Long grove chocolate festival

We started off the day with a "healthy" breakfast.  there are apples in the apple donuts, right?

 took a ride on the train

 and even cajoled Madden into a ride at the end of the day.

When josh wasn't running away from me, we also got to check out the ducks, and ride his first horse.

 and finally ended the day with more apple donuts a la mode.  mmmmm

funny stuff josh did today

took out four rolls of extremely large wrapping paper.  I was in the next aisle at Michaels craft store and he comes walking around, so proud.  They must have been twice his  height.  I was surprised he could get them out and wasn't encumbered by them at all.

Later we stopped at portillos for lunch.  I must have been thinking about something else when I realized he was making out with the window! All kinds of kissy face noises and the mouth print to prove it.  I wonder what the people outside thought.  Later he was flirting with a little toddler girl.  Waving and saying hi.  Her father told her to sit down and eat her lunch. 

Finally on the way home, I had the radio on and Josh was carseat dancing, á la Will Ferrill and Chris Kattan from Night at the Roxbury. Not even exaggerating.

It's moments like this that really make me happy I am home with him.

I'm singing in the rain

Probably due to all the rain we've had recently, josh confiscated ny umbrella for his own.  Needless to say girlish sunglasses are my limit so we bought a black umbrella later in the day.

Waiting in line at the grocery

I've learned lately that to keep tempertantrums, Josh needs specific tasks.  This morning started early, about 4:30 when Josh woke up probably from a nightmare and climbed down from his rocking chair, and walked to our bed and climbed in.  He doesn't sleep still, so we were pretty much up since that time.  Normally we are trying to get out of the house by 9AM, but were out of the house by 7:45.  Barnes & Noble (read: Thomas the Train table) doesn't open until 9AM, so we killed a little time by going grocery shopping.  At Trader Joe's they have these cute kid-size shopping carts.  All the groceries went into Josh's cart so he could feel important...and mine stayed empty and sad.  Kept Josh happy though.  And yes, he took a quick (unusual morning) cat nap after gymnastics.

Happy passover

Getting the house ready for passover...



Update: I wanted to include a picture of the Seder plate.  The first time I had all the necessary items!  Very exciting.

Park

what a beautiful day...we decided to spend some time at the park with Colin and his family.

Painting

Another rainy day a activity. I am starting to believe well never have spring.

Children's Museum

Mother Nature refuses to cooperate and give us some great spring-y days, so I have to make do with what I got.  Today we went to the Children's museum.  (We had a BOGO coupon from our Botanic Gardens membership!)  There are always so many things to check out, I feel bad that we don't spend all day here, but Josh has got to take a nap.  I need my quiet time, so I can do important things like update the blog!

We checked out the cars and the music room for sure, but I seemed to take a lot of pictures at the pretend Potbelly's.  For those of you who don't know, or remember, Aunt Sara worked here during college, and it's a requirement to visit when she is in town from California.  (Much like Steak n Shake is to me when we go to Bloomington, but I digress).

Sandwich going through the oven

ringing me up

 in this picture you can best see the Potbelly smocks the kids can wear when they are pretending.

cleaning up.

Nature center

In an effort to make our week more cohesive, we checked out the Wildwood Nature Center in Park Ridge.  We went to a new story time yesterday and they are doing an animal theme for the next five weeks.  I told Josh as he went to bed last night that we would go to the zoo today, but Brookfield Zoo and Lincoln Park Zoo were just too far to take a toddler in the car, without fear of him removing his socks and shoes in boredom. So I got on the interwebs and found that they had a feeding time here, and my favorite, it was FREE!  The feeding time we almost over before it started, but the activity/art room was great too. Josh really liked petting the bunny, guinea pigs, ferret and snake they brought out.  He was fascinated by the half dozen turtles, and when recounting our day to Dad at night, reminded me of the fish too.

putting on my sunglasses before we left the house

Pixie the Bunny

 He was so proud he could get  into this seat, and called it by the right color too!

Bikerider

Josh really does love to ride his bike now that it's not blistering cold.  His feet don't both reach the peddles at the same time, but that doesn't deter him.  Oh, and he's really good at putting his sunglasses on himself these days too!

Happy birthday jared

we celebrated Jared's 32nd birthday with an ice cream cake, that Josh loved blowing out the candles.  He wanted us to light them several time so he could blow them out.  Great practice for his birthday in two months.  However, I don't know who's child he is because he didn't want to EAT the cake.

Haircut

We got Josh's haircut again and I couldn't resist having them spike it up.  It didn't stay up for long, but I love it!

Video of Josh

Just like dad

He loves anything with pockets and made jared stand just like him!