Peek A Boo, I see you!

 This morning we visited the library for some Saturday fun with Auntie L - and scored the Minnesota Children's Museum pass again, so that's our adventure for tomorrow!  The boys, N especially, have been playing lots of peek a boo with their auntie - check out these pics!

Bonus Pics:

Thanks to Auntie L who babysat, a truthful friend who said my roots ARE getting darker as I age, and my great hairdresser, yesterday I went from this....

N loves "Goodnight Gorilla"

to this!

Mommy's new hair and M's new bucket (why buy toys?)

Beauty Shop Boys

Unexpectedly, I had to give N a bath in middle of our playdate!  (I'll spare him the indignity and I'll spare your mind's eye of the mess.)  Let's just say I would have been woefully unprepared for this surprise had it happened anywhere but home, so thank goodness we were here and my guest was E, a heaven-sent friend who ran upstairs to draw the bath for us.

When N and I returned to the playground of my living room, E cried, "Oh, my gosh!  Look at those curls!  You should put some mousse in there!"

Thank goodness for Auntie L, who purchases a multitude of hair product when she visits and leaves it in my bathroom (because she can't take it in her carry on)!  I dashed upstairs and found some lavender-scented Herbal Essence just for curls.  Heavens only knows how long it's been hiding up there. 

Here are the results of our beauty shop photo shoot:

Mousse! 

I love you, Foofa.

My favorite pic of the day!

BFF's forever!

Like Richard Simmons!

You'll notice M kept touching his spikes, like, what's this crazy gunk?  And one more bonus pic: the four fellas climbing up the stairs to go night-night:

So cute!

They're so fast!  And it was so cute to see four little diapered-sweatpanted-behinds racing up the stairs! Even funnier: the guys smelled like Auntie L's hair all night!

Birthday Weekend Fun

Around here, we celebrate birthdays when we are together, which is not usually on the actual day.  So, Happy Birthday to Me today, but we celebrated all weekend long!  Grandma A was here, so we took advantage of her asked her kindly to babysit so Hubs and I could have a sleepover party at a nice hotel downtown.  It was a much welcome and needed little getaway.  Thanks, Grandma!

Before that, we took her out to our (and her!) favorite restaurant, Punch Pizza (do you see a pattern?) before she was put under house arrest and the boys had their sleepover.  I'd put pictures here, but again, they are on hubs' brilliantphone which is, again, not here, but there, with him on a business trip.  So here's a Punch Pizza Picture you haven't seen.  It's Aunt L, who LOVES Punch, and replied to Grandma's message that we were there with a picture of her dinner that night: Lean Cuisine.  Haha!  Silly Aunt L!

While we were up in the cities, we stopped by Trader Joe's, a neat organic grocery store that has lots of fun treats.  Here are the boys shopping for flowers in their own mini carts:

This is a funny one!  The parking garage at Trader Joe's was painted all cute, and we wanted to send Aunt L another funny pic, so we took this next to a big red flower and the parking sign.  But check out that CHEESY grin on N!  What a HAM!

Sunday was our fun celebratory birthday day, so we fixed up a "fancy" dinner for us.  Remember when the boys got to pet one day old chicks back in July, when M got his hair cut for the first time?

You're gonna be my dinner, someday, chick.

Well, the "chicks" were ready and K(who did another phenomenal job on my hair!) had two plucked and frozen chickens for me when I got to the salon.  I've never roasted a whole chicken before, but with some help from Grandma A and my Good Housekeeping "Bible," I did it - I even cut off its neck!  It was quite delicious, too, if I must say so myself.  Here's N with what could very well be the chick in the above pic!

We baked a birthday cake with homemade chocolate frosting, which I ate for breakfast today.  Yum.  The boys and I are taking it easy today, recovering from the exciting weekend (more apple orchard pictures to come!) and M's fever.  Poor little guy really has a hard time cutting those molars.  Hopefully it'll be through today and we'll be up and at 'em tomorrow.

Thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes I've already received today via calls, texts, cards, and facebook messages.  It's already been a great birthday and I think 33 will be my best year yet!

Matthew's First Haircut

Matthew's floppy hair was getting long and scraggly, which I could have put up with, but he just looked so hot and miserable with his sweaty mop matted to his head, that I just had to get it cut.  So our hairdresser squeezed him in between our appointments yesterday.

 Matthew and his sweaty, moppy hair on Tuesday night, eating Culver's custard for the first time at our annual Orchestra in the Park concert.

Nathan danced in his seat when the music picked up, rocking back and forth, kicking his legs and smiling like crazy!  Matthew even clapped at the end of songs when the audience did!

BEFORE

He didn't like it at first, then he got his first lollipop, a watermelon DumDum.  The haircut went swimmingly well after that!

Nathan also got his first lollipop, a mango DumDum!  He didn't get a haircut like his brother did to earn it, though.  Sometimes you just get in on your brother's coattails!

The finished product - he looks like a little boy now!

Then we had a little surprise, when our hairstylist's 102 one-day-old chicks arrived (yes, she raises chickens, too-a very talented woman, indeed)!

We almost had to buy this one when Nathan grabbed it and nearly popped its head off!

Matthew actually said "tickle, tickle," when he patted the chick!

I'm so glad that my friend K was able to give Matthew his first haircut and that we got to do it together as a family.  The chicks just pushed the whole event way over the edge of the cuteness chart!

And I listened to 100 peeping chicks while K did my hair after Steve and the boys left!