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?

We are living the high life now!!!

Today we got our new kitchen table and chairs.

We are so excited, even the boys.

We have been using our card table and chairs to eat on and the boys have had the chair fold in on each of them at least once a day.

But what I am most excited about was how much I paid for this table.

Apparently out here a big department store is called Carson Pirie Scott and they have their factory store neaby. Mr. Genius and I accidently found this store because Mr. Genius actually almost got us killed because he saw a sign for the tigerdirect.com retail outlet store. I promise you as soon as he saw the sign for that store he let out a big gasp and leaned over so far and so fast that he looked like he was trying to leap out of the car.

Scared-me-to-death.

I can tell you that this man has never reacted like that about anything.

When we walked in the store he practically squilled like a little girl and skipped down the aisles.

Now I know the secret to make him happy. Hehehe. This can totally be used to my advantage.

Right next to this tiger direct store was the Carson Pirie Scott factory furniture store (and by the way across the street from them is a Crate and Barrel factory outlet store. I reacted the same way Mr. Genius did at the Tiger Direct store when I saw that store.)

So we went into the Carson store to just see what they had to offer since we did need a kitchen table.

We really weren't expecting much.

Then I saw the table that we got and then I saw the price. It retailed for $1400 but in the store it was $298! I does have a few scratches on it but nothing more that my boys won't do within 5 minutes into the first meal on the table.

We really liked the table but we were too sure about it. I mean $300 is a big deal on a table but the main thing was it was actually the first table I looked at. I didn't want to have buyers remorse.

A sales lady talked to us and told us that all the tables were 50% off!!!!

That's right folks it was $150!

Well we couldn't pass up that deal, so we got it.

I came back later to get the chairs, they didn't have any in that day. But they were 50% off too!!! Can't beat that.

So they came first thing this morning. The boys were so excited to sit in real chairs they had just had breakfast an hour before but they immediately wanted to have a snack at the new table.

Here are some picture.

Please excuse the mess in the background that we call a kitchen. Just remember that we are still a work in progress.





Oh and by the way, the table also comes with 2 leaves. So it can sit 10! Now I won't have 10 matching chairs but I will be able to seat 10 people when the mood strikes me.

Now I just need to find 10 friends here...

Children's Museum and Wild Man's Half Birthday

The forecast for today was thunderstorms all day. So I made plans for us to go to the Dupage Children's Museum.

And of course it ended up being beautiful and sunny all day. Grrrr.

Anyways, the museum was amazing and we all had a great time.

All of the pictures were taken by my phone so they are not the best quality.




The water world was amazing. They actually had smocks that really kept the boys dry. I thought about calling the Murfreesboro children's museum to tell them about them. They had a waterfall area, a stream area, and we didn't even get to the car wash and bubble area.





Here is Wild Man in a wind tunnel he has a pinwheel in his hand and it was flattened so it wouldn't spin. He thought that if he got to the front of the wind tunnel it would make him spin.



Here is Wild Man in the Construction zone. He is sawing with a real saw. This was a little nerve wrecking for me, but he loved it and did great. He sawed through a whole piece of wood and hammered in a nail.



During the boys afternoon nap I realized that today was Wild Man's half birthday. My sweet friend and college roommate, Beth, has a tradition with her kids that I wanted to start in our family. They celebrate their children's half birthday's by baking a cake singing happy half birthday and then giving half of the cake to a friend.

When Wild Man got up from his nap he help to make a chocolate cake with homemade peanut butter frosting. Yum, Yum.

We have met some neighbors who live across the street from us that have 2 boys around the same age as our boys. So that is who we gave the other half of the cake to.

By the way another thing we did to celebrate Wild Man's half birthday was to let him pick out his clothes. Which is why he is wearing a orange stripe shirt and green checked shorts. Wild Man was so proud of himself picking out those clothes.

Happy Half Birthday Wild Man.

We love you and are so proud of the big boy you are turning into.

Church playground

On Sunday after the service, we saw a huge play set inside the church. I have never seen anything like this before. The boys LOVED it. We did like the church but we also did miss our old pastor. But if anything I know that boys will be asking to come back to at least play at the playground.

Here is Romeo trying to climb up it. Mr. Genius and I were a little concerned how we were going to get him out if he got stuck.



Here is Wild Man and Romeo trying to figure it out.



This is just one side of it. It was over two stories high. Wild Man went up it twice. So I think it is safe to say that Wild Man did not inherit JJ's fear of heights.



Also on the ground they had walls of magnet boards with little and number magnets along with all these toys on the walls for the kids to play with.

Even if we don't plan on making this church our home I am certain we will be back to play here.

Sometimes you just want to ask why

Today is not even half way through and it has been an emotional one.

Today Mr. Genius and I wanted to try out Christ Community Church this is the church of my new friend Meagan that I met at the airport. If you don't know this story, you can click here to read it. I have no doubt that God wanted us to meet.

So I have emailed Meagan to let her know I was in town now and was planning on visiting her church the upcoming Sunday. I was a little surprised that I hadn't gotten a response back. I just assumed she was busy.

I know that there are some people that are nice at first and then they just blow you off and then there are other people that you meet and you feel like you have known them forever. I really that I had known Meagan for a long time, especially since we have been emailing before we moved up here.

So today Mr. Genius and I got to the service late and when we were sitting down I was only half listening to what they were saying. Then I heard the name Meagan Ahlstrom and then I heard memorial and then I heard she is in a better place.

So you can imagine my shock.

I turned to the girl next to me and asked what happened to Meagan.

She told me that Meagan and her mom were driving back from Nashville last Sunday and was hit by a drunk driver. Meagan was killed on impact, her mom will be released this week from the hospital.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that God has a plan for everything and I know that He is just, good, and merciful.

But sometimes I do wonder why.

Why let a beautiful 24 year old that was truly living her life for Him be taken away from us?

I can't even imagine what her parents are feeling right now.

Please join me in praying for her family.

I only meet Meagan in person once for a couple of hours and my heart hurts, I can't even imagine what everyone else feels that had a more close relationship with her.

Click here and there are links to learn a little about Meagan and what she meant to everyone around her.


Sorry to be such a downer on Father's Day.

Happy Daddy Day

Mr. Genius, you are such a great dad. Thank you for all your help around here. We are so glad that you will be able to home more now and spend time with us again.

Love you

Finally, someone agrees with me!!

Well it maybe my 3 year old but it was somebody!

For Mr. Genius's birthday I got the boys to pick out a movie for him. Well it was really Wild Man cuz Romeo still doesn't care.

Oh I am dreading the day he really has an opinion, one opinion is hard enough to deal with.

Wild man picked out Spiderman.

Well actually he picked out Batman and we already have that, so we took it back and Wild Man wanted Mr. Genius to get Spiderman.

But that is beside the point.

Back on track now.

Wild Man has been bugging us to watch Spiderman. I really don't want him to see those movies yet. The cartoon one would be fine, I just don't want him to have nightmares.

We are also having to work on Wild Man asking for things nicely. He was doing good then a week with the grandparents and well... we are having to start all over again.

Thanks mom, dad and Teresa so much for watching the boys. I don't know what I would have done if I had them up here with me that week. But lets face it they do get away with more with you guys then with us.

Again back to the story.

Focus,  focus.
 
Wild Man came up to me today and asked very nicely without any persuading if he could watch Spiderman.

I felt like I had to say yes because it was the first time all day that he asked so sweetly without me telling him to say please and say it nice.

So I justified it by thinking that he won't pay attention very long because it wasn't a cartoon.

So I stuck the movie in.

And then this picture came up.



I have always said that this lady looks like my mom.

Usually when I say this people look at me like I have something sticking out of my nose and then go back to watching the movie.

Well Wild Man saw this and immediately says: Look mom, it's JJ!

Me: Yes, honey that does look like JJ.

Wild Man: No mom, it really is. Look at her hair.

Finally, someone agrees with me!!

Seriously though here is a picture of my mom.



Now isn't there a resemblance?

Our kitchen o boxes

Here is our kitchen about 4 hours after the movers left.






Now don't all of ya'll just want to run up here and visit now?

The big move

This move has been extremely stressful for us.

We have no idea what God has in store for us and I am pretty sure that we will not be spending the rest of our lives in  IL.

One thing I do know is that I am already not looking forward to the next move.

I think I will start praying now that the next move will go smooth.

The movers packed up all our stuff and loaded the truck then drove off on June 4th.

We were out of our old house on June 5th by noon.

Our lawyer called us at 5 minutes after 5pm on Friday the 5th to tell us that we will not be able to close on Monday like we thought. Apparently the underwriters decided they didn't want to work anymore.

Wonderful

So we had to call the moving company to tell them the stuff MAY need to go into storage instead of the house on Monday, but we will call on Monday to confirm. We made sure to say MAY need to go into storage because things have changed daily.

Mr. Genius and I packed up our minivan left the boys at my parents house and drove 9 hours to our new hometown.

Monday morning our lawyer called us to say that the homeowners will let us put our things into the garage just not into the house. Since we don't know when we are going to be able to close now.

So we quickly called the movers and apparently they unloaded our stuff on Saturday even though we said we MAY need to move our stuff into storage.

Then the movers said that the next day that they will be able to deliver would be Wednesday.

And then the real kicker, they gave us a quote for the cost of storage.

Are you ready...

Take a guess...

Just throw any number out there...

Now know this, we get a very big discount with Apple...

OK, they told us $2600!!!!!!!!

Isn't that outrageous!

Apparently I need to be in the moving business and make a killing.

So we of course went berserk. There was no way that we were going to be paying that.

And that was how Monday went.

Tuesday we were pushing the homeowners to let us move into the house on Wednesday so we would have to pay for storage anymore.

The homeowners said they wanted a clear to close (whatever that means) and then they will allow us to move in.

After a day of very intense pray, we got the call at 5:30pm on Tuesday that we got our clear to close.

We called the movers to tell them that we got our clear to close and that we are still on for our Wednesday delivery.

I got in the house and waited for 2 hours Wednesday morning....No movers.

I called the movers and they rescheduled us for Saturday!!!!

What the What!!!

Apparently not only do movers try to rip you of every penny you have they think that they are real estate agents too.

Our rep said that in all his years of doing this he has never had someone been able to move into the house early just because we got a clear to close. So he took the liberty to change our moving date to the next available day which was Saturday.

Oh and they charge more for weekend deliveries.

Oh it was On now.

I couldn't talk to them anymore for fear that God would strike me dead for the things I was thinking in my head to say to these people.

So I just got in my car went straight to the paint store and told myself that I was going to make the most of this and paint the boys room.

Um and if the lawyer of the previous homeowners are reading this. Since we technically didn't own the house at this time. I only went to the paint store to get samples. **cough**cough

So we finally were able to close on the house on Friday.

Then on Saturday we got our stuff delivered.

The movers were done at 12:30.

By 2pm our kitchen was already unpacked. The by 10:30pm we had unpacked and set up the boys room our bedroom, den, closets, and laundry room. We didn't get to the office or the playroom. But I thought we did really good for half a days work.

The reason for so much motivation?

My parents were bringing my boys the next day.

So we were trying to make the transition as easy as possible (which is why we were trying to close on Monday and have a full week to get the house ready, but whatever).

The boys did great on the plane!! WhooHoo.

I am glad we had one thing go good that week.

I took a picture of all the boxes we had piled up in our kitchen but we can't find the cord to connect the camera to my computer. Sorry. That will be my project tomorrow.

11 Things I have learned in the past 2 weeks

1. Chicago's interstate exits are not numbered.
They are named after the name of the road you get off on. So you don't know how close or far away you are from you destination... annoying.

2.Don't mess with Wild Man's food.
Wild Man had no problem when we started packing up his toys, nor did he have a problem moving our swing set away. But when I took our kitchen table out at the end of our driveway to sell...Watch out...He totally freaked out wondering where he was going to eat breakfast. Then when our neighbors bought it (Thanks Erin and Mike) and took it into their garage. He asked if we are going to start eating our meals in their garage.

3. Moving companies are a blessing and a curse.

4. Has learned to be a tree hugger overnight.
When you are charged for every bag of garbage you put out but can recycle as much as you want for free. You learn real fast to embrace your inner hippy.

5. Ikea is my new best friend.

6. It is inevitable that when you forget to bring a change of clothes for your potty trained son...there will be an accident.

7. It is more embarrassing for the mom then the bare bottomed child to wait for a change of clothes in the public bathroom.

8. When extremely motivated you can unpack 75% of your home in half a day.

9.The drive from TN to IL through Indiana is the most boring drive in the world.

10. The state of Indiana smells like poop.

11. People in Chicago consider themselves Midwesterners not northerners. In order to make friends I have declined to show these people a map.