Breaking the silence

It's long overdue so here I am blogging for a brief moment in exchange for much needed sleep. Life has been very busy since I last posted about our then upcoming move. We are fairly settled in our new home now though it's taking alot of time to get used to so much space. It was surprisingly uncomfortable at first, but now the abundance of square footage is getting to feel somewhat normal for all. I'm still in love with my washer and dryer and we've christened our grill and deck properly with alot of alfresco meals! And did I mention I can practically float in my bathtub? Seriously.

Ella is having sleep issues and we think it's most likely emotions from the move, her recently acquired glasses and the unavoidable teasing that comes with that, as well as getting used to sleeping in a room without us for the first time in her life! Hopefully she can work through it soon because it's getting awfully crowded in our bed in the wee morning hours. BTW she looks gorgeous in her very stylish purple glasses--pictures soon.

Nicholas had his 1st birthday if you can believe it. Uncle Jeff and Aunt Marion came up for the party which was Easter weekend and we had a great visit with them. It was also good to host a party and house guests less than 2 weeks after moving so we had alot of incentive to get unpacked in a hurry. Nicholas took a few steps alone right before his birthday but about 2 weeks ago really decided to walk instead of crawl. I'm still getting used to that. He loves going down our long hallway.

Two weeks ago our friends the Hudson's came down from Minneapolis and stayed with us. The kids all had a great time playing together. Our friends the Hanson's also drove over from Grand Rapids on Sunday and the 6 of us adults went out to celebrate David's Architectural licensing and Craig's newly published book. We went to Alinea. That's a whole post needed right there coming soon. Let's just say: Spectacular.

Last night, actually this morning, we returned from a long overdue visit to California to see Nana and Pa. David traveled with us out there but returned earlier than us. We had alot of fun including a first trip to Sea World for the kids, a visit to the County Fair, Mother's Day, planting tomato plants, etc.. We were able to spend alot of time with my sister and nieces too which was very nice. Our trip home was a disaster and I'm in no hurry to get on an airplane again, but we are safe on the ground and successfully endured 10 hours aboard a plane with no meltdowns. I think I have a new issue with ATC that I will probably blog more about later. I'm just thankful to be home safely with my children.

Just wanted to break the silence. I'll be back soon with more stories and some pictures too.

clean-up, clean-up

everybody everywhere, clean-up, clean-up, everybody do your share. You know that lovely song we all sing to get our kids to clean up their toys. Well this has always been an issue with Ella. She won't clean-up! We used to have the rule as clean-up before bed which was always a disaster since she didn't want to go to bed anyhow. Then a while back I had an idea and changed it to clean-up before dinner. She DOES want to eat! This has worked much better, but is still always a very unpleasant time of day. Then David had a brilliant idea. The trash bag.

You might be wondering any number of things right now. So let me set your mind at ease. If Ella doesn't clean-up by the deadline we set, then any toys left out get put into one of our white trashcan liner bags and she doesn't get them back for 24 hours! Let me tell you. There is trouble in River City when this happens. (If you don't get that, then you are WAY too young to be reading my blog!) just kidding.....

Ella gets hysterical when we mention the trashbag and completely flips when we get it out and really goes over the top when we start to put things in it. Whew! What a great idea. Let's hear it for Papa and his clean-up trick! He and I both laugh (trying to hide it of course) when this all happens because we think it's so great and just can't believe it actually works.

I know I promised STL info and pics but it is way too hot in here to do that now. Let's hear it for A/C in the whole house at once someday!!

Baby Boy news and other happenings

Nicholas is being increasingly more subjected to playing with Ella's dolls. This weekend we were using his carseat carrier (we had borrowed a friend's car) and she thought he needed "regular baby" to hold since he was of course upset and screaming for most of the car ride.
These are his 8 week pictures that I never posted two weeks ago. So the one with the baby is more recent (taken Sunday). His hair is really growing and is very light blonde just like Ella's was. He also started "talking" about a week ago and converses quite well with us. It's very sweet, just like his whole personality. He particularly seems to like it when I sing his theme song to him: "Let's hear it for the boy!" Also, he was 11 1/2 pounds and 23 inches at his two month check up where he received 5 shots (4 sticks in the leg and 1 oral dose). This is worse than when Ella got them. They no longer use the combo vaccine so that means one more stick in the leg, and then the oral vaccine is so new they didn't even have it when Ella was his age. He survived with a very slight fever and fussiness--pretty much how Ella has always reacted.
An update with the bear and book to show his growth.
He loves for Ella to hold him. If you think about it he spends just as much time with her as he does with me. He will contentedly lie in her lap and even suck on her arm like he does to me sometimes. The bad news is that he's beginning to be upset when she cries, screams and throws fits. The even worse news is that she's doing all of the above even more frequently these days. She's very upset about our whole pending move. As we prepared the house for a showing and then an open house over the weekend, she would act out even more, and of course they always seem to happen right during naptime. Yes, we could ask them not to do things at that time of day, but we really need to sell and want no limits on people seeing this place. Notice the new quote in the sidebar about crying happened late Sunday afternoon after this weekend flurry of house selling activities came to an end. I must admit, even for me and David this is stressful--and we're not 3 years old! It's no fun living in a hotel room or corporate apartment as I call it now. Though most hotel rooms and corporate apartments at least have some artwork hanging on the walls! We're not enjoying the echo and hope this process does not drag out too long for our family's well being.We were able to attend the last French wiggleworms before Madame Rose takes the rest of the summer off. We hadn't been in two months. It was so fun for Ella to be back and see Madame Rose, all of her friends, sing her French songs and for everyone to meet Nicholas. We have gone to this class since she was 11 months old! Fun Fun!

Lastly, the seasonal allergies have hit Ella hard. Nicholas has just got his first cold :-( and David had a high fever with sweats and chills all weekend. Hopefully we'll get this all under control before next week when we board the Amtrak for St. Louis!

Goals

I am setting some goals for myself and thought I should blog them for some accountability. Here they are in no particular order, some short-term, some long-term and some continual:

1. Write and mail thank you notes for Nicholas' gifts received before he turns 3 months old.
2. Create and mail out a birth announcement for my son before he turns 3 months old. (I think Ella was closer to 2 months when hers finally went in the mail)
3. Spend more quality time with my husband, not the typical business meeting we often seem to need each night , or each morning as he's out the door.
4. Get my hair cut
5. Regain my pre-C-section #2 stomach muscles.
6. Play my flute without anyone crying.
7. Make travel plans for the rest of 2008. (We finally booked travel for our July trip to St. Louis tonight!)
8. Sell our condo
9. Be more patient with my 3 1/2 year old daughter, remembering she is NOT 5 years old even though she looks it and talks it most of the time.
10. Enjoy the outdoors NOW before the Chicago winter returns and I'm trapped inside again.
11. Own a car again someday
12. Stop eating so many Ann Sather cinnamon rolls
13. Savor every moment with my precious son who will be 3 1/2 himself before I know it
14. Sleep when I have the chance instead of blogging (like now). This will help with #9 and #13 for sure.
15. Too many more to list for now.........

Obama Mama

I have no intention of turning this into a political blog. However, with tonight's impending announcement of our new Democratic Presidential nominee, and no sweeter words than this,
I must say: I'm proud to be an Obama Mama! Sorry--just can't resist the rhyme......

Are any of you other Mama's out there Obama Mama's?! Let's hear it!

So admitting my political stance to other's is not such a big deal to me. For my husband though, he would never tell anyone, yes ANYONE (including me--his wife!) how he voted in any given election, until the 2004 Presidential race where he came home that night and out of the blue spouted off a list of past Presidential candidate names......after which I learned he was telling me how he'd voted his whole life. Ha! I was so relieved he finally told me. It was one of those weird things that just really bothered me. I think the fact that I had just given birth to his firstborn a few weeks prior to that day softened him up a little. Maybe.

Of course I would never divulge his current political stance to you, but will proudly say I DO know what it is. Is he an Obama Papa? Maybe. But Obama Papa doesn't have that lyrical ring to it anyhow now, does it?

Smile-Beach-Stage-Eye-Tea-Thanks

This is the best I've got so far in trying to capture the boy's smile on camera!
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So Monday we could NOT get out of going to the beach. For about 9 months now we've been talking about how the beach opens again on Memorial Day. Luckily it was a beautiful spring day here in Chicago so Ella and David could have fun building a sand castle and wading around in the freezing cold water while Nicholas and I sat and relaxed while watching. We ended the day with a trip to one of our favorite Chicago restaurants Cozy Noodle . It was nice to have David here an extra day.
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The rest of our long weekend was spent preparing for our first visit from the Realtor who is staging our condo for the LONG awaited and MUCH needed sale. I take the credit for taking the plunge and calling her to get this thing rolling, but David takes the credit for really helping out and getting our place ready for her visit. It ended with us both working until about 2 a.m. the night before she arrived. End result is that my fear of her telling us we need to move out in order to sell did NOT come true. In fact, it was quite positive and we don't have much to do at all before we list it. This is a process we dread, but can no longer put off due to rapidly diminishing living space in our one bedroom! We'll keep you posted on the process and be sure to spread the word to anyone you might know who is looking to buy a great condo in Chicago.
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Ella got her first real injury of life. She fell during the "race" time at Gymnastics on Tuesday and got a nice zinger on her eye/face. They race down the runway that's basically a spring board underneath (not sure what it's called). I tried to take a picture of it, but the camera actually made it look better than it looks in real life.

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Nicholas is already being subjected to what much of his future holds with a big sister as his playmate. He attended his first tea party yesterday.

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Finally, we were able to select and order photos tonight from our portrait session two weeks ago and are exhausted after the entire process (Jeff-we miss you!). So hopefully the birth announcement will go out SOON, as well as thank you notes which I'm terribly behind in writing. So to all of you who have sent us gifts please know we are SO thankful, love everything and have not forgotten you!!

Life is Beautiful

Ann Sather cinnamon rolls. My husband did six loads of laundry. My son smiled at me for the first time. My daughter asked , "Mama, will you marry me?" A perfect Mother's Day. Life is Beautiful.

(The pearl bracelet was nice too :-))

My TRUly amazing husband

Monday night David and I were able to have a night out without Ella before our second child is born--a huge thanks to Jyothi! She came over and stayed with Ella while we took a hospital tour (not so exciting) and then David had made reservations for us to have dessert at TRU. Some of you might remember that this is the world-renowned dining establishment where we dined on our 1st wedding anniversary. For those of you that have had the ultimate food experience of dining at TRU, I need not say more other than my husband is amazing! For those of you that have not had the pleasure, be sure to click on the TRU link and check it out.

Though we were only supposed to have dessert/drinks, etc. I decided I really wanted something else too, so I ordered a soup course, a la carte, out of the three course Prix Fixe dinner you can get. It was this: Lobster Soup, Ground Hominy, Lobster Emulsion, Spoonbread. One thing you need to understand is the "production" that comes with every little thing at TRU. For example, my soup was set in front of me with the Lobster Emulsion (think foam) in the bowl, covering the ground hominy and spoonbread. Then one of our half dozen or so servers came with a beautiful white porcelain vase and poured the actual lobster soup over it. Think service over the top--everything is synchronized i.e. the pouring of two glasses of water, the setting and removal of different dishes, silver , etc. , the small silver bowl of ice cubes that sits next to my glass of water and periodically someone comes and spoons ice into the glass for me.

Of course, the amuse bouche- three to be exact-were nothing less than amazing. One contained caviar and sake so I had to pass :-(, but my favorite and David's too I think was the dessert amuse: Devonshire clotted cream, pomegranate puree, topped with pop-rocks. Yes--pop-rocks! It was great and made me feel like a kid again. Our desserts were wonderful and we ended up with four instead of two. Long story short: service. Even this was a little surprising after the TRU driver drove a box of truffles to our house once due to a mix-up........which by the way I've received as gift's twice from David.

I ordered this:
Vanilla Cream
Lemon Chiffon,
Vanilla Pot de Crème,
Lemon Curd Ice Cream,
Citrus Suprêmes

David ordered this:
Cocoa Nib Macaroon
Bitter Chocolate Ice Cream,

Milk Chocolate-Sour Cream Ganache,
White Chocolate Chiboust

and then we also were given this:

Apple Confit

Pine Nuts,
Rosemary,
Spiced Cider Caramel

and this:

Hot Chocolate Soufflé

Cayenne Pistachio Crumbs,
Saigon Cinnamon Ice Cream,

Vanilla Marshmallow,
"5-Alarm" Chocolate Sauce

The other important thing to remember is this. TRU is not stuffy, it's not pretentious, it's not uncomfortable. It's an art gallery containing Warhol's, etc. It's amazing food served in fun and exciting ways. It's very formal and elegant but fun. And yes, there really are blue velvet cushions for the ladies (served to be great for my back this time). There was a family of five with three kids ages probably age 10 to 16 who were dining when we arrived. No, you can't wear jeans. Come on, it's not the OG. But you don't need to feel uncomfortable--just come for the evening of your life! Or second... (and hoping for more!). Even the bathrooms are spectacular--and this time I used it more than the average diner.

David was able to try a great cheese from Bourgogne--just because we asked what it was after seeing it wheeled by in the cheese cart so many times. Unfortunately it was a fresh milk cheese so I couldn't join him. And of course the chocolate cart and then the truffle cart after that had us both on a chocolate high for the evening. Not to be outdone by our "goodie bags" we got on the way out of a delicious pound cake with surprise apple filling...seriously, I could go on and on. But I'll stop now.

I love you David, and not just because you take me to TRU, but because you are a truly wonderful husband in all ways imaginable.

7 weeks and counting

So time can really sneak up on you when suddenly you realize you will have another child to care for in 7 weeks or less. It's exciting, yet frustrating and of course carries a bit of scariness in the unknown too.

Meeting your new baby, discovering their gender, introducing them to big sister Ella=exciting
Choosing a name that me and picky husband can both agree upon=frustrating but fun
Staying in a hospital for 3 nights (even if it's brand new with great views of the Lake)=more frustrating and not fun
Trying to think of a new bedroom arrangement to accommodate yet another person and their bed, albeit very small=depressing
Imagining what it will be like the first time David leaves for work and kisses all THREE of us goodbye=scary

I'm hoping to get the full 7 weeks remaining, but have a feeling this baby wants out early--it just won't stop spinning, punching, kicking and is not settling down at all...only time will tell! We do finally have a emergency plan in place (Thank you Monica!) in case the baby arrival comes before Nana's arrival.

Happy Birthday to me!

So it's not often that I would post about my own birthday. But on Sunday, my sweet husband and daughter baked me a cake and made me homemade frosting--buttercream of course--and colored it pink of course (Ella's favorite color)! I confirmed with David that indeed it was his first time ever to frost a cake! It was a great day--and Ella said I turned 2 1/2 so we'll just go with that....:-)

Making Mama's birthday card. I guess clothing hampers her creativity?

Birthday kiss for Mama!

Making the buttercream

Ella's favorite part--"tasting"

Dora to the rescue and other happenings in the hood

So David has been recovering very well. (I assume everyone knows what I'm talking about--if not leave me a comment and I will update you). Ella has still been quite concerned about him and all of this. She doesn't like him lying around all the time (neither do I! :-)), and wanted to see his bandage where they did the "test". She thought it would definitely help him feel better to have a Dora bandage--like she gets sometimes. Unfortunately, David's no fun and wouldn't let me take or post a picture of this due to the location being in the "groin area". But here's a more boring picture of Ella trying to snuggle with Papa as best as she can. Please keep all of us in your thoughts and prayers. June 19th will be the appointment with Dr. Denes, unless they have a cancellation to get him in sooner. Here are also some fun pics at the playground during the few days before David's EP study and some other cute photos taken in our courtyard.










We were blessed with a brief visit from my Aunt Faith and cousin Raney, whom you've all read about here often. They came to Chicago for just one day/night for the National Lung Cancer Partnership meeting. They learned alot of good information, and Raney was able to meet another patient who has survived 5 years with Stage 4 lung cancer! We had a great dinner at Rosebud, see the picture below of Faith and Raney with Ella.

Ella LOVES the beach this year! Last year she hated it. I look forward to posting many more beach pictures and sad to think of moving from our condo where the beach and the playground are both a five minute walk across the street!


My oldest niece Mikayla just graduated from Junior High School at Excelsior Learning Center, where she received an award for academic excellence! I can't tell you how old it makes me feel to think she will start High School in the fall. Note on her diploma "Mikayla Heather"--after me :-). I remember holding her in the hospital when she was born. I feel old and realize how fast time flies and quickly children grow up!

Ella finally has her "new rail" or her crib has finally been converted to a Toddler Bed. Yes, yes, we could have done this a LONG time ago, but since we share sleeping quarters, thought it best to keep her confined as long as we could. However, with my neck etc. and her growth I was just tired of lifting her in and out! So we had to go ahead and break down and get the white rail since the pecan to match hasn't been available since before I checked about a year ago and I was unable to find one on Craigs List, ebay, etc. Oh well! Ella loves her "new rail" and has done a great job of only getting out when allowed....for the most part.


I think that's about all we've done for awhile now. Sorry for the lag in posts. I'll keep updating on any new news on David here too.