Vacay in PA

In May, our family traveled to Pennsylvania to visit our dear friends and our children's godparents ("Padrino and Madrina"), Brandon and Corene, and their children, Jude, Abigail and Ezra. As I was still suffering from pregnancy sickness and since "it's the dad's job" anyway, Gabe drove all the way to (and from!) Pennsylvania. The boys were able to eat, sleep and read en route; Gabe to do none of those things; and me, to eat, pretend to sleep and read no more than a dozen pages. Road trips: Ya gotta love 'em. (Many thanks to Cousin Stephie for loaning us her family's portable DVD player; it killed a few miles!)

Pig with apple.

We all spent a couple days and a night at Brandon's parents house, which is "out in the country." They live in a beautiful wooded development, which was nice and quiet, and we all enjoyed being spoiled by them. I don't think that Corene or I did any cooking, and we were treated to a delicious steak, grilled tuna, grilled garlic bread and artichoke dinner our first night there. (I'm sure that there was more food on the table, but my memory is having trouble stretching back two whole months.) The food was very, very exciting, and the quiet setting was so relaxing. Thanks, Ann and David!

Manny and Ezra enjoyed playing with -- what else? -- rocks in the front yard.

Jonah, Ezra, Abigail and Jude, all feast on Kid Cuisine at Grandma's house. Hey, a vacation's not a vacation without a little KC.

Grandma (Miss Ann, as our kids called her) also has a sandbox-in-a-tub. This idea is so fantastic that I now have two of these boxes o' sand at our place in Chicago. Miss Ann, however, has blue sand. I can't compete with that.

One of our excursions was going to the Army Corps resevoir and feeding the carp. Yes, that's right, carp-feeding. They eat pieces of dog food, turning into a writhing mass of slimy green scales and gaping O-shaped mouths. The carp also like to splash their slime-tainted water all over when they get really excited about their meal. It's truly disgusging, but the kids love it. Below, Brandon and Corene try to make sure that the little ones don't fall in. (They succeeded, thank heavens.)

Here's some fun video, so you can get a taste of the experience. Just make sure to keep your mouth closed -- flying water!
I'm pretty sure that the Swishers don't consider a visit to their place to be official without a visit to the Berkey Creamery, the ice cream shop on the Penn State campus. It's okay with us if a stop at the Creamery is mandatory.

Brandon single-handedly entertains five children. Nice job, Padrino.

Manny ran away. Thanks to Jude for chasing him down. Watching Jude carry my younger son was a little nerve-racking, but really quite sweet.

Many thanks to our dear friends for opening their home to us! We all have very fond memories of our visit with them and can't wait for the next time that we get to go back, whenever that may be. We miss you, Swishers!

The little garden

I was thrilled that our peonies were kind enough to hold off on blooming until we returned from Pennsylvania and Michigan. Also, I'm thrilled with the new camera that lets me take closeup photos. And thrilled that my son seems to love flowers. All in all, it's pretty thrilling around here.

Game time

The Swishers, our children's godparents, introduced us to the Chicago White Sox Kids Club about a year ago. Said Kids Club allows us to attend a baseball game for free (along with sending a poster, baseball cards, and temporary tattoos), which further cements my loyalty to the Sox and my disdain for the Cubs. On June 10, we were able to attend the Sox - Tigers game, which was the dream matchup for my husband. Of course, watching the game with two young kids is a much different experience than enjoying the game without the munchkins, but we're both thrilled to be instilling within our children a great love for the American pasttime.

Manny, who spent almost half of his in utero life in Michigan, couldn't decide which team was worthy of his adoration. He finally decided to cheer both, suiting up with the Tigers cap and White Sox shirt. (Recognize the cap, Gaspards? You were so sweet to send it to Jonah last year.) Jonah's our south Chicago boy and had no qualms cheering for only the Sox, regardless of his father's ancient loyalty.

Somebody hit a homerun, which the Sox always celebrate with fireworks. Manny, lover of danger and loud noises, gave us his sign language sign for "more." "More fireworks," he demands.

This picture fairly effectively captures the personality differences between our two boys. Not that Jonah doesn't know how to or enjoy having fun, but Manny really knows how to have fun.

Hey, not a bad picture! One of us looks directly at the camera, the other two have their faces turned in the camera's general direction. I'll take it!

This is a much more typical example, though, of what we get with our boys in the frame.

Baby pool

Have I mentioned yet how much I love having our new backyard? A yard in which we can actually play? Hmmm, I probably have. And now that it's warmer out, we're able to get out the water hose and fill up the pool a bit. Mind you, the boys don't actually play in the pool; no, no, they're far too busy caring for the plants and playing with the hose water. Well, whatever keeps them happy.

Jonah also likes to line buckets up. These days he insists that anything that is in line form is a train. Things like the heat radiators in our apartment and buckets full of water. This child lives on trains.

Practicing baseball. Here's his pitching form.

While Jonah loves to run thru the hose spray, Manny much prefers to stick his hand in the stream and spray himself in the face.

Hey, he asked for it. Quite literally, he did.

Happy Birthday, J-Bird!

I still can't decide if it's hard to believe or not: It's been three years since Jonah rocketed into the world, 3 minutes till midnight on July 4, our "joke" due date. ('Cuz who ever thinks that their first child, a boy, will be born 11 days before his due date, on a holiday? It was a joke 'round our place, evidenced by the fact that my hospital bag was only half packed.) I say that I can't decide because it seems like there was hardly a time before there was Jonah in Gabriel and my married life, though I do have fond memories of our dating, engaged and married life, all not-quite 3 years of it, before Jonah was born. At any rate, it's been three years of the child known variously as "Jonah-Bean," "The Jonah Owl," "Senor Impaciente," "Mr. Poop," which morphed into "Mr. Poo," and , currently, "Little Bear" or "J-Bird". Considering my pregnancy, the extent of our summer travels and the fact that it still sort of seems to me that we "just moved," we opted for a lower-key celebration this year, inviting just a few mom-friends and their offspring over to our place for play, lunch and cake. The party managed to be fun without being crazy (at least that's my interpretation of it), and Jonah thoroughly enjoyed himself. That's the important thing, right?

(You wouldn't know it from the photos below, but we had eight children and five mamas in the house. Clearly, I should've designated picture-taking. Also, the darkish quality of the first few pictures is due to the fact that Gabriel bought me a spectacular new camera for Christmas, but I often forget that I need to switch the setting from outdoor to indoor. Also, there's something called a "flash" that really brightens things up. Who knew?)

I made Jonah a construction sign / dump truck cake, chocolate inside (from Christopher Kimball's "The Cook's Bible"), cream cheese frosting (Betty Crocker cookbook). It was a really good cake. Jonah was a bit perturbed that I put his dump truck out of commission for an evening and a day, but I do think that he forgave me. It's not for nothing that we call him "Jonah the Merciful." I made the mistake of telling Jonah to smile. Yup, that's a camera-worthy smile, not a grimace of pain. It took long enough for him to blow out the candles that I actually got a picture of it. Maybe that's why no one else ate the cake?

Jonah was able to choose his birthday breakfast on July 4. He chose French toast, which surprisingly won out over pancakes. Jonah loves to help me in the kitchen. "Help," of course, is a relative term, but I do like to have him with me. Look, he's mixing the egg mix with all my measuring spoons. Hey, whatever's handy!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Jonah! You are our little sweetie, and we love you dearly.