To spit or not to spit...

In this video I try to get Cleo to blow spit bubbles because that's her new trick, but she won't show off her talent. It's hard to keep up with her because she's moving all over the place. I was going to name this blog entry "Keeping Up with Cleo" (a take on "Keeping up with the Kardashians"--one of my guilty pleasure reality tv shows), but decided against it. If I had decided to spell Cleo's name with a "K" it might have worked, but I'm not one for creative spellings of names. It's a bit too wacky for me.

We have an amazing but hectic weekend planned. For my birthday, Andy and I are going out to a new burger place in town called Dempsey's and then out for drinks later tonight. Tomorrow afternoon we're hosting a bbq that should be super fun, and there are going to be so many kids running around. Gus will be in heaven. Sunday we're going with Megan and Blake and their kids to ride Thomas the Train in Baldwin City. I'm also going to hopefully take the kids to the downtown pool Sunday afternoon, but we'll see. Then on Sunday evening Andy and I play in our first kickball game. I am extremely excited for that! So I'll have more photos from the weekend to update later.

p.s. Gus has been waking up here and there from nightmares. It sucks for us (wahhhh!) but more than anything I feel bad for him. He usually wakes up crying and it takes him awhile to calm down. Last night he woke up whining. Andy went into his room and Gus told him, "There are NO dinosaurs in Gus' bed!" We thought he liked dinosaurs, but perhaps they are too scary right now. There's also a certain monster poem in "Where the Sidewalk Ends" (his new fave thing in the whole world to read from), and when we page by the monster poem Gus gets nervous and says, "No, not THAT one!" If he only knew how silly my dreams were these days (the other night I had a dream that Gwen Stefani hated me for some reason and wouldn't let our kids play together...I think I've been hitting the celebrity juice way too hard lately). I wish I could trade Gus' scary dino dreams with my silly celebrity dreams!! :)

New poem

I just read a poem today that my friend Bill sent me, and I just had to post it. It made me really emotional when I read it, and that's when I know it's a good one (to me anyway). Someone mentioned that it was very clear a woman wrote this poem, and I would have to agree. Actually, now that I think about it, both "Yellow Bowl" and "Morning" are written by women and I think more often than not I gravitate towards poems written by women and mothers, especially now that I have children. I've included "Morning" right above "Yellow Bowl." Hope you enjoy.

May is going, going...

I've posted a new poem on the right. I love this one.

May always seems to be a crazy busy month. As long as I can savor the most important day of the year (May 29), then I'll be ok. This is one of many birthday plugs for me. Fair warning.

Last weekend I worked the fine arts graduation and then we went to the Art Tougeau parade in downtown Lawrence (people can decorate their cars and parade them down Mass Street). It was fun, even if the parade only lasted 15 minutes! Andy said it was the perfect amount of time for him. He isn't one for parades. I, on the other hand, was a little bummed it ended so soon. I have some fun video but the videos take so long to load on this blog, so I may do it later. The floats were so fun, though. There was a flying saucer car, a car covered entirely in leather, and many more.

Later on Saturday we went to Logan's 1st birthday party (Jessica and Nick's little guy). It was really fun, and then we went down to Burlingame for a graduation bbq at my parents' house for my cousins Gretchen and Kady (both graduating high school). Gus played for hours with his older cousins. He did not want to leave! And Cleo enjoyed attention, too. My Dad smoked some amazingly good pork and beef, and the rest was potluck. My family knows how to eat.

Sunday we did yard work all day. I was exhausted at the end of the day but it felt so good make progress. I planted some dill, chives and catnip, as well as tomatoes (in pots). I already have a nice little oregano plant that goes crazy every summer. I planted more dill today, along with a bunch of basil and some grape tomatoes. I'm slowly but surely getting the insanity that is our back garden into shape.

Hey, peeps. What's up?

The kids are great. Cleo is so busy now that she's crawling. We really have to watch her closely as she loves to put everything in her mouth. She does not like to sit still now, either. She gets pretty impatient sometimes when she's not able to crawl around freely. Gus and Cleo are interacting so much more every day. We constantly tell Gus to be gentle with her. I think he just gets so excited that she's on the move and can interact with him, but he forgets she's still wee. I love to catch them giggling together when we're not around. I plan to post a video of them playing. It's kinda scary at one point b/c Gus dives off the bed and almost lands on Cleo, but as you can see, it works out ok. (Ok, been trying to post this video all day and it's not working. So I hope to do it sometime before I turn 40).

This is usually the time of year that is really slow and awesome for me (students and faculty gone for 3 months). But, with the change to the School of Music, this summer is going to be super busy. I'm taking on some new responsibilities with the reorganization, so that's the stuff I'm a little stressed about. It'll all work out once I have a successful system set up for all the projects. I'm all about efficient project management. Otherwise I would never get my work done. I'm also still working on my weekly celebrity gossip blog on lawrence.com. I enjoy writing it. I'll post my second one either today or tomorrow.

That's it for now. More later!

Mother's Day

Cleo and her cousins Brody and Molly on Mother's Day

Rory showing off his cool shirt

My Mom's Day pasta necklace

Cleo and my parents at Free State

I had an awesome Mom's Day. Andy woke up with the kids, dressed them, and made apple pancakes-so yummy. Then he gave me two CDs, the new Camera Obscura album and Andrew Bird's newest release. I love both. And then the kids gave me a gift they made me...a pasta necklace! So hip, too! Later that day I met up with Shana and her kids and my parents at Free State for lunch. It was really nice to celebrate my Mom.

I've decided once and for all I'm getting an iPhone when my Verizon contract is up in early June. I'm so excited! Oh, and my birthday is coming up on May 29. Plug! I love my birthday. We're having a bbq on May 30, so that should be fun.

I'm currently watching 18 Kids and Counting and I want to dislike the Duggars, but they are so seemingly nice. But annoying...gah, are they annoying. Seriously, the hair! I don't get it. I mean, fine if you don't want a current hairstyle, but you don't have to feather the sides and curl the top like it's 1988! It's so awful it's almost not even funny, but it is funny. Ha ha.

Poems I Love

I've always loved poetry. I used to receive books of poetry from my Mom for my birthday. Since college I've fallen out of touch with my love of poetry, but thanks to a friend and fellow KU colleague, I've rediscovered my interest in this art. This friend starting posting a poem a day during April (National Poetry Month) on Facebook, and he has continued to do this even through May. This "poem share" is such a wonderful idea, and he has a knack for picking out gorgeous, simple, sometimes terribly sad and always vivid poetry.

So, what does this mean for my blog? I've decided to dedicate a section of my blog to a "Poems I Love" feature which I'll update from time to time (on the right panel of my blog). I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I do.

I've also decided to create poetry journals for my children. I'm going to record my favorite poems for them to keep once they leave the roost. I hope Gus and Cleo like poetry or at least respect it as much as I do. I will admit that some poetry intimidates me, but one of my favorite things to do is to read it over and over and try to really see what the poet is trying to communicate. I love studying the poem. I took a poetry class at KU my freshman year and still remember the hours spent just studying a short poem, trying to decipher its meaning.

This new poem I've featured is in Spanish, but it's translated for those of us who aren't fluent. I knew I liked this poem after reading the first line. I hope you all enjoy this new blog feature.

Picture Pages

My party animals.

Cousins hugging. So darn cute. Couldn't get enough.

Miss Sassy Pants models her new pj's

Handsome little guys, Elijah and August.

Eli and Gus...this was right before (or after?) they found a pile of earthworms. Fun!

Running and running and running...this is how they spent most of their time together!

Here are some recent photos, some from our trip to Iowa to visit Andy's family, and some from around the house. Gus and his cousin Eli had so much fun together. It was so amazing to watch them together. We were so bummed to break them up when we had to leave. Gus still asks where Eli is. I wish they lived closer, but thankfully we get to see Jenny and Eli this summer!

Gus speaks in full sentences now, which is fun. He told me to calm down the other day when I got upset at another driver while we were making our way home from the store. It was pretty hilarious. He's potty trained completely during the day, and at night he'll often wake up (before 10pm anyway) and ask to go to the potty. Hopefully by this summer he'll also be trained overnight. We've weaned him off getting a piece of candy every time he goes, so that's a relief, and he seems to really enjoy using the potty. Who knew? He's also testing us every day by ignoring most everything we say or ask for, and by laughing after doing something naughty. So...we're dealing with that. He has good and bad days. Some days he's a dream and listens to everything we say, but other days he just pushes us to the limit! Good thing he's cute. :)

Cleo is absolutely crawling all over the world now. She's on the mooooove! (reference to my "In the Moooooood!" night shirt..Kelly and Cherie will know...ha ha). Anyway, I forget how fast they are! She is also cutting her first tooth, so that's exciting. So far so good with that. She hasn't been too cranky or anything.

I've enjoyed watching Royals games with Andy after the kids go to bed. He loves the games and I like the games, but overall we just like hanging out watching baseball together. There's something so nice about chilling out with a Royals game on. It's a sign of summer. It's fun that the Royals are decent this year! Zack Greinke is such an amazing pitcher and so fun to watch, and I cannot get over the fact that one of the Royals players is named Coco Crisp. I giggle every time I hear his name. It's nice to see the stands packed during the games again. That hasn't happened for a long time. It takes me back to the days when the Royals were awesome.

Enough of that...gotta go to bed now. More later!