Special Delivery.....

Legos!!!!!

Not just any old box of legos but Chris' legos from when he was a child. His parents kept these in their basement for all of these years hoping that one of their children would take them. Chris was a super hyper kid (yeah, shocking!!) and apparently this was the only toy that could hold his attention for hours at a time. When I asked Chris what legos memory first popped in his head his response was "Fights with Mike." I'm sure most of Chris' childhood memories involve fights with Uncle Mike....oh how sweet.

This was Chris and M's first creation of the night....a medieval horse.

Thanks MomMom and PopPop for making Chris' day (and M's)!!!

Chinese New Year (continued)

A co-worker sent this Chinese calendar website to me today. Check it out. I'm a Tiger (roar!!). Looks like 2009 is not a great year from me professionally speaking. Guess I'd better work on that....

The Year of the Ox

This morning we took an impromptu trip to Chinatown to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We enjoyed lots of different dumplings and potstickers, greens, sticky rice, egg drop soup, hot-n-sour soup and tea at the Three Happiness Restaurant. Afterwards we braved the nasty cold weather and took a stroll checking out the shops. We bought some snap dragons for warmer weather. M remembered the bubble drink that she got last time we were in Chinatown during the summer and only wanted one. We looked in every store/restaurant looking for these delicious drinks. Unfortunately, those drinks are really warm weather drinks so we came up empty handed. M settled on hot chocolate...pretty good choice given the weather! We had a blast.

M's Twinkle Performance

Who knew...the flashlight makes a perfect microphone!

Anybody need a sink cleaned?

Chris' grandmother (MomMom) was known for her meticulous cleaning habits---actually, most would say clinically neurotic in an adorable way! My grandmother, Granny Rose, was a clean freak too but not close to MomMom. This is another gene that we recently discovered M got from Chris (well, from MomMom....this gene must have skipped Chris' generation). She can't pass up a sink without giving it a 20 minute scrub!!

Saying Goodbye

This flyer was at one of our local cafes. Seems fitting today!

Fishies

Chris and I took advantage of our day off together by taking M to The Shedd Aquarium. Although we didn't see Nemo (it cost extra...well, it was a free day but they charged for special exhibits and we were cheap) which was a disappointment for M, we all had a great time. M even told me again at bed that she had fun. We then came home, baked some blueberry muffins (yum!!), napped/watched TV, played with blocks, painted a couple of pictures, ate mushroom risotto and fish for dinner, tucked M into bed and snuggled on the couch to watch Season 2 of Dexter. Un giorno perfetto!!

One of those moments.....

On the weekends our local gym has family swim so M can join us in the pool. M loves to swim so we decided to go today to get out of the house. M and I were in the locker room getting ready for the swim. We had just put our suits on and, of course, M needed to go potty. I though this was a good idea so we both went to the little girls room. M had been talkative the entire ride up the elevator and while we were changing into our suits, etc. M continued her observations in the little girls room and while I cannot go into details as this is a family site, without saying more, she observed something while I was standing from the potty and shouted it out loud (well, it seemed like shouting at the time). I laughed so hard (as did the ladies in the next stall and at the sinks) and changed the subject really fast. This was the first time I've had one of those embarrassing moments in public with M. I'm still laughing!!!! Kids, gotta love them!!!

Finding Comfort in the Cold

Another COLD day in the midwest. The good news is that we are having a heat wave (relatively speaking, of course). It's been in the 20's today which is better than negative numbers like we have had for the last couple of days. Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad.....now it's suppose to snow more! Since I'm not engineered for the cold (some people would even go so far as to say I'm a wimp when it comes to the cold), we haven't gotten out much today. Instead, we decided to warm up our insides with some good ole comfort food---Italian style---chicken parmigiano and homemade gnocchi and homemade bread.