First, I actually have go back to before Reese's birthday, because I remembered something I forgot to blog about. While Brian & Jacqi were home, we spent a day at Blackberry Farm to celebrate my mom's 50th birthday. We kept asking her what she wanted to do, and (of course, if you know my mom), all she wanted to was to spend a day with her family. So, we figured that the kiddos would have fun at Blackberry, and we were right.
Reese rode the carousel, which she loved, despite the way it looks in this first picture.
Checking out the sheep, before my camera battery went dead:
Checking out the sheep, before my camera battery went dead:
The week after her birthday, we had a play date at our house with Eva (Eli & Emily's daughter who was visiting from Phoenix), Claire (our friend Jen's baby), and Audrina (Olivia's daughter). We didn't take too many pictures, but here are a couple of Reese & Eva. It was nearly impossible to get a picture of the two of them together.
That night, I did something I have been excited to do for a long time: I gave Reese her first spaghetti dinner. I was so excited, because as much as this girl loves to eat, I just knew that she would LOVE to stuff her face with spaghetti & make a HUGE mess. I mean, she hasn't disliked a food yet, so spaghetti was going to be a major treat, right? Wrong. She HATED it. She kept putting it in her mouth & spitting it out. To her credit though, she did keep trying it. And she kept hating it. Eventually, she went through & picked out the ground beef. Silly girl.
The week after that, Matt had the week off work & he got to stay home with her (which made me soooo jealous). He was sweet, & sent me a ton of pictures while I was at work. On the second day, I got this picture. The title of the email read, "at least her hair is out of her eyes." Priceless.
Reese is still having a blast in her ball tent, but she also enjoys being buried in the balls in her storage bin when they are put away.
I took her down to Princeton for Taryn's bridal shower (my cousin Eric's bride-to-be). This was a feat in itself, as Reese still doesn't really like the car. Taking her on longer trips is better with two of us in the car to entertain her, but solo rides are still a bit daunting. Luckily, she did pretty well. I let her play in the yard in her pretty dress when we got home, because she just looked too darn cute to take it off.
Reese has discovered her belly button. And everyone else's. She shows hers to everyone, & she picks at it so much, it turns beat red. She doesn't seem to mind. She does the same thing to ours, & she doesn't mind that either (we kind of do). She says belly button as well. Here she is showing off her prized possession.
You'll notice that Reese is exceptionally happy & excited in these next pictures. What you can't see in them, is what Reese is so ridiculously happy about. The secret: my 11 year old cousin, Sara. She came up to spend some time with my mom for the second time this summer, and Reese is crazy about her. She gets SO excited every time she sees her. It's so sweet. Sara is awesome with her, & I know my mom loved having her around to help out.
You'll notice that Reese is really happy in this next picture as well. The secret this time? She's looking at herself. I flipped the view on my phone so that she could look at herself while I took the picture. I don't blame her for being happy. I smile pretty big when I see her too.
Reese & Audrina had a fun Friday a couple weeks ago. Olivia & I took them to the park, & then swimming in our neighborhood. The girls were extremely worn out, which was our ultimate intention.
Our current challenge is Reese's obsession with her puffs. She walks over to the pantry approximately 7,436 times a day (just a rough estimate), bangs on the doors, & whines, "buuuuuumpfffff." It doesn't matter how long it has been since she just ate, or if you entice her with another snack. The girl knows what she wants, & she won't give up until she gets it. When I took this picture, it was a little easier to redirect her & get her to move on. However, she has now progressed to laying face down in front of the pantry door & throwing a temper tantrum if we won't give her some. Awesome. Oh, and just so you don't think we're mean parents, we do give in about 50% of the time, but we're trying to set some boundaries (truthfully, we're trying to get a second mortgage on our house to support her puff habit).
Here she is begging for buuuuuuumpffffffs:
And the face of defeat:
Here, she is being distracted by looking outside (oh, the good old days, when redirection worked). I know this face looks innocent, but seriously, you would be impressed by the tantrum skills this girl is developing.
One of her new favorite positions. It's extra hilarious if we do it back to her (if people could only see what goes on in this house...).
We try not to let Reese have a pacifier much during the day, but she has outsmarted us. She is using her Little People as a pacifier.
Last week, there was an awesome rainbow practically in our backyard. That is my random contribution for this blog post.
And now, I have a confession to make. I have a secret that I have been keeping for a very long time. The truth is....I have online friends. I know, I know, it seems weird. Let me explain.
Four years ago, when Matt & I got engaged & started thinking about doing a destination wedding, I found a chat forum on the wedding planning website, The Knot. The chat forum was full of girls planning destination weddings, & the girls were SO resourceful & helpful, as we were trying to figure out how the heck to make everything happen, & organizing the logistics of planning weddings in foreign destinations. Through the course of planning our weddings together through this online forum, we all became friends, & our daily conversations went further than wedding plans, & became more about our lives. Once our weddings were done, we no longer had a reason to continue to visit the destination wedding forum, so we found an obscure board on The Nest (The Knot's sister site for people who are already married), and took over to continue our friendships. Fast forward to present day, we now have a private chat board where we talk daily. Most of us now have babies, and it has been a really fun transition to go from wedding planning, to early married talk, to pregnancy to newborns to toddlers. These girls have been a huge support system during the anxieties of wedding, pregnancy and baby craziness. They have been a wealth of knowledge (any time we are faced with a new parenting challenge, Matt always asks what "the girls" say), and a source of relief when I just needed to vent during sleepless nights, breastfeeding troubles, and anxiety about being a new mom. They have also been a source of daily humor & entertainment, as we share the daily ins & outs of our lives. Our group is full of girls from all over the country (plus three girls from Canada, one from Holland, and another living in France!), from all walks of life, from a broad range of professions, and multiple ethnicities and religions. Each person brings their own flavor to our chat board. Over the course of the last four years, email addresses, real addresses, and phone numbers have been shared. A lot of us talk on the phone, text, and several of us have met in real life. We receive birth announcements & Christmas cards like crazy, and we even received a handful of gifts after Reese was born. These ladies have become true friends.
So, why am I coming out of the closet and sharing all of this now? Because last weekend, we organized a weekend in Chicago together. Of course, not everyone was able to come, but 13 women, 6 husbands, and 11 babies (+2 in bellies) trekked in from all over to meet & spend the weekend together. Prior to this weekend, I had already met a couple of them (and we also met another girl who lives near my sister on our most recent trip to Florida), but I got to meet a lot of the girls for the first time. The coolest thing is that any time I have gotten together with any of these girls, there has been zero awkwardness. It has never met like I was meeting someone for the first time. It feels seamless, because we are such a part of each other's daily lives. The weekend was an absolute blast, and I can't wait until the next time we can arrange a big group gathering. I was TERRIBLE about taking pictures all weekend, and most of them were taken on my phone, so I apologize for the lack of photo evidence that my online friends exist, haha.
So, for the details. Reese & I headed into the city early Friday morning to meet April, who had a super early flight into Chicago with her 1 year old daughter, Phoebe, and her 5 year old son, Rowen. We met up & headed over to Shedd Aquarium. This was the first time Reese had ever been there, and she loved it. All day long, she kept pointing, & saying "fiiiiiiiish," in this drawn out excited voice. Here she is watching a big one swim by:
And zonked after her busy afternoon:
Friday evening, Matt took the train in after work to meet us. We all had a room reserved at a restaurant downtown, so we had our first big group dinner. The kids had a blast chasing each other around & getting acquainted.
Checking out the view from our hotel room:
Group shot of the ladies & the babies:
Saturday morning, we headed over to Millennium Park. they are having a Family Fun Festival all summer long, and they have little concerts for kids, and lots of other activities in a family tent. The kids enjoyed the music & running around. It was awesome to see how social Reese was. I always worry about her socialization since she doesn't go to daycare. I make a real effort to take her places & to different kid activities on my days off, but I still worry that she won't be comfortable in that environment. My fears were completely relieved this weekend. She is such a social bug. In fact, it's almost scary how confident she is to leave us & be independent. We really have to keep an eye on her. She will wander off & socialize with anyone. Here she is walking around with her little shaker at the kids concert. Sorry the video is shaky, I was trying to video & keep an eye on her. She kept wanting to be in the center of everything, & I was worried she was going to get trampled.
That afternoon, we headed over to Navy Pier to visit the children's museum. Reese & all of the other kiddos had a blast here as well.
Saturday night, we all headed back to our hotel for a pizza party. After dinner, Matt took Reese up to the room for bed so I could stay and socialize (which was amazing of him, because this weekend was Reese's first time sleeping in a hotel room, and that came with it's own challenges). Little by little, the group filtered out, as those without husbands along had to get their babies to bed, but a group of 5 of us hung out until 3:30 a.m. It was a blast, & it's (sadly) the first time in a LONG time that I have gotten to enjoy some solid girl time like that.
Reese thought she was a pretty big deal sitting in bed, watching tv, and eating puffs. This is the life.
Sunday morning, we headed back over to Millennium Park, & Reese got to see the Bean and play in the water. I kept joking that she was the unofficial Millennium Park greeter, because she was walking up to EVERYONE to say hello, and trying to entice them to give her attention. She is such a ham. She wasn't too thrilled about the bean (she was more excited about her first cup with a straw that she got at a restaurant).
She LOVED the water and the fountains. I was afraid she would be intimidated by all of the big kids running & splashing like crazy around her, but she thought they were hilarious. She is braver than I give her credit for!
On Sunday afternoon, we said our goodbyes and headed home. We were immediately snapped back into reality with a begging session for puffs at the pantry door. By that point, I was out of energy. She won. Big time.
Warning, Mom, only 2 puffs left. Meltdown impending.
Unfortunately, we realized the consequence of our weekend late Sunday night. Amongst all of the sharing all of the kids did over the weekend, they managed to share some serious germs. Reese & I have both been sick all week. She has been a total trooper, and if it wasn't for the constant snot bubbles she is blowing out of her nose, you wouldn't even know she was sick. She has still been in a fantastic mood (in-between tantrums), and I am grateful that it hasn't been too awful for her. She looks miserable though.
Ok, I will finally end this ridiculously long blog post (don't worry, you probably won't get another one for a month). We have a busy few weeks coming up. Matt and I are headed to Madrid, Spain for a week, sans Reese. We are both super, super sad about leaving her (and I'm still half tempted to expedite a passport application & take her along), but we are really excited about our trip. I will share all of the details when we return. I'll leave you with pictures from today. Reese had a blast "sorting" our dish cloths and pot holders. She spent a serious amount of time moving them from bin to bin today. She's such a big helper.
And our wagon ride this afternoon:
And our wagon ride this afternoon:
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