A Tale of Two Brothers

What do a "broken" arm, climbing, blue foods , family and Easter all have in common?  Nothing really, except for this past weekend.  That is about as good as I can do right now, I'm hoping that as I get going these will all come together and make sense.

I'll start at the beginning.  The "broken" arm.  It happened in yoga class of all places.  One too many reverse planks or maybe it was the 2 minute reverse plank, but the once broken left forearm became useless with shooting pain from my wrist to my elbow.

Do not try this at home, could result in injury!

 So much pain that I, of all people, went to not one but 2 doctors.  It was not broken ( I did not think it was), just a strained tendon or something that rendered my left arm useless.  A few medications for inflamation that have made me sleepless and puffy but in less pain were perscribed.  No yoga for a bit, sad face, but getting better every day.  One problem was that picking up grandkids was near impossible for the first few days and there was that one night I was reduced to a blithering mess because of the excruciating pain or the lack of sleep but other than that things are gradually improving.  It did make playing with the grandsons a bit challenging though.

On to the important stuff!  The grandsons!

Christopher is a climbing machine.  He is a tiny, powerful climbing monkey!  When he walks up to something his first reaction is to lift his leg and hurl himself up onto whatever is in front of him.  I have evidence.....check this out.....

Christopher hanging out in the grocery cart

on the bench at the playground

hey mom!  Do you think I can get on top of the car?



I really prefer playing on top of the table instead of next to it

He is possibly one of the cutest and best natured little boys around, not that I am biased or anything.  If only I had his metabolism, I too could eat twice my weight in a day and remain tiny....or become tiny.  It was great fun seeing the change from Christmas, he is talking and does just about anything his older brother does, which causes the older brother great distress at times.  Welcome to sibling rivalry.

As for Daniel, he is quite the 3 year old boy!  I think I remember the 3's being what the terrible 2's were advertised to be.  That whole free will thing flares it's ugly head.  Testing the boundries at every turn, I am convinced it is a sign of great intellegence!  I love being with him and being able to do more and more every time we visit, he is sooo much fun, he just "gets it" and is never at a loss for enthusiasm.  He is starting to understand things like the Easter Bunny and the Easter Egg hunt and we get to enjoy those childhood thrills all over again.

Daniel doing a great job of coloring those Easter eggs!

Daniel and Grampy planting Rachel's garden

Daniel taking the capital by storm, that same one that was the focus of the massive protests only a few weeks ago

The Wisconsin State capital building

Yes, you are in Wisconsin....cheese capital. At the Saturday morning Farmer's Market!

Farmer's Market is a Saturday morning tradition at the Lee house.  Just love the flowers!



 

We were at the Farmer's Market when I discovered Daniel's love of blue foods.  Are there any blue foods you ask?  Aside from blueberries.  Well, there is every child's favorite.... blue ice cream!  Then there is blue popcorn.  ICK!  Daniel is in the process of toilet training and with that process comes a few rewards here and there for "performing".  For his first reward he got an ice cream, blue of course.  He is working on his second reward.  We were buying some yummy popcorn at the Farmer's Market on Saturday and it was all we could do to convince Daniel that we were not going to buy the blue popcorn, please...don't make me buy the blue popcorn; carmel corn, cheese popcorn, herbed popcorn, anything but the blue raspberry popcorn.  All he could talk about all day was the popcorn, specifically the blue popcorn.  As a compromise and a little motivation, Daniel's next reward will be that delicious blue popcorn at the Farmer's market.  The power of blue food coloring!

Sunday was Easter and we were all up bright and early for the great Easter egg hunt.  The boys were ready to roll!  They were good egg hunters.  Christopher was at a distinct disadvantage from the beginning.  His parents put him in yellow rubber boots that were at least a size too big for him and kept falling off him every other step.  Find an egg, fall down, lose a boot, put the boot back on, pull yourself back up and stumble on to the next egg while brother Daniel charged ahead and found egg after egg.  Christopher did not seem to mind the hardships and both boys had a great time. 

And they are off....

there is one, cleverly hidden in the daffodils

This picture cracks me up!  Look at how many eggs are in Daniel's basket and look at his face, then check out Christopher's basket and his face!
In his defense, Christopher decided to hide his eggs under the grass in his basket!



Finally, here are a few more moments from Easter Sunday.

Time to finger paint....in our church clothes....such a great idea!

Don't let these droopy eyes fool you, I am not tired, Daniel is painting and I am going to paint too!

He has a rake and I am going to get a rake too! 

This special moment came at the end of the day.  The boys were having dinner on the deck and Daniel proceeded to feed Christopher, and he let him.  It was priceless!

Our weekend ended and everyone went back to their regular lives.  TJ and I drove down to Chicago for our flight and had one last special treat.  I love traveling with him, we always seem to find interesting places.  We wanted to have a nice lunch in Chicago before our flight and searched around and found this delightful little area in Lincoln Park.  The food was delicious, the street was so cute and it was very convenient.  We get lucky sometimes.

Nom!

A little treat at the end of the trip

Happy Easter!