Cool Numbers

I enjoyed signing papers today and writing the date - 11/10/09. Hope you enjoyed the date / day also.

In an unrelated number incident, my favorite stock TGB closed at $3.31 yesterday. This of course made me smile as I married my bride at 3:31 on 3/31.

In an unrelated non-numerical incident, this afternoon I parked on the spot of charred earth where my truck caught on fire just over a month ago. No flames today. Thankfully, my truck was still just sitting there waiting when I got off work. Made me smile again.

Allowance

John tells me that not all my posts have to have pictures. So, here goes a pictureless post.

Sophie came home from school a couple of weeks ago and asked if she could do some things around the house to earn money that she could spend at her school's upcoming book fair. Hence, my pondering the topic of allowances. My initial thought is that I did not want to give Sophie money to do things that she is expected to do. We don't currently have to pay her to pick up her toys or put her dirty clothes where they should go. Seems this would set a precedent in our household that I'm not sure I like. I don't think that later in life I want to live with the messy house just because my children don't really need/want their allowance at that time. (Sorry, Mom....I DO see the irony in this statement!!!!!)

For this request for money, we came up with a project for Sophie. She is 'organizing' all the kids toys. Organizing in that she is putting all the pieces of a set together. We are hoping this will help us with our annual Thanksgiving task where each of the children picks a few of their older toys that they no longer play with, and that are in decent condition, to be donated in order that someone else may have a chance to play with them. In the past, I always seem to find some pieces of toy sets that were given away.

Anyway, back to allowances....any advice?

Today...

Today, I am being a bit reminiscent. I took Jason shopping to get some new jeans. Now, I keep telling these kiddos to "STOP!" ...as in STOP growing UP! But, today when we went to get jason some new jeans, we had to move up into the "big boy" section. It seems like just yesterday, here he was....
...in a cute little pair of jeans. And now, he no longer fits in the toddler sizes. "STOP!"

Princess for a Day

Sophie, along with most of her troop, took part in the Daisy Princess for a Day. Here are a few pics...

They did some crafts, decorated some cookies (and then ate them), played some games, and, most importantly, got to dress up as little princessess. Sophie should sleep well tonight!!!

Cheap entertainment...

Ok, so this would have made a much better video, but I only took photos.

Jason has taken to everything relating to trucks (monster trucks, daddy's truck, etc.), tractors, and anything construction. Allison has taken to anything that Jason likes. So, here was our morning yesterday. It seems that our neighbor at the corner is getting a new roof and yesterday morning, the supplies were delivered. Jason had never seen a forklift up this close and he spent much time figuring out how it worked. Here, he is pretending to be a forklift....

Now, they need a closer look....

Last night telling daddy all about it, Jason started out by telling him that there was an elevator in our circle.

Stars WIN!!!!

Well, our last adventure of the Suprise Chicago Trip was to venture on over to see the Chicago Blackhawks get defeated by the Dallas STARS!!!!!!Planning this part of the trip went actually quite smoothly thanks to the best Stars Season Ticket rep that Crystal has ever had!!!!!!! Whenever we have gone on trips to see the Dallas Stars, Crystal has always taken care of getting the tickets. This was going to be tricky because we needed 7 tickets, not just 2. Rhonda found out Crystal's rep's name and I gave him a call. I told him who I was and explained to him what we were wanting to do for Crystal for her birthday and that it was a .... suprise!!! Daniel is AWESOME!!!!! We had great seats and Crystal never found out that he was in on it ---at least, not until we got to Chicago. So, if by any chance you are reading this Daniel ------- thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU!!! We had a great time!

Now, only Sophie really had appropriate attire to wear to a Stars Away game, so we headed out to get the rest of us suited up...including the face art!

And, no sporting event can be complete without some sugar!

Happy 40th Birthday, Crystal!!!

Around Chicago

After we arrived in Chicago, we headed out to wait for the Go Airport Express Shuttle that I had reserved in advance. This was NOT a successful experience and I would NOT ever recommend this company. We waited and waited...and waited. Shuttles came for the north end of downtown -- shuttles came for the south end --- of course, we were right in the middle and .... NO shuttles came for us. We waited some more. Did I mention that I reserved this in advance?? THEN, we went down and got a taxi in about 5 minutes. I am very thankful for the pic below as it will always remind me how patient my children were during this whole time. There were many smiles and very little complaining ... at least from the kiddos. I know for sure that I was not as patient as they were when I was a kid (or now) ...just ask my mom!!
We finally got to the hotel, dropped off our bags and headed out for dinner at Giordannos(http://www.giordanos.com/). Stuffed Pizza -----yuuuummmmmmmy! I forgot to get a pic of the pizza, but here is Allison enjoying some Sprite -- which was a treat from their usual H2O or milk.

On Saturday of Crystal's Birthday Celebration Weekend we spent most of the day doing the touristy things. This is us on the top of the Double-Decker tour bus just moments before it started to rain and sleet on us:

We passed the hotel that we wanted to stay in, but they were booked by the time we got around to making reservations.

After getting totally drenched on the way in, we went to the Shedd Aquarium. Here are our little penguins:

Later, we sent John and Allison back to the hotel for a nap while the rest of us went up to the Sky Deck of the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower). Rhonda and I refused to venture out, but Crystal, Sophie and Jason all step off the solid steel part of the building out onto the glass ledges. I held the queasiness in check to take these pictures.

Then, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the last part of our celebration! Check back tomorrow.