Finley's Custom Drawings Shop

So this past weekend was a busy weekend. First, I opened up a Posters, Pictures and Portraits shop in the living room at home.

 Then I had people come by the shop and request custom drawings. Mae was my first customer. She asked me for a set of fairy drawings that she could put up in our room, so I went to work... and didn't stop for three days.

But in the end we had a collage of fairies that were all to Mabel's liking, each one carefully selected by Mae because they all had to do with things she liked.

Mabel the Ice Skating Fairy

Mabel the Teacher Fairy

Mabel the Sports Fairy

Mabel the Zookeeper Fairy

Mabel the Midnight Fairy... I think this one is because she likes to wake up in the middle of the night a couple times a week and go into Mom and Dad's bed.

Mabel the Pet Shop Fairy because everyone knows how much Mae loves animals.

Mabel the Flower Fairy

And finally, Mabel the Biking Fairy. We covered this HERE when I told you about how Mae can ride her bike one handed while whistling and even Eli and I can't do that.

So that was that. A lot of hard work and I wouldn't say for nothing because you should've seen the smile on Mae's face when I finished and we put it up in our room over her bed.

I did take a break on the fairy collage, though, when dad came through as a customer. He asked me to draw the cityscape of Chicago. I ran and grabbed the iPad, Google-Imaged "Chicago" and found a picture that I could work from, and voila!!

Mae set up a drawing school near my shop and has been doing some drawings as well. Once she completes a couple more I'll come back and showcase hers as well.

For now, if anyone has any requests for any posters, pictures or portraits please email my dad and let me know and I'll draw one up and ship it to you.

Cubbie Blue?????

This is probably one of the most improbable posts ever. As in, if you'd have said back on Feb. 10, 2008 when I was born that one day I would be penning a blog post purposely wearing Cubbie blue I would've laughed myself silly, having been born into a White Sox household to a Dad who is a tried and true South Sider.

But lo and behold, last Friday we had Cubs Day at school and that baseball team from the north side has actually infiltrated our household. Ten years ago, Dad would've sent us to school in our regular daily uniforms - you know the navy pants and white polo - or at the very least bucked the system and send us in our Blackhawks gear.

But times have changed and I walked out the door in a blue t-shirt on Friday and Mae went to school with a t-shirt that actually was bought by mom and had Cubs across the front. And we're not the only ones. Several south sider, die-hard White Sox fans have been taken in by the youthful energy of the team and even Papa, though not actively rooting for them, said he wouldn't mind seeing them win the World Series. Now you might be asking yourself after reading that if Papa has settled in with some early dementia but that's not the case, which is making this whole thing even more strange.

Let's Play Animals

So we went to the pumpkin patch by Nana's a few weeks ago with our cousins. It was a week too early for pumpkins but the animals were out in full effect so we saddled up next to chicks, horses, ducks, geese, pigs, cows, sheep, basically a little farm in and of itself, and we had ourselves a go of it.

And then we took a hay ride and this happened. Man, do these two love each other.

A Pet Blessing

So every year at my school (and Mae's school) we do a pet blessing instead of our Friday morning 8:15 mass. So instead of heading to church we head to the courtyard and anyone who has a pet can have their mom or dad bring it up and the priest says a short little do-hickey and then he walks around with that thing that sprays the holy water and blesses all the pets.

So for the second year in a row Nana made the long trip down through rush hour with our good friend Buddy. Dad had the morning off so he joined us as well.

This first photo I vetoed having in the post but then Dad (I mean, my photo editor) double vetoed it and said he loved the look on my face, so let's just get this over and done with.

Next up is a photo of the whole bunch of us. But wait, Fin, where's Buddy? you might ask? Well, Dad had his friend Ted take the photo and let's just say Ted isn't shuffling with a full deck all the time so here's us at the pet blessing, minus the pet (he's there, believe me).

And then, right before Nana left, my teacher - Ms. Lozan - asked if we could bring Buddy over to show to my whole class. So we did, and the kids loved him and then we posed for a really fun Pet Blessing Day 2nd Grade class photo.

Puck Drop 2015

I know, I write a lot about the Blackhawks on this blog, but I'll tell you why: because the good times dad and I have at these games will literally last a lifetime. And we had another one a week or so ago.

In case anyone of you don't know, it's been absolutely beautiful here in Chicago lately, so instead of the bus or a cab, we jumped on our bikes after dinner and headed for the barn (that's what people that go to Blackhawks games a lot call the United Center, where they play). The route that we took to the game there is really no traffic at all so I got to ride almost all the way there in the middle of the street.

We got there, locked up our bikes and went to our seats.

Then came a really cool moment. Tommy Hawk, the Blackhawks mascot, was in our section about ten rows ahead of us.  These old guys behind us kept telling me to go up and talk to him but I didn't really want to.

He headed downstairs onto the concourse and that's when Dad and I made a race for it. We ran down the stairs and onto the concourse and, lo and behold, he was standing right there. So we called to him and he turned around and gave me a huge high-five, and then we snapped this photo.  I was really excited, so much so that I printed it out and brought it to show Ms. Lozan, my teacher, the next morning because she's a huge Hawks fan, too.

When we got back to our seats the old guys asked me if I saw him and we showed them the pictures and they got really rowdy and excited and were giving me high fives and fist bumps too.

A great game, Hawks were up big, and so since it was a school night we headed for the door. Here is how we parked our bikes. It took Dad about 15 minutes to figure out how to lock them together and, honestly, I had to finally help him and show him how to do it. He has since been calling me Big Toe. He explains it that if you didn't have your big toe, you'd just fall over; and he said I'm like his Big Toe  - if he didn't have me, he'd be pretty much worthless.

All in all, yet another amazing Blackhawks game. Next one is not until January because Uncle Jim is coming to town next week and he stole my ticket... UNCLE JIM!!!

Latest Rumblings

So what have we been up to lately? Here's a snippet:

Mae got her mop chopped, like four inches, and it looks awesome. When we went to see Josie mom and dad left it up to her and she wanted to cut it short and boy did she ever.

It's so cool, though, when she gets out of the shower and it's wet and she brushes it I told Dad she looks like a movie star.

I've been a bit wrapped up as of late.

Oh, and Pax? Yah, he's still eating cake balls for dinner. Kidding (kind of), he's eating that because he is officially potty trained. Just out of nowhere one day mom and dad bribed him with chocolate chips and that was it. Kid hasn't gone in his diaper since I don't think. And boy is he getting his fill of chocolate chips. Thank god for that huge bag from Costco.

Other piece of news is frog related. So we were out at Nana's and got a frog and Mae was really caring for it well. And then one day we decided to go to the park. I took my basketball and Mae took Sticky, her frog. She got the wagon all ready with some water in the bottom of it, leaves, grass, sticks, the whole nine yards, and off we went.

Well, as we were running around the park old Sticky hopped right out of the wagon and though we looked far and wide for him, he was a goner. So we headed out to Nana's a couple days later, blew some bubbles, ran around the yard...

And found Sticky's brother and took him home and now we're taking care of him (you might have to look closely to see Sticky Jr.)

So that's about it. Oh, that and check out the flyer for Grandparents Day at our school that is coming up. Hint: bottom right corner. Like I said - she's a star.

1st Day of School 2015

I'm a little late with this post but the first day of school went off without a hitch. Dad came back upstairs that morning to find me doing Mae's hair for her first day of Kindergarten.

And then we shuffled off to school, but not before we could grab some first day of school pictures.

And as you can see above, Pax managed to keep his clothes on. Here's a look and a laugh ack at last year when Pax got out of the sink from a bath and had a streaking party right through our 2014 first day of school pictures.