Chicago in February Part 2

Jelly Belly Factory!  Kenosha Wisconsin, a seeming hop skip and jump from my folks house.  Shannon has been here several times, so we loaded up the clan and went for a free tour followed by literally being kids in a candy store with a billion free samples.  Nothing like 10 kids hopped up on jelly beans for a car ride home.  

Above is our group after the tour in the candy shop.  Below are the little kids lined up waiting to go inside.  

Grandma & Grandpa get a little goofy with the girls in the candy store.  Hmm, looks like I did not post any pics inside the warehouse.  There was a little tram that took us around explaining everything, but it was not the manufacturing facility, so the little tram basically took about 500 yards around, stopping every 20 yards for us to watch a video.  Since the Food Network is so overrun by those "best of" shows, it would have been cooler to see it live.  I think that's why they save the samples for last. 
Miss Emily poses with her peeps. 

Auntie Kassi and Elliot are displaying some of the "Dare" Flavors Jelly Belly makes:  Not sure if you can read them, but there are about 15 and they are flavors like:  Vomit, Pencil Shavings, Baby Wipe, Earwax, Booger, Moldy Cheese, Rotten Egg, Black Pepper and Shark Spray.  Ben had the Moldy Cheese, I had the Vomit followed by "toothpaste" to wash it down.  Deelightful. 
President's Day was on to Bounces R Us in Richmond, IL.  We LOVE this place...'cept it never seems to be open to the public for open gym during times when working people can get there, like evenings or weekends, but we got lucky on this holiday.  All these bouncy toys inside a nice warm warehouse.  And they let the parents go in with the kids.  And it wasn't over-run with older kids trying to pummel the toddlers.  There is a quality Spiderman obstacle course, Batman slide, monkey barrel, bouncy ball pit, Scooby van, princess slides, etc.  We did this for about an hour before the girls were pooped.  Samantha just had fun anywhere she could be walking and holding onto the hands above.  


Ben and I raced through the obstacle course and this is the last shoot.  We started at the same time and Ben had such a lead on me that he had time to dismount and come around to my side to cheer me on.  Good times.  

We left from here to drive into Chicago.  And this was the last known time the girls were "healthy".  On the drive in, they both started coughing in their car seats from being asleep.  Previous travels have caused us to travel with our patented "puke pak" and sand pail (is it a toy or is it a barf bucket?)  And at this point in the drive, I was leaning into the back seat waving the bucket from Sam to Elliot and wondering why we were only traveling with 1 bucket!  We made it, but had to cancel our playdate with 2 Little Tidbits in the city. 

Chicago in February - Part 1

Who doesn't love Chicago in February?  Really?  Lots of people.  We spent a week a way from cold Boston basking in the colder of Chicago.  Many lessons learned on this trip.  Like, Ben & I like urban getaways ... but maybe our kids do not yet.  And if the kids are going to be sick, are they any more sick at the museum than they are in our hotel room?  What? we did not see you while we were there?  Well, lemme just say, we had a plan.  And our delightful daughters plotted a plan all their own.  And, the toddlers won.  They were down for the count a couple of days, so it made it hard to plan more than 45 minutes in advance.  And to the city of Chicago, we apologize for all the germs we spread.  We are the reason you really should wipe down hand rails, doorknobs, drumsticks, before handling them in public.  And to the Residence Inn Marriot River North, we owe a HUGE thank you for your hospitality and excellent accommodations and service.  Maybe we have been in New England too long and simply fell for all the people randomly smiling and saying hello, but it sure was nice.  And when we lost our camera, you really went above and beyond helping to find it.  And when we were cooped up, your free internet and breakfast buffets and nightly kiddie/babysitter meals were amazing.  I owe you a write up on trip advisor or something.  But alas, here is our play by play of the trip.  In several acts.  

Sheer joy at the airport.  Friday night cocktails and "Old McDonald's" for dinner.  Samantha is ready to roll.

Our first time on a plane as a family of 4!  And the first time we had to buy a seat for Elliot - she now has a frequent flyer account.  The girls were the best travelers.  Really good on the plane both ways.  No photos of the trip back, since that is when we lost our camera.  But, as you can see, we got it back ... after the hotel, the theater and finally the rental car place searched high and low, repeatedly for us.

We made it to Grandma & Grandpa's lake house for a snow weekend.  But the snow all melted, so we had to get creative.  Grandma came up with putting Samantha in the doll stroller and zooming her around the house.  Elliot had to wrestle the stroller away from Grandma.  

We spent Saturday shopping on the Woodstock Square.  Who knew it was so cool these days?  Many cutesy little shops.  There was an art show in the old courthouse.  We even had a "celebrity" siting... Gallagher (freakshow) at the ticket counter of the Opera House (he was performing there that night).  It was Valentine's Day, so there was a wine tasting in Cobblestones and at the wine store.  We totally cashed in on the kiddie room in the (aackkk) Scrapbooking store.  The kids colored, while we were at the wine tasting next door, I bought some stuff to start "stamping" before we all sped off to the Swiss Maid Bakery before it closed.  Though it was only closing if you forgot to switch your watch from east coast time.  Ahem.  

Posing with "Old Alex" under the "Ned's Corner Groundhog Day" Plaque.  Told you it was filmed in Woodstock.

Super Samantha Jane's Happy Birthday!

We can hardly believe our little marshmallow pudding turned the big 1 this weekend.  

We almost did not unwrap her first present because she was having too much fun climbing on the box and using it to pull up.  She is a little walking fiend and just this week learned to pull herself all the way up and is a pretty good climber, although she has not taken any solo steps yet, her favorite thing to do is hold our fingers while we walk laps around the house.  Here she is with her new present.  

Oh those cheeeeeks!

Waiting for the party to begin...

Playing with the new serious bongos...see more on Charlie's blog.  The bongos were actually inspired after we saw Sammy rocking out last week while the adults were all playing Rock Band.  Which, incidentally, is not the same as Guitar Hero band or whatever.

Alas, the part you have all been waiting for:  the cake sequence.

Yeah, she swiped the adult fork and would not let it go.  At least she did not poke her eye out...which actually would not have surprised me.  What is not shown in these pictures is that we lined all the kids up around the table to start singing and then knocked over a champagne flute (the one prominently displayed in the party hat picture above).  Crystal shattered on the table, "Arms up kiddos!" and then the adults swooped in to take the shards of glass off the table, remove the table cloth, whisk the cake off to be inspected for shards of glass.  I returned to the table to see that my swiper had swiped the box of matches and was using them as a teether, chomping away with half a box in her mouth.  Helloooo, adults standing there, did none of you see this??  I then lit the candle and blew it out with the match and had to do it again, wondering aloud, where IS the fire extinguisher, just in case?   So yes, Sammy J using the big fork, just seemed right.  Happy Birthday Baby.  

PS - Minjo, thanks for all the great pics!

Finally Blogging Again

Seems like everyone is a little slow in the blogosphere these days.  Several factors contribute to our own delinquency, namely that ours has been a house-of-horrors pukefest for the last 3 weeks or so.  And the new video Flip thing we got for Christmas that means I am now videoing things I should be photographing and avoiding the learning curve to edit and post.  And we have stopped brushing the girls hair or monitoring outfits since we were continually bathing them and changing them and running out of laundry to compensate for the puke.  On a positive note, both of them are developing better aim for Bozo-buckets, which everytime one of them so much as clears their throats, we now stick a sand bucket in their face to try and avoid changing the sheets/clothes/carpets again.  

And one night while we were up at 3AM giving a bath and changing the sheets, we happened on an Alton Brown recipe for some kind of popover.   Looked up the recipe the next morning and have made no less than 8 of these since then.  Replaced pancakes as the weekend go-to breakfast and Ben just can't get enough.  Since he was asleep when my best one came out (they totally deflate), I took a picture.  And a video.  I won't post the video.

Behold the next greatest thing ever:  Gabriel's 3rd birthday party at MyGym.  Elliot had a blast and cried the whole way home cuz she did not want to leave.  There was a part during circle time when the kids were to go around and say their names to wish a Happy Birthday.  First, Elliot screamed, "My birthday's in July!!" - when she wasn't asked.  And then she jumped in on the introductions 5 people before her turn to hug and say, "This is SAMANTHA!"  
Showing her zipline prowess.
Posing with the birthday revellers.  Gabriel is on the rocker in front. 
Here's the "this is SAMANTHA" moment.  It makes me feel good that she is proud to show her off.

Samantha gets in on the bouncy action.  But not tooo much, lest we set something off.

The next greatest thing ever was Kidstock at the Lyric Stage.  It's an interactive performance they do about once a month.   This month was THE GOLDEN MOTHER GOOSE.  So, I took Elliot while Sammy was down for the count.  She is obsessed with all things Mother Goose, so how could I resist.  Only when we got there did we realize its for 4-10 year olds and they perform.    I thought she might be shy, but she volunteered right away and really got into the action with the older kids.  She talks about it all the time now, which is the real test of how good it was.  In fact, tonight at dinner she gave us the rhyme again.  Did you know Old King Cole was really a GRUMPY old soul before he was merry?  Elliot knows.  

The girls are actually starting to play with each other.  And its fascinating!

Elliot felt a little woozy. 

OMG, Curious George (second only to M. Goose) was at the Harvard bookstore.  We waited through the stories for him to appear.  You can see below a REAL smile from Ellie --you may have noticed she has been practicing her fake one quite a bit for the camera.  And Sammy doesn't know what to make of it.  

  

Elliot's Rendition of Grumpy Old Cole

And then, for the grandparents... Elliot's first stage performance ... it was impromptu, so we did not know she would be doing it, so only Mommy got to enjoy it first-hand.  Good thing for the video thingy.  (And technically her 2nd performance if you count the Christmas Pageant she slept through).