The Aspiring Chef...

AJ and I have been doing a lot of cooking and baking lately. He loves to stand on the step stool and join me in working on the counter. If I just casually mention making something together, he'll say, "let's get the step stool!!" and head over to get it out. If only he were really strong enough to pull it out and set it up. Oh, wait! That might be disastrous. I'm glad I have to get it out myself for him, what was I thinking! LOL

We usually make something sweet (which might be part of the draw) and for a while we were on a real brownie kick. Here's my son with delicious batter all over his precious face. :) We make cookies and brownies, cakes and crisps. Mostly I like to make things from scratch with him for a few reasons. First, as a mom, I like knowing exactly what's in (or NOT in) the recipe. Second, it gives me a chance to add extra stuff like nuts or chocolate chips, or sub in something more healthy whole wheat flour. And lastly, we like to bake from scratch because it gives AJ a chance to "do" more...since there's more ingredients, there's more to measure, more to pour and sometimes more to stir. But a box will work in a pinch too! We do not discriminate against any desserts made in this house.

AJ's good friend Violet recently turned 4 and had a really fun birthday party at a nearby place called The Kids' Table. It is a super-cute place and cooking is the party theme, so that was right up our alley! The people leading the party did a great job of getting the kids to do the tasks while keeping them interested. They made little cakes, pizzas, lemonade, and fruit kabobs...not necessarily in that order.
AJ had a ball. Here, the instructor is showing the kids how to poke the fruit onto the sticks...she made a nice, colorful kabob and then let the kids try. Well, needless to say, our little fruit-a-holic had trouble waiting until he had a full stick of fruit before sampling the skewer. After a few tries, he started just poking the fruit pieces with his skewer and using it as a fork. Then by the end of the fruit-kabob lesson, he was just eating chunks of watermelon and cantaloupe right out of the containers! Good thing no one was really keeping track, because I'm certain he ended up eating the allotted amount of fruit for at least 2 other children...

Here are some cute pictures of the pizza making and pizza eating, as well as lemon-juicing! And of course a shot of Violet sitting with her personal cake (each child got one and got to frost it and decorate with strawberries - yum!) as we sang the Birthday Song to her. Adorable!

Elizabeth's Baptism

Elizabeth was baptized at our church, St Luke's, on Sept 6th. It was a pretty day, and not TOO hot, so we felt good about her wearing the knitted gown that my Nana knitted, though it was too warm to use the beautiful blanket. (And though there are also huge booties and a hat, we thought just the gown was plenty, and she got several compliments in it!) My mom wove pink ribbons through the little holes around the gown's neck and sleeves, and Elizabeth looked so precious, ready for her special day. Even though she was wailing in this picture with my mom, she really was very quiet and good through the whole service...this pic was taken AFTER the service, when everyone was nearing meltdown, as you will read...


The baptism itself went very smoothly. Elizabeth didn't cry when she had the Holy Water scooped over her head, and her Aunt Melissa who held her and "Uncle" Lucas stood by as the proud sponsors. One of my very best friends, Robin Schwartz is also Elizabeth's Godmother, but she couldn't be with us physically at the service since she is in Haiti. (You can read about what she does there in her blog, which I have a link to on the right of this page.) But she was there in spirit! When she comes back to the States, I'm sure she will play an active role in Elizabeth's spiritual life. We are lucky to have such great friends and family!


We sat in the back, as is the usual plan for the baptismal families, but there were 2 other children being baptized during that service as well, plus there was communion. All of that made the normally long service really long! And that, of course, spells trouble for the kids! The little ones started to get fussy, the older ones started to get antsy and whiny, and the adults started to get frazzled! (maybe this is why they have us sit in the back!? LOL) It became harder and harder to keep AJ, Grayson and Kyra quiet or distracted, and AJ was having a really hard time keeping still! Argh!! Well, what can you expect when the service runs over an hour and it's nearing lunchtime? Umm...I guess my expectations for my son to go home in the clothes he left in were too high, since after the service, as I was trying to get Elizabeth settled and ready for pictures, someone brought my soaking 2 year old up to me stating he had "gotten into" the baptismal font. Whaaaat?!! Oh my goodness. He was so soaked, and crying. I really to this day don't know for sure what happened, but I think he had just splashed in it, not actually GONE into it. This assumption was based on the fact that his feet were dry...not on the fact that he looked VERY wet. Luckily since he's potty trained but still a little shaky on outings, I always have a change of underwear and pants in the diaper bag. But I did not have a dry shirt! So the best we could do was to take off his wet (and cute) sweater vest and tell him we'd change his shirt when we got home. Knowing how much he loves water and baths, I'm surprised he was so upset about having a wet shirt...but I think he knew he had done something wrong. So maybe it was for the best that he had to wear it home!?

Then, as we finally got ready and started to have our pictures taken, one of the pastoral assistants came up to my family holding a crying AJ by the arm and asking, "Does he belong to you?". Oh. My. Goodness. How many family members have to be with us for someone to keep an eye on my son? I guess it was poor parenting on our part not to have specifically assigned anyone to this task. :( Poor AJ. Here he is in our beautiful family photo, after both incidents. Notice my (fake) smile, AJ's cheek-wiping after just about recovering from the freak-outs, Elizabeth's wailing with hunger or in need of a nap, and Andy's face actually looks like a fake smile. ...Like I said, at least the baptism itself was nice. ;) lol

And I just couldn't resist putting in this picture of Kyra, ever the ham, posing for a picture during all this chaos! She is so funny!

We all went back to our loft afterward, and everyone made a nice recovery. We had a delicious lunch from Wishbone, and yummy cake from Dinkel's Bakery. Both are great local businesses and we were happy with the service from each of them. The cake even survived being turned on its side by a child who will remain nameless, as you can see by this picture which was taken just after its rescue! All in all, it was really wonderful to see those family and friends who could take part in Elizabeth's special day, and those who could not be here were with us in our hearts. Like Pastor A. said when I asked about whether Robin could still be a sponsor without being at the ceremony, "It's the life, not the ceremony, that's really what's important."

AJ the Photograhper

AJ has decided to go into photography. He is available for weddings, birthdays and all other occasions. Please call for pricing and references, and have a look at his current portfolio:

OK, I'm Falling Behind!!!

Help! We are so busy lately that I can't seem to keep up with adding posts with any regularity...I keep thinking that I'll start doing them during naptime (which is actually when I'm typing this) but mostly I end up deciding to take a nap myself. Maybe I'll just have to take one more step toward becoming my mother and start drinking coffee every morning... My other excuse for the lag in posts is a technical one. Our pictures and movies were taking up too much space on our computer, so Andy moved them to another drive...but so that it would be easier to retrieve them, the drive is remotely accessed by my computer. This makes looking at and choosing the pictures SLOW. We are working on a compromise, but in the meantime just know that it took me forever to do this post!!!

Well, lot's has happened since my last post, but I'll start with Elizabeth. She has been growing and changing like crazy lately! She actually rolled over for the first time on Sunday (9.27) from her tummy to back. I saw her do it and that was pretty awesome! No such maneuvers since then though, but I've got my eye on her now as she's becoming more mobile. She is also starting to grab things and bring them to her mouth...anything she can get her hands on - toys, her clothes, burpcloths, even her other hand! She has been trying to suck on her hands for over a month now, but over the past few days I've noticed her starting to prefer her first and second fingers of her right hand. She can now easily lift her head to 90 degrees when on her tummy, and is starting to figure out how to use her arms to prop her chest up. She coo's, oooh's and ahh's for us now and has a few random consonants pop up now and then too. Today I swore she said "hola"! Hahaha...not "guten tag" mom!

Sometimes we would put her in her boppy like this and she really liked being part of the action as AJ and I would play. See how happy she looks? And AJ liked hanging out with her up there too, and would bring her a pacifier or a toy if she fussed. Well, all of this is written in past tense because I can't put her in the boppy on the couch anymore...because she somehow leapt over the boppy and slid down to the floor while I was making faces at her from the island in our kitchen!!! I just about died, but luckily there was a pillow and her playgym on the carpet where she landed, so she was fine after the initial shock. What a scare! So now she can still lay on the boppy, but only on the FLOOR! (I felt like the winner of the Bad Mom contest, but after sharing this story with many other moms, almost everyone has had something like this happen to their babies. No wonder God leaves their bones soft for a while!) So now we are much more cautious. See, I said she was getting more mobile! I also worry about leaving her alone with AJ for more than a few seconds, but so far that is an unfounded concern. I've just heard too many stories about the "hugs" gone wrong! AJ is usually not even that interested in Elizabeth, but lately has been interacting with her more...little by little. I think he likes it that now she can smile or react to him instead of just laying there or crying. At night when he goes up to bed, he gives her a kiss on the head. Very cute.

Here are a bunch of pictures from the past couple of weeks of both our cuties...

AJ hanging out with Elizabeth under her play gym...precious!

He loves to tilt the mirror, "AJ, Elizabef, AJ, Elizabef..."

Happy in the bouncy seat (thanks Emily!)

"Elizabef has squishy cheeks!"

(where did he get that from? I NEVER squish her cheeks! OK, maybe once in a while.)

"Here's your schnulli, Elizabef!"

(schnulli is our German word for the pacifiers)

"hmmm, I thought this was MY playgym.

What's he always doing under here anyway?"

At least they're sharing! :)

And having fun!

Frankenstein?

On the changing table...look at that Michelin arm!

Lifting up the head...you can also see in this picture that her

hair is starting to come in...looks like it will be brown.

Maybe she'll get her dad's nice curls!

Happy Baby!

Watching football already?

Mama loves you!

Little cutie pie

Artist and Explorer

AJ has been doing some interesting craft projects and drawings lately, and has also become really interested in exploring. Recently I was drawing some of his favorite "Cars" characters for him on his magnadoodle, and then asked him to draw one for me. He usually just scribbles and makes circles when he draws, but this time he was making more deliberate lines and dots and assigning them to parts of the car. Pretty cool, I thought! Since it was not on paper, I couldn't save the drawing, but I took this picture instead. The dots and vertical line on the right are McQueen's eyes and mouth, and then on the left are 4 wheels (the dots) and the rest AJ said is the car... Exactly. I see it, don't you? :)

I also found a small pair of blunt scissors and taught him how to cut with one hand and hold the paper in his other. He did really well and was very proud of himself. I was just happy he was not trying to cut his t-shirt with one of my pairs of scissors! So, he did an art project while I finished a few more of Elizabeth's announcements (yes, you'll get one soon, I promise). He stamped on paper with his washable inks and my stamps, then cut up the paper and glued it down to another sheet of paper. He also loves his new glue sticks that "draw" purple and then dry clear. This type of gle stick is genius for getting kids to understand how to paste and where the glue is. That white thing on his face is a sticker...of Flo from Cars, no less. He put it on his cheek himself as a fashion statement, and wore it most of the day. Fyi, Ramone was on the other cheek.

AJ has also been big into exploring. One day while G'ma Cheri was in, she stayed home with Elizabeth and AJ and I went to the Conservatory and strayed from our usual path. First, they were harvesting the bananas from the banana trees in the "sugar house", something we'd never seen them do before!

We shared one of the tree's tiny bananas and here is a picture I took of the it after about 2 bites. The whole thing was about 3 or 4 inches long, and the inside of it was almost peach-colored. It was very tasty, too! We ventured outside to find the compost boxes the employee spoke of to toss our peel... and here began our explorations:

First, when we walked outside,

we came across a little gravel maze in a grass opening. It was just barely drizzling so AJ was holding my umbrella and walking along the maze's path. (It's a really cute area and the following week we had a picnic lunch there with some of our friends. We moms got to relax for a few minutes while our kids played follow the leader winding all around on the gravel path.) He got a real kick out of walking all around under the umbrella and insisted on holding it himself.

Then, near the compost area, AJ found this little thatched hut. It was the perfect size for him to fit through the opening and have a seat on one of the log stumps inside. Not so much my size I found, as I squeezed in. But AJ wanted us to both be in "together". Then we walked a little further and found a good sized garden where the Conservatory was growing everything from Swiss chard and squash to tomatoes and green beans. We checked out all the vegetables and I felt jealous of their setup and sun exposure! Then AJ spotted something like a Tee Pee skeleton. This structure was much easier for me to fit into, so we sat on the stumps and hung out for a little while playing the "what can you hear?" listening game...bees, airplanes, cicadas, birds, a train, etc. He's getting better at focusing and picking out different sounds, so this is one of our favorite games lately. Well, okay, maybe it's one of MY favs since it gets him to be quiet and sit still for a few minutes! Hahaha!

The exploring continues when we walk to the parks or local restaurants, since AJ does not always ride in the stroller anymore. This way he is free to stop and look and check things out. He now has his own little magnifying glass too, so we've got a little observer in the making, I guess! (Kim & Mom, does this sound familiar? Didn't you wonder if I'd ever make it home from school!?)

Elizabeth Shots...

Here are some recent pictures of Elizabeth. She is growing and changing so fast, I will have more to post again soon!

Grandpa John and Renee came in to visit and meet her a couple of weeks ago, and here is a good shot of Grandpa holding her for the first time. She looks so small in his hands!

After the visit (which included brownies that Renee made. Yum.) Elizabeth was tired. Here she is conked out in the swing. I love her in this outift...thanks Kristin! :)

I took this picture of Andy with her on his lap. This is how he always used to sit with AJ, and it was really cute to see him like this with Elizabeth too. It brought back all the cute memories of when AJ was this small. (was he ever really small? hahaha)

She liked to suck on our fingers for the first month and a half or so. Here she is with Andy's magic pinky in action. Now she has finally accepted the pacifiers (which we call "schnulli's") and for that I am thankful. My finger was turning into a raisin! ;)

Here she is licking and sucking on her hand, trying to find a good finger...for now, this is her soothing mechanism and how she puts herself to sleep if there is no schnulli close by...

And then a few minutes later, she fell asleep in her bouncy seat...now, just a few short weeks later, she is pretty much taking all naps in her crib.

Cousins at Millennium Park and Art Institute

My mom, Kim and I had the bright idea to take all the kids (between Kim and I there are 5 now!) to Millennium Park to play in the fountain and then to the Art Institute to play and check out the new Modern Wing. Let me just start by saying that it sounded like a good idea at the time...

The Crown Fountain was fun, and the big kids had a blast. AJ, Karly, and Kyra had a lot of fun running around together. But, even with 3 adults, it was tough to keep an eye on all of them at once. There were a lot of other people there that day, and sometimes AJ strays from the fountain and tries to "escape", so there were a few moments I started to get nervous when I couldn't see him right away. Then, Grayson got tired of sitting in the stroller and wanted to get in on the action. He thought being in the water was great! The only one who didn't get wet was baby Elizabeth.

Here is a picture of Kim and my mom trying to get all the kids to stand still

and look at the camera at once. Keep trying!!

And here is the best shot I could get. Poor AJ was too excited

about playing and running around to stand still for the picture, so here he is in profile.

Next, we all spotted a nice patch of grass in the park and set about to have our picnic. I will be honest and say that I was getting a bit overwhelmed trying to keep AJ to stay with us, as going out with Elizabeth crying and AJ on the loose was still very new to me. He is getting better at listening to directions now, but back on this outing, it was pretty rough there for a while! I fondly remember when we adults used to outnumber or at least match the kids... So we finally finished lunch and walked over the cool bridge to the Art Institute. (In hindsight, this is when I should have just said, "Sayonara" and bailed)

Elizabeth did not care for her first trip to the Art Institute. She cried much of the time we were there and I was working hard to keep her quiet and get her to sleep! AJ was teetering on the edge too, and my memory is already a little fuzzy, but I felt like Kim was having an issue with one of her kids as well? We did a quick tour through part of the Modern Wing and took this picture with the Picasso maquette. AJ is very into the big public sculptures we see in the city, and loves his Good Night Chicago book that shows the Calder from Federal Center.


We walked out of the museum together and AJ, Elizabeth and I said goodbye to the rest of the family at the Blue Line stop while they continued on to Union Station. I bent down to give AJ a snack to keep him awake as we waited for the elevator to the tunnel, and he was already asleep. For any mom out there with kids that nap, this is the kiss of death! I was EXHAUSTED and still had to take the train and then walk home from the stop, and this meant that AJ would not nap when we got home. I tried to wake him, but he was OUT. So I sadly waited for the train with 2 sleeping children and cursed myself for not having had the good sense to have just skipped the museum this time. But we all got home safely and though the afternoon was not the best, I just had to remind myself, "Tomorrow is another day". ;) Maybe next time we can just do the Museum. Or just the Park...