What We're Doing, What We Did, and What We Look Like

Ramble #1: We here in south Chicagoland are preparing for a vicious blizzard. I'm baking bread, boiling water, stocking candles, and grinding coffee beans. Nothing--I repeat, nothing, not even a blizzard of epic proportions--will stand between me and my caffeine intake. Because seriously, my children need me to be in tip-top shape, right? And that means coffee. (Don't worry, I can make it work: a French press, a gas stove, and a grizzly-like attitude in the mornings. Ta-da, coffee!)

I don't think we're overreacting by taking these precautions. We live in an old house with old, loose, tangled-up-in-trees power lines, and if the power is going to even think about going out anywhere within a 25-mile radius of our house, it will go out here. It's just the simple truth. We've weathered simple summer thunderstorms and been the only house on the block without power. And I've heard predictions of anywhere from 12 to 28 inches, with wind gusts of 45 m.p.h., so, you know, that's awesome. Great. Thank you, weather.

Ramble #2: I had a FABULOUS birthday weekend, thanks to my husband and my conspiring parents and in-laws. For the second year in a row he whisked me away to Chicago, where we explored the glorious grottiness that is Wicker Park (book stores! record shops! sex toy shops! used furniture dealers! independent yarn and coffee shops! pizzas places that are also micro breweries! Really, the best place ever. We didn't go in the sex shops, just so you know.) all day Saturday and then retired to a fancy-schmancy hotel right off the Lake (read: Very cold.) for the night. We hung around in the city, visiting pancake houses and another yarn shop, through early Sunday afternoon, when we rode the train back home, greeted our children at my parents' house, and then enjoyed a happy birthday dinner of crawfish etouffee. And everyone had pitched in further and bought me a Chi flat-iron.

IT WAS WONDERFUL.

Anyway! In a totally unrelated note, I have some recent (as in, from last weekend) pictures of our family that I wanted to share. As it is for anyone with small children, none of these are great. But maybe you can squint a bit and pretend that we're all smiling and keeping objects away from our mouths. And fingers away from our noses.

I am cracking up at B's face in this one:

Oh, these children, they do make me laugh. I guess B was really our wild card this time around.

Happy blizzard-ing, folks! I hope everyone stays safe and can hunker down comfortably with lots of squirrelly kids. At least that's what I'm planning on doing. With plenty of coffee.