Lazy Day

Today was a totally lazy day. The boys woke in the same PJs that they went to sleep in tonight.

I win that slacker mom award for the day.

There is one thing that I did that took me about 30 minutes and I had two people very happy.

I made a train world that actually made a complete circle.

Go me!!



Sorry the photo is so bad, it is in the basement which had the worst lighting in the world.

Brookfield Zoo

Today was Brookfield Zoos 75th anniversary. In honor of this occasion, they made admission for kids free. (Usually $8)

Me thinking that I would be all frugal and everything I thought that this would be a good time to go.

So I piled the boys in the car and we went for the hour long ride down the interstate to get to this zoo.

Apparently the entire area of Chicagoland that had at least 4 or more kids thought the same thing too.

It was so crowded especially for the middle of the week. Seriously what kind of jobs to all these people have that they be at the zoo in the middle of the week?

I think I heard kids being yelled at in no less then 10 different languages.

I was also shocked to see true Amish people.

Isn't that weird to see them in the middle of a big city?

What was also weird was that the adults were in traditional Amish clothing and the men had their traditional beard but the kids (6 years old and younger) were in normal clothes. They looked like any other kid out there. I guess rebellion is starting really young in their little community.

All in all it was crazy and I really do not have a desire to go back.

I like our little bubble that we live in over here in the far west of Chicago.

So we got to the zoo and it cost $8 to park and $12 to get in! Yes that was just the cost of my ticket.

Not one of my more frivolous days.

So I thought for $20 we are going to make the most of this....dadgumit.

We are going to see all the animals we can and we are going to have fun.

Then I ran into the swarm of people in all nationalities and was a bit overwhelmed and then I decided we are just going to do what we can to get out of here and maybe see what animals we can.

There are a lot of animals that have exhibits outside but most of the exhibits are inside.

Swarms of people squeezed into a dark, stinky buildings when I am trying to maneuver a double wide stroller was not my idea of fun.

So we didn't go in any of the inside exhibits.

Luckily, Wild Man and Romeo didn't realize they were missing anything.

I rarely let them out of the stroller. Only to pose for a picture or to get a closer look at an animal.

I am sure this wasn't there most excited trip to the zoo either.

Now the zoo was nice and had a lot of neat things to offer. I will say that there was a lot of construction going on with things that I would be interested to see when it opens. and when the boys know how to defend themselves and now the meaning of "stay beside me or else..."

They had some neat things for the kids to climb on and get pictures with.

Here are the boys in a kangaroo



Romeo doing his best to keep up with big bro.



Notice the boys are wearing jackets... It is July 1st and the high today was 64!!

Crazy weather.




OK this was the more interesting park of the zoo. They have a big dinosaur exhibit (which costs more to get into) To advertise this they put this HUGE dinosaur that moves and groans right in the middle of the zoo. I really think that it was 5 stories high. It was very intimidating.



I tried to get a picture to show how big it is. I couldn't back up far enough to get the whole thing because too many people were behind me and Wild man wouldn't let me walk away from him.



As you can see Romeo really cared less about the big beast. He was actually trying to imitate the sounds and Wild Man was scared. He told me about 5 times that the dinosaur made him scared and he didn't want me to walk by it again. The problem was since it was in the middle of the zoo it was a feat to get around it without seeing it.

I tried to tell Wild man that being far away from it wasn't so scary, and he did fine until it started groaning again and he ran back to the stroller saying "OK mommy, lets go see something else."

In this picture we are about a 100 yards away.



I am trying to get out and try all types of things here and learn from the process of elimination what we will do again.

But now I know, Brookfield zoo is a no go.

Pop's Place

Today the boys were really misses everyone is Tennessee. Wild Man kept listing everyone he knows and asking if we can go over to there house.

So to pacify the situation a little bit. I did the only thing I could think of.

We went to a place called Pop's place.



As you may know, Pop is what the boys call my dad.

I thought they just served ice cream because of the sign but they also serve hot dogs and hamburgers.

We just went for the ice cream.

I think the boys loved it.





Don't you think?

But as we were getting in the car to leave Pop's Place Wild Man asked if we could go to JJ's (my mom) place.

Oh well. It worked for a second.

By the way, the weather is crazy here. We had to bring out our jackets. Get this...the high was only 67 today!

If this is summer, I am so not looking forward to winter.

Nana and Pawpaw

Mr. Genius' parents came this weekend to check out where we live... and more importantly to see the boys.

Grandparents always think of new and inventive games.

This was a new game we got to play this weekend.

Paw paw called it the Matador mile.

All you need is a blanket preferably one that is long enough where you can't see on the other side so it will be easy to run into your brother.

Then you need one or two patient people that can hold up their arms for hours at a time.

You can also have a cape but that is optional.

You then run in a circle through the house and then run through the blanket that is being held up by the two patient strong armed people.

The game is best played at 7 am.





One night we went to Giordano's pizza (which is the best pizza in Chicago). The down side to the great pizza is that after you order your pizza it is 45 minutes until you then get your pizza, not ideal with two active boys.

Lucky for us that day in the parking lot there was a remote control cars race or something like that. Whatever it was, it was perfect for entertaining the boys during the wait.







The problem was that the boys didn't want to eat the pizza cuz they were wanting to go back out and watch the race cars.

We also went back to Swedish Days, and I still don't know what the fascination with the Swedish are. But we had a great time and the weather has been great in the Mid 80s.

(Don't hate me, I will make up for it in the winter)

Here are Nana and Paw paw with the boys.



I don't know if the north, or excuse me the midwest in the extreme north, or just the city we live in. But there are big about being green.

I never realized how much I took advantage of just throwing things away brainlessly until I couldn't anymore.

So here is Wild Man being the Super Green Geneva man.



There is a bus that is called the Art bus. It is actually a school bus that has been converted to a portable art studio for kids.

Everything is donated to them. Honestly it is all junk. What they get is things that kids find at home and instead of thowing them away, they bring it to the museum and other kids make art out of them. The workers don't tell the kids what to do, they just let their imaginations run wild.



It is a great idea, but we are not an artistic family.Wild Man  just went straight for the cars dug through the whole box til he found a hot wheels car and was done. I convinced him to put some type of stickers on it to make it look like we are artistic.



Sorry didn't get a picture of his "artistic" debut.

One other thing that happened this weekend....


Guess what this is...



That would be poo water dripping into the basement.

The ring, seal, rubber doughnut, or whatever you would like to call it dried up. So then poo water started dripping into the basement and filled up a box of the boys toys.

Lovely day.

So tonights project will be to fix a potty rubber doughnut thingy.

New seats and the most annoying sound ever

At our old house to change things up a bit the boys would sometimes sit on top of the catwalk upstairs and look down to the den to watch tv.

The joys of having a open floor plan.

The heating bill is not something we liked about having an open floor plan.

Due to us in anticipation of having much harsher winters we opted out of having an open floor plan so the "theater seating" also went out with the hopeful huge heating bill.

But leave it to my boys and they will find some way to have creative seating.



When I was vacuuming this morning I put the boys chairs up on the couch. They boys seized this opportunity and climbed aboard.

Also as you can see little Romeo is having a wonderful hair day today.

That my friends is not static cling.

Later on today I took the boys to downtown Geneva they are having a big festival called Swedish Days. I have no idea if the Swedish founded Geneva or if Geneva has a deep fascination with the Swedish. But I do know that it is a big deal around here.

So when I went I of course forgot my camera... and my cell phone.

And yes, to answer your question. I forgot to take my Ritalin today.

The main thing about Swedish days is that all the little shops in the downtown area put a tent our in front of their shop with all the stuff that is on a big sale. Almost everything was 50% off!! Gotta love that.

We also went into a cute little cupcake shop, then they had an exercise class for kids. Which my boys just stared at the lady like they do at me when I am running around all crazy.

Then we went to a toy store. I told the boys that they each could pick out a toy. Romeo picked out a baby stroller, Wild Man picked out a car that turns into a robot.

The car needed batteries I thought it was just to make some lights blink or something. Little did I know that it was to make the most annoying toy in the entire world.

To prove it I made a video.



Now imagine that sound for about 2 hours straight.

Normally I try to keep the boys from destroying their toys but with this one I didn't stop him. So it was broken in half by the end of the day.

Mr. Genius and I danced around a little when it broke.

Feeding the Ducks

First thing this morning Wild Man was playing with a toy parachute and it swung around a lightly tapped him right above his eye. You would have thought he knocked his eye out with the way he was carrying on.

Then he remembered that we have Spongebob band aids. As soon as I put one of those over his "wound" he was fine.

Then Romeo sprawled out on the floor screaming cuz Wild Man didn't want to sit next to him.

Goodness sometimes I wonder how girls could be even more emotional.

I decided that we needed to get out of the house. So I took the boys to feed the ducks at one of the parks along the Fox River.

It was extremely hot here. I believe the heat index was over 100 today.

I really thought we would be getting away from all the humid heat by moving up north. Boy was I wrong.

I had some bread butts left over. I don't like those and I think my dad is the only person in the world that actually eats them.

We took them to the park and Wild Man was so excited to be able to feed the ducks.

Of course on the way over there both the boys fell asleep.

I don't understand why, they actually slept in a whole minute.

I mean goodness they slept in til 5:01am.

By the way we put up different room darkening blinds. Next step will be to spray paint the windows black.

So we got to the park and there were about 30 ducks and geese. Wild Man was jumping up and down when he saw them.

I warned him that if he didn't stop jumping and talk quieter the ducks will all go away and he wouldn't be able to feed them.

He then took it down a notch to stepping side to side... very fast while whispering.

I handed him some bread and told him to throw them on the ground near the ducks.

Since Wild Man doesn't listen to anything I say.

He ran right up to the ducks.

Then asked them very loudly, "DUCKS, DO YOU WANT SOME BREAD?"

Then Romeo just stood in front of the mass of ducks, squealing, "DUCKS, QUACK. DUCKS, QUACK."

Really, why do I even talk?

So of course the ducks started running away from my crazy boys.

Then I quickly grabbed some bread and threw it down.

The ducks turned back around and were contemplating options. It was like they were thinking do I risk my life with these two loud short people and eat the bread or do I run for the river?

Some of them stayed, some ran away.

Now these geese were as tall as Wild Man. I couldn't get a picture at the right angle to really show it.

Wild Man would pick a geese he would like to feed and start walking right up to it.

Then he would stop a couple of feet in front of it and it was like Wild Man and the geese were playing chicken.

Wild Man would scream "DUCK, YOU WANT SOME BREAD? ARE YOU HUNGRY?"

Then the goose would slowly walk up to him grab the bread and run away.







When we were out of bread. One of the geese bit Wild Man.

He didn't get upset at all, he just walked up to me and told me that a goose bit him and then went on his way.

Apparently getting bit by a goose is not something we freak out about, just getting hit by plastic parachute men.

First movie

At one of the movie theaters close to where we live has a kids summer program. They show kids movies in the morning for cheap. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to take Wild Man to his first movie. Even if he couldn't sit through the whole movie I wouldn't be out much money.

Today they were showing the Bee movie.

Mr. Genius was working at home and said that he could watch Romeo.

Have I mentioned how much I love that Mr. Genius works at home?

I love it!!

I know he likes it too.

So as we were driving to get to the theater Wild Man fell asleep in the car.

He NEVER does that.

It probably has to do with the fact that he and his little brother have been waking up at 5am every morning.

I don't know, just a guess.

I woke him up and we walked into the theater.

They gave everyone a bag a popcorn...smart people.

We sat down in the seat and started watching the movie.

Wild Man just sat and stared at the screen for about 40 minutes.

Then he sweetly leaned over to me and whispered in my ear with the biggest grin on his face, "Mom, that is a really big tv."

So cute. I just wanted to squeeze his little face.

Then a few more minutes later he leaned over and asked, "Mom, what are you doing?"

I said, "watching a movie, what are you doing?"

Wild Man: "Watching a movie on a really big tv!"

I do see in my future Wild Man and Mr. Genius ganging up on me to always get the biggest tv that money can buy.

*****

By the way, after getting some emails of people asking me what happened with the movers. I realized I hadn't updated with what had happened.

Well one thing I forgot to mention was that they charged us for their services on Thursday, June 11th. Now remember they didn't deliver our stuff until Saturday, June 13th. But the good news with that was that they only charged us what our original quote was, not the extra $2600.

But here is our question.

From our original quote we were actually 600lbs less then what they estimated and we used 40 less boxes.

So we should have been charged less then what we were quoted?

Mr. Genius and I think we should try to leave it alone for fear that they may try to charge us some of the $2600.

Is that what you guys think?