Video Dump (and a spring show too)

I see lots of blogs doing photo dumps from time to time.  This is similar – but it’s more of a video dump. 

I logged into my YouTube account to upload videos from Miles’ Spring show last night and noticed that I had others to publish online.  Oops! I’ll spare you 10’s of minutes and only show you my favorite video from the archive.

So…. let’s go back to March.

Warning – this video contains SNOW!  After this winter, I know that’s a swear word.  Sorry! Consider yourself warned.

Miles, Nate, Caleb and Laura found a rare sledding hill in Chicago so that Miles could give snowboarding a shot.  Impressive!  Now we need to find a real hill! That’ll have to wait for another winter.

Now, here’s the event that inspired this post… 

Yesterday was not only Miles’ half birthday, but it was also his LAST spring show at daycare. He loves these things. See 2013’s Sound of Music themed show here.

You heard me right!  Miles is a 5.5 years old AND a singing fool. Enjoy!

This next song goes out to:

• all of Miles’ Aunts and Grandmas who are young at heart
• all of Miles’ girly little cousins
• all of the pretty ladies in Miles’ life who are princesses at heart

You know who you are!

The cold never bothered us anyway!

Happy Spring!

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Posted in: birthday,Chicago,Miles,Video

Chef Miles

For Christmas, Miles got a seriously cool cookbook written specifically for kids.  (Thanks, Grandma)

He browses the recipes from time to time. Most recently, he’s been asking to make an Apple Tower!
Today, we made his request a reality!

First, we assembled the ingredients and necessary tools, including the kid-safe knife.

Then, Miles cut,”frosted” and assembled his snack. In Miles’ words, the peanut butter is the mortar that holds the bricks of his tower together.

We had fun working together on an easy, edible project today.   It was tasty too!

The apple tower was a great reward after such a busy day.
Miles played basketball in the morning (sorry, no new videos to share this week) followed by our eye appointments.  Miles barely failed his eye exam at the pediatrician's office in October. He was required to have a follow-up with an eye doctor before kindergarten.
So now it’s real – Miles does need glasses, but like his mom, only for reading. I really liked the green glasses. I think I would have pushed harder to get my way if he was going to wear these glasses everyday.

Miles really wanted his new glasses to match is dad’s glasses (of course!).  We settled on the black pair below.

To our surprise and delight, the glasses Miles wanted were 1/3 the cost of the pair I preferred.  I’m so glad I didn’t employ my remarkable power of persuasion.
Well, this fun and busy day is just about over. Tomorrow is another day – Super Bowl Sunday, to be exact!
Go Broncos!

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Posted in: Miles,recipe

100th day

Wednesday was the 100th day of school!

As we learned last year, this is not something the Pre-K class takes lightly. There are snacks, activities, and presentations from each of the kids.  The entire class was tasked with creating a project that has one-hundred of something. All of the other classrooms toured the 100-Day-Museum created by the pre-K class. And just like last year - Miles dressed up. He loves finding reasons to wear fancy pants and ties to school. If you look good, you feel good, right?!  Such a doll!

Last year, Nate lead the creative process by thinking up the "flip book."  I took rapid photos of Miles dancing in front of a white door. We printed the pics out and Nate bound them together. It was kind of like a movie, but in book form. Miles numbered the back side of each photo from 1 to 100. He loved it. His class loved it!

This year, Nate passed the project off to me.  I'm not nearly as creative and l had a lot to live up to.  The bar was set so high. I decided to go a little more academic.  I asked Miles to make up a story. We limited it to exactly 100 words.  I transcribed the words onto several pages of cardstock and passed them off to Miles for full color illustrations. He's not only an author, but an illustrator as well!

Here he is, posing right by his book - Super Secret Hero!

At one point during the day, Miles was given 100 cups to play with. Guess what the son of an architect decided to build - all by himself?  Miles named it after his favorite skyscraper, the Hancock Tower. He asked his teachers to leave the tower up all day. He really wanted to show us his creation.  I'm not going to lie - I was (and still am) impressed!

Such a proud mom moment.  

BUT, boy am I tired after all of that creativity.  Definitely not my thing.  

I saw this coffee mug on my instagram feed today and fell in love.

Is the completion of this project gift worthy?

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Posted in: Instagram,Miles,School Stuff

Legoland Discovery Center

We had a stellar weekend!

Friday night – we had a low-key night in, eating pizza and watching Angels in the Outfield.  Miles LOVES sports movies from the 90’s. Thanks, Netflix! We may have to buy it.  SpaceJam, Rookie of the Year, Mighty Ducks 1, and the Sandlot have been watched way too many times for my liking.

Saturday – the big basketball day (details here). We also met up with newest Chicago Klinge’s, Aunt Laura and Uncle Caleb, for a nice dinner and NFL playoff games. Unfortunately, the Bears were not playing, so we actually spent lots of time playing UNO, Guess Who, and Tic Tac Toe instead.

Sunday – Miles took his Kindergarten exam right away in the morning.  He took the classical and gifted exams. We’ll know how he did sometime in March, I think.  Afterwards, we went to church, ate lunch at home, and then drove out to Schaumberg for a fun day at Legoland Chicago! We had been wanting to check it out for quite some time when Nate was offered a few free tickets at work.  How could we pass it up?!?

We were greeted with open arms….

The Lego model of some of Chicago’s greatest buildings was really cool!  The lights even cycled to give you views during the day and at night!

Who wouldn’t want to pose by these characters?!

We went on a brief factory tour that explained how legos are made. Miles was fascinated!

We saw a couple 15 minute 4D movies too.  When the lego man’s fire hose appeared to spray us, we were actually lightly sprayed with water!!  When the helicopter flew over our head, the breeze in the room messed up my hair.  It was a wild experience.  Nate and I giggled as Miles kept grabbing the air, trying to touch the animations popping off the screen.

Next, we stopped at the stations used to build your own race car. Surprisingly, we spent a lot of time here. We couldn’t find wheels in any of the buckets, but the boys still had fun.  A couple cars were built and then launched down the ramps, just to crumble when they hit the net. As we were leaving the area, we noticed that there were plenty of wheels for purchase.  Parent fail!

We made time to test out both rides.

The first one was a car on a rail that carried us through a course to shoot targets and bad guys with laser guns. I had the most points – woo hoo! They took our picture, but I’m too cheap to buy it. Excuse the watermark. Ha!

The second ride went in way too many circles. I just watched, but Nate said that it was actually pretty fun! The seats when around like a carousel, but the faster you peddled, the higher you flew.

 

We were only there for 3 hours, but I was exhausted!  You knew they’d strategically force you to exit through the gift shop, right?  An yes, Miles melted his dad’s heart enough to take home a souvenir. It’s a 195 piece kit featuring a speed boat, IronMan and some ‘bad guys’. He’s been working hard to put it together all by himself. He’s getting so good at following the directions.

On the way out, I had to stop by my favorite Lego creation – AL!

We had a blast from start to finish! What a weekend!

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Posted in: Chicago,Kelly,Miles,Nathan

Bitty Basketball Begins

First of all – let me apologize for my absence.  There is really no excuse for my behavior!

I missed so many important life events in the past 6 months.  Maybe I can do some sort of camera dump and quick recap.  Though, I am not making any promises….

I’m here for 2 very special reasons:

1. I finally have a new-to-me, perfectly functioning computer that allows me to capture our goings-on again
2. Miles started basketball today! You had to know I was going to share this experience with a little digital eye candy.

It’s no secret that Miles LOVES sports. He’s willing to try just about anything. 

Yes, he’s only 5 - but he’s already logged many hours preparing for today’s debut; studying highlights of Michael Jordan’s career via YouTube and the cinematographic masterpiece, SpaceJam! He loves watching the Chicago Bulls on TV and LIVE at the United Center, as well as ‘bamming’ on his Dad in our living room with the Nerf hoop hanging from the front door or the little Fisher Price hoop propped on a chair.

(The Fisher Price hoop was a gift for his first birthday. It’s been well loved!)

This morning, Miles started his first season in a 4-6 year old Bitty Basketball league at a nearby gym.  He was excited to lace up his new basketball shoes and show his peers that practice has already made perfect!

Nate and I were surprised at how well Miles actually played today!

They started out with some stretching, running, and fundamentals/drills.

Dribbling with the non-dominant hand, defensive shuffling, bounce passing, and layups were the skills of the day. Lots more practice is needed by all!

Of course, the best part of the morning was the scrimmage play at the end.  They played 6 on 6 – kids wearing blue vs. kids not wearing blue. Please enjoy the video below!

Isn’t he scrappy?!?! This is going to be a really fun season :)

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Posted in: Basketball,Miles,Video

First baseball practice

This morning was Miles' first baseball practice.  It was pretty warm already by 9:30am, so the kids were pretty distracted and sweaty. I will try and blame their lack of attention span on the heat, but I'm sure its just the way kids are.
They fielded some grounders, ran some bases, and practiced throwing too.  There wasn't any batting practice at all today.

There was lots of waiting around for your turn too - the group was pretty large!  As mentioned previously, the draft will be on Thursday.  I'm hoping that they'll start practicing as individual teams after that.  His next practice, weather pending, is Friday night at 6pm.  We should find out what team he's on that night too!

All the kids were taking turns throwing at the fence.  Miles threw WILD...  Don't believe me? Watch below. Where's the concentration?

Being a coach for these kids would be tough.  There's a lot of repeating yourself, trying to be encouraging while instructing, restating your demand with different words, trying to give the instruction in another language, and uhm, I mentioned repeating yourself, right??   I think you get the idea. The coach in the video above was amusing.

Some of my favorite quotes from Coach Carlos were:

• Watch where you're walking. These are soft balls, but it's still going to hit you in the head.
• Get your finger out of your nose.
• Stop playing in the dirt
• Pay attention.
• Wake up
• Your glove goes on your hand.
• Lift your other leg. No, the other leg.
• Nice throw. Wait, you have to let go. Try again.

Yes... I'm kind of hoping Miles ends on Coach Carlos's team.  He's a funny guy!


- Posted from my iPhone

Location:Smith Park, Chicago, IL

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Posted in: Baseball,Chicago,Miles,Video

Parents can be Athletic too...

Putting together a couple of blogs for our family goings-on, I realized that the blog has become very Miles-centric.  I love that little man - don't get me wrong!  But why not step out a little to let you know that Nate and I do have active lives that do not involve 4-6 year old athletics! This is a blog about the family, is it not?!

To begin, Nate is studying and taking exams, like-a-boss!
He's been combing through binders of material to review the facts and formulas needed to pass the 7 exams that make up the Architectural Registration Exam for licensure. So far, so good!

Nate's softball league with his co-workers starts up again on June 7th.  He'll play every Thursday, assuming he's not injured or backed-up with a tight deadline at work.  Again, it's an architectural league this year. Local firms put together teams and they play each other for bragging rights.  If there's one thing that I've learned about architects in my long-time relationship with Nate - it's that they prefer to mingle with their own kind! (see bullet point #13 pasted below from "Dating an Architect" by Bob Borson)

• Be prepared for all your new friends to be other architects. Architects lose the ability to speak like regular people because in college, “archispeak” is drilled into their heads like waterboarding. Listen to an architect talk for an evening and I can guarantee that you will hear at least one of the following words:  ”juxtaposition” “axis mundi” “clarity” “truncated” “uniformity” and “composition”.

Can I also add "phenomenological" and "methodologies" ??

Nate's also planning to run a race this summer (Thurs., May 23)! Again, his office a put together a group of active bodies to run in the J.P.Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge! It's a 3.5 mile race.  Miles and I are super excited to cheer him on, even though Nate HATES running!!

I've also signed up for a few races.
Coming up on Saturday, May 25, I'll be running the Soldier Field 10-miler!  I've done it once before, but this  year is super exciting!  It's the 10th anniversary of the race and the shirts are FINALLY ChiBear's colors!

On Sunday, June 23, I will be running in the Chicago Women's Half Marathon. Also, on Saturday, July 27th, I will be running in the BTN BIG10K. Fun, fun!  There are so many other fun races yearning for my attention, but I really need to settle down.

Other than that, our summer will involve weekends to the beaches along Lake Michigan, camping getaways, family time, and far-away family time!  Happy start to your summer!

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Posted in: Baseball,Chicago,Kelly,Nathan,running

Baseball Draft

Miles will have practice for outdoor baseball league on Saturday, May 18th (That's why he's missing soccer)
This is the weekend the kids are 'scouted' for skills.
On Thursday (May 23rd), the coaches will then meet for the draft.

Yes, I said it. Draft!!
There's a little pressure involved in playing well for the coaches so that they can draft him for a team?!?!
He's only 4.  This is a 4-6 year old league.

Of course his father loves this about the league!  He 'knows' his son is a big deal and will be a major contributor to his team. Sometimes, I just don't understand how the male mind works?!?!  Can't we just get together to play baseball and have a little fun?  I've been assured that this process is fun...

A little extra thought about the draft concept and watching a few more soccer games has shown me that a draft is actually a good idea.  They just want to divide up the skill sets of kids evenly so that the games are fun for everyone.  The soccer league divides the kids up lottery-style by age.  Some teams end up running all over other teams.  Even though the league doesn't keep score, many of the kids understand what's going on. I really can't wait to see Miles play baseball as a part of a team!

Again, only time will tell this season.  The games begin June 1 and goes through mid-August.

I'll do my best to remember to take pictures this weekend to let you know what's going on :)

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Posted in: Baseball,Chicago,Miles

Soccer has begun!

I'm sure that many of you remember the Soccer fun from last summer!
For a 3 year old, Miles was actually pretty good. He was a lot more aggressive that we thought he would be.   It was his first experience of a team sport with peers and he really liked it.

So - fast forward to 2013.  Miles is now 4 and considers himself a master of all sports! When we asked him if he wanted to play soccer again this spring, he screamed 'YES' and noted how 'pumped up' he was for the season to begin! He still remembers last season fondly and often assures us that he is going to be even more aggressive this year. Personally, I'm not that worried about his ability to play aggressive.  I'm hoping he spends a little extra time practicing ball control and aim.

Only time will tell, right?
This year, Miles is on the Orange Iguanas!

Game 1 was April 27th.

He was ready to go! Running all over the field, unafraid of people in his way, and a decent ability to run down the field.

Because Nate makes a big deal over goals scored by Miles, we keep count.  Miles would tell you that he scored 2 goals in his first game, but those of us watching would count them a little differently.

Miles ran into a pack of kids huddled around the ball in the middle of the field and came out the other side right away. He dribbled the ball down the edge of the field toward his goal, and began to turn in towards the goal to score.  His dribble got a little ahead of him and his teammate nudged the ball into the goal for the score.  Miles had a strong assist - technically no goal.  I was impressed.

Miles made several other shots at the goal throughout the game.  Miles thought that one of them went in.  He had a kick straight on that actually left the ground a little and looked to be an easy score.  Unfortunately, right after making the shot, Miles tripped and missed the end of the play.  A kid crossed in front of the goal and blocked the shot.  Miles stood up and ran to the center of the field celebrating as if he had scored.  He was so proud and I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth.

Miles still got McDonald's for scoring a goal(s).

Game 2 was missed due to travel.

Game 3 was May 11th.
Miles played very well again, however I forgot to take any pictures.
He was fast and tough.  He scored one goal - FOR REAL this time!
He was rather proud of himself. Nathan was beaming and treated Miles to a vanilla shake with a cherry on top from McDonald's immediately following the game.

I'm beginning to think a trip to McD's is going to happen more often now that Miles understands the fundamentals a little better.

Game 4 (this coming weekend) will be missed due to a baseball conflict - stay tuned for details on that!

The soccer season continues through June 15th.

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Posted in: Chicago,Miles,soccer

Indoor Baseball Finale

I know this is all really old information, but I decided to make it a permanent memory - in the form of this blog post!

I started the story here and am back to finish up the story now that the class has officially ended.
Here's the quick recap and final summary:

We had a hard time enduring a long winter trapped indoors.  Cabin fever hit Miles the hardest, leading to our enrolling him in an indoor baseball clinic with Lil Slugger's Chicago!
The clinic lasted 7 weeks during our low-travel months and took place inside the Windy City Fieldhouse.
Here's a photo/video dump:

Miles LOVED the coaches, the drills, and the skills!

The best part - the medal!!!

I definitely think that we'll try this out again next year!

We even noticed that the fieldhouse holds birthday parties.
Guess who turns 5 this year?!?!

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Posted in: Baseball,Chicago,Miles,Video

The big Spring Show

Friday was the big Spring Show at Miles’ school/daycare.  His class had been practicing for well over a month.  Miles was VERY excited – not that you’re surprised. He’s always been a bit of a performer.
Each class took their turn. Miles’ class was last. They did 2 songs from the “Sound of Music.” They started with “Do Ra Mi” and finished the program with “So long, Farewell.” They were so cute – I cried, as usual!  I loved it!  You can enjoy it here:

Sorry about missing parts of it.  We sat behind a woman with BIG hair.  Also, the sound was captured differently as they moved the performance into the sanctuary at LaSalle Street Church.  No matter to me – I wouldn’t miss these performances for anything! Heart - MELTED!
The show’s finale was fitting for another reason.  Miles’ best friend (in the yellow tutu above)moved out of state directly following the performance. Her dad was promoted requiring them to move out of state. Miles is devastated, but we hope to keep in contact.  He gave her stationary so that they can be pen pals!
So long, farewell, dear friend! You’re new school is lucky to have you!

  

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Posted in: Chicago,Miles,Video

Good-bye Cabin Fever. Hello Spring Training.

I don't know about you, but we are so sick of winter.  We are not fans of being stuck indoors, especially not since we moved further downtown.  Don't get me wrong, we love our new place, but it feels substantially smaller than our loft.

We need to get out and move a little more. We are getting hopeful and starting to emerge from hibernation.
I've already signed up for a race this spring and have been carefully trying to pick out a couple more for the summer. I'm excited to start logging miles again.  My anxious heart needs it!

Nate is trying to map out camping trips and shop for new cleats before the start of his softball season. Sadly, he won't get to leave "the cabin" much until after his Structures Exam mid-March.

Miles is already moving! He just couldn't wait!
Miles is taking part in an indoor session of Lil Slugger's Baseball. His first session was last weekend. He had quite an audience as Grandma K, Grandpa K, and Josh were all in town for a visit.

We arrived early so that he could study the kids, coaches, and different stations before throwing him in.

They practiced hitting, throwing, running and several of the other basics!  Miles was disappointed that he had to hit off the tee.  He thinks he's too good for it. We assured him that even the pro's practice on tee's once in a while... back me up on that! All was redeemed when he hit a couple coach pitched balls later on.


Fast and focused... I'm so proud!  He takes it very seriously :)

This past weekend (week 2), Miles got his shirt!  The shirts were RED!  Miles LOVES red!  Saturday was a very good day! And after an hour of fielding grounders, hitting, and sliding into bases, Miles made it clear that he couldn't wait for next weekend.

Sometimes I worry that we push sports on Miles a little too much.  His enthusiasm each week calms my heart.  At this point, baseball is still something that he wants to do. Luckily, he's really good at it too! The 3 of us had a heart-to-heart about the potential for more summer athletic involvement. Miles dominated the conversation. Needless to say........
As of this morning, he's been signed up for a Chicago Parks District soccer league for 3-5 year olds (the same as last year). Tomorrow, registration opens up for a summer Chicago Parks District (outdoor) t-ball league for 4-7 year olds!
Yes.. our summer will be outdoorsy and busy! Just the way we like it!

- Posted from my iPhone

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Posted in: Chicago,Kelly,Miles,Nathan