Chicago

Jim was asked to go to training again in a suburb of Chicago and we decided it would be fun for Jacob and I to go too. Little did I know that I was in for nap-less days and an exhausting experience, but since we are going to Mexico in a little over a month, I guess we need some practice! Poor little guy (Jacob) is finally adapting to life in a hotel suite. We are staying in Schaumberg which is about 25 miles out of downtown which equals about an hour in morning-time traffic! Eeks.

We went on a little adventure to the Shedd Aquarium. I managed to miss my exit and thinking I could figure out where I was, proceeded to get us lost and we were in the car for a total of 2 hours. Should have only taken about 1 hour or 45 min max. When we got to the aquarium we found out that thy did not have their penguins, dolphins or whales on display due to construction. Darn it. At least admission was less... Well, Jacob didn't know the difference and we enjoyed the day. It was about 64 degrees out and a lovely day to be out. And he took a GREAT nap in the car on the way home. BUT I lost my parking ticket and in the midst of trying to locate it, ended up running over Jacob's "Mankie" (very special blankie) with the stroller in the mucky parking ramp. What a day! Luckilly, the parking ramp agent had mercy on me and only charged me $19 instead of $38 which is the usual fee for a lost ticket.

Today we went to Target and happened upon a MANKIE replica. Yes, Target saves the day. I didn't want him cuddling with a dirty yucky blankie and he was convinced that the Blankie at Target was indeed "Mankie"!! Amazing. It had the same white clouds in blue sky print. And it was only $9.99 compared to the ones I previously purchased at Kohls for $15. Yay Target!

I attempted to upload photos from the Aquarium Adventure but was unable. Will try later. The Staybridge Suites wireless internet is questionable! Wish us luck in the next few days. Pray for long naps :) We will be visiting with cousins Andy and Charles who both live either in downtown or in the burbs. We'll be having Chicago Deep Dish pizza downtown at Pizzeria Due.

The Puppies

Mama with her pups
This is little runt Princess.


Sad to say, the puppies are now down to 11. The runt of the litter, Little Miss Princess died a few days ago. Here are a few photos of her and another of the puppies a week or so ago.

Fall Fun

Jacob and his cousin Olivia went with Grandma Cathy to the park. Only thing was, she only had one stroller, so she rigged it so they could both ride together! It worked well and they seemed to have lots of fun! I got a few quick shots as they got back. I really think this photo of Jacob and Olivia is so precious.

Happy Birthday to ME and the puppies AND Cadence Quinn

What an exciting day! It is my 31st Birthday and for the last week or so I have been waiting impatiently for my brother's boxers to have their puppies. They are supposedly having 12 of them!
So, I got word at 8:30 this morning that the first one was born. How exciting. So Jacob and I went over to see them and by then there were 4. Daisy is still working on getting the rest of them out. Then I went to yoga. A workout but relaxing. Came home to have lunch and a nap but Jacob would not nap. FINALLY he is asleep and I found out that one of my photography clients had their second daughter today, too! Must be something in the air! Tonight it's off to Gasthofs for a German dinner and some polka music and German Beer and Apfelkorn out in the tent. Yay!!

Here are a few photos of the puppies. Hard to see them since they are a big blob of fur and the lighting was really bad. Will take more when Mama Daisy doesn's mind them being away for a second of two.

Lost Photos and More

So, I just realized that I am so lucky I started this blog. recently, my hard drive crashed for no apparant reason. I lost everything in my photos file and am currently waiting for a company called Kroll Ontrack (referred by a friend/client) to attempt to recover the files. If the files cannot be recovered, that means I have to re-do 5 photo shoots. No weddings were lost, I take backing them up more seriously than anything else. I have unfortunatly lost track of backing up Jacob's photos for the last 9 months and have possibly lost ALL of the photos I took of him in the year 2008. Total bummer. But, one glimmer of hope is that I just realized I can drag the photos out of my blog and on to my desktop which means I still have photos of his first haircut and other moments I thought were cute or important enough to blog :) Whew!! I have not totally failed as a mother and photographer!!

Fab at the Fair

We are so hot. This year I took two trips to the State Fair. Once with Jim (Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Warnest who took care of Jacob). The crowds were insane - it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We enjoyed some food and I was being very daring eating cheese curds and Sweet Marthas seeing that it had been about a month since I ate much more than rice and apples (and that's a whole other story!!) We had a good time but didn't stay long. The crowds were so insane!
The second trip was with my fab BFF Jenny from the Block and her fab friend Jackie. We (they) were way more daring. We started the night with free Leinies samples and then went onto cheese curds, deep fried pickle slices, buffalo bites, mac and cheese on a stick, french fries, Sweet Martha's and to top it off, some chocolate covered bacon sprinkled with sea salt. I was scared, but we actually all kind of liked it!! Unbelievable. We ended the night with a ride on the big slide and some funny photo booth shots. Little did we know, I was the main focus of all the photos and you can hardly see Jackie! Embarrassing!
We had SO much fun!!

Patriarch

Sometime's photos can speak louder than words which is why I'm not going to say much about these photos. This is my 92 year old grandpa Gus playing cards at my 2 yr old nephew's birthday party.

Budding Artist

If I can keep him from eating the color crayons, Jacob LOVES to color!
Here is a little photo montage of one of his latest artistic endeavors. The one of him crying was after I yanked the color crayon out of his mouth (notice all of the blue crayon on his teeth? ick!) You can click on the collage to see a larger version.

Old Pillows, New Pillows

New Pillows (Bottom) Quite a few months ago I took my first trip to Crafty Planet in NE Minneapolis with Sarah and got the BEST fabric with the intention of making some cute pillow covers. Then it took me a few weeks to get over to Ikea to get some pillows to make covers for! Next step, sew pillow cases. Easier said than done since I had no sewing machine at the time. FINALLY I got around to spending some time with Karen who was a huge help. In her pregnancy monkey brain state of mind she attempted to help me figure out my "pattern". Through some happy accidents, I ended up with the borders on the pillows. We like to call it Karen-dupity (serendipity + pregnancy stupidity) I then took another week or so to hand sew them into the cases. And here they are!

Shortly after, I was given a sewing machine from my mother-in-law Cathy (THANKS!)
I have a feeling there will be more projects i the future once photo shoots slow down and work gets done. Hmmmm...could be a long time.

Old Pillow (Top) The old pillow was made by Jim's grandmother and also handed down to me in Cathy's attempt to clean out her basement in preparation for remodeling. I just LOVE it!

Two Little Birds

Here are my two little baby birds!  They are so cute. They just hang out huddled together.  There were 4 eggs and now only 2 baby birds.  Not sure what happened to the others. Mom and Dad Bird (house finches) hang out on the power line and wait for us to leave so they can visit their little ones. They are probably getting sick of waiting for us to get outta there since we have been spending lots and lots of time on the deck.  Jim built gates for the two stairways and Jacob has a big bin of outdoor toys and his swimming pool to play with on the deck.  It's so nice!  The fence is coming up next week and then we'll need grass.  We will find some sort of an excuse to have a party once it is all finished!!

Just Hatched!

Welcome to our new baby bird, Dottie! She hatched from the one spotted egg and seems to be doing well. Mama and Daddy bird are taking great care of her. We're still waiting to meet babies 2, 3 & 4!

Happy Birthdays!

Happy Birthday to my Grandpa who is 92 now and to my Big Sis! I am so fortunate to have a big family which includes both of my sets of Grandparents (Jacob's GREAT Grandparents!!) We celebrated by going to Grandma and Grandpa W's church and then to Perkins. It was also a celebration of Grandma and Grandpa W's 66th Wedding Anniversary. WOW! Jacob and Gabe had lots of fun in the nursery at the church - I supervised! It was much easier than trying to wrestle with and chase Jacob around the church.

Deck Progress and Nesting

Here is a look at progress on the deck. It's looking great thanks to lots of help from my cousin Mike (his business is called A Step Beyond) He does an amazing job and also remodeled our bathroom quite a few years back. We also have a new family starting on our deck, a bird family. Jim got me a hanging flower for Mother's Day and I think Mama-to-be Bird thought it was for her. She has 4 eggs. One does not match the other 3. Weird! Papa bird who has red feathers on his head (some sort of little finch or something) also makes frequent visits. I just HAD to get some photos of the cute little nest and mis-matching eggs. Happy Nesting, Mama Bird! We're waiting to meet the new little babies :)

"Jacob" Shirt

This is the first time Jacob wore a very special shirt hand embroidered for him by the mother of two of my brides. Thanks, Wendy!!! He looks so adorable in it! The shorts still don't fit the little man!

BBQ Boy

We had an impromptu BBQ at our friends house over the weekend. It started out so nice and sunny and warm and beautiful and soon turned into a hail-wind-thunderstorm. The BBQ quickly moved inside but before that happened we got to enjoy some fun time outside. Little man got to try the trike and had fun flailing the croquet mallet around with his little buddies. The food and company was great, even if the electricity went out and we had 6 adults and 5 kids around one table. It was cozy and a great time. Thanks to our friends for their hospitality!!

Warm Weather Fun!

I brought Jacob out to enjoy some sunshine and his little swimming pool, but he preferred to set in his lawn chair and drink his Juicy Juice box and watch the trucks and motorcycles go down the highway.

I especially love the pot belly. That's my little man!

Jim's Birthday

We had a great time celebrating Jim's birthday. He tried his hardest to relax and sit still. No projects allowed. But he just couldn't handle it and had to do a mini-baby-project and used the Bobcat to move around some dirt and woodchips so he wouldn't have to do it by hand later. Then we went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants (Market BBQ) with a bunch of our favorite people. It was a nice relaxing day and a fun dinner. Thanks to everyone who made it out! Today is Memorial Day and work on the deck is going to start with Jim and my cousin Mike who is a contractor and is helping out with the deck construction. It will be SOOOO nice to have this all done and have a backyard to enjoy. Here are a few photos of Jim and Jacob yesterday. For some reason it was almost impossible to get them both to look at the camera!!

Beads for Life

I recently had a purse and bead jewelry party. The beads were made by women in Uganda who make them out of recycled magazine pages and other paper. They are so beautiful and colorful and they seemed to be a big hit. The party raised almost $350 that will go back to these women so that they can have their own house and helps them battle their poverty and other issues such as AIDS. This is a great charity and they made it so easy for me. Sent me a big box of beaded necklaces and bracelets and earrings. I was packing them up to get ready to send them back to the organizations US location in Colorado and just had to take some photos. They're so pretty and I'm going to miss having them around to accesorize with!

No More Hockey Hair (a.k.a. Bye Bye Baby Mullet)

Jacob had his first haircut over the weekend. He did really well. No tears shed. He looked so little in the big hair chair. We went to Kids Hair so it was very kid friendly with Elmo playing on tvs at every station. He looked a little concerned at first but it was very fast. He looks so different after the haircut and so adorable. Our handsome little devil is growing up WAYYYYY too fast!

Who needs shade anyway??

So, we have lost two trees in the last less than a year and today, the fine men of Shadywood Tree Experts arrived to take down our last remaining big shade tree. So sad. It is rotten and has a big hole in it. To be on the bright side of things, we will no longer have to deal with all the crud the old silver maple drops throughout the year. No more tree buds, sticks or helicopters. But this is one big huge tree and I think the whole neighborhood is wondering what the heck is going on! There is a huge crane parked in our front yard. Actually, it is pulled up almost all the way to the front door. Eeks! It is lifting huge tree branches from the tree in the back yard and over the house and into the middle of the street. Jacob is napping. Uh oh, and now they are out there yelling. Say a prayer for our house, our neighbors house and OUR LIVES.

This is a big project! Don't believe me? Drive on by!