Swingers.

Chasing Shadows.

Recently at the park Allister noticed his shadow for the first time. I missed the best part, where he was so frustrated that he couldn't "shake" it lose! It was so funny, here is a little clip of his chasing away!

He loves his dog.

Naked Babies :)

Puddles.

Its been way too rainy here lately for my liking. Being couped up all day is just no fun with two active little ones, so between showers, we donned our boots and headed out to the puddles!

We all needed a bath and a change of clothes afterwards!

Weed.

Harrison is seriously growing like a weed right now. I look at him and see him grow! Matt and I measured him a few months ago and he was 40" tall. Today he wanted me to do it again (Harrison not Matt) and he was 40 1/4 inches. That's like 3ft 4 1/4. I'm sure I was like 9 when I was that tall! Well maybe not 9 but not 2 going on 3 that's for sure!

Claire

Sent from my iPhone

Gobbledygook.

I had no idea gobbledygook was a real word till it came up in my spell check! Funny!

Anyhow, sometimes Harrison starts talking complete nonsense, or gobbledygook.

The other day at school, we were waiting for the doors to open as we were a little early. He starts saying his gibberish.

I said "Harrison what are you saying?" and the lady next to me told me he was speaking Japanese!

It had never occurred to me...

Harrison best friend at school is Kenju, he is Japanese. The school is probably at least 30% if not 50% Japanese kids, they have a Japanese minister, and teach English for the Japanese parents and children. I guess he hears a lot of Japanese all day long!

Weather his Japanese is real of not, I have no idea!

Its all gobbledygook to me!

(PS- Our school is accepting donations for the Japanese disaster, the Minister was actually in Japan at the time of the earthquake and Tsunami, and many of the families have been directly affected. I don't know about you, but I feel better donating when I know for sure the money is going to a real cause, and to help people with a direct relationship to some of us here. Let me know if you'd like to help.)

Lookalike.

This is one of my favorite photos of me as a child. Especially as it includes Auntie Jules and Uncle Gary!

I was probably around 18months here, making Gary 3 and Jules 4 1/2.

I thought it would be fun to see if I look like my boys:

I think Allister and I look allot alike! What do you think?

Accidents happen.....

Boys oh boys.

Some weeks, heck, some days, we have several owies, boo-boos scrapes, scratches and falls.

Allister is at that age where he falls allot, he is trying to reach new heights and attempt things his brother can easily do.

This is the vents of the past few days.

Allister falls in the play-ground while running too fast down hill.

Result: Scraped up bloody nose.

Allister climbs on a little toddler size chair, falls off flat on his face.

Result: Bruised cheeks, he looked like he had blusher on in purple! Two little rounds right on his cheek bone!

Allister falls, randomly when we are not watching.

Result: Bites his lip, its bleeding.

Harrison puts his hand on the door frame while getting out of the car seat, and I close the door. (OMG this was so so so close, I feel so so bad when I think of this!!!!!!)

Thankfully his hand is on the part where the rubber seal meets the window where there is no metal frame, so the glass has some give and the rubber too.

Result: Lots and lots of tears, and hugs, no bruises or breaks! (Thank God!)

Harrison pulls the fan down that is in Allister room, on top of himself and Allister.

Result: Scraped tummy and cheek. No tears on this one!

Harrison plays with the soap, and gets it all over his hands, in his eyes and everywhere!!!!

Result: Lots of tears and sore red eyes. And a big lesson that soap is not a toy!

Allister falls off the chair on the porch.

Result: Tears and hugs.

That's all the ones I can remember form the last few days, that resulted in more than just a few tears. Oh apart from this one.......

Harrison pushed Allister and he face-planted on the carpet:

Result:

Looks worse than it is! I saw the blood and freaked, but it was bath time and so I realized that Allister had a little rug burn, and his scab from his previous fall came off and he had rubbed the blood on himself! It all washed off ;)

Boys are sent to test our nerves that's for sure!

Vroooom!

Unmeasurable cuteness.

Spring time fun.

Now the weather is finally warming up again we've been hanging out in the garden and on the porch.

The boys love the fresh air!

Bubbles :)

Two can ride on this rocket ship!

Thanks Nana and Evan :)

I guess we will be having lots of fun this summer.

A boy and his dog.

We were outside playing this week and every time I looked over Allister was sitting right next to Guinness. If Guinness got up and moved, so would Allister.

Too cute!

Out on the bikes with the boys.

One to embarrass them with later in life......

Kids will find the funniest things to play with. The old story about having more fun with the box than the toy itself is so true! But this is a new one on me.......

Yes its a tampon. Sorry guys!

Harrison and Allister fought over it after Harrison found it in my bag, apparently its a super fun toy!

Feel free to hate me for the humiliation later in life boys!

I love you :)

More Chicago.....

I found some photos we took on our iPhones Saturday night at Lou Malnati's.

This is Matt's photo of me and my Pizza. I see what part was more interesting, the Pizza I mean.

Greg and Hannah in some dodgey pub.

The art work on the other side of the room was a lot more naked!

Wine!

Deep dish Pizza.

Yum!

For those who haven't had Deep Dish its completely different. The crust is more like a pastry, its made with Buttermilk I think. It does up the side of the pan like a pie, then they full it with the goodies, veggies, sausage whatever. The cheese goes on top and then the sauce.

A trip to the park.

These photos are from Allister's first proper trip to the park. We are going to have such a fun summer now Harrison and Allister are old enough to play together! Allister started walking at a perfect time to enjoy everything :)

Boys and their sticks.

Boys and Boo-Boo's

When you have boys you know that you are going to have lots of tears, bruises, scruffs and scrapes!

Allister fell the other day and hit his head, right near his eye. It drew blood and almost had me at the ER! Only because it was so close to his eye ball I couldn't tell at first if it was his actual eye or right near his eye that was bleeding!

Boys test our hearts all day long...poor little thing.

I guess he closed his eye right at the right time! He hit his eye right on the corner of a cabinet. I'm so glad it missed his eyeball, I hate to think how close this was.

A weekend away.

For Matt's 30th Birthday I got us a hotel in Chicago! Grammy and Pooh-Bah agreed to watch the boys for 2 nights and Matt and I went on our way for our first time away from the boys.

It was A.MAZ.ING.

It was so nice not to have to worry about waking up for the boys (even though we were up super early both days anyhow!) and naps, and being Mummy and Daddy.

The drive up was fine, till we hit rush hour traffic just outside Chicago. It took us like 3 hours to go the last 15 miles! Every turn we tried to take downtown had roadworks and was closed, then a double length bus got stuck trying to turn a corner in front of us and no one could move.

Then we had a "railroad crossing experience!". All I will say is if someone tells you "don't pull onto the railroad track unless its clear" then that's what you should do.

That's all I'm saying about that.

Once we checked in we cracked open our bottle of champagne courtesy of Auntie Jules!

Blurry iPhone photo!

Then we headed out to Lou Malnatis for Chicago style Deep Dish Pizza!

It was awesome, and oh so filling! I could only eat 1 1/2 slices of a small pizza, so unlike me :) The wait was 1 1/2 hours when we got there, we had dinner at 10:30pm in the end, but I managed to get a seat at the bar and we drank and talked to some guy at the bar who was on leave from Iraq, his wife was still there, they both served as Lawyers for the Army.

It was a fun night :)

The next day we both decided to run along the Lake, it was a beautiful morning, and the highlight of our trip. Of course I didn't run WITH Matt, but we took the same path, and he caught me up on my way back. I managed 5.86 miles, the longest I have ever ran, it was just such a wonderful morning I could have kept on and on! Most of the photos of the lake and city I took on my morning run.

We caught up with Uncle Greg and Hannah and they took us to second city comedy club. The show was awesome and just as funny as you'd expect. We ate out lots, drank a little more than we should have, and did lots of sight seeing, wondering and hanging out! These photos are in reverse order of our trip because Blogger is stupid.

The Chicago Art Institute.

Millennium Park- These are fountains which squirt water from their mouths in summer time. The faces change all day long, and sometimes its a fake waterfall.

The bean. A huge sculpture in the park, everyone takes their photo in it, its the in thing to do in Chicago!

The view from Uncle Greg's Groupon office.

More Bean.

Inside the Bean. I have no idea if this thing has a real name?

Ok- I Googled it- Cloud Gate.

The start of our run.

Photos from my run.

We had a really good time, it was such a wonderful city and it was nice to be a couple again!

Harrison and Allister were missed, but they had a great time hanging out with Grammy and Pooh-Bah! Thanks again guys :) You are amazing for taking them on!

We got the biggest hugs when we got home, which made the trip even more enjoyable. Harrison wouldn't leave my side all day for 2 days, or let me out of his sight. He keeps telling us that we went to "Costco" for our trip. And that daddy ate a giant bean, then we came home to Harrison's house and Pooh-bah went to pooh-bahs house.

I bet you didn't realize all this fun could be had at Costco!