Everything's bigger in Texas

Including the cupcakes. We visited Aunt Leslie and Uncle Stanley (with a special guest appearance by Uncle Adams) in Houston last weekend. We had fun and ate well. Much like hobbits, we had breakfast (giant cupcakes) and second breakfast (Chick-fil-A biscuits) Saturday morning. David took care of his cookies 'n' cream cupcake in no time.

We got to visit with Saira, one of my friends from my Loyola days and her family, too. David and her son Raafe bonded while burying Uncle Stanley alive. The other picture below is David using one of Aunt Leslie's chemistry nerd toys as an astronaut helmet.

David has started a gymnastics class once a week, which he loves. Unless I'm on call, it's early enough for me to take him, which is a treat. His favorite activity in our most recent class was the parallel bars. The kids were supposed to push themselves up and support their weight with their arms. Most of them pushed up a 2 or 3 inches and held it for a couple of seconds. David took it to the next level, flexed his hips to make his body into an "L" and then pushed himself up until his legs were parallel with the bars. At least 3 other moms commented to me on how strong he is. This from the boy who couldn't crawl when we brought him home at 15 months.

B^3

Huge day today chez Maas. Huge. This morning at 8am, David's big boy bed was delivered. The picture above is David at bedtime tonight. He had lobbied for a bunk bed ("I want BIG ladder!"), and Kevin and I are big enough suckers to go for the idea, but his room just isn't big enough. David agreed to settle for a bed with drawers. He has filled two of the drawers with hats and underwear and plans to designate another drawer for his cars tomorrow. He told me today "My bed have BIG drawers. I love it!" So I think he's over the ladder thing.

David's new bed, breaking his bed in, George dressed in David's Northwestern shirt and jeans (picture taken by David)

Today we also went to Mandarin class, played unreasonable amounts of hockey with the new hockey stick and puck the wise men brought David for Epiphany and had a delicious dinner at Szchuan Beijing. As usual, David out ate every adult in the restaurant.

It's a long way down

Greetings and happy 2010! We divided our time the first day of the new year between the Museum of Science and Industry, where highlights included giant farm machinery and tiny trains, and the Srokas house, where highlights included mountains of food.

MSI

Playing with Zach, Nathan and his new Thomas set from Steve at the Sroka's house

On the 2nd we decided to check out the new glass bottom overlooks at the Sears Tower observation deck. Very cool and more than a little disconcerting to be able to look straight down 1500 feet. Chances of getting my mother anywhere near there: 0%. After that we went to the Illinois-Gonzaga basketball game at the United Center with Adam, the always lovely Laura and Uncle Dave. David was pretty tired and crashed during overtime. He was out cold and slept through us wrestling him into his coat, the frigid jog to the car, the drive home plus another 2 hours after we got there.
Pictures from atop the Sears. David at ready to cheer for his Illini.

Because Kevin does not believe in staying home for more than 5 minutes at a time, yesterday we did a little shopping in the morning and went to the Blackhawks game in the evening. David loves hockey. LOVES hockey. For the last few weeks, the kid has refused to wear anything other than a Blackhawks jersey. We had to buy him a second jersey because we were doing laundry every day. It is nothing short of a miracle that we convinced him to wear orange to the Illini game. He really pays attention to the hockey game. We got a constant run down on when players were coming on and off the ice (which is about every 45 seconds in hockey, so that was awesome) and commentary on face offs. During the third and final period David took a shine to Dustin Byfuglien, so he just kept asking "Where is Bufflin?" over and over and over. He is currently undefeated in his 4 games so far this season. We'll try for 5-0 in a month.