Boo!

Happy Halloween!

Reese dressed up as a dog this year. She loves dogs, and will tell you what the dog says (sometimes...but of course not when she's in her costume). We took pictures of Reese in her costume at the park the day before. It went pretty well other than eating flowers and rocks. We took Reese out on Halloween mostly to just walk around and visit a couple friends. She had fun watching all the people and would point and say "kids" when a big group of kids would go by. She got a few pieces of candy, but true to her nature, instead of putting it in her pumpkin she insisted on carrying as much of it in her hands as she would manage.

Starved Rock State Park

(Click on collage to enlarge)

We had been wanting to go to Starved Rock State Park, so we packed up a couple weekends ago and made the trip. We had a great time! The drive there was nice and relaxing (Reese slept!) and it was a warm fall weekend. We stayed in Ottawa, IL at a brand new Fairfield Inn courtesy of my former life as a traveling business lady (ha ha ha). We called ahead to see if they had a fridge in the room so we could keep milk around for Reese and they upgraded our room for free! Something about our hotel room really appealed to Reese...she loved it and was very happy whenever we were there.

The park itself was fantastic! I was not expecting this place to be as crowded as it was, but it was packed! Tons and tons of people. There were a lot of hiking trails and once you got away from the main lodge and visitor center, the crowd thinned out significantly. The other unexpected thing? Ladybugs. TONS of them. They were mostly on the wooden elevated pathways, I thought they were really annoying (I swear they were biting me), but Reese liked when they would land on her.

All in all, we had a fun, quick getaway. Reese enjoyed hiking and even FELL ASLEEP in the backpack. If you know our child, you know that is not to be expected. Unfortunately we had to wake her up because her head was flopping around.

It is definitely somewhere I'd go back to check out in all the different seasons. In the spring and late fall, the waterfalls are going in the canyons and in the winter they get icefalls (?not sure if that is a word).

Oh, Canada!

We went on vacation to Whistler and Vancouver at the end of August. It was awesome! The first awesome thing was that our flights (MDW to MSP and MSP to YVR) had enough empty seats that we were able to take Reese's carseat on the plane with us. She slept for almost the entirety of both flights. I was in heaven. It was amazing...

We drove straight to Whistler when we got there. It is a beautiful drive. It was so nice to have mountains around...it kind of felt like home. Whistler was really fun, we wished we would've stayed another day or so there. Brady went downhill biking at the Whistler Bike Park. He had tons of fun and was bummed he only got to go once.

We spent the rest of the time in Vancouver. The weather was awesome. Mid 60's to low 70's during the day and 40's at night. Very refreshing and such a nice change from the heat and humidity of the Chicago summer. It was perfect!

Highlights of the trip include:
-Biking at Whistler
-Fish and chips at Go Fish!
-Granville Island Public Market, especially the fresh Lee's Donuts
-Getting to spend an entire week together as a family
-Biking around Stanley Park
-Beautiful view from our rental home in North Vancouver. The deck looked directly over the city...the sunsets were awesome!
-Getting together with my cousin Sarah for breakfast
-Hiking
-The beautiful scenery

-Watching Reese play with the goats at the farm

All in all, it was a great vacation. It is different vacationing with a toddler, but Reese was very good. The last bit of awesomeness was that we got to take Reese's carseat on both planes on the way home, as well. Again, amazing. She is much easier to fly with when she's sleeping!

LOTS of pictures below. You've been warned.



Family Picture Attempt



Whistler MTB park AKA Brady's second love

Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge

Biking the seawall at Stanley Park

Peek-a-Boo

My goofball child.

A few days ago in the afternoon she entertained herself by making a new friend, her shadow. I was surprised how long she did it. Of course by the time I got the video camera out, she was finishing up.

Man, I love this girl and all the crazy things she does to make me smile.

Reese Turns One!

Yes, the blogging has taken a back seat to chasing my child around. Oh, well. Here's a catch up.

Reese's birthday was August 20th.  I made some cupcakes and we invited a few friends over to go swimming.  It was a fun day, but a little cold for the swim. We waited until Brady got home for Reese to dive into her cupcake. She liked it and ate the whole thing. She pretty much ate the frosting off the top, then broke it into two halves, shoving each half into her mouth. That's kind of her eating style. Here are the pictures...

On a side note, at Reese's one-year check up she weighed 18 lbs 6 oz and was 29 inches long. She has jumped into the 10th percentile weight-wise and is holding steady in the 50th percentile for height.

More boring stuff about Reese:
-Has 4 teeth: 2 top, 2 bottom
-Has discovered toilets. Not so fun (or sanitary).
-Has fun laughing at herself when she walks backwards or spins in circles.
-Cannot resist eating sand and/or dirt.
-Loves looking at pictures of people she knows.
-Knows how to comb her hair (and mom's, too).
-Can find belly buttons
-Likes to hide in small  places like cupboards, closets, etc.

Utah

Reese and I headed to Utah a few days after we returned from Vancouver. We basically had a 3-week long vacation. No complaints here! Not to sound like a broken record, but I got to take Reese's car seat on our flight to and from Salt Lake City. Again, nothing short of amazing-ness. I actually got to listen to my iPod and read a book.

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures in Utah. We had a great time spending time with family and friends. Reese LOVED the dogs at my parents house. She generally likes dogs, but her and Max had a good time chasing each other around and sharing toys (gross, I know.)

We had a more official birthday party for Reese with family. I went with an owl theme and I had lots of fun planning it! My mom and I stayed up late the night before putting her owl cake together. I was excited, it looked really good! However, my mom woke me up the next morning by saying, "Meg, your cake tipped over." Yep. The owl slowly hunched forward in the night. Grrrr. We saved the head and it became Reese's smash cake. We started over and it turned out fine.



The owl cake!



The smash cake

I'm glad that I am able to go to Utah frequently and spend time with our family there. It always amazes me how fast 2 weeks goes by, though. It feels like I'm going to be there for a long time, but it always is over before I know it.

New Tricks!

Reese's repertoire of antics has increased over the past couple weeks. Her new favorite activities include:

-Climbing into the dishwasher.

-Opening cupboards and pulling food off the lazy Susan.

-Opening drawers and emptying them of their contents.

-Going into rooms and closing herself in.

-Pulling diapers out of her diaper stacker.

-Standing by herself from sitting! She just pops right up. She's tried to take steps a couple of times. I'm afraid. Once she starts, she'll NEVER stop.

-Trying to climb out of her playpen.

-Running from one end of the house to the other with her new push toy.

 

I also recently had to try and get a passport photo of Reese for our upcoming trip to Canada. It took days and countless attempts to get a picture where: she was looking at the camera, not crying, had her eyes open, wasn't blurry, didn't have her hand in her mouth, didn't have her hand(s) waving, couldn't see our hands while trying to hold her...etc, etc. I finally got a good shot, pulled it up on the computer and she had a huge piece of food on her tongue. I had to use a little Photoshop magic to bring it up to US State Department standards. Let's hope they accept it.  Here are the reject pictures:

The Taste...

We headed to the Taste of Chicago on July 3rd. Eeehhhhh....we weren't too impressed. We're glad we went, but for the money we spent, I could have had a much better "meal." This is going to make me sound old and lame, but it was hot and crowded. Had it not been (hot and crowded) we may have enjoyed it more. Oh, and then I read this story and have decided I won't feel bad if that was my first and last time.  We were planning on heading to the beach afterwards, but due to sore feet/new shoes, we settled for the pool.