Happy Easter

Rainbow eggs, chocolate at breakfast, and three Easter egg hunts! Alex had a good Easter. My favorite part is that he loves the Easter egg hunt so much. Once he finished his search, he and Dave reassembled and rehid all the eggs for me to find. After that, he and I did the same for Dave. Plus, we had a lot of fun making the eggs. There was a new method in last week's Trib that Alex wanted to try, which involved peeling the sheets and dying the eggs directly. The colors came out so vibrant!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Alex was very in to Valentine's Day this year, which was a lot of fun. We made Love Bugs out of popsicle sticks, construction papers, and pipe cleaners. He signed all his class Valentines and decorated a bag to carry them to school. We also had heart-shaped pancakes and made Valentine cupcakes. It was a fun holiday!

Card Carrying Member of the CPL

Yesterday was a monumental day in our family -- Alex got his first library card!

The Chicago Public Library does not have a minimum age for getting a library card. Instead, you have to be able to write your first and last name. Alex had been practicing writing his first and last name all week. When we were checking out on Saturday we checked with the librarian (our favorite, Miss Gwen) about getting Alex a card, and she confirmed that all he had to do was be able to sign the form. So, I filled out the paperwork, and Alex signed his name (very intently, as you can see below). Miss Gwen entered us in the computer and now Alex has his own card. I don't know which one of us was more excited! He wouldn't put it in the bag with our books; he insisted on carrying it the whole way home.

Santa Stories

We take a pretty low-key approach to Santa around here. Alex has started to be more aware/interested, but he's also quite skeptical when it comes down to it.

A few weeks ago the subject of Santa came up at dinner, and, after trying to explain the idea of "he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake," this was how the conversation went.

Alex: How does he know everything?
Me (grasping at how to answer this question for a five-year-old): Santa is special.
Alex: It sounds like he's fake. Doesn't it?

Then, last week our Y had a Santa for the kids and the time coincided with Alex's swim lessons, so he had his first visit to Santa experience. When Santa asked Alex what he wanted for Christmas, he said that he didn't know but it was on his list.

Belated Thanksgiving

We just got some Thanksgiving pictures from the family photographer (Grandpa D.) and wanted to share them, as well as a few of our own that we hadn't gotten around to yet.

We had a great time at Dave's sister's. Alex's collection of Legos, Angry Birds, and super heroes continues to expand, and Dave some how managed to find the secret to gaining Reggie's affection.

Diamond Family Thanksgiving

Reggie the wonder dog!

Three cousins

Happy Halloween!

Alex has become full-on crazy about Halloween. This year we decorated the front of the house with spider webs and a ghost garland. He made two goofy pumpkins. And trick-or-treating was a major highlight.

Dave reminded me that Alex started talking about being a bat for Halloween shortly after last Halloween. That idea stuck, although it evolved a bit. When he started talking about what he wanted to be for Halloween a couple of months ago, it started as a bat, then became a vampire bat, then became a vampire dressed as a bat, and finally he landed on Dracula disguised as a bat. I'm not quite sure where the concept came from, but we ran with it.

Continuing the tradition started last year, Alex and Dave are the costume makers. The bat involved less building than last year's robot, but it definitely had more conceptual kinks to work out. Dave made a great mask that was a bat itself, complete with pointy ears, eyes, and wings. However, Alex thought the mask needed to just be the face of the bat and declared that the wings "didn't make any sense." We waited until the last minute, but, much to Dave's chagrin, the wings had to be cut off.

Alex also became particularly obsessed with the fangs. He really wanted fangs. I really didn't want to have him use plastic fangs. He came up with a creative, if bizarre-looking solution on his own. One day, out of the blue, he sat at his art table and made fangs out of paper. They pointed in different directions and had a purple circle (the mouth?) in between. Ok, but I still wasn't sure how they would get used. But, this was not my project. A few days later I discovered that the fangs had been glued to the front of the bat mask. Problem solved.

His original plan for trick-or-treating was to go door-to-door for ten minutes, then hand out candy for ten minutes, but when the night finally came he was a little more focused on going door-to-door. When we came back to hand out candy, he was excited, but the slow traffic disappointed him. He kept going out to the sidewalk like a carnival barker trying to drum up business. "Candy here!" "You can come here for some candy!" "We have candy!"

I've never been a huge Halloween fan, but this year showed me just how much fun it can be to a kid.

Alex and his silly pumpkins 

Alex being a silly pumpkin

Dracula disguised as a bat

Spooky bat!

The Chicago Marathon

Today is the Chicago Marathon. Many of my running friends are out there, and one of Alex's teachers ran today. So, we made an outing of it and went to watch. (Alex and I also watched the start of the race on tv. He wanted to know who was the fastest so he could pretend to be that person.)

We prepared by making a sign for Alex's teacher. He picked bright pink poster board for high visibility. We got there with plenty of time and watched for a little over an hour. There were lots of people running with Iowa gear on, so Alex made a game of seeing how many shirts he could find, and he yelled "Go, Hawks!" to all of them. He also really liked the costumes, especially the runners dressed as super heroes and Buzz Lightyear. He gave lots of high fives from our spot on the side of the course, which earned him lots of smiles from the runners. Then, best of all, we saw his teacher. There was lots of cheering and hugs!

We were too involved in spectating to take many pictures.

Decorating the sign

Watching the runners