Wing Night

On Monday, May 7, Charlotte, Mom and I went up to the local townie bar/restaurant to see John working. He started working as a bartender while we were in Illinois visiting. He loves talking to people and he loves alcohol so he was excited to pick this up as a third job. When we walked in and sat down, Charlotte noticed her "Uncle Poop" right away. She started waving at him from across the room. It was so cute.

Charlotte loves her Uncle Poop...and popcorn.

She's not big into smiling for the camera for me. But I feel this is a good pic of John.

We had a delicious meal. While we were eating, this man came in to eat as well. He seemed a bit interesting. I won't go into detail as to what went through my head as I watched him but none of it was meant to be mean. He was hilarious. But the one thing that I could not get passed was the fact that he tucks his Tshirt into his underpants. Yes, those are whitey tighties w his red tshirt tucked into them.

I peed my pants in the car as I watched him walk to his car. He was funny :)

Delicious meal. Interesting sites. It's never boring at the townie bars.

Charlotte Loves Papa

I love how much Charlotte loves her grandpa...her Papa. She really does talk about him all day. When we were in Illinois and I ran outside to the car to grab something, she heard me walk back in the house and she yelled, "Papa". She "calls"him on my phone, on her juice cup, on the fake phone, etc. She calls him all of the time. It's so sweet. And when he's home, she stands at the back door and yells for him and waves. When she's outside with him, she follows him around the yard. SO CUTE. Here are a few pics of them being partners in crime...

Helping Papa with the flowers... and getting into the water.

Learning about planting flowers.

Helping dig up the dirt.

Papa taught her about brushing Sammy. Sammy LOVES to be brushed. He hates Charlotte though.

Helping Papa is dirty business.

She just loves her Papa...and he loves her like crazy too!!! :) 

Sunday, Sunday

I remember back when I was in school... grade school, high school, and college... and I didn't like Sundays. I absolutely hated Sunday evenings. I had the weird feeling in my stomach every Sunday evening in anticipation of the week ahead. I know that if I worked a Monday through Friday 9-5 job I would probably have the same feeling as an adult. But since I work a 24/7 job, I don't get that feeling anymore. So, now, I LOVE Sundays:) Even Sunday evenings!

On Sunday, May 5, we again spent the day at Mom and Dad's house hanging out. My little outside princess spent much of the day outside and just hanging out. Mom had been gone since Wednesday so she was all excited to see Charlotte and do anything and everything with her. I didn't mind bc I was going to welcome the break :)

Charlotte and her Papa

The first time she rode this, she hated it. Now she loves it :) LOVES IT

Gigi, Papa, and Goose

Max was even enjoying his little Sunday. He has totally made himself at home during our time in Illinois. He totally doesn't mind being in a new house. In fact, I think it has kept him on his toes a bit. He's lost weight and he leaves me alone at night so I can sleep through the night.

Charlotte LOVES her "MAA"

This kid completely cracks me up! Such a ham!!

This is the kitchen we use at mom and dad's house. It's hilarious. It was Anne Marie's so it's at least 24 years old. But Charlotte loves it.

She loves the telephone. She spends her time on the phone calling "Dada" or "Papa"... the two men in her life that she is obsessed with. She's so serious in this picture. She totally loves to talk on this phone. 

It was a perfect lazy Sunday spent with family :) Loved this day!

Hanging in the Yard

Saturday May 5, we spent the day at mom and dad's house hanging out. The weather was beautiful Spring-ish and Charlotte was so happy to be outside. We had one week before Mary's graduation party at mom and dad's house and so we decided to help dad out in the yard. Naturally, Charlotte LOVED this idea :)

Dad was adding some neat touches to the old deck... the deck he built back when I was like 6.

Charlotte found a bucket with water in it and she found things to play in the water. She was a HOT MESS by the end of the day.

After a day outside, we got showered and dressed and went to dinner with Dad, Mary, and Chad :)

Chad loves Charlotte. Charlotte used to really dislike Chad. I mean, would SCREAM if he even looked at her. Finally, Chad has found the way to her heart :)

She let Chad take her anywhere and play with her. Can't you see how happy he is about it????

We went to dinner at a bar in Washington then headed over to "ghetto shack"/Ice Cream Shack in Peoria. Man I love that place :) Dad loves him some ice cream so he was all about going straight from dinner to get ice cream. Delicious. We then went home and  watched a movie. A perfect Saturday night!

THE STORM

Thursday night, May 3 into Friday morning, May 4, there was a MASSIVE storm that passed through Germantown Hills where my mom and dad live. Mary and I were in bed in her room and Charlotte was next door in the guest bedroom. She ended up waking up at some point during the storm so I put her in bed with me. I had forgotten how severe storms in the Midwest are. The storms on the coast or in Charleston just aren't bad. In fact, I usually sleep right through them. 

So this storm was bad. LOUD LOUD thunder. BRIGHT lightening. POURING DOWN RAIN. Naturally my dad slept right through it but Mary and I were tossing and turn. Around 1 am we here this LOUD crack of thunder and I look toward the window and I see a flash of light and sparks flying and a crazy loud CRACK. Well, when I was like 8 yrs old, our next door neighbor's tree caught on fire from lightning and I was the one who found it. So I was FREAKED out that the tree was on fire. Mary and I knew the massive walnut tree right outside of our window had been hit and we were afraid that it was on fire (we checked to make sure it wasn't) and we were afraid it was going to fall on the house.  So we picked up Goose and took her to the spare bedroom. When we got up the next morning, this is what we found outside...

The bark from the tree was EVERYWHERE.

The lightning strike was 3 stories up but it traveled all of the way down the tree and into the ground.

See where the bark is missing???

Dad's hostas (sp?) took quite a beating. 

Even though we never lost power, the cable, phone, and internet were ALL jacked up. We had to get a new cable box and one of the HD components on the tv was ruined by the lightning. We were lucky that was all that was damaged.

Crazy storm.

Playdate with Ella and Emily :)

So, Thursday, May 3, 2012, Jodi and I decided we would get our girls together for a playdate at the park :) Jodi and I have loved me being back in Illinois for a month. We have loved our weekly dates and really really wish we lived close enough to do this all of the time.

We decided to grab lunch at Michael's Italian Feast (yummy in my tummy) and go to the park a few neighborhoods away from my parent's house. It's so weird how much the park has changed! I used to go there and "hang out" in grade school, high school, and during the summer when I was in college. They've added onto the park now and it's so crazy taking my little offspring with me to it. As we pull up to park, there are 17 million children there. Apparently it was field trip day for the grade school and a day care. The funny part is that Jodi teaches at the school that was field tripping at the park so she knew some of the kids and teachers. Kinda freaked me out that all of those dirty little mini people would go over and try to touch her baby or something. Thankfully they didn't stay the entire time so we finally had a bit of piece and quiet and our two girls could run free.

Aren't they quite a pair????

Charlotte calls her "Ey-ya"

This is the best one I could get of them... perfection!

I wish this wasn't blurry. Once the big kids left and we let our two run free, Charlotte followed Ella everywhere. Ella found her way into the honeycomb jungle gym thing. She was so cute in there...and so proud of herself. Charlotte stood on the outside and waved.

Emily slept the entire time. Such a perfect, sweet little baby.

Since I am large and in charge growing a fetus, Jodi took Charlotte down the slide. Since Jodi wore shorts, her skin on her legs caused her to skid down the slide. I have a HILARIOUS action shot of Jodi's face but I won't do that to her. I won't post it.

I am excited for the day that Charlotte can be more independent at places like parks. I felt like she just followed Ella around wishing she could do what Ella was doing. But she had a blasty and was asleep before we could get back to mom and dad's house.

I hope someday when these two are older that they will be friends...even if it's just Facebook friends :) 

Back Yard Shananigans

Charlotte would live outside if she could. She loves outside more than ice cream, more than Max, more than me. I feel like I should call her Mother Nature at times. The weather has been beautiful while we have been here... with the exception of the week straight that it rained every single day... and with the exception of the few really cold days. :) But there have been some very perfect days and we have tried to take advantage of those days.

Mom and Dad's fabulous neighbor, Jim (who is like Dad's brother from another mother) loves Charlotte :)

And Charlotte loves Jim. She won't go right to everyone but she does to Jim... and she just laughs at him.

Dad got a new TORRO lawnmower... it's his new little (or large) toy. How hilarious.

Charlotte started a new wave this day where she puts one hand above her head and waves. It's soooo cute!

She loves the bridge in the backyard, however, one of our first days here, she almost fell in the pond bc she fell sideways off the incline of the bridge. About scared the you know what out of me. So, now she requests to hold someone's hand while crossing to the other side of the creek. Naturally she knows that mom is a sucker for doing anything with and for her so she goes straight to mom and asks for the help.

Yes, this is Charlotte at the end of the day... dirty, messy, sockless, and just has happy as can be.

More to come :) I mean, we are only a little over halfway through our trip back!!!