Father's Day

In case any of you are reading this and didn't know, let me just tell you - James is an incredible Father! He really is. James loves our little girl so much, and she adores her daddy. Not long before Father's Day, I went on a four day girls trip to New York City to spend time with some friends from grad school and James watched this girl for four days straight. That's not the first time he's done that. I've had a few other work trips, and another girls trip where I've been away. The longest I've ever been alone with Madeline is one night. What was so interesting about this last time away is that I came home, and these two had noticeably bonded more deeply in my absence. Madeline had been going through a strong "mommy" phase the past month or so - which is fairly typical around 15-17 months. Sometimes when James would sit down with her and a book, she would take the book from him and bring it to me to read- silly girl. But while I was gone, these two had a blast together - play dates at the park, library trips, bagel shop dates, rendev-vous to the Farmers Market, etc. And I could just tell that she had clicked with her daddy even more deeply when I was gone - she even started calling him Dada much more regularly. I have been so grateful for the ways he cares for Madeline as a daughter and me as a mother. Spending time with us has been a huge priority for him. 

We had such a wonderful day together on Father's Day this year. We started off by having him open a few gifts - a framed picture of Madeline, and a gift bag of some of his favorite drinks and snacks. 

Then we took off for Lincoln Park to explore the Lincoln Park Zoo. This was James' suggestion, and I'm so glad we went. Chicago actually has two zoos - and the Brookfield Zoo is the bigger one. But, the Lincoln Park Zoo is FREE!!! And we were very impressed with it - it was full of fun and exotic animals - zebras, gorillas, monkeys, leopards, lion, etc.

This was the beautiful view of the city from the zoo.

This gorilla was HUGE!!! I haven't been to a zoo since I was a kid, maybe 12 at the oldest. And this gorilla was just an arm stretch away from us behind the glass. Madeline's little eyes were like saucers watching this guy move around - and honestly, so were mine.

Madeline's personal favorite was the seals. We could watch them swimming in circles from the lower tank level, and anytime one came by she let out a loud, "Wow!" And as soon as it left she would say, "uh, oh!" So funny.

The zoo is also right near the Lincoln Park beaches. So we packed a picnic and walked it to the beach - that was so fun! Madeline loved getting her little tootsies wet in the water. I'll have to try to get her back to the beach sometime this summer for a full beach day.

Love this picture of these two. So sweet. Such loves. 

Happy Father's Day, James!

Catching Up: Springing out of Winter!

Spring finally rolled into town in late April, and we finally had warmer days with sunshine and green leaves sprouting from the dreary brown tree trunks. That's always my sign of spring in these parts of the country - once the trees are green again I breath a sigh of relief. This meant that we were out and about at the parks ALL THE TIME! So excited to get out of the house, breath fresh air, and let Madeline run and climb her little heart out.

We also frequented the library quite a bit on those rainy spring days. She loves all the puzzles and little games in the children's section, and we are working on not ransacking all the books off the bookshelves. Just so many books to explore!

We spent one Saturday afternoon for a long, lazy stroll along a nearby riverwalk. Madeline loved all the Mallard ducks, and we even saw (so James tells me) a Wood duck. It was so beautifully painted.

We finished off our walk at Starbucks, and Madeline got her first drink - a strawberry smoothie. This girl thinks she is SO cool when she gets to have the same cup/food/plate as her mommy and daddy.

We had an end of the year celebration with our small group from church. We started off with four couples and no children 2.5 years ago. We now have 5 couples, 5 children, and two babies (and possibly one more via adoption) on the way. Such a joy to share in the ups and downs and spiritual journeys with these friends.

And some of our friends moved to Texas late spring, and left us thier old jogging stroller. We are using it tons on the Prairie Path these days. So much better than our other strollers - but now I just lost my excuse to only walk with Madeline. I've been slowly picking up jogging with her in the stroller, and James has been getting back into running shape as well.

Thank you, Lord, for spring and new life. This past winter was a long one for us, both because of cold and blustery days but also because of career disappoints and unknowns in our future. And although we are still living in some unsettling uncertainty about our future, we are grateful for all the small pleasures and sighs of relief that spring brought with it.

Catching up: Passing the winter

Winters are long here - it stays cold well into April. And the bite of the wind keeps it hard to go outside for very long periods. So once Madeline started walking in January, and then climbing and scaling furniture, and getting into EVERYTHING we had to find some creative ways to pass the indoor hours this winter. So spoiler alert, this post is largely cute pics of Madeline from this past winter. I think the grandparents won't mind. :0)

I started dreaming out picnics in the park with green leaves on the trees and flowers to color the landscape, so we tried to recreate the mood with lots of indoor picnics. Madeline got a really fun picnic set from her Ama for Christmas, so we played with that alot. 

We also had some real cheese and crackers and fruit picnics.

We discovered that Madeline loves oranges - she sucks up every bit of juice that she can.

We played in baskets. :0)

Madeline became obsessed with opening the vent covers and climbing in, or stashing toys or food or keys in the vents. We couldn't figure out how to keep her from opening the vents, but I'm happy to report that after four months she has largely lost interest in the vents. 

This girl LOVES shoes. She is always trying on our shoes, and when we are at other people's houses she goes straight to the shoe closet. Just the other day at the park she was trying to put on the shoes of all the kids who were barefoot in the sandbox. We've got a real shoe-snatcher on our hands.

I found a local mall that has a really good play area for kids her age, and we hit that up several times on really cold days. She loves crawling and climbing and sliding on everything. 

Madeline also received some really fun packages this winter, full of clothes and books and crayons and fun things. Thanks Aunt Marilyn for all the goodies!

We read lots and lots of books! We've been going to the library alot as well, so Mom and Dad don't go crazy with the same books over and over.

Madeline still likes playing with her baby dolls, and her Auntie Krista sent her this sweet baby doll quilt she made. Madeline always gets so frustrated when she can't wrap her baby doll in the quilt "just so," it cracks me up. I usually end up helping her swaddle the baby. :0)

And we made our first trip to the local petting zoo one day when it wasn't too cold to walk around a bit. Madeline loves animals, and so far has no fear of waltzing up to them as close as she can. Note her trying to climb in with the cow in one of these pictures - she wasn't happy when I pried her away from the fence.

We had some good times this winter, but now that it's summer - I'm SO GLAD to be in this season. Keeping an active one year old entertained in the house is  hard work.

Catching Up: Nana and Grandpa Visit for Easter

Well, it's been about four months since I last posted! This blog has definitely hit a dry spell this year - it was a busy year with lots going on! But I would love to revamp my efforts to start posting a bit more regularly again, not because I have a large readership (wink wink at the grandparents, my trusty subscribers!) but because I like keeping this as a scrapbook of sorts for our lives. I have found myself checking blog posts to remember when we did what, or what age it was that Madeline started crawling, etc. Dates and details and timelines seem to get so muddled in my brain now.

So, here is my first attempt to catch up a bit on what we've been up to the last several months - starting with a Easter week visit from my parents.

Although late March/early April is still pretty cold in these parts, we decided to take a little day trip to the Indiana Dunes with my parents and Madeline. We stopped at a fun root beer stand that is owned by the uncle of one of our good friends called Carlson's. They have brewed all their own root beer on site for the past 65 years and it was delicious!

After we loaded up on root beer and hot dogs, we hit the Dunes! They were beautiful, and Madeline LOVED the beach. She was stuffing her pockets with rocks and digging in the sand!

Lesson learned - strollers don't stroll so well on sand. Thanks, grandparents, for dragging her out to the beach. :0)

We also hung out at some local parks while the grandparents were here - trying to get outside when the wind wasn't too blustery. Madeline was just learning how to engage all the fun park equipment, and it didn't take her long to be climbing and swinging and crawling through everything.

Easter day was lovely! We had great time at Easter Vigil and Easter morning service, and then Madeline got to experience her first Easter basket and egg hunt. 

She got pretty good at finding all the little eggs peppered around our back patio.

Love this pic of my silly girl!

And here she is, very concerned that she find every bit of chocolate in each egg. I think at this point the chocolate nibbles had run dry. :0)

On their last night here, my parents took us out for a delicious dinner at Flour and Wine, for yummy grilled romaine salads (incredible!) and brick oven pizzas. We were so glad they could come out for the visit - it always means so much to have family come spend time with us out here!