it was very strange, and not all that good to be up when his parents were in bed. He asked "Is DaU already fast asleep?" Neither of them was thrilled with being up when we were in bed, which was very funny to me. Perhaps they won't ask again! They came to bed not too long after I went back up to bed. So funny! I was not thrilled with this little experiment, but it turned out great really.
Invasion by Poppi/MeMa
Body Snatchers meaning they took over our kids - YEA!! Given the amount of stuff that went on, I will attempt to keep the verbiage minimal.
Poppi MeMa arrived Monday May 21.
Tues May 22
Jump right into Grandparent role. MeMa stayed home with Yannick while Poppi, Wyatt and I went to go have lunch at Z's school. Lunch being at 10:30am for the Kindergartners, Wyatt got to eat his snack.
Zachary is in the red shirt w/ the baseball on the far left. Wyatt is wearing a red jacket on the far bottom right. Z is sitting next to his bestie, David.
Back home for lunch and playing. Joanna was planning on joining us in the afternoon, but not sure what time. I had an outing planned, but it didn't go off without a hitch. We wanted to go to NWern to feed the ducks and the fish (which who loves more, Poppi or the boys??) and while there take advantage of their "Friday Crepe Happy Hour" and get a Nutella Crepe for $1.25. But we got to the lake late (around 5pm), after picking Joanna up as she walked from the El stop towards our house. But the feeding of the ducks/fish was fun as always, though Yannick kept eating his bread. I remember when Wyatt would do that with bread or raisins. Then Poppi and Joanna take the big boys back to the house while MeMa and I go to Dengeos to get dinner. King Lab was having a fundraiser where Dengeos will give 20% of your order total to King Lab if you give them the paperwork. We had never eaten there, but it sounded pretty good. There were a few Gyros ordered, a few Greek salads. Joanna stayed and had dinner with us.
Aunt Juicenana reading to the big boys
Wed May 23 - stuff happened that I don't remember. Except I DO remember that the grandparents babysat for me so I could go get my eyes checked. I knew they were getting worse since having had Yannick (EVERYTHING swells during pregnancy, and some stuff doesn't go back, like sometimes eyes), and I suspected that I would need to start wearing glasses full time. Sure enough, my eyesight has changed quite a bit in one eye, and a little in another eye. I defin need new glasses. I asked the Dr. if this was the type of prescription that meant I needed to wear them every day all day. He said about 50% of the people w/ my prescription would. So I think I won't. So there.
Thurs May 24 gets its own blog entry: Zachary's kindergarten picnic and performance.
In fact, oddly, I have decided to give the rest of the events their own entries as well, which will make it easier to search for them later.
Try to sleep as late as possible
Eat "fun" breakfast of pancakes, or biscuits or muffins, bacon, eggs, etc (not cereal)
Play
Shower
Yannick morning nap
**atypical moment: Go to "adoption fund" garage sale at Mangrich's. We score 2 giant super soakers (wedding presents for Ben and Steph), 2 Xbox games (which we later found out do not work on our Euro Xbox), a soccer ball for Art
Visit Ms. Beanie
Yannick with Ms. Beanie in the swing
Go home for lunch and naps
Play outside at park
Play inside
Eat dinner
Play
Clean up dinner
Get ready for bed
Finally warm enough for the boys to sport their FULL new jammie outfit they got for their bdays from Aunt Joy. Always such great smiley boys. :)
Finally, we have moved Yannick out of the ever-convenient-for-car-sleeping infant carseat into his convertible carseat. Big move. Takes some serious freedom away from us in the morning (during naptime). It's time though.
Chillin' in his new carseat.
The big boys like the new seat - it gives them a bit more room near the seatbelts so they don't need help unbuckling. Buckling the seat belts will continue to be an issue - just not enough room in the Fit for them.
Just some stuff that happened this morning that got captured on film to be forever remembered.
Zachary building a Duplo ship - taking a break from regular legos.
Yannick appears to be reading here, which we think is super funny! Lots of chaos going on around him : Art trying to get ready for work, Wyatt doing something.
This one is a bit dark, but it's a video of Nick toddling about
Hopefully not literally. After this picture, we did ban the big boys from getting into Yannick's crib. I don't know how much it can handle, and we definitely don't want to break, having just gotten it!
Yannick showing off his new crib
The big boys were helping Yannick get out of bed, but he apparently did not want to get out, so they just got in with him!
Opa and Oma had been trying to get away and come up here for weeks and weeks, but something kept coming up. This weekend they finally made it! They called on Wednesday and said "we'd like to come Friday", and we said 'Absolutely'. We rearranged some things we had planned, and then kept some other things the same, and just enjoyed them being here. BUT boy did they work hard; esp Opa. They had brought the unfinished crib/toddler bed up, and got it done while they were here. Sanding, priming, painting. They did it, and it got done. We did a few other things while they were here though!
On Saturday, the Dutch school was throwing a party to celebrate the Queen of the Netherland's birthday (Koninginnedag). I thought it was a big party thrown by the Dutch club of Chicago, but it turned out to be a small party thrown by just the Dutch school. One of Zachary's friends from school, Visanth, was there with his mom, which was fun for Z. Since nearly all the games for kids, instructions, and announcements were in Dutch, Oma got to go help out the big boys.
Zach and Wyatt were on the "yellow" team, and Oma is helping them at each activity center
Later Saturday evening, Oma babysat Yannick while Art and I and the boys went to the Watsons' house for a cookout in honor of some old friends (Pigstorm) who used to live in Evanston but moved back to Singapore in 2009.
Sunday was church. Then our Ethos group planned a kickball tournament with another group. Opa and Oma again preferred to babysit Yannick instead of going. It worked out great, because that meant that Art and I could both play kickball and be involved in the game.
Monday, Oma went to Zachary's school. First we ate lunch with him (Wyatt and Yannick just had snack), then we played outside on the playground with his class, then Oma got to read a story to his class.
Zachary introducing Oma to his class
Oma reading to his class - Zach is sitting by Oma, and Wyatt is there wearing red pants, sitting on a purple circle.
Mrs. Soverinsky let Wyatt sit and listen to the story as well. She said Yannick could, but I declined since he decided he'd rather pull all the books out rather than sit and listen to one. So I mostly spent the 20 minutes or so out in the hall with him.
Here are all the rewards from their hard work:
Our little guy proud of his new bed!
It was an enjoyable visit, and a bit too short. They left on Wednesday, so we would have a few days to regroup before Aunt Joy came to visit.
My fun tradition of taking a picture of the boys in the exact same shirt, every year on their birthday is still alive, and with a new addition. Which kid is which?? Can you tell?
Yannick, Wyatt, Zachary all 1 year old. All with a bit of help from DaU!
Saturday night I had an event with the EBF ladies. Any time I am gone for the evening, the boys easily convince DaU to make a fort. I am generally ok with the fort building, even though it destroys everything, as long as it is cleaned up b/f I get home. THIS time however, "Art SAYS" they specifically requested it be kept up overnight so mommy could see their best fort ever. And they wanted to sleep in it, which Art vetoed. So to placate them after that trauma, Art agreed to leave it up so they could use it on Sunday. I came home to the clean laundry ravaged and clean sheets used at part of the fort.
The downstairs craft table chairs were used, giant packing box, all the pillows from their beds, and for some reason, the basketball goal made it as part of the roof. I had to admire the workmanship and ingenuity of it all and walk away. I will NOT be cleaning that up! :)
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!
