All Hail the Chiefs!

We were up at Pete's sister's house on Tues night and got back today. She and her family live up in Arlington Heights near Chicago. We went up so Pete and Adam (Jill's husband) could go to Wrigley to see the Chiefs play. They are a minor league team coached by Ryne Sandburg. He played for the Cubs in the 80s and I've been in love with him since at least 4th grade. :-) I tried convincing Adam to track him down and let him know that his sister-in-law was in love with him. Or at the very least have Pete hold up a sign that said "My wife loves Ryne!", but I couldn't get either one of them to do that. Oh well. Maybe next time. ;-)

Anyway, Pete took Madie and Noah and Adam took his oldest Trevor. From what I hear and see in the pictures, the kids had a great time! There were silly mascots that did dance moves with the officials and threw t-shirts and balls and stuff in the stands. Apparently one crab thing or hippo thing ate some player or something. The kids thought it was hiliarious, but I'm still sot completely certain who ate what. But, they laughed and laughed about that one! They sat in the bleachers, but no home runs came their way. They sat in left field hoping to catch a few, but they all ended up in right field. The experience was fun nonetheless. :-) The boys got tired around 9:30, so they left early - after the 8th inning - but it was a good thing they did, because as soon as they got on the road, it started pouring! There was thunder and lightening and everything! They all got back to Jill's about 11. Noah was out for the count, but Trevor and Madie were so excited, that they ended up talking our ears off as they were getting ready for bed. It was a great night for the kids and for Pete and Adam too.

Oh, and of course, while Pete, Adam, and the older kids were out, Jill and I took Ty and Livie shopping and enjoyed a nice, relaxing evening together. Ty just loves Livie and Livie thinks Ty's funny and silly and I think Ty enjoys being a "big brother" to Livie. He's protective of her and explains things to her and is just so sweet. They were adorable to watch. And, Pete, bless his wonderful heart, watched all 5! kids this morning, so Jill and I could shop some more! He reminded me that we owe him another round of golf for that, but hey, TOTALLY worth it!! :-)

Bubbles, Bubbles, Everywhere

I talked below about the bubble machine I bought. It said on the box that it would produce up to 10,000 bubbles in minutes. I don't know that I believed that, but it was $5, so I bought it. It's totally lived up to its claim! It's fantastic! The kids love it and I don't have to sit there getting dizzy from blowing bubble after bubble anymore. Thought I'd take some pictures of them playing in the bubbles last night. :-) Noah and Livie were trying to catch them on their tongues. Noah actually caught a few. Livie and Madie were able to catch a couple on their fingers before they popped. Pretty fun stuff!

Another Indy trip!

We were in Indy again this weekend, only this time it was to see Pete's friends. Last month I got to enjoy a wonderful trip down there to see my best friends. It was terrific. So, when Pete's friend Chris suggested we all meet this month, we were ready to go! The friends I'm talking about are Chris, Ted, and Corey. Three of his buddies from college. I remember when he introduced me to each of them all those years ago and here we are 13 years later still good friends. :-) Since that time though, they've all gotten married to great gals and just in the past few months both Corey and Chris have added baby girls to their families. Ted and his wife Suzy just found out they're pregnant with quads! We haven't really seen them for a couple of years, so you can see we had a lot of catching up to do!

I don't know how to actually make the pictures go in a certain order with headings under them. I only know how to make them stay at the top of my entry, so I'll try and explain who each family is. Chris is married to Liz and they have a daughter Lainey who is 7 months old. Liz wasn't able to make it, so the picture above is just of Chris and Lainey. Corey is married to Mamie and they just had their little girl Lexi last month. They're the ones under the tree. Don't they both have adorable girls?!! Then Ted and Suzy are the ones on the chair. She's the one expecting quads that I just mentioned. So fun!

Anyway, we all descended upon Indy and went to Ted's house and hung out for the day. It was really relaxing and fun to see everyone. We took the kids outside to play in their backyard with the bubble machine I brought and they loved that. Best $5 I ever spent! The guys played MarioKart for a while - which was just so fun to watch! We had pizza for supper, then the kids and I headed back to the hotel around 8, so that Pete, Corey, and Ted could go to the late showing of Batman at the IMAX. Pete said they sat in the third row, because it was so packed and with the IMAX being so huge, his eyes were going in opposite directions to see the movie! I was surprised he didn't end up cross-eyed! :-) But, he had a fun time and really liked the movie a lot. He needed a "guys night out". He doesn't those very often. While he was at the movie theater, I got the kids ready for bed and tried settling them down. They watched Peter Pan and ended up falling asleep around 10 - which is 9 our time. This morning we relaxed a bit, went down to the pool for a while, then headed out to go to lunch with Ted and Suzy. It's always so much fun to see them all. We had a great time! Can't wait for our next visit. By then we should have 4 new members to add to that crew! ;-)

Beauty and the Beast

We were invited by my friend (and neighbor) Jackie to go with her and her daughter Jade to see a local production of "Beauty and the Beast" over in Peru. She works for IV Cellular and they help fund the theater there, so it was a special night for all IV Cellular employees. So, she got Madie and I free tickets and we went tonight. It was sooooo fun!! The play started at 7:30, but for about 30 min before the opening, they served appetizers. We got to eat some yummy food and we got introduced to several of her friends from work before going inside to be seated. We got to sit just one row back from the front on the far right side. It was a really good view. It was a rather long play and we didn't get home until nearly 11pm, so the girls were tired, but they had a great time. The actors were really good. It was funny and they all had really nice voices. They really brought it to the audience by having a lot of scenes where the actors came down the aisles and stuff. The guy that played Lumiere was hilarious and so was Cogsworth. They both were very funny. Afterwards, Madie and Jade got to get their picture taken with Belle, which they thought was really cool and Madie got her picture taken with Gaston as well. Jade was afraid of him. She didn't like how he stabbed the Beast with a knife, so even though poor Gaston tried coaxing her to take a picture, she wouldn't budge. Afterwards, Jackie bought the girls a light-up rose like the Beast had in the play. Madie was pretty excited about that. It was a really fun night and I'm hoping we'll be able to go again sometime. "Alice in Wonderland" is coming in Aug. Maybe Madie and Noah would both like to see that one. :-)

Madie and Olivia's Room

Here is the interview I did with Madie and Olivia about their room. Keep in mind that Livie is 2 and in speech therapy and doesn't actually say a lot of words yet. :-)

Me - Tell me about your room.

Madie - My room is speical to me, because I have lots of fun in it. I like that it's just really fun to play in and uh, I like the colors: pink, white, blue, and yellow. They're pretty.

Me - Olivia, do you like your room?

Livie - yes.

Me - Do you like to sleep in there?

Livie - uh, uh.

Me - What is your favorite toy?

Madie - I like my Barbies, because I like dressing them up in pretty clothes.

Olivia - two (then she made kitty noises and left the room) ;-)

Me - Do you like your closet, Madie?

Madie - Yeah, because my American Girl dolls are in there.

Me - What do you like about your American Girl dolls?

Madie - I like that they have lots of clothes to buy and I like shopping for the new things for them .

Me - Who would you like to have sleepover sometime?

Olivia - O-ah (Noah).... Madie. yeah, Daddy. Mommy.

Madie - Emma, because she's my friend.

Me - If you could have your favorite room and make it look however you want, what would it look like?

Madie - I would have High School Musical wallpaper and a purple closet and lots of jewelry. Uh, I would have my very own snack place. So, you could build it and it would have chairs and a table for putting our snacks on and eating and stuff.

Me - Any funny or weird dreams you want to talk about?

Madie - There was this guy who had a light saber that didn't work and this other guy he said, uh, he said that uh, that uh, it was broken. haha And, then the first guy said that was funny and uh, .... (this story continued for a while, but you get the idea). ;-)

Me - Anything either of you want to tell anyone that might read this?

Olivia - Eat.

Madie - I really like my room.

*By the way, thought I'd share that my dad is the one who made that dollhouse-shaped bookcase back when we first moved into this house. He copied it from my Pottery Barn Kids catalog. I was quite impressed and still am at how well he did making it. :-)

Noah's room

Continuing my blogging about the rooms in our house, I decided to take a picture of Noah's room. Everyone really seemed to like when I interviewed the kids, so I interviewed Noah about his room. This is what he said...

Me: Tell me a little bit about your room

Noah: Well, I like it. It's the room I usually play in. It's got lots of fun stuff in it. And, I like my bed. And..... that's all.

Me: What is your favorite toy in your room?

Noah: Um.... the truck. The black one that has the screws that you can unscrew.

Me: You like that even better than your Star Wars toys?

Noah: Well, I like everything.

Me: What is your favorite color in your room?

Noah: The white stripes

Me: Who would you like to have spend the night?

Noah: Trevor, 'cause he's my favorite guy.

Me: Have you had any funny dreams when you were sleeping in your room?

Noah: A long time ago I had a dream where I said, "Ahhhh!!!!" and then it ended. It was funny!

Me: Anything else you want to tell our viewers about your room?

Noah: Just that it's really special and I like it a lot.

The Playroom

I said a few blogs ago that I would go through the house and take pictures of our rooms, so those of you who haven't seen our house, could see it. Well, we were downstairs in the basement and I thought I'd take a picture of our playroom. Our basement is unfinished, but I love it that way. We have made a big space for the kids to play in and then the rest of the basement is open, so they can ride their bikes down there if they want to. Granted, there's a lot of junk down there too, but we've pushed that all to the sides, so they have room to ride. It's so nice in the winter especially, because they want to run around and when they can't go outside, it's the best place to go. We had Noah's birthday party here in February and what did all the kids do? Play in the basement and ride all the bikes and big wheels we have. We love having that space and honestly, that's a major reason why we bought this house. It's fantastic! The palm trees are leftover from Madie's party a couple of years ago and the pirate flags are leftovers from Noah's party this year. We just keep adding to it. ;-)

Invention Convention

With 16 people gathered at my in-laws house this weekend, I tried to find a way to keep the kids occupied, so they weren't running under our feet. Back at the end of the house, Pete's mom has a playroom for the kids, so I told them to go back and make super-cool lego inventions and that I would come check on them in 15 min to see what they made. And, of course, by "15min" I mean "how much time you will stay back there quietly before I have to check on you". ;-) Madie and Trevor were very excited and headed back there along with Noah and Ty. Ty came out literally in 2 seconds flat with an invention that I'm guessing he found on the floor already put together to show us. I cracked up! So, after that, he was happy and went to find Livie to play with or something. He later went back and made a couple as well. But, those 15 min I gave the rest of them turned into a secret building site for all lego inventions ever built! They didn't just build one each. I believe Trevor and Madie each built 7 inventions and Noah built 2. They were back there for over an hour building! The door was closed and only opened for those with top secret security clearance. After it got close to bedtime, I went back (with my eyes closed, of course) and told them they had to finish up in 5 min. Thus began the "convention" part of the activity. They brought out each invention one by one, showing each one of us that were in the family room, explaining their names and what they did. I took pictures of each one. I promised them I would do a blog all about their awesome inventions. They worked so hard on them and came up with some pretty cool designs. Trevor will have to remind me of the names he gave his, because they've slipped my mind, but he's a very creative name-maker and he came up with some great ones! Anyway, here, in all its glory, is the debut of the "Trolinger/Schutz Invention Convention 2008"!!

By the way, you may notice the height difference between Trevor and Madie. He's actually almost 7 months younger than Madie, but a good head taller. He's already nearly up to my chin and he's not quite 7!!! We're making bets that he's going to end up being 6'9" by the time he's 20. :-)

Andy's Home!

Pete's brother, Andy, has been in Iraq since the first week of March and even before that, he was gone for training, so it's been several months since we saw him last. Well, almost 2 weeks ago, Pete called his parents to say hi and who should end up on the phone, but Andy! He came home for a surprise 2-week leave. We knew that he had put in a request to come home during that time to celebrate his 1 yr anniversary with his wife, but we didn't know if it was going to happen. But it did! So, we all descended upon Warsaw this weekend. We left Friday night after swim lessons (Noah jumped off the diving board!!) and just got back around suppertime tonight. Pete's sister and her family all came down too, so both Sat and Sun we had about 16 people hanging out at the house, having supper together, and playing, of course, Wii! Jill and Adam and Pete and I went to Andy and Francy's after we all got our kids in bed on Sat night and played Wii on their big 60" tv until about 1:30 in the morning. Apparently when you're pushing 34 like I am, staying up until nearly 2 is hard!! I was so tired the next morning. Good grief. But, it was a lot of fun and we had a great time. The kids, as always, had a fun time too. They played in Nana's pool and played legos and football and did a little Wii time. Ty and Livie love playing together and he was just so sweet with her. Jill told me that he said that Livie was "his best!". :-) So cute! It was really great to see Andy again and it was a little hard to say goodbye, knowing he's going back to Iraq on Thurs, but we continue to pray for his safety and are just so glad he was able to come home and see his wife and little girl and all of the rest of us as well.

*The pictures I've posted are just some random shots of us hanging out and some of the kids. Andy's the one in the striped shirt and his wife Francy is wearing the black shirt. Their

daughter Ally is the baby with the big blue eyes. :-) Pete's sister Jill is the one holding Ally (with the great tan - so jealous!) and her husband is the one outside playing football with Pete and the kids. He's 6'4", so he's hard to miss! And, their boys are Trevor and Ty. I think the rest of the people are pretty self-explanitory. :-)