One less tooth

Last night, after twisting and tugging for a couple of days, B pulled out one of his few remaining baby teeth. The dentist said he has a few more to go - one of which is attached to his spacer.

Projects

E had two school projects to complete over the weekend. For language arts, she had to make a collage describing herself and write a short paper about the collage. It turned out great. She included the Hunger Games books, a "Mythbusters" quote, a Girl Scout logo, peace signs, her signature smiley face, golf and so much more. Hope the teacher likes it.

She also made a cartoon for science class focusing on the importance of following directions. I thought it was pretty funny and clever. We'll see what her class thinks.

L couldn't sit by watching E work on her projects without tackling an art project of her own. She was so excited to grab a piece of posterboard from my stash and create a poster for her teacher. He's a big guy who apparently likes wrestling and has little wrestling figures (don't call them dolls!) in his classroom.

In the upper left corner she drew a picture of what her teacher would look like in a wrestling unfirom. Below that, is how he looks everyday with the added, "He's strong," pointing to his shoulder. In the upper right, it says, "If you were a wrestler you would win everytime," and she drew five first-place gold medals. In the bottom left, she wrote, "If you were a wrestler you would win always. And I think you wouldn't get scared at all. You would be great. You should really think of being a wrestler. I know you would, I just know it. The end. P.S. I thought of a name for you - The Strangler. The Strangler Wins!"

B's Bible

B received a Bible today at church. Usually, they give them out to fifth-graders, but for whatever reason, his class was a bit slow in getting theirs. He wasn't too excited about it. We can only hope he flips through it occasionally and reads a few verses. It does have his name on the cover, which is pretty cool.

After church, we were surprised to see two of the preschool teachers getting their classroom ready for the start of the new school year. B and E stopped by to say hello and I snuck into the recently renovated restroom to find the tiles the kids painted as part of the preschool fundraiser. They have the years they attended Pilgrim Preschool on the tiles and they hung all three tiles together.

Fairies in the Fern Room

L and I went for a little walk this afternoon, ending up at Oak Park's Conservatory. It's undergoing renovations so we were only able to visit the Fern Room. We were surprised to see the fairy exhibit - little fabric-made fairies hanging throughout the room and their houses hidden in the ferns. We had a booklet and were asked to match 10 of the houses with their "addresses." We found eight of the 10 and thought we were doing pretty good until the woman at the front desk told us there are 18 fairy houses in the room, but only 10 have addresses. They must be really well hidden and camoflauged.

L took along the camera and got some pictures of the fairies and their houses.

Poems and fairy pictures drawn by artist Cicely Mary Barker were scattered throughout the room. L is going to take the booklet and the pictures to Grandma Barbara who likes Barker's work and has a few fairy books of her own.

An allergy?

I thought we were going to make it through the first week of classes without a call from the school, but Friday morning the Irving nurse called. She had L in her office, complaining of a watery and itchy eye. The nurse said L told her she had a pollen allergy and wanted her eye drops from home.

I had to tell the nurse that L has no allergies (that we know of) and therefore we don't have any eye drops for her. I also mentioned that L likes to "tell stories" and visit the nurse's office (frequently!). It's a new school nurse this year so I'm sure she'll be seeing a lot of L.

So official looking

When I was taking photos for the yearbook during the first day of school one of my friends suggested that we have some sort of badge so parents don't give us that "who is this strange lady taking pictures of my kid?" look.

I created some photo passes on the computer, added a smiley face taking a photo and took them to the local teachers' store to be laminated. They hang nicely on a lanyard. Can't wait to give one to my photographer friend at lunch tomorrow.

Try this at home

Last night the kids and I were watching a new TV show, "Minute to Win It," where contestants are asked to complete near-impossible tasks within a minute to move onto the next level and win money. The kids got a kick out of one of the game where a tea bag was stapled to each side of a hat bill and, while wearing the hat, the contestant had to get both tea bags flipped on the bill and make them stay there. The contestants completed the challenge, but it wasn't easy.

Today after school, I was making sun tea and B decided to grab two tea bags and see if he could complete the challenge. He looked pretty funny while doing it, but he did it! Success!

First day of school

Today was the first day of the new school year. B was up at 4:30 a.m. - a little anxious and excited about his first day of middle school. He walked to school with a group of friends, leaving the corner by our house just after 8 a.m. School is about a mile up the street so he got there in plenty of time for the bell to ring at 9 a.m.

E, entering eighth grade, wasn't as eager to get a start on her day. She waited for her BFF, A, and they started walking at about 8:20 a.m. Lovely teenage attitude, sticking her tongue out when I'm trying to get a picture of her.

L was thrilled to see her friend, T, again and greeted her with a big hug. They may look cute, but they're fiesty little troublemakers, and they've been inseparable since kindergarten.

Can I keep the tooth?

B and L went to the dentist this afternoon for their regular check-up and cleaning. The dentist said one of L's baby teeth was loose, but we had no idea it would fall out tonight - with a little help from L who was pushing on it with a spoon. Just before bedtime, she showed up that her tooth fell out. She quickly grabbed the tooth fairy pillow that I bought years ago at a craft sale. The pillow has a tooth fairy on the back and a pocket on the front where the kid slips in the tooth.

L, though, didn't want to give up the tooth. She took the pillow to bed with her so the tooth fairy would have somewhere to stash the money, but she put the tooth in a little baggie with this note: May I please get my money but keep the tooth. Since the tooth fairy didn't realize the tooth and note were on the dresser, she did get her money and get to keep her tooth.

Do we have everything?

I made the kids go through my stash of school supplies today and stuff their backpacks. Surprisingly, we only a few items we still need. Andy took B to get a cell phone tonight and he spent the evening playing around with it - programming in his friends' numbers, picking out a ring tone and playing games on it.

One lonely carrot

E thought her carrots certainly would have died in the heat while we were on vacation, but she was pleasantly surprised to pull one small carrot from the garden today.

Our last day

Today was our last day at Disney. We tried to get a nice pic of the kids at the Magic Kingdom, ride some rides, attempt to stay cool. We did have a late flight so we were able to be in the park until late afternoon. We got back to Midway around 11 p.m. It was a good vacation, but it's nice to be home.

Dining at the drive-in

This morning, Andy took E and L back to Blizzard Beach while B and I headed to Magic Kingdom to ride the train roller coaster. This afternoon we headed back to Hollywood Studios where we had dinner reservations at the Sci-Fi Drive-in restaurant. The kids love sitting in the car, eating dinner while watching bad '50s movies. Andy bought us blue margaritas with glowing ice cubes - pretty neat in the dark.

Hollywood Studios

Today we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios. Our first stop was to watch the American Idol show where you get to vote for your favorite performer. We watched a bit of the High School Musical dance show, watched the entire Lights, Camera Action car stunt show in incredible heat, then went to Hollywood & Vine for a good buffet dinner. The asiago chicken was very tasty.

After dinner, we went to watch the Fantasmic light and water show. Seating started at 7:30 p.m. for the 9 p.m. show. We got to the theater around 8 p.m. and had seats on the far left side of the audience. Lightening and light rain forced them to delay the show. We left just before 9 p.m., figuring they were going to cancel the show that evening and trying to avoid the hundreds of people that would all be trying to leave the theater at the same time.

Animal Kingdom and Blizzard Beach

We went to Animal Kingdom today to take a ride on the Kilimanjaro safari. After that, we took the Disney bus over to Blizzard Beach. The kids had a great time going down the slides, walking around the "ice bergs" and swimming in the lazy river. It was a really hot day (heat index pushing 100) so it was nice to spend the day in the water.


Dinner tonight was at the Liberty Tree Tavern in the Magic Kingdom. It was served family style and it was very good.

Traveling around the world at Epcot

We spent today roaming around the world at Epcot. We rode Soaring and Test Track - a first for me, E and L. We walked around the various countries and had dinner at Tutto Italia. I've read mixed reviews about it, but we really enjoyed it. I had lasagne and Andy had a stuffed pork chop. Dessert was tiramisu - yummy! After dinner we watched the fireworks at Epcot before heading back to our room at Port Orleans-Riverside.


We also did a little shopping and a lot of browsing today. L spent her $15 Disney gift card she received as a birthday gift by buying another set of ears. These ears say "Disney princess" on the front with a crown and a glittery veil in the back. At left is a pic of Andy in a beret at one of the French stores. Fortunately, he didn't buy it.

Back at Disney

We got in a cab at 6 a.m. today and went to Midway Airport for our early morning flight to Orlando International Airport. Here I am nestled between B and L, all sleeping on the flight. We got to Orlando around 11 a.m., had some lunch and them Andy had to take a cab to a nearby Kohl's to purchase gym shoes. He realized when we got home last night that he left his gym shoes at mom's house.

E wasted no time spending her souvenir money and got a hair wrap right away. They charge by the inch and for the beads. Total - $32.


We got to DisneyWorld early that afternoon and started our Disney adventure. Tonight we ate at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Resort. L really enjoyed the characters. The other two amused us by getting their pics taken with them.


After dinner we headed back to Magic Kingdom which had extra magic hours. We saw the fireworks (there's a pic of L below watching the fireworks from the Dumbo ride) and were able to ride Dumbo, Pirates of the Carribean and the Magic Carpets with little waiting. B was thrilled to come out of the Buzz Lightyear ride with 999,999 points - the maximum a rider could earn. He was named a "galactic hero" for his score. Guess those hours of video-game playing are paying off. Needless to say, at the end of the day we were exhausted.

Wedding bells

This morning we went to U of I to pick up E from her engineering camp - she had a great time. Instead of sticking around for the closing ceremony, we headed to Staunton for my cousin's daughter's wedding that afternoon. We stopped at a McDonald's to kill some time between the wedding and reception. We left the reception around 8:30 p.m. and drove straight home. Tomorrow we catch an early flight to DisneyWorld!

Here are the kids all dressed up and ready to go the wedding.

E was so cold at the McDonald's, she borrowed Andy's suit jacket.


Here's my cousin looking handsome in his military dress uniform, his wife, the bride, groom, and my cousin's other two daughters. I remember my cousin's wedding in the same church 35 years ago.

New trend?

One of the things E did this week at the GAMES camp was to make shoes out of duct tape. Maybe it will be a new trend?

On campus

B went with us to Champaign today to drop E off at the University of Illinois' GAMES camp. This year E is studying computer science. She'll be at U of I till next Saturday, sleeping in a dorm, eating dorm food - the whole deal.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that her dorm room (the Illinois Street Residence Hall) is bigger than what she got last year. It almost looks spacious. At the bottom, is the kids with Andy getting Cokes from the coolest Coke machine I've seen yet.

Bye, E

L gave E her good-bye hug today. E leaves tomorrow for the girls' only engineering camp at University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana. L has decided to spend the night at Grandma's house to avoid the long ride to the campus and back.

Snip, snip

I think it was February when Lindsey last had her hair cut. Today, after debating for days, she decided to get it cut again. She wanted it cut to her cheekbone, but we went for more around her chin. It's about a three-inch difference. And they added a little layering on the sides to better frame her face.

Happy anniversary!

Hard to believe it's been 20 years ago since I walked down the aisle to marry my best friend. Seems like just yesterday. As they say, time flies when you're having fun.