Car Seat Flip

We finally did it. We changed Ada's car seat around and boy does she love the new view and the legroom.

And we like being able to adjust our seats back so we don't have our knees in our armpits.

Yippee!

Day trip to Milwaukee

We have the best friends ever in the whole wide world. It just so happens that one set of friends from that label lives in Milwaukee. We call them JG, DG, and EG. It's always refreshing to visit them and this time was no different than the rest. DG is an awesome cook. She always feeds us well and makes me jealous of my lame cooking skills. JG is funny, entertaining, and easy to chillax with (EG made that word up one visit long ago). EG is too cute and good with Ada. He's learning how to deal with another little person in the house, but he's got the role of "protective old brother" down pat. He cleaned up all the choking hazard toys and made sure to keep her away from the lego people. He even put the spongy baseball in the hood of her sweater to annoy her -- but it didn't phase her as she's not easily annoyed these days. But he's got the right idea. And he protected her by redirecting her whenever she was heading toward the street while we were at the park. Giving Rick and I a break from chasing her. It was so nice to have a little baby patrol man around.

Here's Ada and EG in the park...acting silly...

And Ada did some gardening in the back yard... so nice to have a yard to play in... even though it was only 60 degrees, Eli had his whale pool open for business...

And Ada tried to eat rocks and dirt. That's what babies do right? Oh, and sunglasses as seen here with remnants of dirt on her face. Nice.

What a beautiful way to spend a sunny Sunday. They are so good to us, we might just have to go back more often...

Mother's Day Whirlwind

What an action packed weekend. It started by my sister-in-law Heather coming to town. She took Ada for a long weekend Thurs-Sunday. Rick and I went to see the new X-Men movie and then went to bed. We don't know how to go on a date anymore and couldn't even stay up to make it dinner and a movie. It was dinner and take out from Big Bowl, in bed by 10.

Then we went to work and to a birthday party that stared with appetizers and led to a karaoke bar, broken ear drums (who needs water boarding when you can do karaoke?), and a drunken trip home. We both decided we can't party like we used to-- because we never used to. We just aren't trained as party-ers. We'll just have to find other lame ways to have fun.

So then it was time to get up Saturday, quick clean the house while Rick slept off his hangover. A fast breakfast at Stella's diner down the street -- yummy ham and cheese omelet-- and off to grandma's house. We arrived to see the whole family and extended family as Rick's granny's sister flew in and her 2 other sisters came for lunch-- with their families. Whew! This was the group photo shoot minus Danny on the end... I tried to set a timer and then the neighbor came over to take the photo because we were in a small town and everybody knew the neighbor so it made sense to ask her to come take the picture. Of course! But the timer went off anyway and this is what we got...

And of course we needed some photos of aunt Heather. After all, she did fly in for the weekend. (Ada kinda likes her.)

And then we had to catch babies falling from the sky. This is Ada's favorite game to play with Dad, next to tickle monster of course...

And somewhere among all of the chaos, we made Mother's Day cards. Ada's first experience with stickers. And they turned out really cute, I think. And yes, I did help with the bubbles because she kept trying to eat them. They were so small... she helped pat them down to make them stick though. And she put the fish on upside down all by herself.

And this doesn't even show how we spent time with my family too. I found out I'm going to be an aunt again... my brother's #2... and we ate and ate and ate -- which we always do when we go to grandma's houses. Oh, and it doesn't show how sleep-deprived we are since Ada had a cow at midnight on Saturday and slept in the middle of our bed, pushing Rick to the far edge. She's trying to get those darn molars to come in.

And then we get home and she's sleeping a ton. 6:45pm last night and I am going to get her up now at 9 am. Growth spurt or teething, whatever it is, she needs her rest after a long and crazy, fun filled weekend with family.

Moral of the story: Frequently, when you have kids, you'll find that you need a weekend to recover from the weekends.

Save the Drama for Your Momma

While out on a date with Rick the other night... (translation: I went shopping for shoes after work, then we went to a student art sale, then to a local Mexican restaurant two blocks from our house...home by 8 pm...) we stopped into a local store that I like called P+L. It's a neat little boutique with men's and women's clothing, super cool owners who had a baby boy about 3 months before I did, and they happen to have a few baby t-shirts too.

I happened upon an adorable T-shirt for Ada that spoke to me. It was soft, cute, and best of all it says "Save the Drama for Your Momma" and has a kangaroo and a joey on it. I'm always saying that too her and just had to have this t-shirt. It helped that it was on sale too. So in my infinite wisdom, I decided I wanted to photograph it and send a picture to P+L in case they want to ever put her in their newsletters. They tend to have model shots showing off their stuff and I figure I can offer her up as needed. Too bad my photography skills are so rusty.

Here is my first attempt: Blurry and shows nothing of the t-shirt.
My second attempt: a bit blurry, can't even come close to reading the t-shirt, but doesn't she look cute in that skirt with her girl power pose and chunky baby legs?

And my final attempt: Better... but still not all that great.

She wears the shirt every other day it seems so I'm sure we'll get something cute eventually. Fashion photography is much harder than it looks... especially when your model is a moving target/toddler.

Runway baby...with a toothbrush...That's Hot!

Come here Ada. Momma wants to take a photo of you in your dress and sweater. Come here.

I'll take what I can get. You could have left the toothbrush in the kitchen but ... oh well.

You'll notice the photos I take will be getting a bit more blurry and out of focus. That's because a)she's a lot faster now and b)I still don't know how to use my camera. Another goal for the summer I guess.

Talk about embarrassing...

In an effort to stay social and cool, we try to go to brunch with our friends Aaron and Cassie about once a month. To their shock and horror, they got way more than they bargained for this month. Ada started out showing how she can walk. She was really good during the meal. She ate a ton of blueberry pancakes and all was well in the world until this moment...

Then it was just time to leave.

Nanny Secured

I've been too busy reading the Twilight series in a matter of a week and watching the movie 4 times to possibly have time to post anything exciting in our lives. My bad. Sorry.

In the past week or so, we hired a nanny --Courtney. She seems super nice and good with Ada and I think she'll be a great fit for us this summer. So that's fun and exciting.

It just hit me today, with 2 weeks left, that Ashley is leaving. It's weird having a nanny for a long time and then switching it up. She's been a really good fit for us. Luckily, she got a full-time nanny gig here in the city so she'll still be able to babysit Ada. That's always nice.

And Ashely just learned where the plunger was yesterday, darn it. Takes so long to get a nanny trained and up to speed. (It was a minor toilet clog and she fixed it just fine.)

Next week, Ada is giving Ashley 2 days off to go chillax with her aunt Heather and grandma Ba. Heather is flying in for the Mom's day weekend. That means I get two days off too! Yippee!

Lame update. I know. What more is there to say? Change sucks but that's life. Hopefully Ada adjusts better than I do.

Here's a photo just for fun...