Annie & Her Pal Santa

"I gotta list Santa, time to talk business" 

So Aaron and I talked about taking Annie to see Santa but didn't know what kind of experience we would be in for.  Since our little Annie can be quite the fussy child, we decided to see how the day goes and if she was having a good day, we'd give Santa a try.  She had a good day of naps and seemed to be pretty happy and in good spirits all day so we thought, let's do this!  Going early in the holiday season paid off and we lucked out with no line on a Saturday night.  And Annie did terrific!  She sat on his lap for a good few minutes, long enough to get some great pictures.  I'm so glad we took her.  I was just waiting for her to grab Santa's beard but she was very well behaved and just starred with intrigue.  The picture above made the trip all worth it! 

And since there was no line, we snapped a few real quick ones together, not the best pics but in efforts of being speedy we got a few.  Thank goodness this all worked out, we dressed in our Christmas colors and really didn't want to have to go back to do a re-do with Santa.

"I hear you loud and clear Santa, I will be extra good the rest of the month... and leave you some cookies." 

And this is how we knew it was time to go.  

8 Months Old

8 months old, time just keeps a ticking by! 

Surprisingly, we got this pic on our first try! 

She is crawling everywhere.  No place is safe.  And it’s comical how you can always tell if she is going after something she shouldn’t be because she starts crawling really fast.  When she starts to trot with a good pace, I look ahead and see what’s in her line of vision and it’s normally a dog toy.  I scoop it up before she has a chance to catch up to it.  I’ve relocated Charley dog toys but it doesn’t prevent Charley from scattering them all over the house. 

What else is new?  Walking.  Yes I said walking!  She gets a hold of the coffee table and she holds onto it and walks all the way down it.  Toys with wheels, gets right behind them and walks all the way down our hallway.  I’m pretty darn impressed that in the 7^th month she’s able to walk while holding onto something but apparently I walked on my own at 8 months (which I’m still not sure if I fully believe that to be the truth but that’s what I’m told).  And then the other day, she actually stood by herself and kept her balance for a few seconds.  WHAT!?  I thought it was a fluke but then she did it 2 more times that day.  Oh my, my Annie!  

Check out this link if you want see Annie GO!:

http://instagram.com/p/vbFEYhkWpO/

We are working on words.  Mama, Dada, Charley and Annie.  She does seem to do ‘dadadadadadada’ over and over but not correlating that with Dad but just her babble.  So at this point, it’s looking like she has her D’s down better than her M’s but I don’t think her true first word will be any time soon, just a lot of babbling going on right now.

Annie cannot be mellow, like ever.  I’ve grown to love that about her because it’s really one of her main personality traits.  It’s funny how we get together with friends whose babies are only a month apart and all of them will sit and play nicely but not Annie.  She’s crawling over top of the 6 month old baby, going for the fireplaces, going after the other moms, pulling hair, pulling herself up onto things she shouldn’t be, all while these other babies just sit and observe contently.  Annie is our little firecracker, that’s for sure!  

Chicago Shopping Trip 2014

A few weeks ago, Aaron and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary by our ‘traditional’ November shopping trip to Chicago.  I’m not very traditional about anything but when it comes to shopping; I can be traditional about that! Annie stayed with my parents for the weekend and had lots of fun playing with Elijah, our nephew.

What I love about downtown Chicago is it requires no map.  Aaron and I know how to navigate our way around for the most part, we’ve been enough times that we aren’t too bad at getting around the city for being outta-towners. 

 We got in town late Friday, checked into Hotel Felix, which was our first time staying there and I give it 2 thumbs up!  Priced well, very clean, short walk to Michigan Ave, and the room was roomier than I was expecting.  We’d definitely stay there again.  The only downside I would say is the shower water pressure could have been better but it wasn’t terrible.   I’m not a fan of those ‘rain shower’ shower heads, I always feel like I have shampoo stuck in my hair that I can’t get out! 

Hotel Felix -- Lobby

As soon as we got checked in, it was 8:30/9pm, we were starving and headed down for our ‘traditional’ Gino’s East dinner.  Afterwards, it was frigid out and we were tired so we headed back to the hotel.  On the way to the hotel we found this French wine bar and popped in.  I’m amazed sometimes how I’m always learning something new about myself, on this trip; I came to realize that I don’t like French wines.  Long story short, looking back now to my wine drinking history, it makes complete sense!  I just never realized it before.  Good to know, I can cross off sipping wine in the countryside of France off my bucket list now. 

Saturday morning we got up at a decent time and set out for a full day of shopping.  We both had lists of things we were looking for and stores we wanted to hit and so we decided to split up to be the most efficient.  Aaron was on a mission to do some major shopping and shopping with him when he is looking to really do some buying is a painful experience for me.  When I shop, I’m terrible about trying on half the store but I can look in the mirror and can decide in a matter of 5 seconds if it’s something I’ll buy or not.   I can try on 15 outfits in like 5 minutes and walk out with what I need and on with my day.  When Aaron shops, he will try on a pair of pants, stand in front of the mirror for 5 minutes, comment on each little detail of the pants, turns around and looks at his backside for 5 minutes.  Then waits for the sales person to come in so he can compliment how much he likes the pants and then Aaron will go on this big long story to me…”The quality of these pants are amazing…” “There is something about having a good pair of pants”…”They are worth every penny, really they are”…”Look at the fit, the fit is amazing!”   And I’m like… “Okay, great, my patience is wearing, speed it up!!”  It’s painful when everything he tries on takes like 15-20 minutes per item.  He spent several hours just in 2 stores while in Chicago, it’s painstaking.  He is such a good shopper when waiting on me that I try to bite my tongue and just let him have his dressing room moment but it’s certainly an area where we differ.

Saturday night we wanted to eat at the Purple Pig, a restaurant I’ve wanted to try for a long time but we can’t seem to hit it when there isn’t a ridiculously long wait.  So we ended up heading over to Sienna Tavern and enjoyed our official anniversary dinner. 

This pic is too funny.  My 'look tired' long day of shopping pic backfired, someone had WAYYY too much coffee! 

On Sunday, I put Aaron in charge to find 3 good places for brunch to choose from.  He did some quick researching and we decided to go to Yolk.  It was really, really good!  I always worry about getting a greasy brunch, but this was not a greasy spoon diner at all.  I was very impressed and knocked the socks off the HardRock Hotel breakfast we had the day before.   

After brunch, we loaded up and headed over to the AuroraOutlet Mall, our favorite outlet that we hit every time we are in Chicago.  All in all, it was our biggest shopping haul we’ve ever had in Chicago.  I’m pretty sure neither one of us need to shop for ourselves for some time now!   Here is a sneak peak at some of my finds:

Big patterns sometimes are a bit overwhelming on me since I’m short, but this little number worked great with leggings and boots:

This raisin colored peacoat was just what my wardrobe was missing:

These cords are great with my brown boots and are way trendier than your typical cord:

I’m really into flannel shirts lately, great with jeans or my new cords:

Okay, so I didn’t need a new black winter coat but winter coats are the hardest thing for me to find, I can never find the proper fit.  My eyes were drawn to this coat and I made the mistake of trying it on before checking out the price tag.  And the storewide sale that day excluded outerwear… Drats! I hate paying full price for anything but it was too late; I’d already fallen in love with it:

I bought a pair of these jeans over the summer and they are my absolute favorite go-to jeans.  I wanted them in a darker wash but cringed at the thought of spending another $80 on them but just my luck, they were on SALE!

So I got this sweater but actually got it in that raisin color, which I’m in love with that color right now.  That color goes with both black or brown, it’s a win-win color.

A red sweater was on my shopping list.  For Annie’s 9 month pictures we are doing a Christmas colors and I needed something red to accent her little Burberry dress.  

I don’t have my Outlet finds here and don’t feel like taking pics of them all but I found a great pair of summer shoes, tweed pants, a skirt, a sweater and lots of great yoga pants (I was not having it with Lululemon’s prices downtown, $128 for yoga pants!?  Are ya outta your freakin’ mind?!  Thank you Under Armour Outlet for coming thru with $15 yoga pants.  I can justify paying a premium in some instances (i.e. my awesome black coat) but NOT for yoga pants).  Awesome finds for Annie at Baby Gap, paying hardly anything for 3 outfits for her.  Aaron got 2 pairs of Cole Haan shoes for 50% off…  We made out like a bandit at the Outlet, steals of deals!  Was a great way to end the trip! 

7 Months Old

 Time for Annie’s 7 month update! 

Aaron and I stood on our heads, made as many funny faces and sounds as we could, even barked and panted like a dog (I'm sure our neighbors think we are crazy) but to our best attempt...no smiles from Miss Annie for this picture.  *SIGH*

My little fashionista 

What’s new?!  Crawling.  She was taking a few strides on her hands and feet during 6 months but was mostly army crawling but once she hit 7 months old, she is now spanning some good distance on all 4s, she has this crawling thing down!  And what does she crawl for most?  Dog toys.  Yep.  We relocated Charley’s toy bin but Charley still strings them all thru the house, making it difficult to keep out of Annie’s reach.

"Where'd you put all those doggie toys?!" 

She has been pulling herself up for a while now but we officially had to lower her crib mattress all the way down, we are getting standing morning greetings, even with her sleep sack on she has figured out how to stand in her crib.  Crazy girl!  This had made putting her down for the night and for naps more challenging since she wants to stand in her crib rather than sleep; more so an issue at nap time than at night at least. 

Good Morning Sweets!

 Speaking of naps, we are still challenged in this area.  She is not getting good day time naps, it’s difficult for her to nap at daycare with all the other activity and she just wants to play. This can make for very long weekends when she won’t nap because unlike daycare, there isn’t the same level of stimulation to keep her going all day long, which usually results in some periods of fussiness but refusing to nap. I wish we could get a napping routine down but I just don’t see how we can get to that point.   

Mission: Ornery 

She loved rice cereal and took it down like a champ; baby food is a little more challenging.  We’ve tried pretty much all the level 1 foods, she fairs about the same with all of them except sweet peas, its clear she doesn’t like them.  Who wants mashed peas anyways?!  I sure don’t blame her. 

Baby Tub is packed away 

 Several weeks before daylight savings time I really started to fret.  How will we cope with this hour change coming up?!  We’ve been putting her down an hour later, and to our surprise it has resulted in her waking up an hour later than normal.  So I think we will adjust just fine this weekend but still nervous about 4:30 am wake up calls.  I can hardly complain though, she has been the easiest night sleeper, sleeping thru the night at 8 weeks old.  We haven’t had nearly the sleepless nights that I was expecting we would have.  She gets that from me, Aaron requires far less sleep than Annie and I do!

What is really interesting is to hear who people think she looks like or what features she has from Aaron and I and you know what I’ve noticed…It changes almost monthly.  One month she looks more like me, the next month she looks more like Aaron.  It’s very interesting! What do you think?!

Consistently being told she has Erin's eyes and Aaron's nose. 

Annie’s most popular nicknames that Aaron and I use are Pumpky and Sweets.  The girls at daycare like to call her Annie Bananie or Annie Bonanie. All nicknames are cool with me as long as it isn’t ever shortened to Ann.  Aaron and I are both pretty clear on that.  It’s not that I don’t like the name Ann, it’s just that when we named her Annie we were pretty particular that we don’t want it to evolve into any other name over time.  She’s my little Annie and will always be! 

Happy Halloween! 

Cancun Mexico 2014

Aaron and I, along with our friends Mark and Nikki just got back from vacationing 4 nights/5 days in Cancun Mexico.   And it was GREAT!  Early last year, Aaron and I went to Cancun and stayed at Live Aqua, which was the best trip we’ve ever taken so it was an easy decision to repeat it again this year.  It also worked out great because with a baby, there was no extra time to research and plan a trip so this was an easy book and go and once we were there we didn’t leave the resort once.

Rather than talking about our trip in great detail, I’ll leave my thoughts on what makes this vacation different with a baby back at home.  Annie is now 7 months old and it’s was the first time we left her overnight.  She stayed with Aaron’s parents, which I knew she would be in the best hands and care so that made leaving her for that long easier.  When we first started to book this trip, we were looking for somewhere in the States.  It snowballed into Cancun.  I was definitely nervous about going International, away from Annie for the first time.  A lot of ‘what ifs’ ran thru my head.   As well as a lot of thoughts around the guilt that would follow if any of those ‘what ifs’ would actually occur.  Ultimately I realized that those ‘what ifs’ could happen at age 5 or age 10 so these ‘what if’ thoughts will forever hold me back if I let them and living a life of worry does no good.

By our choice, we don’t live close to our family, which means we rarely get a break from parenting.  And Annie is quite the little handful!  I think Aaron and I have done an awesome job thus far as first time parents while juggling all other aspects of life that I will feel that we deserved this get-away.  It seemed to come at a really good time too, both Aaron and I have been swamped at work, we have barely been able to keep up with each day that we needed to put the ‘breaks’ on so to speak for a few days to just decompress and escape.  Basking in the sun, ocean backdrop, good friends, amazing food and adults only all week was glorious!

One conversation that arose on vacation is how our little babies aren’t allowed to spring break in Cancun years down the road.  I’ve seen and heard enough about Mexico to know that you do have to have your wits about you when you are down there.  Spanish is their first language and the language barrier is very present.  I would say about 50% of the resort employees you can talk to and the other 50% just shake their head and smile and have no idea what I’m asking them.  Mexico though… is certainly the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to, the beaches are unbelievable, it’s like a picture perfect postcard.   Despite all else, it’s our sliver of paradise in this world.