Third Day Concert

Shannon, me, Tania & Ricky Willmann

Last Friday, we ditched the kids with Ricky's sister and went to the ThirdDay Concert at the Mizzou "amphitheatre" (the parking lot on the south end of Memorial Stadium and the grassy hill between it and Hearns). In spite of the venue, we had a great time! The band rocked, and we had a nice few hours hanging out with with our friends.

Noah News

A tooth has been spotted! A tiny little nubin of left lower incisor can be seen poking through his bottom gum. Poor kid also as a cold that started two days before, so he's not feeling so hot to begin with. Today, he's a snot and slobber mess, not to mention short tempered. But I'm keeping him dosed up with meds and it should all be over soon. I'll post a pic when I get one - right now it's too small and I can get Noah to open his mouth for more than a half-second.

Running erins and beccas

When we were really little, my sister and I thought that when my parents said they were running errands, they were running erins. Now, that just didn't seem fair to my sister, and she insisted that they run beccas, too. So our family for years has called it "Running erins and beccas" whenever we are out and about, running errands. (I guess Christopher was out of luck.) So here are some photos taken on my Treo of the kids and I running erins and beccas on Tuesday in Columbia, shopping for diaper cake supplies and picking up the milk I left at work in the deep freeze. We hit WalMart (on Broadway), Hobby Lobby, Toys R Us, Burger King, Staples, WalMart (on Conley) and CRH to get the milk. The kids were awesome, and handled the in-and-out of carseats and shopping carts well. They got mylar balloons at Toys R Us. Noah totally digs mylar balloons, and was happy for the rest of the trip. Madeleine enjoyed hers, too, until I had to take it away from her, after several warnings, for making too much noise with it. She would beat on it like a drum for a minute, then shake the crap out of it. It was deafening, not to mention irritating as hell.

Burger prince and princess.

Madeleine in the human habitrail. This is the Burger King at the 63/I-70 intersection, and the play structure is HUGE, three stories tall. Poor Madeleine got lost a couple times, calling, "Mama, where are you? Where are you! I can't see you!" We got it worked out, and got her down, and she did really well, but I could tell she was getting a little anxious about not being to figure out how to get down.

Noah's first time in a human habitrail. He loved climbing through the three little tunnels that looked like a train.

I told you it was big! It's the world's largest! It reads:"Dedicated to God's glory and to the development of strong spiritual family values, with loving and caring relationships of parents and children. With this formost in mind...God would be pleased as we have good, clean family fun together."

Noah's done, but he won't let go of his balloon.

Shannon's Thumb Ordeal

Warning! Gross photos ahead!

So Shannon had an inflammed thumb for a couple days last week, due to hangnail gone kind of bad. On Wednesday, it looked really bad and infected, so I told him it needed to be seen soon - like, Thursday. Thursday evening, after I woke up and was getting ready for work, he still hadn't been to his doctor. The thumb looked worse, and it was very tender, redish-purple, shiny, and swollen. It appeared to me to worsen in the hour or so I was up, and we decided, at 5:45, to take him to the ER and have it looked at. Techinically, you are supposed to call in by 5pm at my hopsital if you can't work, but I was too concerned about it. The pictures don't really do it justice, but here they are, taken on my Treo in the ER:

The above is a comparison of his two thumbs, so you can see how ugly and swollen his left one was. The ER doc lanced it and cleaned it, and the tech dressed it in this massive white bandage that made him look like a professional hitchhiker, and we got a prescription for oral antibiotics. He also got a prescription for Vicodin, but once the pressure was relieved, he wasn't in so much pain anymore. The thumb is still red and irritated, and not terribly pretty, but he's not in pain and has full range of motion again. And, thankfully, the "thumb" puns have stopped as well.

The Ball (finally!)

After months of talking about it, we finally attended "The Ball", aka Danny and Valerie's wedding. I was a nice weekend, starting with the rehearsal dinner on Friday night. Kay asked Shannon to do 30 minutes or so of love songs during the cocktail hour, or half hour, as it were. She specifically requested a country song, "Long Line of Love", and Shannon did a very nice job of learning it in the twelve or so hours before the dinner. The wedding Saturday was in Montgomery City, about 45 minutes east on I-70, and the reception was here in Fulton at St. Peter's in the evening. In between, we spent some time with the family at the new house. As expected, Madeleine loved the dance, and mostly wanted to dance by herself. She hit her wall, though, right before 10pm, and we left soon after. We had a great time. Congratulations to the new Mr. & Mrs. Neudecker!

Two New Diaper Cakes Up on eBay!

I'm getting brave. Based on the success of my first one, I've decided to list two more, a full-size three layer cake, and a one-layer cupcake. Here and here are the links, if you are interested in taking a look.

Anniversary Trip to the STL

For our anniversary last month, Shannon and I treated each other to a child-free night in St. Louis, watching our Birds and staying in a nice hotel downtown. We had a great time, just relaxing and enjoying ourselves and the game without worrying about entertaining our two small kids. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) We got great seats along the third base line off the Prime Seat Club. It was a beautiful night until the rain came in the ninth inning. It was the top on the inning, Cards winning, with ONE out to go when a delay got called. We stuck it out until ten pm, and then decided to go get a drink on Washington street with Orin, Erin, and her brother Kyle. They were also at the game celebrating Kyle's 21st birthday. We had a bit of a snafu regarding our hotel reservation, but the Crowne Plaza's customer service was outstanding and ultimately, we were satisfied with them. Hotels.com, though, is not a website I'll be using again to make reservations.

Journeyman pitcher Ray King, formerly of the Cardinals, signs autographs before the game.

The team assembled at home plate to watch Ronnie Belliard receive his World Series ring. Belliard now plays for the Nationals.

Albert!

Trying to wait out the rain delay.

Yay!

My first diaper cake sold on eBay! It had a total of 9 bids and 175 page views.

Pink Eye

Let the parade of childhood illnesses begin! We have our first cases of pinkeye in the Cerneka household. Noah and Madeleine both have green gunk oozing from their eyes, along with the redness, puffiness, and itchiness that goes with it. Since there's greeen drainage, it's bacterial conjuntivitis, and can be treated with antibiotics. So yay! three times a day we get to hold down BOTH our children to force their eyeballs open to put the drops in and boy is it fun. But it already seems to be working after only three doses each of the drops. I just hope most of the gunk is gone by this weekend - we have a big wedding on Saturday!

Noah is Nine Months Old

On May 29, Noah turned nine months!

Noah loves: nursing, Mommy and Daddy, chasing his sister, chasing the cat, eating the cat's food, dumping out the cat's water bowl, crawling and climbing, music, clapping his hands, feeding himself, putting stuff in his mouth, diving headfirst off the couch and beds, splashing in water.

Noah hates: having to lay still for a diaper change, crawling on grass, having his nose and face wiped, having cat food, stickers, bits of paper, crayons, etc fished out of his mouth, crawling to mom or dad only for them to walk away, having his hair washed/rinsed

Here are pictures of my sweet Noah Boy!

Little Miss Muffet

My Lords and Ladies!

So, our last night in the Chicago area was spent at Medieval Times. It's a dinner and "tournament" where you eat with your hands ("There were no forks in medieval times, therefore there are no forks at Medieval Times.")and cheer for your night as he battles his way to hopefully become the king's new champion. I've secretly always wanted to go, but was afraid it would be touristy and cheesy. It kinda was, but it was a lot of fun! It's a Disney-fication of medieval Spain, not terribly authentic, but still entertaining.

We had to get 8:30 show tickets due to Shannon's schedule, so I worked really hard to get both the kids to nap in the afternoon so they would be able to stay up later. I just drove around the Barrington area until they were both asleep, and then kept driving for another hour or so. In addition to her being tired and crabby, I was also worried that the show might be too much for Madeleine's two-year-old sensibilities (See Princesses on Ice). Of course, I didn't think of that until after I bought the tickets, (just like Princesses on Ice), when I saw the disclaimer on the tickets that said something about photostrobic and smoke effects.

I needn't have worried.

She was completely entranced and stood up in her seat the entire program. She refused to eat anything, but she would every once in a while reach down and pick up her mug with both hands to sip her Pepsi (it was the only drink provided and I didn't think to bring any juice). We got front row seats, so we were right in front of the action. Of course, we cheered for our Red and Yellow Knight and waved our little flags for him. The first thing they do when you walk in is give you a paper crown with your knight's colors on it. This also tells you what section to sit in. Madeleine yelled, "Yay Knight!" and waved her flag fiercely.

Every time our knight walked by our section, we'd cheer and he'd hand these carnations out to different women in our section (which he would kiss first - gag!). I thought for sure, since she was so cute that he'd give one to Madeleine one of those times. Nope. I thought, "She's cute. She's two. Give her a bloody flower!" Nope, no carnation for her. However, about halfway through the show, the princess put these ribbon favors on the ends of all the night's lances. Our knight walked over to our section, stopped in front of us, and lowered his lance right at Madeleine! He was giving her the favor! I pulled it off, and it said, "The Queen of Love and Beauty". Everyone in our section cheered and clapped for her, and a photographer ran up to take her picture. Of course, the stinker wouldn't smile for the guy, but he got a picture anyway. And because I'm a mom and a sucker, I bought it and the pictures they took of us as we walked in.

As for Noah, well, there's not much for a nine month old to do at Medieval Times. He wouldn't leave his crown on, and fell asleep in Shannon's arms before it was over. I remembered after I wrote the original post that Noah had the nasty cold that was going around our family, with the worst runny nose I think I've every seen on a baby. I had given him some infant cold medicine to ease the cold symptoms, which, like many other cold meds, makes one sleepy. So he was a little out of it from not feeling well and from the cold medicine.

We each got a hightlights DVD that we watch daily now that we're home. Madeleine gets excited every time she sees the horses, the nights, and the princess. The crowns and the flags have pretty much bit it, but she pores over the pictures they took. We really had a good time, and I would love to go again someday.

(Sorry about the wonky way the pictures turned out. I scanned them in a hurry.)

Chicago Pictures (finally!)

I haven't been too good about getting pictures up these past few weeks - sorry. Here are pictures from our week-long trip to Chicago last month. The Oddblog has been treating the reason for the trip like a secret, for some reason. Everyone already knows why, but to humor our friend Orin, I'll not post the pictures I took at Norwest until the "secret" is revealed.

While Oddwalk conducted their secret mission, Erin, the kids, and I explored the northwest suburbs, visited friends and family, crossed the boarder into Wisconsin for outlet mall shopping, and hung out in our less-than-posh accomodations. (Nothing personal, GIA.) Orin & Erin left on Friday for home, but we stayed one more day. We capped off our week with a medieval adventure, which I'll post about next. Here are some pics from the week:

Noah bathing in the sink. Nice fauxhawk, son.

Kickin' it at the motel.

Carter's outlet in WI.

At the Museum of Science and Industry with Becca and Maia. Madeleine is playing with a HUGE water machine/table that goes through the entire space set aside for small children.

Visiting the Fairy Castle.

Visiting the baby chicks.

Barrington had a really nice park right behind our motel.

Becca and Maia at MSI.

The following pictures were taken with my mobile phone, so they are kind of grainy.

Madeleine shows off her new nightgown and my black beaded shoes.

Me and the kids at the MSI ice cream parlor.

My little shopper-in-training shows off the season's hottest wedges and a matching purse.

Erin plays with Madeleine at the outlet mall.

Madeleine with new friends at the GIA HQ.

Erin and Madeleine watching tv. There really is more than a black screen, I promise. Note Madeleine still has my black shoes on.