Me in Place

Usually it’s our house that’s a zoo, but this time, I decided to leave it to the pros.

Brookfield Zoo was crazy packed on Wednesday - mainly because it was their 75th Birthday this week and they had three days of free admission for kids. This meant every daycare in Chicagoland brought their busloads of kids! But the weather was still grand, upper 60’s and only drizzly at times, and we had a great day.

They had a special ceremony which included about half hour of these guys speaking  - including Todd Stroger and Congressman Daniel Lipinski and then us all singing Happy Birthday to the zoo in English and Polish. Not gonna say SuperBoy didn’t want to quit this asap:

But with this behind us, we behaved for the most part:

Our reward was a free piece of birthday cake (provided by Meijer Grocery Stores in honor of their 75th. They also gave free bday treats to the zoo animals, which fascinated my kids.)

This is for Aunt Laura, who collects Coke things. It’s the Coke Bear! And three kids! What a find for your collection!

The other cool thing was that for the bday celebration, the hot dogs and Coke products were 75 cents. So we ate pretty cheaply. And we got to eat right underneath two cool peacocks were just hanging out. Can you see them?

You pay extra to see the Dinosaurs Alive! exhibit, but it was actually very cool. I had an inner argument with myself as to whether I should be thinking it was so cool - I mean, they’re not real, they’re animatronic, all the signs eluded to dinos and millions and millions of years ago, which, blah, blah, blah - I’m supposed to believe this year has been here millions - if not billions - of years and yet, I’ve managed to destroy it by driving my van to Target and buying aerosol hairspray in the short life I’ve lived? Deep breath…moving along…

The 18 or so animatronic dinosaurs are actually very cool and I would recommend it, especially if you have a little boy who’s into dinos.

On a few of the dinos, you could push a series of buttons to make them move. Definitely a crowd-pleaser:

And of course, the obligatory plastic mold! There was a special series of four dinos.

All in all,  a good time was had by all.

This trip was also the first time I’d been to the zoo without a stroller since I’ve been a mom. It was also the first time I’d taken all three of them by myself because I knew they could handle staying by me and paying attention.

They’re growing up.So bittersweet!

When I saw that someone turned on the air conditioning outside and temps would be in the upper 60’s, my brain came back to life and we embarked on a week o’ fun! Tuesday we used our membership at the Morton Arboretum which is one of my favorite places to visit with kids. I’ll tell you why:

1. They sell Tazo iced tea and good, genuine food (unlike a certain large zoo in the Chicago area).

2. They have open areas for hiking, biking and…uh, hyperventilating on your first 5K ever. (I won’t link to that post, you can find it yourself. Too embarrassing.)

3. They have great, terrific children’s areas. A clever children’s garden entertains for as long as the other grubby children don’t push your children out of the way of the sunflower chimes thingamajig.

4. This summer they have a great Animal House exhibit that is worth it for the kids. Adults probably will enjoy hyperventilating in a 5K more than the houses, but the kids loved them.

Spiderweb:

Overheard today:

7yo: I made Brother turn off his light in his room. Now, are you using this light, Mom?

Me: Why do you care what lights are on today?

9yo: She’s getting into that whole “saving the world” thing lately.

Favorite SuperBoy saying of the weekend: We were waiting for the girls to be done singing in church and SuperBoy was standing with us. He suddenly says, “Oh! I forgot to get the Kid’s Menu!” He ran back and got the children’s bulletin from the usher.

Favorite Book I’m Reading: Reading Julia Child’s book My Life in France. She really was a character and full of joy. The book is great reading and interesting, especially since she didn’t even really get started cooking until she was in her late 30’s. There’s still hope for me! (And you!)

Fortune Update: They didn’t give us fortune cookies with our traditional Sunday night order! What does that mean!?!

House Update: I got started on my annual Summertime Organizing Spree & Garbage Collection. I started with the videos and DVDs and struggled to get the kids to release their tight grasp on movies such as Baby Einstein and Winne-the-Pooh. It didn’t work. But I did come up with better storage for all our treasures. Wanna see?

Aren’t they adorable? I got them from my favorite online store: Sundance Catalog - they were on clearance. Score.

Oh, and by the way, I shouldn’t have said I hated summer. It’s already been brought up in multiple conversations used against me by readers of the blog. Let’s get this straight: I love summer - summer like today…beautiful breeze, low low low humidity, 70-80 degrees. Perfect. Beautiful. Smashing. Kiss, Hug.

I have been on High Alert regarding this week’s fortune. Only two days left…wonder what it could be?

What’s cool about a blog is that you can pick and choose what you post. You can post only your victories. Awesome blossom, right?

But when I post things on here I do it because it’s my life and I like it and I think it’s funny and if I didn’t blog, I’d have more time to do the laundry. I am not in competition with anyone other than my brother who has gotten insanely good at WordTwist lately and whenever I play sports/games, I am very competitive and I am extremely-to-a-fault competitive with myself.

I don’t really care if you know my defeats. You live and learn, right? So here’s one for you. This is the remains of two blueberry recipes which ended in disaster and me buying cookies straight from Uncle Dominic’s on Randall Road to take to VBS instead of “baked goods” - which is what I signed up to bring.

Oh, and one more thing: there is ONE thing I’m very proud of and protective of and don’t even mess with them:

Really, you guys prefer this over nice, beautiful, sparkling, crisp snow? Or beautiful, refreshing, warm spring rain?

Taken from in our car today.

Sorry it’s not been a very posty blog here lately! No excuses other than these:

1. Blogs are intimidating.

2. We’ve been busy. I thought last week would never end! We had some friends over, had a construction job going on in the basement (I even helped! okay, it was only by holding some string up, but still!) and the David Yeager Band CD release party.

3. It’s summer. I always slow down to the speed of molasses in the summer. I hate summer. But don’t tell anyone. I’d get in trouble.

The CD release party was so much fun! Even though I found out after I bought sugar and peanuts for punch and snacks that the church didn’t allow red or orange punch or peanuts in their church. And then a fellow band wife and I each baked up a whole tub of Nestle Tollhouse cookies and then heard there was a massive recall on the dough. We had to dump 160 cookies out the day of the party! Then when I walked into the church to drop off  my armload of cake and cupcakes, the lady greeted me with, “Oh, apparently nobody told you we don’t allow cake in here?” “Um, apparently not!” We were allowed to serve the cupcakes since nobody had told me (and I promised to watch for crumbs), but still…I’m not gonna lie, I was very frustrated by that point! But really, as I’ve been telling Mr MIP for years now, you just have to let me vent frustration for about ten minutes and then I’m fine and done. So, ten minutes later, all was well.

The band sounded great and I couldn’t be prouder of them.

Here’s their site to order your cd: David Yeager Band

What to do with five kids on a long summer day? Tell the girls to see how if they can make the World’s Longest Paper Chain! (And stick the two boys in the sandbox. They’ll be fine for hours.)