Finally.  There are starting to be more and more peaceful moments between Analise and Josiah, and it sure warms my heart. 

In the car on the way home from preschool last month, I’d given Analise a package of snack crackers to munch on until we got home.  Josiah started campainging for a cracker… "Cwacker, cwacker, peas…"  I nudged Analise to be a a nice sister, "Could you please give Josiah a cracker Analise?"  "No."  "Please, Analise?  It would be so nice of you to share with him."  Then I heard, "Ank ew!"  "Analise, did you share with him?"  "Yes."  And everyone was still happy.  And my heart about burst.

Just yesterday, Josiah was playing basketball with a little hoop hanging in his room.  It was counting the baskets for him, and Analise positioned herself right next to the game and played cheerleader.  It was so cute.  She’d cheer for him, and he’d stop after every basket and cheer, too.  I hope she’ll always be his biggest cheerleader.

There are still plenty of moments of not sharing, chasing, knocking each other around, but it’s so sweet to see the love between them growing.   

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We love hot breakfasts in our house, and I’ve tried many pancake recipes.  And really… there’s rarely a bad pancake.  But these are FABULOUS!  I will never again try another pancake recipe.  Seriously, these are so light and fluffy, and they mix together so easily.  I doubled the recipe (for about 18 4-inch cakes).  I added diced bananas in some of them, mini chocolate chips in others, and big fresh blueberries in the rest.  They were all delicious, but the blueberry ones were heaven   One last tip… I never keep buttermilk on hand.  But for 1 c. buttermilk, you can use 1 T vinegar and add milk to the 1 cup line.  After just a couple minutes, you can stir and see the curling effect. 

After celebrating my sister Kat’s graduation from the University of Minnesota-Duluth, Josiah and I, Grandma and Charlie and Anna piled into the car on Saturday afternoon to start the drive back to Chicago. We drove from Duluth to Black River Falls on Saturday evening. I think we were all very relieved to start the last leg of the car trip on Sunday. Anna entertained Josiah all the way to Madison, where we met her husband, Hal, at Trader Joe’s. Grandma and I stocked up on a few last things and said our goodbyes to Anna. Man, I HATE saying goodbye to my family. I always cry.

We drove to Chicago, where we met my friend Michele (who we met for the first time last year). Her daughter, Emma, and Analise are the same age, and her son, Michael, and Josiah are the same age. We had a wonderful, relaxing afternoon and evening with them. Michele’s husband grilled a fantastic dinner of steaks, and we had baked sweet potatoes, corn (which Josiah LOVED), and some Trader Joe’s wine I didn’t have room in my suitcase to take back.

Michele’s husband has built some great garden beds in their backyard.
The kids hardly noticed any of the other outdoor toys… dirt makes kids happy!

A peace offering… it was tough on Michael to have Josiah on his territory.

Josiah and trains… he was entertained for HOURS with their Brio train table.

A couple morning pictures of my tousle-headed boy in his Little Einstein’s PJs.

Josiah didn’t want watermelon at breakfast, but mid morning,
we looked over to find him devouring what was still on the table.

Playing with the jewels in the treasure box.

Brian and I were lucky enough to start off our Memorial Day weekend with a trip to Atlanta, just the two of us.  He had wanted to go to a Friday evening criterium (yes, life does revolve around racing), but I wasn’t inclined take the kids for the late night and long drive.  So with a little smooth planning and some gracious free babysitting by his parents, we treated ourselves to an early 5th anniversary trip.  Brian used Priceline.com to get a 4-star hotel – the Grand Hyatt Atlanta in Buckhead – for well under $100. 

Brian’s race was at 9:45pm, but we were worried about the traffic, so we left just after our kids went down for naps at 2pm.  With all the traveling we do as a family, it really was a treat to be just the two of us.  We can have full conversations, listen to our own music, stop or not stop as we please.  We had an extravagant dinner at Panera, (um, it wouldn’t have been my choice, but Brian got to choose since it was his pre-race meal).  We drove through the fancy schmancy upscale Atlanta neighborhoods on the way to our hotel (Vinings and Buckhead) and saw all kinds of houses for sale, including this one.  Gated estate on 3.5 acres, with 10 bedrooms/10 baths for just under $8.5 million.  Whew!  What do you do with a house like that? 

We checked into our hotel before we headed to the race.  Very nice.  The highlight of the room was the iHome alarm clock/iPod dock.  How cool!  I’m really hoping to get one of those for Christmas to use with my new iPod (which I’m loving).  The view from our 8th floor room was out over the Japanese gardens and waterfall, the huge parking garage, below, where we managed somehow to snag free overnight parking (instead of $17 in the hotel lot), and the pretty skyline of the Buckhead skyscrapers… and construction cranes.  Josiah would have loved that part. 

We headed off to the races with plenty of time to spare.  Instead of entertaining kids while we waited for the race, I got to read my magazines and help Brian get ready to go.  And instead of keeping track of kids and dividing my time between them and the race, I was able to cheer and take photos, though they didn’t turn out so well. 

Brian’s the 3rd blur from the left, right in the center.  Yes, the finish was fast!

I think my favorite part of the weekend was sleeping in, which is unheard of at home with our super-early-birds.  We slept until 9:30, which felt so luxurious.  Then we explored the Japanese gardens and managed a quick photo of ourselves in front of the waterfall. 

After checking out, we drove back through the fancy neighborhood, even stopping off at a garage sale.  Nothing we needed, but there was some really nice stuff, though not the best garage sale prices   In Vinings, we found a cute little french cafe for a fabulous breakfast and picked up our Starbucks for the trip home.  We made it back just before the kids needed to nap.  Less than 24 hours gone, but it was such a nice break!