Sock Hop

This week Carter's school held its annual Sock Hop. Jared had to work late and I wasn't too keen on the idea of taking 3 little boys by myself so I decided to get a sitter and take Carter on a date. (Shhh don't tell him I called it a date... he really didn't like that word... am I really that embarrassing already?!?)

So, for our little Mom & Me night we got decked out in our make shift 50's duds, went to McDonald's for a cheeseburger and headed to the Sock Hop where we enjoyed root beer floats, a hula hoop contest and lots of dancing. I think Carter may have had more fun running around with his friends than dancing with his mom but I managed to steal several dances.

I'm not sure what Carter thought a sock hop was but when we started getting ready he was really apprehensive. He didn't like the idea of getting dressed up and when I made a comment about it being a dance he broke down. He said he didn't want to dress up and he didn't want to dance because he would be embarrassed. Well it didn't take long for him to change his mind once we got there. It was so fun to be able to spend some one on one time with my little monster, something I intend to do more of!

Detroit?

We are gearing up for our upcoming move to Detroit. (Jared will do his residency there so we will be there for the next 4 years.) I am not excited to move again - I feel like I am just starting to get settled here, but such is life. What can we do but make the best of it! At least I know that after this move I won't have to move for 4 years!! (That will definitely be a record). We went to Detroit this weekend to get a feel for the city. I had never been there and I haven't heard great things about it. So in order to get a better feel for which suburbs we would like to start looking for a place to live we decided to make a quick trip there. (Although we can buy a house downtown for five hundred dollars we decided our safety is probably more important than being able to pay cash for our home.)

I have never felt so self conscious about my car then I did while I was driving around Detroit, and this coming from a girl who drove a raper truck in high school. See exhibit A:

I'm not sure the picture does it justice... it really was a hideous little pick up truck.

I think the entire time that we were there we only saw like 20 foreign cars... they were all American made!! Really?!? I didn't know people still bought American made cars... jk. It was interesting to see so many American cars. I guess it's because the economy of the area is built up around the American car industry, it only makes sense that people would want to support it. Jared said he felt like people were glaring at us in our Toyota Sienna. When someone wouldn't let him into a lane he commented, "it's probably because I'm driving a foreign car!" Perhaps if the economy were different we wouldn't have been so self conscious but pretty much I felt like I was driving around with a big banner on the side of my car that said, "I don't give a darn about you and your failing industry." I imagine it will only be worse when we move there and have to put Michigan plates on our Toyota! Looks like we might have to buy a new car...

We also decided to contact our realtor to see if he would be willing to show us a few homes that we had found online. There are quite a few foreclosures in Detroit so we thought we would take a gander at a few to see if this is something we would be interested in. Jared's pretty handy so we thought maybe we could fix something up... Two words: Absolutely Not!! The houses we saw were sooo nasty... rotting roofs, mold, animal urine, human feces... I can't even describe how awful these houses were, and the smell that eeked from them was something fierce! When we got to the 4th house Gage turns to Jared with his nose plugged, "Daddy, is this one going to stink?" Well at least now we know. Foreclosures aside, Detroit isn't as bad as it is made out to be. But then again we spent the majority of our time in the suburbs, pretty far from Detroit proper.

Not Irish!?!

So St. Patty's day was probably the warmest day we've had here since last October (I think it got to 60 degrees, not to worry it quickly fell back to the 30's). Our neighbor came over in the morning to see if Carter was wearing shorts to school. Carter's response: "Um, no. But I'm wearing green, are you wearing green - it's St. Patrick's day." The neighbors response, "No, I'm not Irish, I don't celebrate St. Patrick's day...pause... just Christmas and Easter." I think Carter was a little confused because we celebrate Christmas and Easter... and a lot of other holidays in between. I thought it was pretty funny, who knew you had to be Irish to wear green on St. Patty's. We don't go all out for this particular holiday (or do much at all for that matter). We didn't have green milk or pancakes like a good mom would have done, I didn't make corned beef and cabbage (I've never even eaten the stuff)... But we did wear green. Carter had fun at school talking about Leprechauns and rainbows and gold... Carter and Gage have since had to hide all of their treasures for fear that the Leprechauns would steal them.... we've even had a couple Leprechaun sightings while driving around town... oh to be a kid again!

Just For Fun...

Here are some recent pictures of baby Cam. He'll be 8 weeks on Tuesday, where has the time gone?!? We sure enjoy having this little guy around, he is such a good baby. He is the only one in this house that doesn't talk back! He gets more than his fair share of loves and kisses... although Gage has taken to abusing him as of late... yesterday he socked him one right in the stomach! It looks like Gage needs a little more one on one time this week! We wish we were closer to home so that we could share Camden with all of you!! He's getting big fast (not that he was ever that small)... I'm sure he's at least 13 pounds by now, what a little chunker (he weighs in with all of the 4 and 5 month old babies at church). He is smiling a ton and has started "talking" to us - so much fun! I'm even surviving with 3 boys... as long as I don't try to go anywhere with them!!

Artsy Fartsy

Jared had the day off Saturday, yeah! (That's rare for us folks!) We went to the Art Museum for a cultural experience. Carter went with his school class a couple months ago so he was our official tour guide. We had so much fun! There were a lot of amazing pieces, Picasso, Monet, Warhol, and a lot of really fun modern and contemporary pieces. The boys wore out long before Jared and I . We managed to find enough fun stuff to keep them entertained, they lasted 3 hours... that's longer than we stay at the children's museum. (Probably because we have a pass and can go back anytime we like). My favorite part was when we were walking through one of the exhibits and this guy walks up to me, motions to my boys and says, "you have 3 beautiful pieces of art here." I think I was self conscious most of the time and interpreted the stares from fellow museum guests as, "why are you here with all these little boys!" Who knows, maybe they were just admiring the art. (ha ha) Needless to say it was a welcome compliment.

We got caught in the rain on the way into the museum, hence Cam is wearing my coat. You gotta love going to the museum on a rainy day. The architecture of the art museum is pretty spectacular, it is a piece of art in and of itself.

Gage thought this one looked like balloons. Once he got close enough to see that it was blown glass rather than balloons he took interest in the spider crawling on the floor rather than the art. Boys will be boys!

This was a fun piece titled "Overstimulated." The TV screens were changing so fast you couldn't see what was on them. I thought it was pretty creative. The picture doesn't do it much justice.

Carter says, "That's not art. It's just a shovel and some dirt!"

The boys had a lot of fun trying out all of the different chairs in this exhibit. They were all different and they really got a kick out of trying each one out. It was great because it was something they could touch!

Carter and Gage really liked the glass cases with armour in them. They even got to try on some of it, see the picture of Gagers below.

Playing "I Spy". Our tour guide (Carter) showed us some fun things hidden in this piece. The art docent even came by and played with us.

Staring contest.

One of the exhibits had a bunch of magnifying glasses so that you could really see all of the detail in the pieces of art (they were paintings of animals). It was pretty amazing but we found an alternate use for the magnifying glasses. We were pretty entertained. *keep in mind we were trying to keep two little boys engaged and out of trouble!

* You'll have to excuse the poor lighting on so many of our pictures... flash photography wasn't allowed. Hence the blurry pictures.

What do you do in the winter time...

...when you live in Wisconsin and it is nasty cold outside?? You go swimming! Last weekend we ventured up North to escape the cold. Up North you say? Of course... don't you usually head North in the winter to escape the cold??? Well you do when that is where you can find an indoor waterpark resort that maintains a balmy 84 degrees. It was just what we needed... a weekend of warmth. We pulled out the swimsuits, shorts and flip-flops and I felt like I was in Arizona once again. Saying that Carter and Gage were excited is a bit of an understatement. The boys dragged their dad from slide to slide to slide for hours upon end while I sat and enjoyed baby Cam and my book. Jared finally tag teamed me and although I was hesitant to reveal the amazing post baby body that was hiding under my swim cover I decided to let loose and have some fun. The resort is right on Lake Michigan and so we had a beautiful sunrise to wake up to... oh wait you don't really get a sunrise in Wisconsin most days with all the cloud cover, but the view of the Lake was still beautiful. The boys didn't get much sleep as they were eager to get back to the water park. They woke up before 7:00 and 9am couldn't come fast enough!

Side Liners.

I really enjoyed sitting on the side watching the boys play, reading my book, and enjoying the warmth.

Unsuspected knivery... Carter is a little monster! He led me right into the waterfall.

Cam content sleeping in the stroller - he slept the whole day.

Carter's fave... I think he lept across these lily pads at least 50 times... no joke.

This is how we do discipline at our house.

I think we wore them out!!