Pete the Penguin Would Be Proud.

Uncle Aaron is having a great season pitching for the YSU Penguins. Hopefully I didn't just jinx him ... Check it out!

Grandpa is Special ... "Because He Runs Around in Circles"

Today is Grandpa David's Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA! What a super grandpa he is. Here are some reasons that La thinks Grandpa is so special:

And a few photos of the birthday boy himself! La has always been "grandpa's girl."

Happy birthday Grandpa from La, Bro and me!!! As La would say, we love you to the moon.

Sneaky (and stinky) Feet

This morning, for whatever reason, we were running late and I instructed La to pick out an outfit and some shoes. She picked a stunning green Polo dress and some pink leggings that matched the little horse appliqué on the dress perfectly. Nice touch La! Way to notice the details! I helped her put the clothes on, and then came the shoe-picking ritual that we perform each morning. You should know that La has A WHOLE CLOSET full of shoes. And she is EXTREMELY indecisive. She often tries on 10 or 12 pairs before "settling" with a pair. This morning's ritual went like this:

Me: Okay, go ahead and pick a pair of shoes. I think you should wear these lovely sparkly pink shoes.

La: No, thanks. I think I'll wear my shimmery princess boots.

Me: Oh, you're right. Much better choice. What was I thinking?

La: And then I'll bring THIS pair and change into them at School!!!

Me: Bad idea.

La: No! It's a great idea! Katie does it all the time!

Me: Well, if Katie jumped off a bridge ...

La: I NEEEEEEDDDD to bring extra shoes MOM!

Me: No. We are not starting this shenanigans.

La: Grandma let me do it when she took me to school.

Me: GRANDMA? Well, Grandma doesn't have to deal with the daunting task of getting you ready every day. Plus, this is just one more thing that I'll have to deal with when we get to school every morning. I'll have to sign you in, get your snack out, sit you down at the table, remove your coat, remove your SHOES, take them BOTH back to your locker, and then remember to put the other pair of shoes on your feet before I leave. Things could go terribly wrong. Mommy can only remember a limited number of things each morning, and this will put me over the limit!

La: Fine.

Me: (begins to chase Bro around the house to stick him in his crate)

Then we left. And I noticed that La had SMUGGLED an extra pair of shoes out the door with her. They were hidden under her left armpit. Talk about SASSY!

The Cheese to my Macaroni

La has a new favorite movie. And so do I. It's called Juno, and I think I'm the last person on the planet to see it. If there exists a reader who has not seen this practically-perfect work of art: GO RENT IT (Grandma Fern: Before you add this to your NetFlix list, I think you should be warned ... I'm pretty sure you'll appreciate the dry humor of Juno about as much as you appreciated the raw, unfiltered emotion of Crash when I made you watch that with me ... just a warning).

I have now watched it 8 and a half times. The first two times, I watched it sans-La, but the third time was Friday night, and I was having some of my girlfriends over, and we all wanted to watch it. La was there, so I let her watch it with us. It's rated PG-13, which means La has 9 more years until she's technically supposed to be able to watch it. But, for some reason, I disregarded that and allowed her to watch it (and by "watch" I mean steadily stare at the TV screen and bat at me to leave her alone if I so much as kiss her cheek ... "MOM! STOP! I'm watching MY MOVIE!!!"). And then we watched it 5 more times together. We actually watched it this morning before we left for school/work.

Last night, I was walking up the stairs with La and we were discussing chocolate:

Me: I think we should have eggs for dinner tonight

La: I think we should have chocolate for dinner tonight

Me: Maybe we can have chocolate AFTER dinner

La: I don't want DINNER!

Me: It's breakfast for supper ... It's your favorite, La

La: Are you talking like Juno to me, home-skillet?

All I can say is, as far as daughters go, La is totally boss.

Glamorous

La spent 30 minutes trying on sunglasses at Banana Republic over the weekend. I think she resembles a certain hotel heiress in the photo above. Should I be worried?

Shake it up Baby

This morning around 4:40 am, I woke up to Bro standing at attention with a worried look on his face and La muttering about a lion being in the house. I thought it was strange, but La fell right back to sleep and I was able to get Bro to calm down too. Then I found out today that there was an earthquake at about 4:37 am. I would have never known. I guess I sleep like a rock.

This whole quake thing reminds me of the one that shook up the rockin' city of Cleveland last summer. La was in the bathtub at grandma and grandpa's house when it happened. We looked at each other, and La was like, "Whoa, what was that?" and I was all like, "Oh it was probably just a massive explosion or something. Don't worry about it" ... Which is when my dad ran outside of the house like the neighborhood crazyman and accused the 6-year-old neighbor boy (who was shaking in his boots after just experiencing an EARTHQUAKE) of throwing a football at our house. Way to go daddy-o.

Have you ever seen a bee with sunburned knees?

No Comment.

Has anyone else noticed that the only 2 comments my precious little blog has ever received were both from my 76-year old grandmother?

Thanks Grandma Fern. I feel the love. You're so techy too!

Isn't she the cutest? Gramps, you're not too bad either.

I told her she should do her hair like this and she'd be even cuter. She didn't buy it.

M's New 'Do

So my already-ADORABLE little sis — a.k.a. Aunt M — got a VERY SASSY new hairdo. Which has brought her "hotness" level up a notch (as if that were possible). It's such a cute haircut that it makes me want to pat her head, squeeze her cute face and then kiss her nose. Except that would be weird. So, when I saw it, I just told her that I wanted to fold her up and put her in my pocket and take her around with me all day to show her off. Is that also weird? Here are some of the compliments she (may have) received:

• Wow! You look like a totally hip non-mommish Katie Holmes!
  
• I love it! I love it!
  
• Man, I didn't think you could get any hotter, but you did.
  
• Damn. That's a nice haircut. Really brings out the HOT in you.

Here are some ACTUAL (non) compliments she did receive:

• Don't worry, it'll grow back quickly (kind words from a Cafeteria lady at the children's hospital she works at)
• I always thought you should get your hair whacked, but I never told you (another kind co-worker)
• Whoa, what happened to your hair? (I made that one up)

But the best one came from the soon-to-be orthopedic surgeon that M works with ... the tall one with wavy blonde hair and glistening blue eyes. The one that's bilingual and is great with kids. The one who grew up on a ranch in Colorado. The one M has a slight crush on (which I'm SURE is mutual) ... His compliment came when he was walking past a room she was hanging out in at work. He did a double-take as he was walking by and came into the room to tell her that her hair looked AWESOME and then proceeded to pull up a mini-chair and sit next to her at the mini-desk and distract her as she wrote complete gibberish in some poor child's medical chart. Isn't that the cutest?

Way to go new hairdo! Roping in the hot doctors!

A Weekend at the Castle

La and I had a fantastic weekend up north with Aunt M and Granny Lin. We went up to Milwaukee to visit relatives and hang out at our aunt and uncles ultra-rad 25,000 sq-ft abode. Their place is really stinking awesome. We did all sorts of fun stuff ... like sit around and watch TV ... sit around and read books ... sit around and drink expensive wine ... go shopping ... And, oh yeah, we also ate a whole bunch of really yummy Wisconsin food including:

• Lots of Real Wisconsin Cheese
  
• Cousin's Subs (our favorite)
  
• 3 kinds of Lasagna (Mexican, Traditional and Veggie which was covered in to-die-for Alfredo Sauce homemade by Aunt Kat)
  
• Chocolate-covered Cheesecake
• Apple pie
• Tom-lets (which are omelets made by the master omelettier himself, uncle Tom)
  

It was THE PERFECT WEEKEND (aside from the 5 pounds I gained and a small over-the-phone tiff between my dad and I regarding motor oil - I guess there's no need to mention that little dispute or the fact that his older brother (thanks Uncle Mark) was inclined to call and apologize FOR him ... It's over ... We've made up ... We're friends again. Note to anyone intending to pick fights with me in the near future: I HAVE A BLOG. OTHERS WILL KNOW. Love you daddy-o!) 

Another great thing about this past weekend was that La was a very good girl the whole time. She used her manners, said funny stuff that I wish I would have written down, and was just all-around fun to be with. 

She got to see her two best cousin pals:

She also got to sleep in "her bedroom" (also known as the "French Room"):

And, she got VERY sad when she and I got bundled up to take the golf cart down the winding half-mile driveway to get the newspaper (our little tradition) and then had to get unbundled when we discovered that the golf cart was still in storage. Bummer.

La Knows Her Presidents (at least some of them)

ice-SCREAM

Last night it was only 50 degrees outside, but we felt the urge to jump-start our "spring" with a scoop of Bobtail Ice Cream. Bobtail is an old-fashioned ice cream "parlor" that's right up the street from me. Delicious! And, they only charge $10 per scoop. I love this town. So affordable.

We brought Bro along so he could stretch his little legs, and thought we could chain him to the bench outside of the store like another dog we saw on the way. Side note: Upon seeing this dog, I should have stopped Bro and pointed out how said nice-dog-on-leash-behaving-himself was acting while his owner was inside picking up his dry cleaning. But, I just walked past and thought to myself "Little Bro will act exactly like this docile creature and wait patiently while we go inside to get our ice cream." Not so.

When we got to Bobtail, I tied his leash to the bench and walked inside. Which is when Bro decided to go ballistic and bark at obscene decibels, jumping up and down, acting as if he was being eaten alive by an angry gorilla. Which forced me to leave the store muttering about my "insecure runt of a dog" to go sit on the bench by his side during his time of need ... Thankfully my friend P was with us, and she took care of the ice cream situation. Let's just say our little outing would have gone a tad smoother had we brought the stroller and NOT brought the dog. 

But, would it have been as exciting? I think not.

Cloud 9

La and I went to Tarjay the other night with aunt M and somehow walked out of the store with these fancy-shmancy new cloud jammies. La has now worn them two nights in a row and tried to con me into letting her wear them to school today.

Under My Umbrella

Notice anything about the ground on this rainy day? Yes, those are tulips beginning to wake up from their long winter's nap. Hallelujah. It's SPRING in Chicago!