Home Improvement

Last Saturday, Uncle Dave was kind enough to come over to assist with some home improvement projects. And by assist, I obviously mean do the overwhelming majority of the work in exchange for a burrito. The main task at hand was to replace some of the sagging boards in our front steps. David loves tools and was very happy to spend the morning helping Kevin and Uncle Dave.

Completely unrelated to this is the fact that David thinks the word "forgot" is acutally "I-forgot." He says things like "Why did Daddy I-forgot this?" or "I I-forgot where I was going." So cute.

Nonrestorative weekend

It's never a good sign when you're looking forward to Monday. I started my day off on Friday with a mandatory 7:30am meeting. I came home in time to take David to his 3 year old check up. Nothing so relaxing as wrestling your screaming child to the exam table for a blood draw and shot. Later that afternoon, he did a face plant onto the sidewalk and got some nice road rash by his eye. Then when I attempted to go to dinner with my friends, he called me sniffling and crying because he wanted me to come home and put him to bed. Nothing too tragic, but still we all could have had a better Friday.

Yesterday I worked a very busy day at the office while Kevin and David went to Oz park, hung out with Steve and went to the Cubs game. David was so exhausted by his day that he took a 4 hour nap. He was such a pill when he woke up that it took half an hour to convince him to put on his shoes so that we could go to Oberweis for ice cream for dinner. He kept covering his face with his blanket and telling us to go away like a teenager.

David at the park (middle picture is with Dorothy and Toto for Grandpa), stuffing his face at Steve's place

Today I helped Kevin's mom and aunts throw a shower for Dave's fiancee, so Kevin and David were on their own again. Before we went our separate ways, David was extremely helpful in making some guacamole for the shower. He mashed those avacados like no avacados have been mashed before. Then he and Kevin went to the Museum of Science and Industry. I am told that their new exhibit on storms is fantastic.

Lots o' pictures

I'm hoping the numerous pictures in this post will make up for the unbearable 11 days since the last one.

We had a lovely Easter. The Easter Bunny hid a dozen plastic eggs and David's Easter basket. We went to the wiggle worship service at our church where David served (and spilled) the wine. We got home in time for a very cute egg hunt on our block. Our neighbors set it up, and there were chocolate filled eggs everywhere. There must have been 20 in our yard alone. The kids had a blast and were very cute hunting eggs in their Easter finest.

David hunting eggs in our basement. He is pleased at having found the last egg in his drum in the second picture and has a mouth full of chocolate.

David (with Olivia in the middle picture) hunting eggs. Fiona enjoying the fruits of her labor.

David also got to hang out with Steve last week. They went to a Bulls game together. Every time we talk about going to a sporting event, David asks if Steve is going, so we were happy to be able to tell him yes this time.

On Wednesday morning, David got a very special surprise from Nicor. A large backhoe digging up our front yard to put in new gas lines. Our yard is an absolute mess, but in David's mind it was all worth it for the 30 minutes of hard core digging he got to witness firsthand.

We spent this past weekend in Galena with Adam and Laura. So far this spring has been unusually spring-like in the Midwest, and we had beautiful weather for our trip. David played golf in the yard and helped Kevin fill the bird feeders. He went on a couple of short hikes and took a shine to several large sticks along the way. It turns out they are great for poking things. David played crochet and foosball, dismembered Jackie boy and helped clean up the hot tub room with some super thorough mopping.

David has an unconventional approach to golf--note putting with the driver and the unusual swing in the middle picture.

Hiking

Playing crochet, spreading dirty water around the once clean floor, defeating Adam in foosball.

Go Duke!

I have been informed that I am not updating the blog frequently enough, so here you go...

We have finally entered the world of 5 years ago and have a laptop and wireless internet. I also have an ipod and smart phone now, so like I said. 5 years ago.

We had a lovely evening in Chinatown last night. Yummy food and then some shopping. David found several things he wanted, including a walking stick, but refused the beautiful outfit we tried to sell him on.

Today we dyed eggs (only one was subsequently eaten by Pete). Kevin and David also participated in a Maas family tradition. Dumping the egg dye in the toilet one color at a time and marveling at all the lovely shades. Fantastic.

For the rest of the evening it's obviously all about the Final Four around here. GO DUKE!!! Oh, and happy Easter, everyone!