Quote of the day

Daniel and I had a meeting with someone here at the house. The doorbell rang, and I was telling Sadie that she needed to be really good because some important people were here. She said, "It's my baby sister!"!!!!

Things that make you go hmmm....

We're not real certain what this type of behavior means, but these are some fairly regular sites in our house....

(no we weren't robbed of all our VERY valuable living room "heirlooms" :), this was taken the morning after steam cleaning the carpets)

(this picture may not be a line of stuff, but it is a bit extreme....or at least interesting and humorous enough for me to have taken a picture of to text to Daniel one day :))

We are definitely exhibiting signs of OCD at an early age I guess. When she takes off her shoes, she has to make sure they are lined up perfectly next to each other and must ALWAYS be touching one another. She does the same when taking her clothes off at bath time. We are just hoping all this behavior means she'll be a tidy child growing up, and we won't have to remind her 50 times to straighten her room up....what more could a parent want! Now finding a roommate in college that will last more than a week might be a little harder!

Chicago

We went up to Chicago last weekend for a quick night's stay and met up with our friends the Althoffs. We forgot our camera at home, but Daniel captured the above picture with his phone while we were at the Shedd Aquarium. We thought it was pretty priceless!

Other than the Shedd Aquarium on Saturday afternoon, the real point of the trip was for Daniel and Kyle to run in the Chicago half-marathon on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, Daniel injured his leg and hadn't been running much the last month. So he just ran part of it (I think he said he ran 8 or 9 miles.....which would be enough for me personally to be proud of, but whatever! ;)), including the last 2 miles with Kyle to help him out a bit during the hardest part. We enjoyed getting to see the Althoffs, as always, ate some great Chicago cuisine, and made a (should have been quick) trip out to Ikea. So it was another nice weekend away before the baby comes.

On another note......visiting the Shedd Aquarium had been on our list for years, but we hadn't made it there before. With that visit, we have done almost all the "touristy" things on our list for Chicago over the last several years including the Field Museum, the Science and Industry Museum, a Cubs game, a visit to the Chicago Board of Trade (thanks to Daniel's brother, John), a trip up to the top of the Hancock Building, the beach, the Taste of Chicago, the 4th of July Fireworks show on the lake, a visit to DePaul University to visit Daniel's Uncle Johnny's Library, a musical at the old (and very pretty) Ford Center Oriental theater, and of course shopping on Michigan Avenue and LOTS of great Chicago eats! The thing we've had on our list to do, but have just never gotten around to, are a couple of the tours....the architectural river tour and the "Devil in the White City" tour. (the latter is based on the book by the same name...a recount from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893...another recommendation in my opinion! :)) Anyway, if you're ever in need of suggestions when visiting Chicago, let us know! We highly recommend visiting if you have never been before. It is really a fun city with lots to do, and we are reminded of that every time we are up there. Of course if you are ever up there, call us! It is only about 2.5 hours from our house to downtown Chicago! :)

Monkey see, monkey do

I needed a break outside last week, sat down and crossed my legs. Guess who else needed to do the same thing? :)

Hello Barbie!

At The Children's Museum, talking to "Barbie" (according to Sadie) on the phone.

Rather Be Dancin'

Sadie is taking her first dance lessons this year at Rather Be Dancin' in Westfield. Last week was the first class, and she did surprisingly well. Daniel was out of town and didn't get to go, but he went with me to watch her last night. It really is so entertaining to watch! There are currently 5 little girls in her class, including her good little friend Makenzy. It is a class for 2's and 3's. So you can only imagine how cute it is. It has really been surprising how well Sadie and the other girls listen to the teacher, Ms. Jennifer. They all are doing really well and following what she does. It's super cute. I was in tears last night a couple of times because we (all the parents watching from the hallway) were laughing so hard at the girls' "leaping" skills. They have to leap over little stuffed animals on the floor. Most of them walk up to the animal and hardly make it over the little thing. Sadie tries with all her heart to jump with BOTH feet and a big thud over the stuffed animals. It will really be interesting to see how far they will come by the end of the year (the class is a full year, with a recital around Memorial Day). For now, Sadie just loves it. Last week she talked and talked about "dance class". When Daniel got home from out of town on Thursday, she exhausted the subject to him that morning, and then again when she was at Jane's on Thursday, she was evidently repeatedly telling everyone she was going to dance class in the morning. :) And in our two weeks of class, I can already see the benefits of the class beyond just being an activity Sadie enjoys....following directions, discipline, and of course coordination. I'm so glad we decided to start this year. Here are a few pictures of Sadie and Makenzy on their first night.

Anxiously waiting their turn (there are one way windows/mirrors from the hallway into the classroom for parents to watch)

Memphis - Labor Day 2010

Labor Day weekend my mom asked if we would be interested in meeting up somewhere halfway between here and Texas to spend the weekend together (mostly so she could see Sadie, I accept that! ;)). She was enticing us by offering to bring her old baby bassinet for us to use when the baby comes AND an antique armoire turned t.v. cabinet for us to have. Daniel and I decided to take her up on her offer and so did my grandma, Jean Jean. We decided on Memphis this time since we haven't really spent much time there exploring that area. So off we went on Friday afternoon and just happen to get to the hotel in Memphis only a few minutes before my mom and grandma....perfect timing!

Saturday morning we decided to head to the zoo. In looking up where it was and such, we learned that it is among the top zoos in the U.S. Sweet! And it was! It is such a beautifully designed and maintained zoo. I've accepted the fact recently (with three zoo visits in 1.5 years) that I am just not a zoo person. THIS zoo however made me rethink that. They even had an iPhone app with live maps and schedules of each exhibit telling you when the next feedings were. We were impressed to say the least!

One of our favorite parts of the zoo were the first animals we visited...the monkeys! They had so many different monkeys. Sadie was in awe.

This chimpanzee (I think that's what it was) was putting on quite the show for us, swinging all over the place. We watched this guy forever.


I have a TON of pictures of Sadie just like this.....



She was pretty taken with all the monkeys and just watched every one of them.

Probably because she's a bit of a monkey herself!




They had a ton of other animals too....lots of birds, elk, wolves, brown bears, panda bears, elephants, hippos, dolphins, penguins, giraffes....




and lots of cats. This was an interesting tiger that they had that I had never heard of before:

It's a white tiger. Below is the description:

"White tigers are simply Bengal tigers that have white fur with chocolate colored stripes, blue eyes, and pink noses. They are not albinos but a color mutation. Wild white tigers are very rare. Less than a dozen have been seen in the past 100 years. Captive white tigers in North America can be traced to one white male, known as Mohan. Because all of these tigers come from one male, they are all related. Therefore, breeding tigers to make them white is risky and can result in birth defects or possibly death. The Memphis Zoo has no plans to breed our white tiger."


Interesting, huh?

Of course Sadie loved the carousel, and I was happy Mamaw wanted to ride it with her, because I was getting worn out by this point.

Sunday we decided to ride the trolley downtown and see some sights.

Waiting on the trolley....

Sadie kept calling the trolley a choo choo train, but she loved it. She didn't take note of the signs posted everywhere that said, "Keep hands and heads inside the trolley"....maybe she just didn't see them.

After our tour of downtown, we found a nice park by the Mississippi River and ran around a bit...

and had a picnic....

Daniel and I even got to eat out, by ourselves, downtown on Sunday night! What a treat! Thanks Mom and Jean Jean! Sadie enjoyed swimming in the hotel pool both afternoons, and we all took naps and spent alot of time visiting and relaxing. It was such a wonderful weekend, better than we expected, not really knowing much about Memphis. We will definitely be going back to do some of the other things we saw around the city while we were there.

Moving on up!

Sadie's first night in her big girl bed and big girl room...8/29/10...

She is such a great big sister already in that she is going to "share" her old room with her baby sister! ;) (her words) She has moved into what used to be our office, and the new baby will get her old room. I don't even have her new big girl room decorated yet, and there are no toys in it (we've decided to remove the toys from the bedrooms since she's not in a crib anymore and we don't want her to be tempted at bedtime....or in the middle of the night ;)), and yet she LOVES it! She has done so well with the transition. When we lay her down, she stays there and doesn't try to escape. She hasn't even left her room in the morning when she wakes up...she just lays there talking or singing, which was pretty much her routine when she was in a crib, and waits for me to come get her (or yells -- "potty, Mommy! potty!" when it is urgent that I get there right that second...which doesn't necessarily mean she has to go potty though...just means she wants to get out of bed NOW!). Our sweet little girl is growing up. *sniff*sniff* I most definitely shed a tear her first night in her new bed. It's hard to believe she is this old already. We also (FINALLY) put the high chair in storage the same week. So now she sits in a big girl chair at the dinner table too. Next thing you know, she's going to be driving a car! Where does the time go?