Site Title

I just love my kids.  I just went to kiss them goodnight before I put Carter in his bed (and then wait for him to wake up 5 minutes later, and snuggle in with him on the couch) – and Emma is sleeping in her ballet shoes and Zach in his t-ball shirt.  They were exhausted today and Emma had no nap and I was planning on putting them to bed at 7; but then told Zach he could watch the first little bit of the White Sox/Twins game that he had been talking about all week, and then had to let Emma watch her "I'm a Ballerina Now" movie from the library (that she dances along with… soooo cute!) and they were both having so much fun I didn't have the heart to make them go to bed after the 15 minutes I had told them they could have and they didn't crawl in until 9.  It was not an early night but it was a fun night – I love their little personalities.  (I did try to take a picture but was thwarted by a full memory card and the fact that the beep of erasing pictures to make room would wake up Nate who has mock boards in the morning and who would be in utter disbelief that I was taking pictures at this hour.)     

So it's been a couple of weeks and I am finally getting around to posting about this!  We took a pretty spur-of-the-moment Memorial Day weekend trip to Nauvoo when some people in our ward offered up some cheap lodging that offset the price of gas – and it was wonderful.  We were able to stay in a modified pioneer house in between the boot shop and the print shop on Main Street in old Nauvoo – making it possible to pack up the kids in the jogger and baby bjorn and walk to everything except Carthage.  Except for some rain the morning we arrived, we were blessed with great weather – not the 85* in the forecast (Emma wore the same not-matching jacket I threw in last-minute with every outfit, and I ended up buying Nate a sweatshirt at Wal-mart while we were there because he hadn't packed a jacket) but it was great.  It really is a "beautiful city" like it's name – and it was neat to be there and feel a little closer to the sacrifices the early church members made.  It is one of those family vacations that makes me smile just thinking about it.  Everything except the bugs in the house.  (it's a long story… at least they were only gnats, and they were dead, and there was a vaccum.)  I put a photo album of our pics from the trip on the sidebar (none of the bugs… but the first one is a view from the front porch of the house where we stayed – you could see the temple sitting there!)  

Can you tell that we went to "free Thursday" at the art center today?  This sticker started out on my shirt…  I didn't notice it till I laid him down.  The art center was quite an adventure… they were showing the works of Roman Signer, a Swiss contemporary artist who uses ordinary objects as art.  Try convincing a 3 and 5 year old not to touch a ball under an umbrella, a bike tire in a cement block, or whiskey bottles swinging from the ceiling – all right in the middle of the rooms.  Like I said, an adventure – all in the name of appreciating art.

For my birthday several years ago Nate gave me a wipe-off calendar that I just love.  It is my solution to being too clumsy to own a palm pilot or an iphone (besides the fact that I'd drop it, I've also just never been interested in one… Nate can't believe I reject such wonderful technology!)  I am lost each new month, however, until I've wiped off and re-wrote the days and our plans.  So tonight I was changing the calendar, and as I was wiping off May I realized I was wiping off Zach's preschool days, never to write "Aldrich" on the calendar for him again!  (The last day of school was a little crazy and so it's taken me until now to get nostalgic…)  I can't believe he will be a kindergartner this fall.  He is super excited, although he told me he is glad for summer vacation so he can play baseball all day and not have school while the weather is nice.  But it is crazy – as I erase the days from the beginning of the month I can't believe so much time has passed since then – Emma's dance performance seemed like yesterday and it wasn't long ago Carter was only 4 weeks old!  In my wiping away of months Zach has gone from a baby to a kindgergartner – and before I know it Emma will be one, and so will Carter!  I am always amazed at how quickly time passes.   (the photos are of Zach's wonderful teachers and his good school friend Nick, and one from the first day of school – hasn't he grown?!)

So tonight when Nate was mowing the lawn before a busy night of studying Emma lost a marker (without the cap) way under the fridge.  Trying to be helpful and give Nate a break (since he already had detoured on the way home to retrieve the baseball mitt Zach had left at the park), I put Carter down and started to slide the fridge out when all of a sudden I hear a hissing sound.  I ended up interrupting Nate's mowing so he could discover I'd somehow made a hole in the hose that takes water to the fridge, shut off the water so we didn't flood the kitchen, make a trip to Home Depot, and repair the hose (all with the nicest attittude, what a guy!).  I successfully turned what would have been a two minute favor into a two hour ordeal.  Not helpful.  

Doesn't it make you smile, too?

Tonight was Emma’s last dance class, and they let parents watch the second half for a little “performance”. Emma was a little sad in class last week and it carried over for a little bit today – but she actually told me tonight she liked dance better than baseball (which is saying something!) so overall I think she had a lot of fun. Enjoy our little ballerina! (double click on the picture to make it play)https://adamsfamily.typepad.com/the_adams_family/files/MOV00715.MPG

Nate took Zach and Emma to Zach’s preschool’s carnival Saturday and came home with this, which the kids have dubbed “the blue booger” (gross.) They throw it as high up on the wall as they can and then throw things at it to get it down. Nate and I both remembered getting these sticky hands (and the similar wall-walkers) from our cereal boxes as kids – and yes, they are as much fun as they ever were. For all of us! Whatever happened to cereal prizes… oh wait… they don’t put prizes in the cheap generic cereal. Bummer.