My 5-star sleepers

Apparently when you have a baby here, you're given a gift certificate for a free night at the Crowne Plaza. I think this is a little mean. If you have a newborn (probably nursing several times a night), can you really enjoy a night away? Well, our friends' baby is no longer a newborn, but she's still throwing their sleep schedule into a very sad state. So their gift certificate wouldn't go to waste, they generously offered it to us. We were quite happy to go spend a night away and have a trial packing run for our vacation in a couple of weeks.

The boys favorite part was riding the mini-bus to the airport for dinner.


My five star sleepers - conked out after a long day on a very soft and comfortable bed.

Nap time has been a bit of a question mark in our house lately. Xavier is in school, so he doesn't get one except on Wednesdays and the weekends. Most of the time he wants/needs one and still doesn't have any problems going to bed at night. School wears him out! Ezekiel on the other hand is bordering on not needing a nap. We've starting biking to school to burn up some extra energy and on nice days the boys go outside to play with daddy while I make dinner. If he doesn't have a nap, he's a crabcake by dinner and not a very pleasant child. And those are the days that he doesn't just pass out on the couch as I'm setting dinner on the table. On the other hand, we have days like today.

10:30pm - Xavier passed out (been this way for hours)


10:30pm - Ezekiel watching daddy cut chicken for tomorrow's night dinner. Looks sleepy, doesn't he?

In case you thought that was a sleep deprived grin

As I'm posting this, it's 11:00pm and Ezekiel's still as chipper as ever. I have a feeling I'm going to find him passed out next to the Thomas trains that he's going to start playing with as soon as we fall asleep. Good night!

ATypical Day In Our World

So, what do tigers, Princess Belle, a man wearing an inflatable woman, and FIRE all have to do with each other? How Xavier spent his Friday afternoon at school, of course! Today was Xavier's Carnaval, a celebration of the beginning of Spring. There was a parade around school and through the parking lot. The preschoolers had the theme of "circus". There was a circus train, lion tamers, tigers (Xavier), elephants, and of course clowns. We were kinda short on memory on our camera, so you've just got pictures of our little tiger and his friends. The elementary students got to choose their own costumes and I was amazed at how many Belle princesses I saw. There were all the typical Halloween costumes too - babies, gangsters, knights.

Xavier with his best friend Aidan


Some of his class and the preschoolers watching the fire


Xavier's teacher the tiger trainer and some of the preschool lion tamers

The parade ended with a ceremonial burning of a 3 meter clown. Apparently, he represented old man winter and now that he's gone, Spring can come. I'm all about Spring and I've heard of this tradition before about the new year. What I wasn't prepared for was the very stong winds (WeatherBug has a picture of a tree falling over on my desktop) and the closeness of the kids and the school to the fire. Now that I've seen it done, the fire wasn't that big, but half of it burned outside of the fenced area and I'm choosing not to think about flying burning pieces of paper. The preschoolers were removed from the fence and taken back several feet before the clown caught fire, but the elementary kids weren't. I also saw one small fire extinguisher. Now, I never had kids in school in Illinois, but there were so many red flags going off in my head that this would NEVER happen back home. So, you tell me - have you ever had fire (on purpose) at your kid's school?

Waiting for the fire


FIRE!


Xavier's view on his playground. I wish he could appreciate it. But, Ulysses did and now you can too. :-)

Bon Weekend!

Cars, Cars, Cars!

Warning - LOTS of pictures!

For the past several weeks, there's been an international car show going on in Geneva. I remember seeing something about it in the news last year, but I was kinda tuned into Geneva by this point last year. Anyways... Since Ezekiel is obsessed with cars, we decided it might be fun to go and have a look. We had no idea what to expect, but the 2-3 hours I had anticipated was definitely not enough time for our boys. We will probably go back again next year on a day with no other commitments so we can stay all day.

When we walked into the arena, there was lots of displays of car products. Car care, accesories, car washes, etc. We didn't know what was coming, so we probably spent too much time here, but the boys had a blast.

The boys got to sit in and "drive" a real race car. Yes, that's a car model on top of the car. I'm sorry I didn't get a better picture of her.

The boys each got to chose their favorite car to get their picture with. Besides every car, Ezekiel loves orange and Xavier love blue, so viola! Here's their favorites. :-)

Big wheels keep on turning... They're actually hiding from a guy with a big plastic head passing out biscuits (that's cookies for all you Americans out there).

Their favorite parts - standing in the car wash and watching the video of the car wash (Yes, they're a little screen deprived without a TV in the house!); riding on the street sweeper; and watching the fish used as decoration at one of the booths.

This was all before we went upstairs. They were ready to go at this point, but we wanted to at least peek at what else there was.

When we got upstairs, we entered Ezekiel's dream. There were thousands of cars that you could sit in and drive. I got in trouble at Mercedes-Benz for letting Ezekiel push buttons, but none of the other dealers seemed to mind. The only trouble was, by this point we'd already had a very long day (we went after Xavier's final swimming lesson). But, the boys still had fun for at least an hour until Ulysses had to go back to work and I couldn't keep up with them in the midst of the huge crowd.

I just took one picture of them each driving. After getting in trouble, I tried to keep a better reign on the button pushing. Ezekiel is not happy with me that he had to take his eyes off the road for his picture.

Right before we left, we saw the latest model of Grandpa's "cool car" so of course we had to have our picture taken with it!

The main point of the car show is for all the car manufacturers to show off the latest features in their cars. The boys were pretty impressed with the DVD players that stow inside of the passenger and driver's seats.

Finally we headed to the basement which was set up with video games for the kids. The boys loved "playing" Mario Cart on the Wii, even if their car didn't really go anywhere. They were too short for the remote to pick up what they were doing and I didn't have clue.

Any Suggestions?

We've decided that we are going to take our first trip over Xavier's Easter school holidays. There is a Thomas Land in England that we want to go to for the boys and Cadbury World for me. We're debating on going to London this trip, but not sure how to fill 2 more days in the Birmingham area if we don't. Do you have any suggestions?

Quotes and Pics

Sometimes life with a three and four year old is just fun. The things they say crack us up and sometimes it very hard not to laugh because they're dead serious. On that note, here are some of the things overheard in our house lately.

Today we watched The Fox and the Hound. As it started, I realized that this movie might be a little too scary for my sensitive boys, but it was started and they didn't want it to stop. They weren't afraid of any of the gun shots, Ezekiel couldn't wait for the bear scene that he had seen in the previews, and none of the chase scenes got to them. The part that was scary - when Tod and Vixey were falling in love. As they were walking through the forest, all starry eyed and talking about 6 kids, Xavier says "this is scary." Oh my. Do commitment issues really start at age 4?

A few months ago we lost our electricity. We were completely unprepared. After about 30 minutes I went across the hall to try to ask our neighbors if we should expect the outage to last hours, days, or what. They offered us a candle and then told us to keep it when the electricity came back on. Today, Ezekiel asked us what the "magic light" was doing on the table. We were confused and asked him what magic light. He said, "the one from our nice neighbors from when the lights were not working." Do you keep magic lights in your house?

At dinner a few months ago, Xavier started choking on a piece of apple. When he was done coughing, we asked him if he was okay. His reply "Yes, Mommy. It was just trying to catch up with the rest that was already in my tummy." We talked about chewing all of food together so none has to play catch up.

Ulysses has just about finished our new kitchen cabinets, even with all of the help that he's received.

Finally some pictures of swimming lessons! His teacher let me stay as an exception, (Xavier was not wanting to go in) but I learned why they ask the parents to stay out. Xavier was more concerned about me and was ignoring his teacher the whole class. This is Xavier going down the slide head first and then they swim under water through some hula hoops.

My little hoodlum. We just love Ezekiel in this hat.

In Illinois, I was part of a Meet-Up group. If you haven't heard of their website, you should check it out. I met some great families and they were really great about sympathizing with me in my unknown time frame transient state of living. Well, they sent me a care package this week that included Illini hats and a wonderful photo album of some of the meetups that we attended. It was very sweet and had great timing. Thursday was a rough day, but their package and knowing that I haven't been forgotten really made me smile. Thank you!

I hope you all have a had a great week!

Tuppence a Bag

We haven't really had anything exciting going on lately. We've settled into some nice routines and life just feels normal. But, here's the pictures I've taken lately.

I heard on the radio that since we've had such a harsh winter, the birds are starving. They said we should go feed them. Well, the boys have been begging to do just that and we had a stale bag of foot loops, so we headed to Lake Geneva to feed the birds. I don't have any great pictures because the birds were pretty much attacking. I think they are starving! We found a place where the boys could throw bread over a railing to the ducks and geese. As they threw, the birds were swooping down and catching the pieces mid-air. We'll probably go back again with some more cereal. That was easier for the boys to throw than stale baguette.