Winter is a Roller Coaster of Blah

The title of this post comes from the lips of William H. Macy as narrator of one of Ethan's Curious George cartoons. How true it is, and we've been have a lot of bitter cold blah around here. But here are three ways we combat the blah: indoor art class, a trip to Pop Pop's school in the city, and a visit to the Chicago Children's Museum. I think Will and I do a pretty good job keeping ourselves from going crazy in the 4+ months of winter we can have in Chicagoland.

Oh, yes, and sometimes hybernation works, too. We snuck this picture the other night after bedtime.

11 Days of Christmas

With two weeks off for the holidays, Will and I packed in a lot of fun things. Some of the highlights include:


11. A morning trip the Shedd Aquarium. Always a fun time, Ethan loves to watch the divers in the tanks cleaning and feeding fish. It really is a cool place. Will's morning was ruined, unfortunately, by a $250 ticket for tinted windows. :(
10. Will and Brian went to see Avatar one day of break, and Lisa and I took the boys bowling. Very fun, especially watching the two younger boys. We topped off the fun day with yummy crockpot tacos!
9 a. Christmas Eve day we spent at Lisa's, attempting to have Ethan nap there while we went to Mass. That way we would be closer to Uncle Johnny's when he woke up. Plus, we wanted to exchange gifts with my immediate family. The nap didn't quite work out, but it was a fun day nonetheless.
9 b. Christmas Eve dinner was at Uncle Johnny's this year, which was super fun because we all get to sit at one long table. My uncle builds a table for the occasion so that it can be attached to the kitchen and dining room table. The setup of the house allows for us all to eat together. Dinner was Caesar salad, homemade ravioli (amazing!), meatballs, sausage, braciole, and garlic bread. It was all delicious. We did our cousin exchange after dinner, and Ethan had a great time playing "golf" (ping pong) in the basement.
8 a. We were able to have Christmas morning at home this year, which was so fun with Ethan now being more aware. It was an Imaginext Christmas for him, and Will went slightly wild buying toys for him. He now has the fire station, fire truck, ambulance, rescue helicopter, crane, and a lot of smaller figures that go along with these bigger items. He also got the Melissa and Doug pizza as well as cookie set, which are two favorites.
8 b. We travelled to Winetka early Christmas morning to spend time there with the whole family before Courtney, Hammond, and Jake had to leave for their Christmas dinner. The boys had a wonderful time opening more presents, and we ate two nice meals that day there, too. Ethan was relatively calm and well-behaved, making for a very relaxing holiday.
7. The day after Christmas, I had to take a slightly scary trip to Hinsdale Hospital, after calling my midwife about an excess of Braxton Hicks contractions. Just as a precaution, she had me meet her at the hospital (she had two women in labor) to be checked and put on the monitor. She also did a test that determined that I was not, in fact, in preterm labor. Phew. I started to get a bit nervous not only because I was only 31 weeks but also because our house is NOT ready for a baby yet! Luckily, everything was fine, and the BH's have calmed down.
6. On the 27th of December, Will and I went to the city for an overnight date (my Christmas present from him). It was awesome! We went to Gino's East for lunch, went to see the movie Invictus, had "cocktail" hour in our hotel room, and then went to Frontera Grill for a late dinner. Our meal was fantastic, and I don't think I've seen Will as excited about guacamole and salsa as he was at this Rick Bayless restaurant. We stayed at the Sheraton along the river, which was a nice hotel, though our room left much to be desired. We're convinced it was a mediocre room due to the fact that he booked it through Priceline and got it at less than half the normal price. It was a fine room, just not one we would ever want to pay full price (about $280) for. Sleeping in together in the morning was probably the highlight of the trip. We haven't been able to do that in 2 1/2 years!
5. The next day, I had a lunch date with a great friend from college, Annie, and our moms. We both happen to be pregnant, and it was fun to get together with our mothers and catch up.
4. I had another lunch date the next day, this time with another college friend Kristin. She brought her boyfriend, Matt, and Will, Ethan, and I all went to a new eco-friendly restaurant in downtown LaGrange called Prasino. Fun times!
3. The next day was New Years Eve, a night I have always dreaded because of the pressure to have cool plans. The last few years, we haven't done too much, but this year we actually did make plans. We went to our good friends the Martinez's for dinner and dessert. Two other couples came over, with their kids, and we had a fun, kid-friendly evening. We counted down at around 7:50 and we home by 8:30pm. Not bad. The only drawback was that Ethan was so hyper when we got home that he was up until almost 11. Both Will and I just wanted to go to bed, but Ethan would not settle down.
2 a. We brought in the New Year with Hammond, Courtney, and Jake at a place called The Treehouse in the Northwest suburbs. Ethan and Jake had a blast, but I'm not sure about Will and Hammond, who had to chase the two boys all around the place and climb up and down the treehouse dozens of times. Talk about a nice time to be pregnant!
2 b. After a nap at H & C's, we went to my Auntie Laura's house for the annual NYD/Charlie & Johnny birthday party. That's where I got a picture of Ethan smothering Grandmama (see below).
1 a. The next morning, I had Annie's baby shower, which was a lot of fun. I am so excited for her (and my other good friend Susie) to have their first babies. They are going to have so much fun and both will be wonderful mommys. It's fun to watch them go through this process.
1 b. And, finally, that night was Susie's husband's - another fabulous friend - surprise 30th birthday party. Unfortunately, Will had to stay in with Ethan when our babysitter cancelled, but it was fun to see friends I don't often see. Kevin was legitimately surprised and really seemed to enjoy himself.

Whew - it was a busy 2 weeks. We had a long house "to do" list for the break, but very little got accomplished. We did use that last Sunday to start cleaning out the basement. I think Will is finally getting serious about finishing the basement, and before that happens we (okay, Will has) have a lot of purging to do.

Here are a few pictures taken during the break:

Here Ethan was helping me prepare the fruit compote I made for Christmas Eve morning. It's a tradition in my family, though usually for Christmas Day. But since I knew we would be limited on time the next day, I made it for the day before.

We decided to start a new tradition this year for our family. Our Elf on the Shelf, Pumpkin, gave Ethan one present on Christmas Eve morning. Will was up the night before, stressed about all the presents we had for Ethan but the limited amount of time we would have to open Christmas morning. This is the stuff that keeps my husband up at night.

He's discovered the present!

These next few were taken at my sister's house on Christmas Eve day. Unfortunately, they're the only pictures I have of our Christmas celebrations, as I forgot my camera there.

Ethan digs in to Grandma's giant pile of presents.

Aunt Lisa made Ethan this fabulous "Cheeky Monkey" fleece blanket. It's super snuggly, if that wasn't obvious from the picture.

Aunt Moe (Malia) got Ethan this acoustic guitar, which was a major favorite that day. We are keeping it safe for a couple of years, though, as it is pretty nice and we don't want him to destroy it.

Here I am at Gino's East, the first stop on our overnight city date.

View from our room at the Sheraton.

Same view, obstructed.

View from the other window. The building in the forefront is the NBC tower.

Drinking my complimentary Starbucks in the morning.

Ethan's playing with one of his new toys, a set of Wedgits, that he got from my mom. It's one of my favorites, as well as Ethan's.

He he. Check out the shoes.After a few attempts at Ethan rolling the ball himself (it took at least 2 minutes for the ball to get to the pins), we opted for this ramp for the two little ones. Great idea!

Ben and Drew take their turns.

Matthew was so cute watching his ball.

Ethan went up to the fan and said, "Take my picture!" so I did.

This cracks me up. Ethan insisted he carry the ball himself. A little scary, but he never dropped it.

New Years Eve with the kiddos!

My wonderful group of LaGrange area friends (Tamera, Laura, me, Catherine).

Ethan clearly afraid of Uncle Hammond.

Down the slide with Daddy.

Backwards

This is my favorite picture. Ethan was playing with my grandma, having a great time. Both were laughing so hard. But this is the picture I snapped, which looks pretty bad. It makes me laugh really hard.

The three preggo friends at Annie's shower. Susie's on the left, Annie on the right.

A New Post!

Whew. I made it back to the blog before 2 months have passed. I hate that I was not able to update for a while, but I'm hoping that now that I am done with my second job (well, almost), I will have more time, at least until the baby comes! There is always plenty of material to blog about, which is part of the problem. Ethan says and does funny things daily, but I just cannot always find the time or energy to record them. One day soon, I want to write down all the goofy things Ethan says and make that a blog post. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here's what we've been up to, besides what is shown in pictures. We had a very nice Thanksgiving celebrated over two days. We didn't take pictures at either side's celebration, but, trust me, it was all lovely. We had a lot to be thankful for this year, as always. A week after Thanksgiving, we travelled to see Will's Grandbob near Indianapolis. We spent the night, sadly sleepless, in a gorgeous guest apartment where Grandbob lives. Ethan swam in the pool, enjoyed riding the elevator over and over, and behaved well at a big family dinner with Will's grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We left the second night after dinner to go home and get some sleep! Now, here we are getting ready for Christmas. I'm really doing well with my Christmas shopping and have very little left to get. I've even wrapped quite a bit. Will is home from school next week, and I didn't want to have to spend that time with shopping/wrapping. We plan to do some fun family things like maybe a museum or trip to the zoo.

That's all for now. We've been in the house for 3 days straight as Ethan battles his second bought with croup in about a month. I love my playgroup but it seems the only thing the kids share are their germs!

And here's a picture tour of our pre-Thanksgiving whereabouts:

Taken on a rare day with his bed made, here is a picture of Ethan's "new" room.

Same bed, different view.

Bookshelf number 1
#2 This is our Dinner Club, a group of great friends from high school/college. We get together every 3 months for dinner all together.
Three of the four ladies are pregnant, due between early February and mid-March. We did not plan this!

These next pictures come from a photo shoot with my friend Anna. She is a teacher at LT but also has a side photography business. She is kind enough to take our pictures, free of charge, which has been amazing when it comes time for Ethan's photo. He does so much better for her than a stranger at Target! None of these made it to our Christmas card, so I thought I could share them.

My absolute favorite!

Family pic on the porch.

He had such great smiles this day.

FYI: Anna's website is www.annamariesphotography.com for those interested. Ethan's picture, from a previous shoot, is featured on the site.

This is from a day when Ethan's congested nose was stopping him from a nap. Finally, I put him on the couch with me and popped in Frosty the Snowman. He fell asleep shortly thereafter.

Stretching with Dadda.
A new favorite, Ethan and his vacuum. This session allowed me to start dinner!

Ethan enjoying our first snow.

This snowsuit belonged to Will when he was Ethan's age. His parents kept it and gave it to us this year. Very cute, but not as warm as his newer one. Couldn't resist getting some pictures of him in it. Here, he is eating snow, which is pretty much what he did our whole time outside while I shovelled the driveway.

My kitchen helper. We made gravy (meat sauce) for Will's birthday dinner. Ethan insists on holding the top since he has watched me do that.
On Friday, December 11, my side of the family came over to celebrate Will's birthday. My mom made this garbage can cake (too cute) that said Reduce, Reuse, Recycle on it.

The next night, Will's side came over (curse of a small house is that having everyone together would have been too crowded). We had a big dinner of baked manicotti, meatballs, sausage, Ceasar salad, and yummy appetizers. My mouth is watering thinking about it!