A Promising Future

Even though the terrible 2's have hit our household we still believe that Dane will grow up to be an upstanding citizen. He's even showing some early talents that may get him far in life...and may get us a beach house on the coast! :)

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Terrible 2's...you will NOT defeat me!

Wow...I have vowed that my incredibly head strong and willful 2 year old will NOT defeat me (or at least he won't know that he has). To him, I will always have the upper hand but I gotta admit that over the course of the past few weeks there have been a few days that I think he has the upper hand. I never knew what this parenting roller coaster would be like and boy am I finding out! Dane and I have a love / hate relationship right now...there really isn't a middle ground. He either clings to me and is all about mommy or he is telling me "no, I not do that". I realize that this is the age where they feel the need to prove their independence and Dane is definitely trying to establish his power in the house. Two is an incredibly fun and funny stage, but the tantrums are in the ridiculous category and the not listening is just flat out annoying. I feel like a broken record. every. day. of. my. life. I have noticed that the age of 2 seems to be very bipolar in nature...he can be so adorable one minute with his "I wub you mommy" and so cute with Kale, pulling him in his walker to the window to show him the rain. The next minute WHAM!! my sweet child has disappeared and a strange screaming monster has replaced him. Don't get me wrong, we see the adorable and sweet much more than we see the evil monster but the evil monster is very much a wear-you-out kind of creature!

Dane has been in a toddler bed now for a couple weeks and that is going very well. He's only climbed out twice...once to get an animal to sleep with and the other time he slept in late that morning and just wasn't tired.

Any advice you would like to give me would be greatly appreciated, but please PLEASE do not say "just wait til he's 3...it's even worse" - I have heard it enough and just want to live in my little bubble believing that 3 will be easier!

Science & Industry Museum

On Saturday we went to the Science & Industry Museum and Cameron took Dane to the Cubs game for a couple innings. I had never been to the Science & Industry Museum, but there was a lot to see! Dane seemed to like the farm tech area the best...he loves tractors and they had a really cool combine simulator (video below). He also loved the train area - they had model trains set up all over with mountains and bridges and a replica of Chicago for the trains to drive through. Dane got a new baseball hat at the Cubs game and since Saturday all we have heard is "I needa my cubbies hat" and he has worn it for the past 2 days. Nonstop.

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And "the" hat:

Boys of Summer

Nothing really to report but wanted to share some of the video footage and pictures we've taken of the boys this summer! Enjoy!

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No Power, No Problem

On Monday morning around 8am, a terrible storm came through our area with winds between 70 & 80 mph! We lost power around 8:30am and finally got it back on Tuesday around 10am. There are many people around us that still have no power and comed is estimating Friday morning for some of them to get it back...600,000 customers lost power during this storm! We did have water and could cook on the gas stove, but no air conditioning and lights. Thankfully my father-n-law was able to find us a generator for our refrigerator so we didn't lose any food. The four of us camped out in the basement to stay cool, but we managed. Now that I've "camped" in my house for 24 hours my life is complete..as in, I don't need to do it again. Obviously there are many much worse things to deal with but it's definitely annoying! See below for pics of the damage in our area....

Entrance to our subdivision (the big wooden sign blew off the gate on the left):Our Campout:

Long Holiday Weekend!

We had a great but very busy 4th of July weekend! The Zehrings came for a visit and mom & Anita came to babysit! Friday evening we just hung around the house. The kids were busy in the pool and we just relaxed a bit. On Saturday Janel, Brian, Cameron & I went to the Cubs game while Anita and mom stayed with our offspring...thank you for giving us a break to have some fun! On Sunday we all went to the festival at the Great Lakes Naval Base followed by a little fireworks show in our driveway for the kids (since all the real shows were past bedtime). On Monday we headed to the Lake Bluff parade. There were way too many great pictures to just include a few so I have (of course) created a montage....

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Have a Safe & Happy 4th of July!