Happy Birthday Dad!!

{love this guy. kind of a lot}

He lectures often and laughs more at his own jokes that anyone else. He is loud and boisterous and everyone should love him for it. He works hard and plays hard. He is still waiting for the day that he can reason with Eddie and is convinced Finn is going to be a wild child, just like him. He still picks on my mom after 30 years of marriage. He still jumps in the pool the same way that he did when I was a kid...big splash and all. He tells the same stories, and usually won't stop if you tell him you've heard them before. He is the reason for my weird quirks, including our aversion to strange textures. He is proud of his family above all else. 

He's my Dad and I love him more than ever. Happy Birthday, Daddy-O. (eddie says he can't wait to eat squid salad with you tonight!)

KiteFest 2012

One of our favorite small town festivals out here is KiteFest. It is so neat....on a good day. Obviously, this festival is so dependent on the weather that most years we walk outside on the day of and deem it not windy enough to go. This year we were thrilled to see the trees moving and swaying in the wind all day long! Now if only they would move it off of what normally is the Bears' home opener day....

{sorry for the iphone pictures! big camera still is throwing a hissy fit}

{beautiful!!}

{frankie and his little clone}

{we got there right in time for the candy drop, where they literally dropped candy from a kite. so cool!! another plus of living near the nestle plant...tons of candy at all the community events, lol}

{flying our 'big' kite}

{finn was quick to grab the string...perk of being strapped to momma!}

{even eddie got to fly it! he is finally starting to listen well enough}

{my love, and a goober on my back}

{the coolest kite of the day....giant octopus! these were huge.....eddie was kind of terrified of them. I'm sure it didn't help that the guy was ushering away the kids and adults trying to grab the tentacles when they came low enough, mainly because they would literally pick adults off the ground if they hung on. yikes! it was anchored by the car and has even picked that up before. huuuuuge!}

{silly monkey, loving running through the flags}

{big ol' giggle}

{oh, kitefest. i love you!!}

I seriously love this day. It is so relaxing to just hang out and watch all of the kites. Hopefully we can convince my dad to bring out the pirate ship kite one year so we can try to get it up! 

New School

So, as the update says in my last post, Eddie started a new school today! Literally, 5 minutes after I made the picture thing and posted about Eddie's first day of school, I got a call that he was accepted into our district's preK program. We were shocked to get it....basically it is a high risk program for kids who need an extra bit of help. Eddie qualified because of his speech....while his vocabulary is HUGE and he has great sentence structure, he has a strong lisp and most people struggle to understand him. He will now be going to an amazing preK program at the elementary school and receive speech therapy every week. I was so, so nervous about this program but the second I saw his classroom and met his teacher, I knew it was going to be amazing. 

{Daddy was even able to redo a first day drop off! hooray!}

{he had no worries...dropped frank's hand and ran straight to the doors}

{my goof! this was an 'oops' picture since my camera is being difficult and I kind of love it}

{mmmhmmm. this kid. he's definitely mine!}

Eddie did really well on his first day. The assistant teacher said that he fit right in without any troubles. That made for one happy momma! He said he had fun and told me quite a bit about what they did as opposed to his normal act of not telling me much. I am so proud of him and cannot wait to see how much he learns and grows at his new school. Did I mention that today was school picture day as well? His first ever school picture!! I can't believe it. I was thrilled that I did his hair for the first day so it will look handsome in pictures, and I fought the urge to go home and get him a better shirt. Classic Gap shirt is good enough, I suppose. But oh. First pictures. Too cute.

Eddie's First Day of PreK

**UPDATE** scratch that, just got a call that Eddie got accepted into our school district's preK program...which means he'll be going to the elementary school (!!) every day in the morning class. yikes. 

Last year he nervously clung to Frank, timidly explored his classroom. This year he happily ran down the stairs (not up, like last year!) and while he still needed Frankie's hand for a bit, he eventually found a friend and chatted and played. No big goodbye, no nerves. He was ready to go back.

This Monday was the hardest day so far. I think he was having trouble getting back into the routine after a long weekend. We'll get there, though! This year's class has theme days every Wednesday that match their letter of the week and a show and tell on Fridays. My heart fluttered and died of cute thinking of show and tell! 

Brother? He didn't do so well without his big bossing him around. We got into the car and he kept pointing at Eddie's seat saying "Ed-di" with a little concern. I assured him that brother was fine, and my heart fluttered again a bit at the brother love. It slays me. 

This year will be good for him. I can't wait to see how much he learns and grows.....could he really be on to kindergarten next year? yikes!

Big Shoulders 2012

I did it!! I still can't believe it. I was nervous....so, so nervous the night before when people in the facebook group were posting pictures of a crazy wavy lake, when the rip current notice was issued, when word of 2-4 foot waves came out. Talk about conditions I was definitely not hoping for. Still, we woke up nice and early yesterday, I popped 3 very sleepy Turza boys into the car and away we went.

The boys hung out in the car and I went off to check in while they had breakfast and explored Navy Pier a bit. I got my first view of the course. And then I got REALLY nervous.

{kind of the middle/end of the course. we started on the beach which is further to the left of the photo. The big orange triangular buoy was where we started}

{facing the other way...the orange triangular buoy waaaay out there was our first turn, and remember that this is about halfway through the first leg. The round buoys were for sighting purposes...so look for the big one right above the handrail at the end}

{a good view of part of the second and third leg. The second turn buoy is right in front of the white and black striped building. From there we turned and went along the break wall and into the beach!}

Since it was my first open water swim pretty much ever, I did the 2.5k instead of the full 5k. I really don't think I could have mentally done another loop around. My muscles were done, I think I picked my head up about 5 times on that last leg and groaned that I wasn't there yet. I promised myself that I would leave everything in the water, I wanted to come out not being to feel anything. And I'll be damned if I wasn't even able to form words when Frankie ran up to me. 

{my wave getting started. I'm somewhere towards the outside tomato buoy, since I swam around it at the start}

Since it was my first open water swim, I chose to use their volunteer "Angel Swimmers" to help me with the course. I really wanted someone to help me with sighting, and I was lucky enough to have 2 awesome swimmers from Northwestern on either side of me. When I was tossing thru the washing machine that was the lake and gulping water, I can't even tell you how comforting it was to see them every breath I took. Especially since the water was so cloudy I couldn't see past my elbow! When I was tired, they were super encouraging. I'll never forget the first time she told me most of the pack was behind me...it was just what I needed to hear. She'd tell me to kick faster, get past this person or that person or tell me how many people I was catching from the wave before me. It was AWESOME. I really think I would have given in or started a pity party if it wasn't for those girls. And at the end, when I finally was able to stand up and run out of the water? My angel swimmer, Becca, was the first to shout "GO MAGGIE GO!!" and then I heard the craziest screamers, loudest of the bunch at the finish, all screaming for me. Frankie's was the first I heard, a simple "Go Maggie!", my dad and my mom's shouts that I haven't heard since high school swimming. It was amazing and awesome and I would have started laughing if I wasn't so damn tired. 

{coming out in my lime green suit! i had my eyes on the chick all the way to the right of the picture...I had to beat her to the finish, lol! Goodness I'm competitive}

Truly, I would not have been able to do this without my amazing support system. My boys, my parents, the texts and messages I got on race day were AMAZING. I love you all. 

{my dad decided to make these signs the night before the race, lol. It helped me to be able to see them when I was waiting for my wave to start, even though they couldn't see my lime green self jumping up and down and waving like a loon}

When Frank got to me, my first words were... "towel." then "inhaler" and then "what time is it??" which i kept repeating until he was able to dig out his phone and tell me the time. I knew I did it in my first goal, under an hour. Based on what I could do in the pool, I figured I could do it in around 45 minutes. A mile and a half, 45 minutes. But that was if it was perfect conditions, which it was far from. Imagine my surprise when the results were posted and came in at 46:47. MY GOAL TIME! With the waves and the currents and wind! I was shocked. Even more so when I realized that I got FOURTH IN MY AGE GROUP. fourth. as in 4. as in f-o-u-r-t-h. SHUT UP. 82nd overall, if you don't count the wet suiters (which I don't, sorry). 

Oh, I can't wait for next year. I've got a time to beat and you better believe I am going to kick some Lake Michigan ass. This was awesome, and I am so unbelievably happy that I did it. 

FOURTH IN MY AGE GROUP, PEOPLE. ha!!!

Like Ricky Bobby

Last year I got Frankie a groupon for a the Mario Andretti Racing Experience. We went a couple weeks after I had Finn, excited to have a day alone, and were unfortunately rained out. Boo. Thankfully Frankie was able to reschedule for this summer and this time we decided to bring along the boys!

{just like "franchesco cannoli!" (from cars 2) eddie was saying}

{like last year, it was all very hurry up and wait}

Frankie went into his driver's class and the boys and I got to figure out how to waste and hour. We sat in the (air conditioned!) car, watched Disney Jr on my iphone (seriously, thank god for that), walked around the pit area, played with headphones, went to the potty, looked at trophies, rinse and repeated about 10 times. It was awesomely fun. Not. 

{finn thought this was hilarious}

{you would too! the funniest thing ever}

Finally it was time to get in the cars (!) but unfortunately for us we caught the end of a trackside speech that included "if you go on the white line, you WILL spin out and you WILL crash into the wall" about 40 times. Eddie is still repeating it when he plays cars! Nothing like a dose of reality. And then I realized I must be feeling what Frank was feeling when I jumped out of an airplane, lol. 

{aw}

{helmet check!}

{walking away from this shot eddie said "have fun, daddy!"}

{getting walked to his car}

{making sure daddy is safe}

{getting strapped in...yikes!!}

{there he goes!}

I'm happy to say that it wasn't quite as scary as I thought it would be. Frank had fun and Eddie had a blast cheering for him. He kept shouting "HE'S GUNNA WIN!!!!!!!!!!!" which was hilarious. 

{coming back safely!}

All in all it was fun. Would it be worth paying full price for? Meh, probably not. But still super fun if you can find a deal. And I'm secretly hoping that Frank gets me one, since he was adamant that I wouldn't go faster than him. HA! I totally would. 

Eddie's favorite day

Since we're at that age when Eddie actually cares what happens on his birthday (ha!) he got to pick what we did every second of the day. His perfect day started with a ton of balloons outside his door so that he had to walk through a little maze to get out. It was early and he was confused, until I turned the hallway light on :) Next we all packed up and went to breakfast, where Eddie has stuffed french toast and declared he was going to "eat it 'till he puked". I am happy to say that did not happen :)

After breakfast we went home for Finney's nap, and Eddie played on his favorite slip-n-slide and had a hose fight with Daddy.

{one of my favorite eddie pictures yet}

{look in there...there's something stuck...the hose won't work....look closer. closer....closer.....}

The highlight of the day was going to Portillos for hot dogs (anyone surprised?) and onto his new favorite activity....MINI GOLF!

{he takes it SO seriously and when he actually calms himself down and takes a breath, its awesome to watch}

{oh, sweet boy}

{monkey see, monkey do}

{since frankie had his race day the day before, we thought eddie would like a go cart ride}

{we were wrong. i thought for sure he was going to puke up portillos around the 10th time around}

From there (phew!) we went to Nanna and Grandpa's house to play in the pool, since it was close to breaking 100 degrees that day. So while he played and played and Finn refused to nap, I realized that at the very last minute (as in, right as we were eating dinner) that I didn't have a cake for him. Yikes! Thankfully, this Momma loves pinterest and knew just what I could do at the last minute that still looked awesome.

{he loved it!}

{applause from the crowd}

{store bought cheesecake, mini kit kats and a bag of m&m's. boo-yah.}

I'm still kind of shocked at how much we managed to pack into a day. He came home so totally done and thankfully passed out cold before his head even hit the pillow. So much so that my camera flash didn't even come close to bothering him when we went in to take his yearly picture at the time of his birth. 

{every year this makes me cry. one little tear for the little boy I love so much}

Four years. It seems so old, doesn't it?