Yep, they're one of us.

We had the delight of getting in some Chloe and Parker time this weekend. We have become well versed in all things "Silly Band" and thanks to cool uncle Rick's inside track at the Museum, we were able to provide a bumper crop of new "hip hop rubba bands" to the girls. Actually, these multi-colored bracelets (similar to the jelly bracelets of the 80's, but these have different shapes when you take them off) were ordered for the girls from New York. It would seem that the Rubba Bands are prepared for the more rough and tumble urban environments as they give you instructions on how not to kill them.

The Silly Band visit was then followed up by a dinner at City Diner. A good time was had by all.

There was furious coloring.

Beers were enjoyed by everyone, including root beers.


This was documentation of Chloe's new and soon to be no more front top tooth. I would expect that Chloe will be missing her two front teeth by next weekend.

Food with a face. This one is giving us the "people's eyebrow".

I am sure all family members reading this know about my Mother's love of butter. She was caught by her mom, our Mimi, after eating a whole stick of it when she was little. We loved butter so much that we named one of our dogs "Francis Butter Harkins". I think our obsession is somewhat linked to the fact that butter was a treat along the lines of sugar cereal and any form of dessert. Hell, it was a treat when we could get our mits on children's tylenol or even some n'ice lozenges growing up. So the whole depravation thing sort of back fired a bit, but we are completely normal about food now.

Chaney and Dan have done an amazing job with teaching the girls about listening to their tummys and having a healthy relationship with food. To point, the girls were allowed to have breakfast for dinner when we were out at the City Diner! The food with a face came with about 5 tubs of butter for the girls to use at their discretion. Imagine my delight when I looked down the table to see Parker oh-so-delicately applying butter to her bacon (the only thing our family loves more than butter). I guess it was dry by P's standards, so butter was the natural solution. Chloe was told she couldn't apply any more syrup to her pancakes, which were also dry (this isn't saying much for the quality of breakfast for dinner at this fine establishment), so the only solution to that particular issue was.....more butter!



The moral of this story is something that the ladies in the Chaney/Harkins family have known for ages: Butter is the cure to all of life's problems. Thank you Chloe and Parker for being the butter on my bacon.