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What a wonderful weekend! Father's Day and my 32nd birthday. Last year, for Father's Day, Mike was driving to Chicago with my parents - 14 hours with 2 cats and a whole lot of wine. This year, we finally could celebrate together. And, long awaited warmer weather to get out the new toddler pool. Of course, we have pictures of our little water bug, who is the most fearless kid in his swimming class. And, now that he understand the toddler pool, he couldn't quite figure out why his water table was any different. Our little climber here...eek!

Daddy took Luke to the barber shop on Sat morning for some Daddy and Luke time. Amazing how much they look alike after Tony puts a little gel in their hair. It's a whole experience - doughnuts, suckers, and hair gel. You know, guy stuff.
And here we are celebrating Father's Day and Mommy's birthday at a nice breakfast. This has to be our new favorite spot for yummy pancakes and such. Luke follows in his mother's footsteps and has developed quite a passion for raspberries. Needless to say, the raspberry french toast was a HUGE hit.
And, yes, it was a good birthday. We are actually going to celebrate a bit more - our 6 year anniversary, my birthday, and Father's Day - this coming weekend. Grandma and Grandpa are coming and letting us go downtown for our first little getaway. We have dinner reservations Friday night at Moto and then we're going to visit Taste of Chicago and the Harry Potter exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry. We are so totally excited that we can hardly stand it! I have a strange feeling we'll come home to two very tired, but very happy grandparents!!! So now, only a week of work between us and a little vacation...woo hoo!

Our Holiday In Ohio (get it?)

We ventured to a little known part of southeastern Ohio to meet our dear friends, The Porters. This was our big adventure before all of the craziness of starting a new job, day care, Daddy duties, etc. What a wonderful time we had! This is Mark, who became a very quick friend of Luke's. They played so sweetly together! Mark is only 5 months younger than Luke and crawling like crazy! He'll pull himself up on furniture, but we didn't have much luke getting Luke to teach Mark how to walk or Mark to teach Luke how to babble more.


Luke really pitched in to help with the chores over the weekend...reloading the cooler with water...

and feeding the sippy cups...
Oh yes, and the pool was a huge hit. This kid is some kind of waterbug. We spent each afternoon there after naps and had a ball...in the indoor pool.





And, bottom line is that we all survived our first week. Luke has been a super trooper, getting many kudos from the day care about how good of a first week it was....except for the day that Bear and Blankie didn't make it into the van. Daddy ran home to fetch them at lunch, and the day care suggested I try and find a 2nd set to keep at school. Of course, my kid would have fallen in love with a bear that happens to be a limited edition bear that was released by Ty for Borders bookstore in 2008. Thank God for eBay! More to come about the job and springboard in to Chicagoland traffic.

Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho...

It's back to work I go. I've been offered a contracting role, and aside from the rather long commute, it really is too good of an opportunity to pass on. Essentially, I'll get to try it out for a 2-3 month assignment and see how the working mom thing works for all of us. If I like it, there is longer term potential, and if I don't like it, no hard feelings if I decide not to continue. So, after some craziness trying to get us all ready, I'll head to work next Monday. Lukeman will be starting "school" at a very nice day care.

Speaking of the Lukeman, we've been enjoying some really nice weather and playing outside. He's gotten to play with his new water activity table and make a glorious wet mess! Each day we go out, he's also convinced there should still be a puddle in the driveway and even goes to each of our neighbors to see if they have a puddle in the same spot. Needless to say, I've gotten good at creating the puddle for him with a cup of water.

Puddle All Gone

Luke has mastered essentially two signs, one for more which also equals "yes" and "please" and the other for open which also equals "all gone." It kind of comes as a shrug...very cute.

He also has a new love in puddles. After the late week rains here, everywhere we went, he was pointing and grunting longingly for each puddle we passed. Lucky for him, the puddle at the end of the driveway was still there when he got to play outside on Saturday. He ran right to it, and stomped in it for a good 10 minutes (leading to some very cute video which I'll edit and try and post soon). Happy as a lark!

Imagine his disappointment when by Sunday, the puddle was gone, and despite going to several of the other driveways to find out if it had appeared there instead, he kept making the "all gone" sign. I think that I may have to get creative with the hose and reinstate the puddle from time to time for him this summer, at least after I've gotten his shoes off!

Is It Really Too Much To Ask??

It should be noted that this is going to be a bit of a vent, so feel free to skip this entry. In fact, Mom, since you've heard this, you can definitely skip it. I feel like I have been so incredibly bombarded from every direction with people trying to sell me something. Every other day, someone is knocking on our door telling us we need pest control, new siding, water filtration (because apparently we're all going to get cancer from the water and BPA). And, now, let's just add the dentist to that list. Is it really too much to ask that I can just go to a dentist, have my teeth cleaned, get told to brush more, identify the cavities that need to be filled, and be on my merry way? Now I have to endure a sales pitch on a preventative cancer screen, flouride treatment, and teeth whitening?!?!?! I think I'm going to have to keep searching for a dentist, which is turning out to be worse than pulling teeth. Ba dum ching!

Happy Mothers' Day!

My dad found a really sweet thing about moms...

You may have tangible wealth untold;

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer than I you can never be-

I had a mother who read to me.

from The Reading Mother by Strickland Gillian

Luke's Big Adventures in Florida

After an unforgivably long absence, I'm back to blogging! We had a roller coaster of a few weeks, mainly based on fears over layoffs at Mike's company, and I didn't want to subject my faithful readers to a whole lot of unnecessary whining. But, things have turned out to be okay. Mike survived the layoffs and even though I interviewed for a contracting position in the midst of this and toured day cares, I didn't end up being the one selected. So, for now, life is as it was..and oh yeah, we went to Florida to visit the Buccieros!


This is Luke and his instant best friend, Duncan. They were a total duo the whole visit!

Making faces with Aunt "T"

Reading Goodnight Moon with Ashley

And, after all that, all it took was a cuddle with Bear and a little jet engine noise and he was out cold!