Ann-Maree, Tori & Christine

We had the special treat of Ann-Maree visiting this last weekend and she brought her two best artist graduate school friends, Tori & Christine, who I've been looking forward to meeting for a year now. One of our first stops was the Celtic festival downtown. After wandering through the crowds of log-throwing and skirted men we found a nice spot to sit down with a Guinness and curry fries.

James met us there too!

James LOVES his Dada! I don't even say the name Dada when Clay is at work because James will get excited and run to one of the doors thinking that Clay is about to come home.

Then on the way home we stopped at the Marina City/Corn Cob Buildings (no one knows what they're called) condos to reenact Wilco's album photo although James didn't really get it. First of all, band members are supposed to act like they don't even care they're having their photo taken and they certainly wouldn't be crying.

Much better, James

It's always fun to be around Ann-Maree, she gets everyone giggling eventually.

And here's Christine too, we had missed her at the Wilco shoot and festival since she was out with a friend.  Here we are all enjoying lunch at Julius Meinl.

Then to the Museum of Contemporary Art. We had to settle for a picture of us inside the museum but not of any actual art itself since there is a no picture taking rule. Maybe they're worried about the art being duplicated but I actually don't need a picture to remake a string that's tacked to the wall in the shape of a triangle. Believe it or not, we were scolded several times by an overly hyper museum guard. First of all, if an artist makes a giant clam that you're supposed to crawl into I think it probably goes without saying that you can also slide down the sides of that clam, and giggle loudly. 

Back at home, one of James' favorite things to do these days is play with the candles we have on the kitchen table. These were a "no touch" item once-upon-a-time but I decided to use this as a teaching moment to help James learn that he can have whatever he wants when Mommy is tired. He doesn't say "candle" yet but he will point at them and pretend to be blowing out a flame so I know what he wants.

James words these days are: down, up, hat, keys/cheese (these are the same), juice, no, hi, meow (for cat), woof (for dog), ball, dada, mama, duck, balloon, cheerio, shoes and antidisestablishmentarianism.