Kids and Kites again

We returned to Montrose Harbor this morning for Mayor Daley's Kids and Kites Festival, at least our third one. Dad and the kids rode the bus to get there; Mom ran there.



We thought the ferocious wind would make the flying easier. But that wasn't true for us!

This is the best Mom could do. Dad no luck at all, and the kids just ran around a little with the kites trailing behind them.

Most of the time, the wind sent it spiraling around at human level - and almost took out Levynn on occasion.

Hey, we're amateurs!

What a show!

Levynn's recital was this afternoon, and it was a brand new experience even for the veteran that she is.

Old Town School of Folk Music, where she took the ballet class, has a concert hall - the same one where she and Dad saw Ella Jenkins in 2008. And as Lev looked down at the stage from our balcony seats, watching most of the 20 or so other dance classes perform, she admitted that she was nervous to get in front of the standing-room-only crowd.

But you wouldn't have known it once she was on the stage!









Rose today, party tomorrow (when Mom will be around). That was beautiful!

Butterflies!

Dad and Levynn made the family's long-overdue first trip to Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum with a library pass this afternoon. It's across the street from the north side of Lincoln Park Zoo!

The best part was the butterfly release, a daily event in the museum's butterfly haven that harbors about 1,000 - including 30 to 40 species.

More fun with Chloe, Rachel and Gram

Thanks, girls!

We have a guest contributor!

Big boy

Here's Lincoln taking his first nap since we removed a side from his crib so he can get in and out on his own like a big boy. We didn't mean for him to get out and find a comfy spot on the floor next to Levynn's bed!


And here he is making his first stop on the potty train since we started pushing the training harder. That is what we meant for him to do!

Showtime... again!

Here's Levynn earlier tonight, moments before she and Mom left for the opening night performance of Broadway in Chicago's "Beauty and the Beast." Isn't she lovely?!

We won four tickets to the show, and they went with one of Levynn's classmates and her mom. They said it was great!

And those two kids are best buddies now; another playdate is scheduled for Friday.

Mom's big weekend

You probably noticed a lot of college basketball games were played throughout the last four days. More on that in a minute.

But you probably did not notice that Chicago annually is the site of the largest 8-kilometer (5-mile) road race in the world. It's called the Shamrock Shuffle 8K, sponsored by Chicago Marathon backer Bank of America, and Mom and more than 29,000 other people ran in it this morning.

Her last race also was an 8K, but she wanted to experience the kind of crowd she'll encounter in the marathon. Well, crowd is a good word for it. It was crowded. It also was cold, wet and windy, a day after we welcomed spring with hours and hours of snowfall. And she stopped midway through the race to take off her sweatshirt and wrap it around her.

In other words, she was a little slower today. She finished in 51:50, one second off her previous time. She placed 15,915th overall; 7,086th among women; and 1,491st in her age division.

Back to basketball. Mom entered a bracket challenge at the office, and she ranks a close third after two rounds. She's the only person in the top 16 who picked Kentucky to win it all, too, so the Wildcats can take her with them to the top. (Dad can't believe he just wrote that.)

Great work, Mom!

63 degrees and other things

Yes, it ws 63 degrees in Chicago today. We wouldn't have believed it unless we went out there in t-shirts - and we did!

So this was a great day for Levynn's first playdate of the school year. Mom brought her and a friend home from school, and the two of them played wonderfully together all afternoon.

Lincoln, meanwhile, took to sounding out letters in words today. He just points to a word, starts naming letters and saying each's corresponding sound. Like the temperature, it's hard to believe!

Yesterday, out of the post-Olympics blue, he started mimicking Apolo Ohno - you know, the short track speedskater with all the medals.




And look at the little apple eaters!

Inspiration

Levynn attended a classmate's fun birthday party - at American Girl! - Saturday, and here is a rendering she made on the easel this afternoon (complete with American Girl dolls).