Pumpkin Patch visit!

It's been a while and I posted these pics on Facebook, but here they are for my blog readers as well.

All is good here in our household by the way, just too busy to keep up with the blog right now. We let our nanny go and that means extra time with the kids during the day. It's all good!

Happy eight months to TD! It's sort of a golden birthday: 8 months on the 8th!

Some big news this week for BOTH kids!

Thomas turned 8 months today! Yay!! He's a good looking boy I have to say. Good looking in the sense of filling out and such. Very happy with the little guy!

Thomas continued to eat more and more solid food. He started maybe a month ago, but it was just sporadic. Now, we put him at the table and lets out a squawk if we don't give him some of what we are eating. It's hysterical and awesome all at the same time. He also has been moved downstairs into his own room and has slept through the night (7 p.m.-6 a.m.) all but two nights. It's been awesome for OUR sleeping as well. The two nights he woke up crying, I went down with a bottle instead of LL. It was sort of funny as when he saw me, he started crying LOUDER! The first night he didn't eat much, but went back to bed and slept through the rest of the night. A few nights later when I went down to get him, he ate a bit and then went back to bed again. It's been refreshing, but it's also awesome to see him getting big and continuing to follow the path of Marissa (and billions of other kids I assume).

Today, as I arrived home from being out for a few minutes, LL and Marissa were in the bathroom. Marissa came running out of the bathroom saying, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! I used the big potty!" And she had! Then during dinner, she said she needed to go again so LL took her into the bathroom and she did her business. Very awesome! She REALLY wants to wear big girl underwear (we have several pairs with various princesses on them) so there's been motivation for a while. We didn't want to rush her though. Later in the evening, she had an accident, but that's okay as it was before bath-time and easily cleaned up. We'll see what tomorrow brings. A big day though!!!

Today we also went to see the Bears scrimmage at Soldier Field and I've attached one picture of that event.

Oh, and Marissa has been dressing up as a princess for our daily walk to Starbucks in the morning. It's soooooo cute!  Last night she was upset after having a bad dream and needed some attention. As LL was putting her back down in bed she said, "Daddy won't go without me." Obviously she's concerned that I have enough willpower to turn down this beauty in the morning:

Here's Thomas on one of his first swing rides if not the first. He loved it!

Oh, I forgot about Marissa's first haircut! This was a week or so ago.

She was great the whole time. And then gave this look: "Yeah, I know I'm looking good."

How about some more pictures?

Last week, LL took the kids on vacation in St. Joe's Michigan, not too far away. Because of several events, softball and not being too fond of the accommodations, I stayed home. While I missed my family dearly, I was able to get a lot accomplished including: sleeping, dropping 3-4 pounds. putting up a piece of wood trim in the kitchen, cleaning out the shoe portion of my closet...just all sorts of things.

Here are some pictures!

Just a short post

A lot less to catch up on with this entry, but still, there's much going on!

Thomas had two milestones in the last week: saying dada and rolling over and back on his own. Oh, three things! He said mama the other day too. Big things going on with that young man. I may start calling him Thumper as a nickname because he loves to raise his legs and thump them down on the bed to make noise. It's kind of hysterical.....except when it's 3 a.m.

Marissa continues to be more and more awesome every day. Lately she's been more and more obsessed with Frozen, as most little girls have been the last few years. Her new thing is to to put her Elsa and Anna dress on over her pajamas and say "Don't touch me!! You'll be frozen!" It's super cute, but I don't like missing out on hugs. :-(

Funny story, when I tried to take him OUT of this sit up thingy, his thighs got stuck. Ha! Our little Buddha.

 Future real estate broker possibly.

Like father like son!

Catching up!

So it's been some time since I last posted and a lot has happened. Thomas is growing as is Marissa, the later becoming quite the young lady. Not only is she always asking what something is, she's also very polite in responding to things being done for her, which is awesome. It's especially cute when you ask her if she wants something (like to eat) and she'll think about it for a second and say, "Um, no, I don't think so."

  

Going back to January, we saw LL turn 40 so we are both in our 40's for 1 year and 2 months....so there's that! Not a big deal but noteworthy. Some would argue not, but it's my blog. Ha!

Thomas continues to sleep in our room as our third bedroom is in the basement and LL would like us to all be on the same floor. This impossibility has led to discussions about moving to the suburbs, which were exacerbated by our neighbors selling their condo (slightly smaller but the same layout as ours) for $520,000 netting them a hefty profit from only 5 years ago. Well, imagine the hefty profit after living here for 20 years like I have!! A move then is most likely on the docket for next spring, but that means a lot of investigation into all things involved in moving.  To that end, we've started fixing up some things around the house: a new dishwasher, new ceiling fan (where one did not exist) and are going to paint the kitchen. More stuff to come, but it needs to get done at some point before the spring!

Memorial Day weekend brought much fun and then near tragedy. Friday, we had dinner with one of my new partners and his fiance. It was a fun night filled with good food and drink. Then we spent part of Saturday with some other friends and their 3 year old son. Sunday brought a trip to Joliet to see the inlaws, but also dinner out and then drinks with our friends Terry and Sandie from Mokena. They have a house for sale across the street from them and they were trying to get us to move down there after they heard we were going to contemplate moving to the burbs. The next day, Monday, we were headed to Naperville to see my folks and have Memorial Day food, when a car unexpectedly and illegally turned left in front of our car while we were in the middle of the intersection. A collision was unavoidable, but I turned the car away from LL at least. The kids were buckled down in the back in their seats and were fine. The car and I however, were not as fortunate. I had nasty lacerations on my left arm and a burn on the back of my right hand, both from the airbag we assume. My right shoulder and my right knee also seemed to have been injured, though I don't know to what extent. LL has a scrape from the seatbelt from her shoulder to the middle of her chest. We'll see how these things all heal.  Insurance has been good about it all and we have a rental car for 30 days. Have to get to work on finding a new car though!!

Marissa with her policeman's "baseball card" given to her by an officer at our accident scene.

The Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup again this year, the third time in six years. Awesome!! They beat Tampa Bay in six games, winning the Stanley Cup on home ice for the first time in 77 years.  And 77 years ago, they didn't have the Stanley Cup available as traveling was much different and the head of the NHL at the time didn't think the Black Hawks (two words at that time) would win. Crazy. Much celebrating in Chicago, but I was already at the Bay and missed the partying.....probably  for the best.

Marissa and Thomas

Finally an update

Hello all!! Yeah, probably not many people even checking my blog anymore and I don't blame you! That's okay though because it's as much about documenting my life as it is anything else. And what a crazy life it has become!!

Last night, for the first time since coming home December 18th, Thomas slept for over 5 hours!  That means LL slept for over 5 hours!! And so did I!! Outstanding. What led to this change? Well, Thomas has had some reflux unlike anything we ever had with Marissa, so we called in our lactation consultant on Monday. She worked with LL to adjust the feeding angle and help change our feeding schedules.  He seems to be adapting well and we hope the reflux and throat clearing will be greatly reduced if not gone soon.  Sleeping for 5 hours was certainly a great start!!

The 11th, 4 days ago, was LL's original due date, so he should just be getting home now and he's already been here five weeks!!!

Here's the little guy on his 1 month birthday. Love him!!

"In case you were wondering, I'm one!"

Can't forget about Marissa. She's so freaking adorable and seems to get more so every day. I genuinely miss her if I don't see her during the day or get to put her to bed. I've come a long way in 2 years!! Tonight we Skyped with my folks and Bee because Marissa asked to do it. She's great, running around, screeching, laughing...just generally being awesome. Bee gave her a set of zoo animals, one for each letter of the alphabet, and not only does Marissa know them all, she can put them on the correct letter. She's 4 days past 22 months and has been able to do this for at least 2 weeks. So smart!!!

She loves to stand on this tower while I cook and "help". I let her scoop stuff or place things on the cutting board or generally do whatever she can to help. It's so sweet!

Briefly, some whack job muslim brothers took umbridge with the French satirical paper, Charlie Hebdo, and decided to storm their way in killing 17 people including the editor and much of the writing staff as well as two police officers. Pretty crazy, but fortunately they were killed the next day. Hoping this doesn't blow up into something bigger, but these extremists need to be hunted down and removed from society. No place for them in my world.