First snowman

Grandma Sue made a heroic effort last weekend with an inch and a half of wet, slushy snow in a backyard full of roofing nails.

Elliot made his own mini-snowman too.

Devil Baby, Transformers etc.

Natalie has been giving us a lot of trouble at night of late. We have begun calling her the devil baby. Occasionally, when we ask her to "do the devil baby" she makes a horrible growling noise. Very funny but small payback for the middle-of-the-night scream-fests. Here she is just wearing Elliot's safety goggles.

We went to Tommy Zip's 5th birthday at Pump It Up in Glenview today. It is the "coolest place ever" according to EB. When we got home, we continued with the Transformers theme. Elliot made his own Transformer costume complete with important buttons.

We also did a bit of yard work as a team.

Finally, Elliot drew some pictures to begin planning the springtime garden plantings. Once Dad ran out of flower names and descriptions, we had to use one of Great Grandpa Buck's field guides to western wildflowers to provide new ideas.

Easter at Bonnie's

Crazy big Easter dinner at Grandma Bonnie's. Her legendary Bunny Cake returned after a 10 year + hiatus.

We also went stomping in the snow to the park after dinner. Apparently, Natalie is over her fear of slides.

Neither kid can take a credible staged photo. Must be genetic.

Kids update

Elliot continues to draw lots of pictures. Here we see Rink Bowagon, the protagonist in "The Boy Who Grew Flowers."

He and Natalie like sharing laundry basket space when reading.

Natalie likes pigtails sometimes, dressing like a tiny blueberry and eating homemade chocolate-covered donuts always.

We're in the house!!

It's been a crazy 2.5 months but we are in. Plenty of work to go but it feels good to be in the house.

Jeff and Jackson Allen and Zoe and Amy Zucker came by over the weekend to help and cheer us on. So did Susanne Cohen-Lange, Mom's old buddy from her Madison days.

We do still have kids

Among the faves, Natalie pantsless at Ikea. There was a blowout with no backup gear on hand. Luckily it is a short walk from the store to the car.

She also loves climbing into Elliot's Dora luggage and going for rides around the apartment.

More house shots

We've gotten great help from lots of friends and fam. Here are Daddy Hobbit and Rat in action from late January.

Happy Nata

Elliot's own tool box

Aunt Bean bought Elliot a tool box for Christmas. Elliot had to carry the box to the house and, of course, wear saftey glasses.

A 50's kitchen

So a stove and sink and a pantry with a small refrigerator in the middle were apparently all you needed in kitchens back in the day. And linoleum was a hot new technological advance. Let the serious demolition begin. Elliot kept thinking a chimney sweep from Mary Poppins had come to his house when we came home after knocking out walls.

A romp room

Elliot and Natalie already love the basement. According to Geoff's colleague, basements are awesome for slumber parties. Hooray!

Yellow plastic bathroom tiles

Apparently in 1952, the last time that 2023 was rehabbed, plastic tiles were the rage. Grandpa Owie recalls putting some in a bathroom with his dad in 1959. This stuff was floor to ceiling.

Auntie Deb (my sister) spent Christmas with us and is an amazing demolition chick. We began our tile removal project by attempting to chip off each tile, then asked dad if it be okay for us to grab a sledge hammer and just knock out the walls. A sledge hammer is such a satisfying tool.

Cats fall on their feet, not humans

The garage was growing vegetation and had holes all over the roof. Grandpa Owie looks and says, "we can save that, it's easy". Geoff gets over his fear of heights and climbs up with a nail gun. By getting over it, I mean clings to the roof and walks gingerly.

At one point Geoff really got over the fear (mainly due to being tired) and attempted a graceful leap from the ladder to the roof. Attempted move failed and Geoff ended up on his back on the neighbor's porch. We decided not to tell the already-terrified-something-awful-would-happen Grandma Bonnie. Weeks later, after Geoff had gone to the doctor to be assured nothing, other than bruised innards was wrong, Elliot ratted us out to Grandma Bonnie. Ah, no secret is safe anymore.

On the plus side, Geoff now knows how to shingle.

We bought a fixer upper...

So sorry about no new pictures for the last couple of months. We bought a house (as most of you know). It's a bit of a project...by a bit I mean a huge one with 2 kitchen remodels, a garage with holes in the roof, yellow plastic tiles (oh the horror!) and plaster. After knocking out a couple walls and hauling away the plaster, the other walls started looking great just as they were. We were casually looking for a place in the city (in my (Julie's) casual yet mildly obsessive way) and about to give up when we stumbled upon this place a block and a half away from our current abode. It needed a lot of work that we couldn't really afford, but wait, there's Grandpa Owie. More about Grandpa Owie's ability to fix most anything later...

Daddy Hobbit and Natalie reinact Lady and the Tramp

Natalie shakes her groove thing in rainbow legwarmers.

Catching up - December pics

A mix of shots from the Shedd, in a fort, in a bucket, a couple of firsts (jello for the kids and shared bath).