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Night out with our big boy

Posted on January 18, 2008 5:25 pm by TheAngelForever

Last night I went out on a date with my two oldest boys . . . you know my hubby and 4 year old. The little guys stayed with Nana and Papa so we could do something special with the big boy.

We let NHL decide where he wanted to go for dinner. I told him about a new place that we had never been to that had a place to play games near it. He liked the sound of that since there were no costumes. Once JL was home we dropped JSL off and went to Old Chicago for dinner.

We had a nice relaxing dinner that involved trying to keep NHL from falling asleep. We managed by taking him to the game room to see what we would do after he ate his dinner. This helped since he saw there was a bowling game that he was anxious to try out. Our meal was good, but not something I would likely go back to soon (although I do want to try their lunch special one day).

After our meal was done NHL quickly pulled us to the game room. We bought a card with points on it to play. As you will see NHL really liked the bowling. It was sort of like candlestick bowling (small balls), but regular scoring, and only 5 frames. Here are some photos of the little guy testing out the game.

It was so cute to watch NHL grab JL’s hand the first few times he was playing (by the third game later on he was a pro).

At first he wanted to roll the ball down by putting it between his legs this way (front view):

It worked nicely this way (front view below), but later he realized that with the balls being small he could toss them other ways.

Too bad he never really liked it.

The suspense was just too much while waiting for the ball to head down the alley and knock over pins.

He even tried to ~~yell~~ persuade the ball to move in another direction.

Oh well, maybe next time it will work!

Each time he would check and count to see how many were knocked over.

Making sure how many were knocked over.

And this pose just made me laugh. Cute, n’est pas?!?!

We had a great time and went to pick up JSL afterward. He was very happy to see his ~~milk jugs~~ mommy. . . daddy and big brother too. Thanks again to Nana and Papa for making this fun evening possible. Love you guys!

Categories:
fun jl laughs nhl photos

Wordless Wednesday – A Baby & His Daddy

Posted on January 9, 2008 1:02 pm by TheAngelForever

Categories:
jl jsl photos Wordless Wednesday

Where O, where O, where is JL?

Posted on December 27, 2007 11:57 am by TheAngelForever

This morning JL left for work and I tried to call him on the cell phone to remind him to take his boots. We are supposed to get 1-3 inches of the white stuff today at about the time he will be leaving to come home.

Anyway, he did not answer his phone. The odd thing is I knew I did not hear his car go. So I went flying out the door and saw JL on the ground with his camera out looking at a tree across the way.

*gasp*

Shocked aren’t you that he had his camera ;)

When he went outside he heard a bird calling from across the way and saw this:

As he stood there he heard something calling back to the bird seen above. JL wanted to get closer shots, so he used the great zoom on his camera and was able to get the following pictures to help us identify what we suppose is a hawk here in the middle of the city.

Check out this BIG/SHARP beak:

And man these eyes are certainly made for hunting:

Sitting and waiting for an answer from it’s bird friend:

Maybe this "little" bird will help to control the squirrel population or even the crow troubles the area is having. I just hope it stays WAY up there when we are outside.

Categories:
animals house interesting jl

Icy nightmare & thank you J & H

Posted on December 20, 2007 9:53 pm by TheAngelForever

The following picture was going to be my Wordless Wednesday. Unfortunately, a stomach bug that has been passed through everyone in our house finally hit me yesterday afternoon/evening. Here is the photo:

This is the side of our house. As you can see it is a HUGE mess thanks to recent storms. Since we bought our house we have had trouble with ice damns forming and at least two times backing up into the house. I now hear water dripping and am paranoid. The mess pictured above was a new spot that we had never had problems with in the past. The cause – leaving the AC unit in the window.Why did we leave said AC unit in? Well, because we have had a really hard time year in and year out getting that sucker back in to cool the room. We never figured it would be an issue.

The issues that caused the horror shown stem from something that occurred when we bought the house. One of JL’s coworkers removed a tile in our ceiling because it was bulging. Much to our dismay we had a leak in that section of the rubber roofing. That part of the roof had to be replaced. $1000 later it was done just in time for the new carpet to be installed. So for over three years we have left the hole in the ceiling with NO insulation. Can you see where this is going?

Yes, the lack of insulation, along with the heat escaping from the AC unit in the window gave the ice the perfect opportunity to have this occur. The AC unit itself allowed a wonderful spot for the obscene amount of ice to collect.

Tuesday evening JL went up to try to chip away at the ice and put some stuff up there to melt it. That did little or nothing. Here is all he was able to remove next to his hand as a size reference:

Fast forward to me pitching a FIT to dear hubby about this and fearing that the AC unit was going to fall and put a hole in our roof and land in a room below. I blew a gasket (I admit it). Luckily JL talked with our friend J. J had some ideas on what to do and said he would come over. So J and his wife (who I have grown up with) H came over last night. By the time they got here I was not feeling so well. I was in denial and thought I was feeling better. Thank goodness H came – she watched the boys while I tried to keep stomach contents in.

JL and J went upstairs so they could see what was going on. They brought up something to hack at the ice from the tiny crack in the window. Here are two views from the window upstairs:

The guys came downstairs and told us they were going up the ladder to see what else they could do. JL called soon after (via cell phone) to tell me there was good news and bad news. The good news – the ice was gone! The bad news – the AC cover came with it. JL and J came back in and were going to head to Home Depot for insulation and a tarp to put the AC on in the attic. I asked if they could use our old shower curtain instead. I really did not want them going since I was feeling worse again. They said they would. So they went upstairs and removed the AC, took away more ice and then came down.

At this point I was GREEN — I will spare you the details.

The end result is the following was removed from the house (here with some fresh snow on it) and the house as it is now:

So now you can see why I "love" this house so much (long story goes with that) and why I want to move to Florida.

A big thank you to J & H for being so wonderful and helping us with this. I seriously was going insane from worry about this ice formation on the outside of the house. Also sorry that you were exposed to whatever I had – the good news is 24 hours later I feel human again!

Oh and even our rose bush wants the spring to come . . . *sigh*

Categories:
friends house jl losing my mind photos sickness vent weather winter

Snow, sleet, sledding, secret ingredient cookies & sleepy babies

Posted on December 17, 2007 12:15 am by TheAngelForever

Storm #2 of the not even officially winter season is heading out (I think). As of this morning we had 5-6 inches of snow and the ice kept on coming all day. Our plan was to stay home, watch movies, dig out, and bake cookies. Some of those were accomplished. We are partially out from under the snow and ice, we never had a chance to watch a movie (thanks to a certain little monkey), and we ate cookies that were delicious.

By mid-morning JL finally decided that it was time to head out into the snowy cold "fun" and took NHL with him to get out some energy. The poor kid was experiencing some serious cabin fever from being in the house since early Thursday afternoon. Here is Darth Daddy with his camera of course!

Now please note the dorky Abominable Cameraman taking a photo here while measuring the snow fall:

Finally it was time for NHL and JL to dig out at least the front area of the house:

After some time they finally made it further down the sidewalk to clean up more of the snow. Look at the little guy following his daddy – AWWWWW!

Digging, digging. . . . and yes more digging!

I went back inside to check on the little guy who was keeping warm. As you can see he was having a blast playing, but you can also see his poor little nose was very sore looking. He now cries when he sees a tissue coming toward him.

A little while later JL came in to get me for some photos. The boys had decided to take a break from cleaning up snow to play in it. Here is a mosaic of their sledding fun.

The smiles one both of their faces were just SO big!

Soon after this the boys came inside to get warm and eat lunch. We had lunch that NHL picked out – tomato soup with alphabet noodles in it. Mommy thought he might get a kick out of them and bought them. After this we noticed that NHL was getting tired. We knew he would not go to his bed. Instead we got him to snuggle up on the couch under a blanket. After fighting the nap we finally noticed that he was quiet and calm. Here is how I found the little guy. It still amazes me how kids can fall asleep in the most odd ways.

Meanwhile another little boy in the family was miserable. He refused to eat solid food, wanted to be held and could not sleep. He would settle, get into his crib and wake up crying within 20 minutes or so thanks to his poor nose. Here is how he greeted me after one of the mini-naps. The shine on his nose is vasoline to help the sore areas from constantly wiping all of the dripping.

While NHL was napping JL was ambitious and made some chocolate chip cookies using the recipe from Deceptively Delicious. The secret ingredient in these cookies are whole chickpeas. NHL woke up just in time for the first batch to come out of the oven. JL made one recipe which yielded 40 cookies (Seinfeld’s recipe says it will make 2 dozen – what size cookies does she make?). As you can see NHL approved and wanted more than the two that he was allowed. They truly were YUMMY and you never would know there was something like chickpeas inside.

Now both of the boys are in bed and the house is quiet. The 7 month old was a struggle since he was beyond overtired, congested (did the milk thing to help), and two teeth are really coming in. He also learned a lesson – you do NOT bite mommy when nursing and laugh. If you do that mommy will pass you to Daddy and say "No BOOB for you!"

Night-night for now since the morning will be here soon to finish digging out.