SPOILED!!!

How does Amelia define spoiled? Spending Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with GranAnn and then spending Thursday and Friday with Poppy and JuJu. She was a lucky girl to spend a full week with grandparents.

Of course the reason we had all the help last week is that starting tomorrow we are making a big change in our household. Sadly it was time for Jenn to head back to school full time so Miss Amelia is starting daycare tomorrow. We had a bit of a gap between Jenn and daycare so the grandparents were happy to help out. We have been so spoiled with having Jenn come to our home and the great care she gave Amelia. There is no doubt that Amelia and I's morning routine will be a bit more involved. It will also be a huge change for me as I am going to have to start driving to work. I'm a CTA kind of girl. I've never really known work life without taking public transportation. I'm sure I will get used to driving and wonder how I used to handle slumming it on the CTA but for now I'm feeling sorry for myself and mourning life as I've known it.

For Mark it will be a welcome change as he won't have to get home as early in the evening thus he won't have to get into work quite as early.

And for Amelia we really do think she will love spending her days with other kiddos. I'm a little anxious about how she will handle naps on cots as she still logs a good 3 - 3 1/2 hour nap each afternoon. Sadly this could mean an earlier bedtime which neither Mark or I are totally excited about. Change is good, right?

So before the big change Amelia spent her week in spoiled grandparent bliss!

GranAnn can't come to Chicago without a bag full of goodies for Amelia. On top of the clothes this trip she brought Amelia her first baby doll. Also in the picture are Bow Bear "Bo" and Louise "Louie" who are never far from her side.
The princess allowed GranAnn to pull her all around the neighborhood.

Amelia was starting to feel the football spirit in anticipation of KU's first game Saturday. Ha, a lot of good that did. Maybe the problem was that the Hughey-Quinn boys were over on Saturday night but decked out in Texas orange instead of crimson and blue.....

Grilled cheese and french fries. My favorite!

Just when Amelia thought she had all the fun she would for the week Poppy and JuJu showed up and even stayed the night! Amelia loved their outing to the Children's Museum.Actually, we can't decide who enjoyed the Children's Museum more Grandpa or Granddaughter?

We didn't get any pictures of the Thursday night concert in Lincoln Square but Amelia showed her grandparents how she rocks out on Thursday nights. One point of her little finger to the gelato store and she had Poppy in there buying her a scoop!

Thank you GranAnn, Poppy and JuJu for helping us out last week. Amelia misses you already!

Rocky Mountain High

Ah, Allenspark, Colorado there is really no place more relaxing to me than the Rockies. Our trip started out a bit rocky when Amelia came down with pink eye and a cold two days before we left. The night before vacation we were all up most of the night with a sick little girl. It was no surprise that she wasn't the happiest of campers on the plane the next morning. Amelia is no stranger to flying but boy did we learn how it feels to be "those" parents of a screaming kid on a plane. She was so awful when we were taking off that the flight attendants were doing anything in their power to help us. Really we think she was just showing her stubborn personality and that she was not happy at all that we were forcing her to sit down. Once we were up in the air and she could happily stand she was a-okay. The first few days we got a lot of these blank unhappy stares.

Of course since she was sick that means she wasn't sleeping well. She owes Caitlin and Sarah a week of uninterrupted sleep. Auntie M was smart and escaped the cabin for the bunkhouse where she could sleep in peace. We had to resort to the infant days of walking her around with her to get her to sleep. Grandpa Don used to say something along the lines of, "I like you better when your asleep." I think I learned why he would say that :)

Need proof of how exhausted mom and dad were? Check out our eyes. We of course love our little girl dearly but were missing our happy toddler.

Speaking of a happy toddler aside from being sick (which could have been a factor in this) she learned how to throw a true temper tantrum at the cabin. Telling her she couldn't stick her fingers in her dad's pizza and telling her that there were no more dishes to be done but made her TOTALLY lose it. My dad took a video of the after dish tantrum so once I get that I will of course share it. A special thank you goes out to all the Evans and Cheneys who were with us to welcome Amelia into the terrible twos!

We made it past the trouble days and then enjoyed a much needed vacation. Amelia learned from the moment she saw Papa that he is a TOTAL sucker.


Here are Amelia and Papa sharing a cookie. Our first stop before heading up the mountains was to the grocery store. Amelia pointed at the cookie display case and yelled, "PAPA COOOOO-KIE" next thing you know Amelia was walking around Whole Foods with an enormous chocolate chip cookie. In the next aisle was a bin of balls. What did Amelia say, "Papa ball" to which Papa responded, "okay put it in the cart." Her Great Uncle Dan was just as bad. Between Papa and Dan she was probably diabetic by the time we got home.

My grandpa taught me how to drive on the "streets" of Allenspark when I was 12. Amelia's grandpa taught her at 20 months. She was more interested in hitting all the buttons on the stereo, finding a channel that suited her and then rocking out.
Amelia learned how to do the dishes and for some very strange reason (actually it all had to do with playing in the water) she was obsessed with it. Is she too young for a part time job? Monster faces! She started doing this while at the cabin and it is pretty funny!Time with family, great weather, amazing scenery, excellent food would all be highlights of most people's vacation. Amelia's favorite part had to have been playing in water for hours on end.....She managed to get out for a little hiking. Her she is on her first trip up Big Rock!I come from a family of eaters which means that out of necessity we have all learned to love cooking and baking. Oh how we enjoy our food and wine. Amelia loved standing on chairs in the kitchen to help measure, pour and mix ingredients. She made Swedish Tea Rings with Uncle Dan, pie with Auntie M and pizza with Dada.Our happy, healthy family enjoying the view in Rocky Mountain National Park!


Our apologies to all of our family members who went home sick. Especially Papa who caught a bad case of the, "snotty nose toddler syndrome."

AND a huge thank you to all of our family who all took turns caring for and entertaining Amelia so that Mark and I could do some relaxing!

Weekend at JuJu's

At some point over the past couple of months Amelia has decided that Grandma Ginnie's name is JuJu. Frankly we have no idea where it came from. In Amelia's world there is no longer a Grandma G but there is most definitely a JuJu! Mark and I snuck away for a night at Kohler to celebrate our anniversary. Of course JuJu and Popper (his name was Georgia's doing) were happy to have us drop Amelia off on our way out of town. They filled their weekend going to the park, swimming and decorating cupcakes (or for Amelia eating frosting).

A Kansas Holiday

We traveled to Lawrence for the 4th of July holiday weekend. We had very lofty plans for spending as much time as possible sitting on my mom's deck, catching up with friends and family and watching Amelia enjoy having a yard to run around in. The weather had different plans for the weekend.... We did get beautiful weather Friday night and I had a great time eating Mexican food and drinking margaritas with my Kansas girls. Didn't manage to get any pictures though....

Due to the inclement weather we had to get creative over how to spend our holiday weekend. Amelia, Auntie M and Emmie mastered somersaults.

Instead of dining al fresco every night we spent QT hanging out in the kitchen. Amelia even had her first corn on the cob inside while watching the rain.

The weather meant we spent more time on the couch than I would like to admit. Here we are with our evening cocktails; beer for dad, wine for mom and a little juice for Amelia.

The rain held off on the morning of the 4th which allowed us to go visit the Meyer's new home and join in their lake's celebration. Amelia and Jack shared an entire bag of Goldfish crackers. From the looks of this picture Amelia wasn't giving Jack his share of the bag. (check out the view from the Meyer's front porch!)

On the evening of the 4th the rain stopped just long enough for us to light a few sparklers and fountains and for Auntie M to teach Amelia how to play with fire.

After checking and rechecking the radar we finally accepted that we weren't going to get a dry 4th. Mark introduced Amelia to running in the rain. The girl loved it and made good use of her signing skills by asking "more, more" everytime they got back to the garage.

And of course it was GranAnn who was waiting with a towel to dry off Miss Amelia.

Her Kind of Town

Amelia is a Chicago gal. She manages to get all over the city during a week's time. First she always travels with an entourage such as Rocky Mountain Bear, Louise and a random bear neither Mark or I swear we have ever seen (note to self ask Jenn if she knows where he came from). This was on her way to the Children's Museum with Jenn.

The girl's network is so large that even out at Midway she runs into people she knows. On our latest plane ride we were greeted at the gate by Amelia's best man Sammy who also happened to be heading to KC for the 4th of July weekend. They had a great time sitting across the aisle from each other, tearing apart skymall and eating each other's snacks.

Friday Amelia traveled to Edison Park to help teach Charlie how to swing. From the left; Charlie, Amelia & Georgia.

Friday night Amelia ventured over to Wicker Park to entertain Anna Wood who was visiting from Minnesota. The girls were very sweet walking home from dinner holding hands while wearing matching pink Crocs. The toddler's dined on French Fries for dinner and us parents enjoyed well behaved little girls and even some adult conversations.



Video: Amelia is a total Wiggleworms groupie. Today the Old Town School of Folk Music celebrated the Wiggleworms 25th anniversary with a full on concert in Welles Park. The Old Town School of Folk music knows how to throw a concert for tykes and their parents; great outdoor setting, toddler friendly time, music that engages toddlers and a beer tent for mom and dad! Her face clearly shows how serious the girl takes her Wiggleworms dancing and that she was not happy with the microphone trouble during "Milkshake."

Beer Me Mama

As a parent it is important to think about the kind of company you have around your children. In June we were lucky to get a lot of QT time with "the girls." Between a weekend at the Klein's lake house and then LB and Mills visiting Chicago Amelia got to hang with the girls lots. I'm bummed we didn't get a photo of all of us girls lounging in the raft at the lake but Amelia definitely enjoyed being "one of the girls."

Once we were back in Chicago things went something like this:

Skip ensured Amelia always had reading material. How can a girl go more than a few hours with her celebrity gossip?

Skip is definitely a hostess with the mostess and always takes such good care of us all. Even Amelia could help herself to Johnny Walker or Tangueray.
Mills brought home banana yogurt which Amelia devoured like dessert. I'm pretty sure it was all sugar.
Mills also encouraged and egged on "creative" projects with the yogurt. In Mills' defense at least she didn't introduce her to Diet Coke but I imagine she will take care of that during her next trip.


As for LB and the title of this blog. I came home from work one day to our home totally turned upside down and LB teaching our toddler to say, "beer me mama."

Happy Dada, Papa and Popper's Day

I feel like a lucky Mama. While it wasn't Mother's Day last weekend I got to spend Father's Day with my dad for the first time in I really don't know how long. And Amelia got to spend it with Dada, Papa and Popper. We kicked-off Papa's trip to Chicago with a visit to the Aquarium. It was free. How cool is that? Oh wait, if you ever think free days are a good time to go to museums in Chicago think again. Then again I imagine the rest of you could have told me what the problem would be with free days. Yes, we were greated to a 2 hour line when we arrived. As if we were going to wait in a 2 hour line in the sun with a toddler. Papa did his best to be positive, I kind of tried to be but Amelia did not hold back on her feelings. With a meltdown imminent I headed to get the car while Papa waited with Amelia in the shade. I came back to a happy girl who was eating her first popsicle! I will give Papa credit for thinking of a way to keep Amelia happy and cool her down. Of course where was Papa when I had to take away the popsicle to get Amelia into her carseat? Right, he was sitting in the car checking e-mail.

and she was able to use the car ride to catch up with friends on her iPhone.

See the nice construction? We have been loving the sewer replacmenet project that has been plauging our street for a couple of weeks now. It really is irritating, loud, dusty and makes our garage hard to get to.

See even Amelia is distraught. HOWEVER the inconvience of the construction doesn't appear to be our biggest problem. Amelia loves watching the work from our window. Jenn was pretty smart and put a little foot stool at the window so Amelia can climb up and watch the workers whenever she feels like it. This seemed like a great idea until Jenn turned around one day and Amelia was facing the construciton workers with her shirt up over her head. The girl loves showing off her belly.

Remember my post about being excited about having guests come? Be careful what you wish for. Papa went back to Arizona and left us with a toddler who now insists on "cheersing" whenever we sit down to dinner. After one round of cheering she will do the sign for "more" while saying, "more cheeeeeeeeeeer." I suppose she is ready for cocktail parties.....

A visit from Papa would not be complete without ample time in the kitchen. I won't scold Papa for having our toddler on the counter and digging through a draw full of kitchen utensiles because I know Auntie M will for me.

The morning of Father's Day took us to Millennium Park where Amelia's favorite part was definitely The Crown Fountain. Now that she can get herself around the freedom to splash in the water is way cooler to her than seeing herself in the bean.

On Father's Day Sunday we had folks over for dinner. Little Miss Sweet Tooth of course loved the dessert. I can't say she ate any of the other food but the dessert did have pineapples in it so that at least counts as a serving of fruit, right?

Why am I posting a blurry photo? Well little miss Wiggleworms wasn't about to sit still when she had Popper, Dada AND Papa all on the couch with her! What a luckily little girl to get to spend Father's Day with her three leading men.

p.s. In case you are wondering why my daughter is wearing nothing but a pair of tight, tie-dyed spandex which her belly doesn't exactly fit in please know I'm thinking the same thing too. All I can say is that it was Father's Day so I didn't get to pick out her outfit.