Happy Halloween?

This Halloween was more challenging than the last few.  But in the end we have some great memory moments that outweigh the challenging ones.  Having two mobile kids who both have opinions and need attention leaves us feeling stretched in any activity or crowded events, but especially hit us this year around Halloween.

Our trick or treat times actually began two weeks ago.  It led to two late nights of mom sewing hems for ironman and repairing a butterfly hat early in october.  but it was nice to have their costumes set and ready, long before the actual halloween.

Harry, 15 months, Truck or Treat 2012
Wheaton, IL

We took the kids and met friends at a well run even out in the suburbs.  I was not feeling well, like basically sick on the couch the two days before.  So why would I drive the boys 40 minutes west, on a friday night with costumes?  Because I still can.  I am very conscious this year, as I apply and work hard to find a job, that I may not have too many more holiday and family nights where my schedule is up to my energy and effort and not a business clock.  I was grateful, even feeling icky, to take them to touch trucks and snowplows, meet super heroes and run around.

Halloween weekend 2012 began early with the annual Oak Park Halloween parade.  Its actually a two block long walk, followed by way crowded stores getting hounded by hundreds of trick or treaters.  but its always fun to meet up with friends for a kid photo. and nice to have harry in the shots this year.

Oak Park, IL 2012 Halloween parade

The parade morning was the first time where the harry/jude demands hit us. Jude wanted to keep up with his friends but harry needed a chance to walk/toddle/fall, out of his stroller.  Which means he moves 2 miles an hour and turns around a lot.  Greg and I tried to split the parent duties but we were unprepared to make coordinated communication decisions early on a cold morning.  Eventually we figured it out and both boys had some fun moments.  at one point butterfly harry was mobbed by several women from the local nail salon with cameras.  He seemed to take it all in stride.

Halloween itself began with a visit from Grandma Carole and Grandpa Chuck.  We took Jude to his preschool for their 'parade' and trick or treating.   The weather here is cold and windy. and the parade proved to be a freezing, frustrating trip around campus.  Jude wanted to go home and so did we, but we stuck it out to trick or treat a few offices.  Eventually letting the grandparents and harry sit in the warmth while we visited another building.  We are really happy with jude's preschool experience and the love and encouragement his teachers provide. But the group outing was a lot for us and the baby.

after recovery time the 'actual' halloween began...or so we thought.  somehow jude kept saying halloween only started at night and got teary eyed when we told him, this IS halloween.  yes four for jude was a challenge today.  he refused to put on his costume and happily passed out candy instead.  eventually he joined harry and kara outside, but not in a costume.  fortunately ironman jude reappeared for our trip the garfield park conservatory.

ironman meet snake, creatures of the night
garfield park conservatory 2012

We had a great experience with a halloween outing about 4:15pm. usually we are inundated with trick or treaters, so it was a nice change. and what a cool time we had.  garfield park conservatory, on the city's west side, brought in live animals amid the plants and water.  jude held a snake, touched a bat, saw a wolf up close, held a millipede, and looked at many other creatures.  even harry got in on the fun.

Harry, 15 months, Garfield park conservatory
Halloween 2012

We ended the night with an early dinner at Inspiration Kitchens. This amazing spot is right down the street from the conservatory.  The restaurant provides economic opportunity through job training and even housing for people from the neighborhood.  can i just mention how amazing the food was again?

glad for the fun memories and glad some of the halloween challenges are over.

Happy Halloween from the oak park baby and the millers.

I is for intrepid

The millers recently took both oak park babies to the big apple.  We went to celebrate a special friend's 40th birthday but also to expose our kids to the city where greg attended college and where he and kara met.

leading up to our trip we enjoyed the New York ABC''s book.  It was fun to read about the brooklyn bridge and the museums and to enjoy jude referencing the book for landmarks he saw during our trip.

our new york "guidebook"

Jude knew ahead of time that 'I' is for intrepid and that is where they have a space shuttle. Kara took our space loving boy there first thing after our arrival.

I is for Intrepid sea air and space museum

Turns out the intrepid museum has reciprocal admission with chicago's museum of science and industry.  so our visit cost only a few dollars for several hours of sites.

space shuttle enterprise

Kara didn't realize til they arrived that this shuttle was used for low atmosphere testing and training, so its not a space flown vehicle.  but it was still amazing to see the size, especially compared to four year old jude.

the shuttle on the intrepid.
much larger in person than expected

we also spent an hour or so looking at the various planes, walking through the carrier and visiting a submarine.

jude on the uss interpid museum flight deck.
he wanted a photo with the missiles

the sub was particularly cool given mommy's new obsession with the abc show 'last resort'.  this one is quite a bit older however.

jude in a cold war submarine, uss interpid museum

we found a great deal on a two bedroom apartment on central park using airbnb.com.  the booking process had a few hitches with a few potential scammers trying to get us to book. but in the end we found this great space. and the family has a little boy so it came with a crib, kids books and toys.

our NYC 2 bedroom

we enjoyed the quiet and having a kitchen to make breakfasts, most lunches and even dinner.

improvised bath tub for harry

One of the things we loved about living in NYC in our 20's was the surprising experiences you would just run into. I remember one time seeing snow on the sidewalk in the summer and then realized they were filming a movie.  On this trip we came across the line up of amazing floats for an octoberfest parade.

amazing octoberfest floats

we passed them on the way to meeting old friends at the central park zoo.  we spent a bit of time with the animals before heading over the children's zoo.

central park zoo

yes there is water around these 'lily' pads. and yes, jude got wet.

central park zoo children's zoo

the highlight of the trip was the surprise reunion of our nyc small group to celebrate our friend dawn's 40th birthday.  a small group is a group of several couples or families from a church who meet during the week to encourage each other and study a book of the bible or book on spiritual matters.  we hadn't seen each other in years but quickly connected.

old friends greg craig and brian

dawn's husband, the amazing cyrus, organized the entire surprise weekend.

the surprise worked

when we had our small group only one family had a child.  we've grown quite a bit in the ensuing years.

some of the kids

we arranged to meet at an apartment and get the kids set with sitters.

group shot

jude was excited to play

the grown ups headed off to yummy dinner at the four seasons.  what an amazing meal and amazing company.

dinner at the four seasons

happy birthday dawn!

birthday cotton candy

new york city was a treat for all of us.

music and adventure

Some of you know greg plays guitar quite well.  although jude would cry as an infant if dad pulled out his old violin, he tolerated guitar playing.  well now jude has his own guitar, thanks to a recent toy sale for charity.

little boy and his red guitar

greg checked it out at the sale and realized it can actually be tuned.  jude learned one chord in his first playing adventure with dad.
little harry was also quite interested in dad's music.

harry checks out the guitar

Another recent adventure was a trip to the River Forest fire station.  For fire safety week they opened up the engines and ambulances for the kiddos to check out.

all aboard the fire truck

jude is not a kid who loves costumes.  but he will wear a fire hat while we are actually at the station.
i always bring them home with high hopes because i think dress up sounds fun. but inevitably they sit unused and unworn in our playroom.

junior fireman jude

This year they also had a fire safety traveling house where jude watched a video about how to check his door in a fire and how to get out of the house safely.  hopefully he'll never need to know this but glad he got a chance to learn it early.

a treat for trips

a quick note about my new favorite snack for our adventures.  I buy them ahead of time, and at $3 it is usually cheaper than buying treats at our destinations.

the Disney Foodles Crunch Paks (Foodles) come in mickey mouse shaped trays.  we can usually find one with grapes, apples and cheese, or apples, cheese and pretzels at our local store.  

Disney Foodles Crunch Pak

I've taken foodles to museums all over chicago.  I also find they are great for airplane rides.  The mouse tray is a fun treat for jude and the cheese is pre-cut into bite sized pieces.   now if only they'd make one with chocolate and wine for me.

harry napping at MSI in the stroller

The other big news about oak park baby adventures is that harry will nap in the stroller.  we never had much luck with jude.  but i admit we tried to be home for most of his naps anyway.  

a few times a month jude and i enjoy an adventure or park while harry snoozes in the bugaboo.

sleepy baby!

I still use my nursing cover as a 'shade'.  I figure harry is very used to spending time looking at the reverse side of that pattern.

happy adventuring!

mission to mars

jude at nasa goddard, md

the millers are on a mission to mars.

we are all experts on the mars rover after watching way too many Youtube videos with jude.  my four-year-old future astronaut is obsessed with curiosity's trip to the red planet. the more i learn the more proud i am of american engineering and the amazing ability to land a car sized robot on a planet at least 50 million kilometers away.

but it was an earthly adventure to the museum of science and industry which sparked jude's obsession.  msi has an earlier mars rover visitors can drive with a joystick.  but key for jude is the 10 minute video showing it landing on mars. greg took him solo one day and let jude spend 45 minutes watching the show over and over.  the rover obsession expanded to all things space.

satellite with robot arm

every block of wood or tinker toy becomes a space shuttle with booster rockets that blast away or a rover.

imagine his excitement when i told him an actual rover was landing on mars this month. that led to a trip to msi to see the life size model of curiosity. http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/life-in-space/

the boys with curiosity's twin at Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago

Its just gotten crazy.  we now follow the rover on twitter @marscuriosity.  For awhile jude asked every morning to watch mars rover videos on youtube.

grandma nancy knew about jude's space obsession.  she took us to nasa goddard during our recent maryland mom and boys trip.

NASA Goddard

they have several delta rockets. and where else can you picnic by rockets that have made trips to space?

harry enjoying space toys at nasa goddard

nasa just announced a dinosaur track from a nodosaur hidden near the sidewalk at goddard.  really-- they couldn't let us sneak a peek when we were there?

harry meets the rockets

like many obsessions this one ends badly...with a tattoo.

ok its a temporary tattoo. so i guess we'll celebrate jude's temporary obsession with space for a bit longer.  thanks for journeying with us.

its a grind

in other medical news, four-year-old jude made his trip to the teeth doctor.  we tried a new dentist recommended on a local online mom community.  this dentist was a great experience for mom and jude.  harry got to miss out and stay with a sitter which may have added to mom's positive experience.

jude at the dentist

turns out new dentist's kid attends same preschool as jude.  he encouraged me to let jude run around and explore his offices before we began the visit. he wants it to be a positive experience.  dentist also does not fill cavities in children there, instead they go to a pediatric dentist. from what i hear that could be less positive experience.  did you know some dentists now use mini straight jacket type restraints on young patients?  so glad i never had this happen as a kid. yikes.

back to jude. his hygienist was helpful and friendly.  jude breezed through the cleaning. he was excited to pick the flouride flavor- strawberry- but less excited about actually holding oversized goopy trays in his mouth for a few minutes.

time to pick the flouride flavor

unfortunately we learned that jude is grinding his teeth. the dentist said its more than he likes to see for a 4 year old.  but because he is young there is not much they can do.  i admit i thought jude's teeth were still growing in. didn't realize some of the shape is him grinding them down.  i'll have to research this online more when i get a free minute.  oh wait, that doesn't happen very much.

afterward the dentist i got to take jude on our first trip to chuck e cheese.  not too crowded in the middle of a weekday.

chuck e cheese reward

after some pizza and way too long watching the show which i'm surprised to say was too soft to actually listen too, we played a few games before heading home with a clean smile.

birthday boys

we are all tired and happy here in oak park after celebrating baby harry's first birthday party today!  our little man is one!  more on that tomorrow.  but first we need to share two things...or the mommy guilt may overwhelm.

mommy's laptop is back from dell.  it is on the mend but not completely fixed. the laptop loss has taken a  toll on time to blog and we temporarily lost access to our photos.  i am sorry for not keeping up to date with you but wanted to explain.

second-- i cannot blog about harry's birthday without first reporting on jude's big day (see above about mommy guilt).  he turned four in may.  as readers know i had an amazing time watching everything come together for his event.  so let me remedy the delay now. i promise to share harry details tomorrow.

come with me back to may when dinosaurs invaded our backyard. along with a bounce house.

birthday boy

it was triceratops vs t rex on the cake.  i pulled some ideas from a circus cake on parents.com.  here in no particular order are the top ways i learned not to mess up a cake:

1. circus peanuts

those cheap candies make great boulders or blocks on cakes. the peanuts also made a great support for the frosting waterfall.

2. food spray paint.  

i coated the boulders with my other new favorite cake decorating product- food spray paint.  it made them look old and the rest of the cake have grass.

birthday cake wars: triceratops vs t rex 

3. the crumb coating

after minutes of expert research online i learned the magic of crumb coating the cake.  bake the cake then freeze it. pull the frozen cake out and spread a thin layer of frosting over the entire thing.  work fairly quickly or it may thaw and get more crumbly.  put the crumb coated cake back in the freezer.  later you can take it out and put a thicker, pretty frosting layer on it. it sticks like glue and tiny cake crumbs do not get into your pretty frosting layer.  also when i frost i now run the spatula right off the top edge a little, leaving a glob of frosting.  then i smooth the globs straight down the side. it makes a nicer top edge.

dinosaur cake after candles out and wishes made

note, party hats are very popular with the four-year-old set. i was unprepared and only had a few grabbed from our storage box. there were tears.  don't let this happen to you.

jude's triceratops party had guests digging for fossils.  i found a great kit from lakeshore learning DinoDigKit.

digging for fossils!

for jude the most popular activity was the bouncy house.  the picture below shows how and his two friends from preschool spent most of their time.

wrestlemania

we had a quiet book corner with stories on dinosaurs (thanks oak park library). this is also about the only picture we captured of harry that day.

and then there is the pinata. learn more about how amazing finding this green and orange triceratops was in the earlier post here:  the pinata story   it was a hit!

one of the cute moments came just after kids had their turn to take a swing.  jude's friend owen told his mom this was the best birthday party ever! (probably because at three and four, most of them haven't seen a pinata, let alone been encouraged to hit something really hard with a stick with the goal being to break it!)

dino bites

we also served pizza and tyson dinosaur nuggets.  to boost the health factor i added a big bowl of apples, some grapes and carrots to the table.

it was a fun day for our four year old.  he is still enjoying the generous gifts and fun memories.

now for the hardest part-- opening the packaging on toys