a bit about them all (conversations!)

Grey's a walkin man now. A couple weeks ago, he finally decided that walking was the thing to do. He's know how to do it for about four months, I guess he just needed to get comfortable... let it simmer.

This has helped reveal so much about his personality, actually. Now that he can get to places faster, I realize how eager he is to come help me with everything I do. He helps wipe off the kitchen table, he helps me close the back door, he helps me unload the dishwasher, he helps put on his brother's gloves (he snatches them from me and holds them open until a brother puts his hand inside), he retrieves his brothers' milks from the fridge during lunch. And I realize how much he understands. "Grey, can you put this back?" He does. "Grey, let's put the Legos away." He does. "Let's get ready to go." He spins on his heel and Charlie Chaplin's his way over to back door. I love getting to know Grey.

Now, I've been trying to write down some fun conversations I've heard in his little family. I wish I could just record it all but here's a little sampling. (To properly replay these conversations in your head, all R's must be pronouced with an "ow" sound)

Sean: You guys are so picky!
L: Pinky? No we are so handsome!

D: Mommy! Look at this!

Katie: Wow, that’s so neat!

D: No, you just say *gasp*. Mommy! Look at this!

Katie: *gasp*

D: Dat’s right.

D: Hey jumper three.

L: No I four now

D [whine] he’s three!

Katie: Can you do nice things instead of hitting?
D: Nope.

Katie: Why can’t you be nice?

D: We need to be fighting all the while.

L: Holy Moley!

D: [giggles] Holy Moley!

D: Where are we going?

Katie: We’re going home.

L: We’re going to the EYE! Ha ha, the eye! Dash, the EYE. Ha ha!
[Liam does this all the time, replacing the last word of a sentence with the word "eye." So weird]

L: It’s a really big carousel like this huge! [holding arms wide apart]

D: This is the biggest cheese EVER

L: X, you don’t belong here

D: You can share wid me on da rockin chair?

L: [shakes head]

D: But why?

L: I want to be on the couch.

D: Okay.

L: What comes after Sunday?
Katie: Monday.

L: What comes after Monday?
Katie: Tuesday.

L: What comes after Tuesday?
Katie: Wednesday.

L: What comes after Wednesday?
Katie: Thursday.

L: What comes after Thursday?
Katie: Friday.

L: What comes after Friday?
Katie: Saturday.

L: End!

D: [playing a board game as Grey approaches] Here comes trouble!

L: What are you making?
D: Pancakes.

L: I’m making pancakes too. I’m making bad pancakes! Are you making bad pancakes?
D: No! I’m makin good pancakes!

L: Bye airport!
D: Bye airport! We’re going to fly!
L: We’re going to fly! Bye Florida!

D: Bye Florida! We’re going to Minnesota!
L: We’re going to Minnesota!

L: MOMMY! An umbrella! [holding an apple with the top half of skin still on]

Katie: It DOES look like an umbrella!

L: And now I’m eating the umbrella

D: You need it up on your head! When it rains!

L: Brown bear brown bear, what d’you see? I see an yellow duck lookin at me.

D: Dat is correct.

L: Yellow duck yellow duck what do you see? I see an purple cat lookin at me. I correct.

L: That is all your pilot?

D: uh… uh… no!

L: One more pilot?

D: Yes!

L: what is your one pilot?

D: Jesus!

L: I like Jesus!

L: I’m in Florida so I need to go back to Illinois now.

D: We were in Florida for a long time.

L: Are we going?

D: Uh, yes.

L: I got it fast! Are we flying now?
D: Uh, yes. Only three ones.

L: I got my ticket! We need to hurry! We need to hurry really fast!

D: I found my ticket. It was in here.

Walker Art, on the inside.

Wanting to actually go IN the Walker Art Center, rather than just the sculpture garden, I looked up the price and saw they have regular free afternoons- sounds like a good price to me! Going to art museums with children can be pretty tricky, I just have to realize I'm not going to be able to pause and ponder, we just keep on moving. We pretty much saw the whole place in an hour.


There was a bunch of neat, interesting, creative displays. All three kids loved the ordinary objects, like hamburgers and vacuums, made gigantic out of fabric and stuffed loosely. I really like this wall with the saying "I can do hard things" (or something, maybe it said "can't"?) traced by warped nails. I didn't take many photos, since I was holding Grey most of the time, but what can you do.


Then there was the giant wall of windows. I get a little sad that our new place doesn't have the big low windows that our Texas house had, which photographically translated to brilliant sparkly eyes.


So I took some brilliant sparkly eye photos.


And that was my art for the day!

Vacation Revealed

You know how you go on vacation and want to blog and facebook and instagram about it as you go but then you'd be telling the whole world that psst, my house is going to be unoccupied for a whole week- come take whatever you'd like! And even if you did, nothing would happen. Probably. But if it did then you'd kicking yourself for a week. Totally, me too. So now that we're back, I think we're safe.


We were in Florida! Staying in my parents lovely new home, taking dips in the hot tub, NOT WEARING A COAT (except sometimes), going to theme parks, not cooking, playing outside, enjoying The Elledges (so much cousin love), Sean not working. What a good week.


Now we're back to super sub-zero temps and it's so mean. So we'll warm ourselves by the sunshine through the window. While I catch up the blog on the eight gajillion photos I have to share. You might have to wait a few posts until I get to warmer climes. Fair warning.

hipster glasses

These kids make a birthday girl smile (29!)

Weird Kid

Magic Spaghetti

A funny thing happened the other day at dinner. We were happily slurping our pasta when one ended up atop Grey's head!


Then, what a coincidence, a noodle draped over Liam's noodle!


Could it be? A third spaghetti hat worn by Dash?


Gasp. Not Sean, too?!


Even me? That's one magic spaghetti!

Frozen Toys

When it was wicked cold a week ago, we tried some freezing experiments, among them, freezing our toys. we learned that ice forms on the top first!


After we left them out all day, we got to excavate out their toys. Admittedly, letting them stab it with a butter knife wasn't the best idea.


We transferred to a towel for fine chiseling.


Grey learned that ice is a tasty treat.


Dash realized just how cold ice can be.


And Liam learned not to wield a knife when a brother's face is in the way.

Grey and His Spoon

The Chomp


The Scrape


The Baton


The Jabba


The Reverse Lick

For the record, Grey's 15th month stats: 21.0 lbs (between 5-10%, they didn't write the percentile down), 29.1inches (4%, I remember that one)

Group Hugs

some like 'em


some don't.

Chilly Chilly

The day before I was born was the coldest day in Chicago's recorded history. -27 degrees with wind chill in the -60s. So you'd think I'd have some built-in thick skin for this kind of weather. But no, I very much don't. With a high of -12 tomorrow, I think the kids and I will just stay home. Sean doesn't have that luxury, hospitals don't close on account of weather, now do they? But it's not always quite this cold, sometimes it's warm enough to sled!

Grey needs some convincing. This is his "why are you doing this?" face.


But his brothers are excited at the prospect of a little winter fun!


Fun indeed! Until snow gets on their little wrists and we call it quits. (Now I've fixed the glove gap problem with some makeshift sock inner mittens, ha! Longer sledding is in our future!)

Blog booking

Finally, FINALLY, I've made some more blog books. 2010 and 2011. It's taken me about a month and half to put it all together (Blurb is the best option I've come across and, still, its book-making program could definitely use some tweaking), squeezing it in whenever I had a bit of free time.


Sometimes this here blog would suffer- I'd spend all evening formatting pages and transferring in old blog photos and content, then realize I hadn't done a real post that day. Slap a couple photos in and call it good. Funny thing, letting our present suffer as we focus on the past, there's a lesson in that.


But I'm so happy to have these two books. Everything in that book was something we've created- the words from my fingers, the photographs from Sean and I, the subject matter our family. It's just so special.


Look, Liam's found his first photos! How easy it is for him to look through his past.


And they're still cracking themselves up. Dash was laughing at a face Liam made as a six-month old. I think when we have some more financial wiggle room, I'll get a copy for each child. Just thinking of that makes me so happy.


Now I just have to do two more years and I'm all caught up! Ha. But really, it'd be nice to have Grey's life accounted for. Two more books, here I come!