Vegas, Baby!

Joe spent a nice, long, well-deserved weekend away in what he would call the greatest place on earth - Las Vegas.  Every year his friends take this trip for March Madness and they insist the tradition will continue for the next 30 + years.  So, I figure Lucy and I better make some of our own March Madness traditions here in Chicago unless we are lucky enough to get an invite one of these years!

So, we had a great five-day weekend together!  Aunt Katie came to visit one night for dinner and we did a lot of talking, cooking (by chef Kate while I put Lucy to bed) and wine drinking.  We always have so much to catch up on, I wish we could have nights like that every week.  We will have to make the Aunt Katie visit a tradition every March Madness! 

We also fit in visits with a few friends! We met baby Gwen and baby Isla out for lunch one afternoon and visited with our friends, Erin and Aaron, who are expecting a baby boy in a few months, we visited the gym, and Lucy joined me for a manicure :)  

We also spent a lot of time walking - we walked everywhere this weekend despite the cold!  We took Miles out for three walks a day, which was a process all by itself as we normally don't take a family walk  at 6:30 every morning and night!  But, since the stroller was already out all day, we decided to walk everywhere this weekend and it was great to do. We are really, really, really ready for some spring weather so we can park the car once and for all and get the strollers out more often!

I loved my alone time with Lucy and will always look forward to March Madness for this reason! In 5 years I picture a special day at the American Girl Doll store, and in 10 years doing a little get-away of our own, of course not to watch basketball....

I love my Lulu!!!!

I love Aunt Katie!

Gourmet tofu and veggies

Let's read!

Miles spent some time in his crate.  He has gotten into a habit of opening our closest door and using my clothes as a bathroom on a regular basis.  He is smart and runs straight to his crate when he knows I am going into the closet.  If this isn't a face of guilt.....

                                       

We forgave Miles and are getting ready to go for a walk! Good luck trying to get Lucy to look at me when Miles is around!

Le'

Lulu and her friends getting ready for storytime

Daddy made it home!!!! No deep pockets here..

Yay!!!!

Happy 40th Birthday Aunt Renee!!

Although I think it is officially Monday, March 28th, we have some pics to share from the surprise 40th party this weekend.  Although I am sure when I turn 40 everyone will say, "wow, are you sure she isn't 50?," Renee proves that 40 is the new 30 :)!

Happy Birthday Renee!!! We had a great time celebrating with you last weekend!

Thanks Paul and Eileen for having all of us over to celebrate!

The Birthday Girl and her love Mike

Don't we look great with a baby?! We should get one!

The Lacny, Blandford, and Steffens ladies - and one baby boy on the way......

I love to party!!!

40 years later and they are still throwing their daughter a special bday party! 

Renee, Mike, Paul and Eileen 

What's Lucy Up To?

We have been pretty boring lately - or at least nothing too worthy of writing about lately!!!

Except for one important milestone!! We celebrated Aunt Renee's 40th birthday this weekend, but forgot my camera so I will share some pics of the birthday girl when I get them.  It was a great family party, as always, and although we missed it, the surprise went off without a hitch!! Thanks Aunt Eileen for having all of us over and we will post pics when we get a few from other people's cameras!

We also had a fun day in the city with Grandma Chris and a fun shopping day with Grandma Chris and Aunt Pat - again, no pics!  I really need to get a charger for my pocket camera.

But, Lucy is up to a lot so I thought I would share some highlights!

- Lucy is sitting up all the time, everywhere, these days.  She was a bit wobbly a week ago, but now can sit for a long time, which makes playing more fun, putting on coats easier, and taking baths!  I felt like she was so old when I sat her on the stairs to put on my shoes yesterday!

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day!!! 

Showing off my Lucy Day gifts from Aunt Jill and Uncle Jake! I love my Ugly Doll and "party naked" onesie....

- She is truly the easiest-going baby ever, never fussing unless she sees us making her bottle. So, she is easy-going but lacks patience which sounds just like her dad.  Nothing bothers her - she could care less that she gets water and soap in her eyes during her bath (I need to get better at rinsing her hair), she will let anyone and everyone hold her and goes everywhere with me without a fuss. She is the perfect shopping buddy! And, I should mention, she LOVES baths!

- She is a tummy sleeper - every nap, every time.  As soon as she hits the crib, she does a 2 second roll to her tummy and stays there the entire night.  She has red cheeks and red knees every morning from spending all night on her tummy, but we can't get her to sleep on her back and as long as she is sleeping 12 hours, I am not going to try and change it!

- She has been doing this really strange head shake back and forth, over and over again, like she has water in her ears.  It really worried Joe so he did his scientific research on Google and determined it wasn't a big deal.  I probably will get a second opinion from an actual doctor, but it sounds like a lot of babies do it.

- Like every other baby, she needs to check out everything in her reach - coffee cups, shopping bags, mail.  Whatever is within her view she would like to check out, and if there is a tag on it, forget trying to distract her.  Her arms appear to be so small and without muscle, but she somehow gets it in her mouth. Yesterday she picked up Joe's aluminum water bottle with water in it!

hmm...what did mommy buy this time?

- At her 6 month appt, she was 12 lbs (5th percentile) and 25 inches (25th percentile).  Her head circumference is pretty small so the doctor is monitoring that, but she is otherwise perfect as far as her pediatrician is concerned!

- We are onto solid foods twice a day, along with bottles every 3-4 hours, which she now holds on her own!  And, although I don't want to call myself a gourmet baby food chef, Lucy seems quite happy with my purees!  The only food she has tried that she doesn't love is sweet potatoes.  Her favorites are applesauce and avocado.

- No teeth yet!! We have a lot of fingers, drooling and plastic toys in the mouth, but no signs of a tooth.  More to be posted on that development......

- Lucy loves watching Miles - she follows him with her eyes wherever he goes around the house and giggles whenever we walk him or whenever he runs around the house.  Although we always have to be very cautious with our calm and gentle pup around her, he is actually really good with her and just wants to be part of whatever we are doing with her.

- We are getting closer to a crawl.  Lucy is on her hands and knees, and can pump herself forward and back, but hasn't mastered the moving of a knee or hand yet.  But, she does impress her music class with her attempts!

So, that is Lucy!! We have a fun week ahead as daddy leaves for Vegas tomorrow so I get a lot of mommy/Lucy time over the weekend. I am sure we will be up to a lot - two girls, and one dog, out on the town!!!

St. Patty's Day Crawl (getting closer!!)

St. Patrick's Day weekend is one of the best weekends in the city (along with every summer weekend!!) This Saturday I had to work at 10:30 am and saw a lot of green in the bars, a lot of people trying to find a cab (to get to the bars) and a few people who looked like they already had a few on the way to the bars.  Any holiday that you can justify taking following Monday off for, just to recover, sounds like a fun one!  But, we spent the weekend with the rest of the 30+ crowd - at the zoo, out for brunch and looking at houses and there was a Bulls game and some shopping thrown in there too!  We did laugh because we found the most random Italian restaurant with about 4 tables in it for lunch during our home visits, assuming it wouldn't attract the drinking crowd. As soon as we sat down, we saw a group wearing shamrock beads heading our way....

I needed to find an outdoor activity so she could wear her green flower on her hat from Aunt Beth, so we decided to it was a perfect weekend to head to the Lincoln Park Zoo!  Lucy is still too young to enjoy the zoo, but we (the adults) had a great time taking her around to see the penguins, monkeys, zebras and lions.  Places like the zoo, which is completely free, remind us of how much we love living in in the city.  

Outside of our activities, Lucy is showing us she is getting ready to crawl!! I was do something on the computer in her room and turned around and Lucy was pulling herself onto her knees and pushing herself forward.  All of my practice of putting her into the crawling position and crawling around her as an example seems to be paying off!  You will have to excuse the outfit below as we were in mid-change, and for that matter, into a diaper that is too big.  I guess she isn't ready for the size 2 diaper yet!!

Heading to the zoo!! I love getting to wear my new green flower. I was so sick of the pink one!

On the way to see the lions....

Ready for a snooze, after we see the monkeys

A mommy and baby monkey - they were so adorable!

Ready for some avocados and peas in honor of St. Patrick's Day

I would love if I could get to that block over there...hmmm....

Finally, Lucy's 6 month pics are here! We got them on a CD so if anyone wants a specific pic, let me know and I will print it! Also, our photographer said they can be ordered through her site for a photo that is better quality and not much more expensive than CVS/Walgreens.  Enjoy!!

http://JenSoares.zenfolio.com/p530151151

Happy Birthday Grandma!!

Enjoy your special day!!! We love you very much!!

97 Years...And Not Slowing Down

Today we had a great celebration for my grandma, who will be turning 97 on Tuesday.  (But hopefully she is not reading this blog because she doesn't like when we tell her age).  Although our party was pretty crazy as far as retirement home parties go  - my mom snuck in some pita chips and hummus after being told that we couldn't bring in food other than cake - there was some competition at a 90th birthday party down the hall.  We will have to step it up for 98!

I didn't have my camera with me, but Beth got a ton of great photos of the fabulous birthday girl!!
So visit http://wennerstrom.blogspot.com/  She got a ton of great one of my grandma and the entire family.  And while you are at it, you can see lots of great pics of Lucy's adorable cousins.  They are little hams and always posing for the camera.

Happy Birthday Grandma and Great-Grandma! We love you very much and are so lucky to have had so many amazing years with you!  You are so special to us, and seem to get younger with each year!

***  I realized I didn't post pics of Lucy's visit with Grandma a few weeks ago, so thought I would post them now since we are celebrating Grandma Fran!

I hope to look like this in 97 years!

Kisses all around!

Lucy's 6 Month Photo Shoot

On Wednesday, Lucy had a 6 month photo shoot.  We LOVED the photographer, Jen and I think she got some great shots of Lucy!  I tried to time her pre-photographer bottle so that there would be minimal spit up and lots of smiles!  (From what I remember, we didn't get a lot of smiles because Lucy was mesmerized by the fancy camera).  But we had such a fun afternoon, us three girls hanging out and I love that the photos truly capture a morning with Lucy in our home. Unfortunately Joe couldn't be home from work, but we loved her so much that we will be doing it again when she is older so daddy can get in on the photos!  We haven't been able to see the photos, but Jen posted a few on her blog that turned out cute! She is still editing the photos, but once I get them I will post some of my favorites!  http://jensoaresphotography.blogspot.com/2011/03/lucy.html. 

Happy 6 Months Lucy - and Happy Lucy Day!

Happy 6 months Lucy - you are getting so big and we love you to pieces!! Every day you make us happier than the day before.  It has been amazing watching you grow over the past 6 months!! 

Happy Lucy Day - March 3rd

Uncle Jake wanted Lucy to have her own special day (outside of her birthday) so he proclaimed March 3rd Lucy Day!!!  Lucy celebrated with her first day of swim class and got some new 6 month toys. (We had a play date on Wednesday and I noticed Lucy loved the older baby toys so maybe it was time I stopped giving her rattles to play with.)  

Lucy loved her first swim class!  We got little wet suits for the babies to wear to keep them warm and she did a great job, staying in the water for the entire 45 minutes.  We kicked, blew bubbles, floated on tummies and back and learned how to "fall" off the ledge to mommy!  Lucy also took her first sip of water (in the pool) and had her first shower after the swim.  It was a fun afternoon together and I can tell Lucy is going to love the water as she gets older, which I am excited about!  Next week I will try to take some photos during the swim class!

My new age-appropriate toys celebrating "my" day!

Getting ready for my first swim

Thanks Uncle Jake and Aunt Jill for my Lucy Day! I can't wait to see you guys in Arizona for Easter!

Love, Lucy