The Talented Mr. Benjamin

Somehow Ben is able to get 100% of the chocolate content of a chocolate chip cookie on his face and clothes and not get any in his mouth. In other sweets news...we found out that Ben likes ice cream. They were giving out samples of Culver's frozen custard at Take Time for Tots and Ben was loving it.

Airplane Restaurant

What is better than a train restaurant? Take a second...think hard. Think harder. It is kind of a trick question. The answer is "nothing". Although, a good alternative to the train restaurant is the airplane restaurant at Clow "International" Airport. There is a diner named Charlie's right next to the runway. You can watch planes land and take off. The boys seemed to like it, but it is no train restaurant.

Safety First

Riding an ATV is dangerous. Proper equipment is essential. Apparently that idea extends to ATV video games. Bradley always puts on his helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads before playing ATV Offroad Fury on the PS2.

Dream A Little Dream

Bradley is starting to understand and talk about dreams. Today he told me that "Every night, my legs tell me to go biking." So, we took a bike ride to the park and played sand and swings for a while.

A Long Time Ago

It was only a year ago, but it feels much longer. Last year, Ben was getting his second tooth and just starting to stand. (Mar 2008)

Now, lets go way back in time, Feb 2007, Bradley was helping with chores like laundry and vacuuming. He was starting to talk more and use the stairs.

Fourteen Dollars of Fun

Yikes, the cost of our weekend adventures is skyrocketing - 180% increase in one week. Actually, paying the $14 wasn't that much fun since it was for the narrowest parking space I have ever seen. However, it did get us into Navy Pier. From there we proceded to use reciprocal member priviledges at the Chicago Children's Museum. The place is pretty nice and worth a return trip. It even seemed less crowded than the Dupage Children's Museum.

In Like a Lion

There was a high price to pay for all the fun at Jake's party. Since the kids were up later than usual, we figured they would sleep in on Sunday. I even had a dream that we slept so long we missed Sunday school, which starts at 9:30. Keep dreaming! Ben woke up twice during the night, but did manage to sleep in a little bit. That didn't really matter since Bradley woke up at 4:30. This was after he woke up at 2:00 and played toys for a little while. This would normally lead to a difficult, but tolerable day. However, things got worse. Bradley would not take a nap. We tried for two hours, but ultimately failed. The only sleep he got was about 10 minutes on the way to lunch. After all that, he only went to bed about 45 minutes early.

Jake's Birthday

Bradley was very excited to go to Jake's birthday party on Saturday. He even took some pictures. They are horrible, but it is not his technique. The camera is atrocious. My best guess is that there is one picture of Jake and one picture of the cake.

Five Dollars of Fun

Neither Ben nor Bradley had class on Saturday, so we took a ride on the train. It was a good way to get out of mommy's hair for three hours and it only cost $5. However, the pretzel we bought while waiting for the return trip sent us 60% over budget. The boys behaved well while the train was moving, but they were a little antsy while we were waiting for return train to depart.

That's Daddy's Job!

Ben made another trip back to the potty. This time, daddy didn't take any pictures. However, Bradley grabbed his camera and preserved the moment for all posterity.