Friday, October 5, 2012

introducing... joshua george :0)

Here's our little Joshua George :)
He was born on Thursday, September 13th, and weighed in at 8lbs, 9oz.
He's a happy, healthy little guy, who liked to sleep for the first two weeks of his life,
but has now decided
that sleeping is for the birds.
We are so incredibly blessed, and thank God every day for this little gift.

Big Brother C-man is doing about as good as this next picture indicates:

Our first mornings together were spent like this:
Charlie watching movies. Daddy and Joshie on the couch, snoring.

The days have been a little blurry.
I try and take a picture every day...
A few days ago, this was the best that I (and the boys) could do.
:)

So here we are, a family of four!
(Pensive, helpful thoughts to come later.
Right now, I've got a two-year-old waking up in a tizzy...)

Sunday, August 26, 2012

business, basements, and babies

It's been a busy summer. More than once, I've sat down to throw together some sort of "here's my life update" blog, but was interrupted, or uninspired. Today, one week from my due date, I'm determined to  catch my blog up on what these last few months have looked like for us... if only to be able to look back in ten years and say, "Oh, right. That's what we did with all that time when we had only one child."

Business
Marty and I traveled to Estes Park, Colorado to shoot Rebecca and Nate's wedding in mid-June. It was the first time we were away together, alone, for five days straight... since our honeymoon, I think. I was actually pretty sick for most of the trip -- I just cleaned out my photography bag, and came up with lots of cough drop wrappers and empty sinus pill packets. Gross. Still, we had a wonderful, incredible trip. We kept saying to ourselves, "Why do we live in Illinois?!" Colorado has got to be one of the most beautiful places on earth.
I was six months pregnant, and couldn't do too much of the "outdoorsy" stuff you're supposed to do in the mountains (you know -- hiking, horseback riding, rafting, camping). So instead, we took lots of pictures, and I drank a lot of (really good) coffee. Also, we didn't wake up at 6 a.m. with a 2-year-old for five days straight. That was really, really awesome.** 

**Not that I mind the 6 a.m. thing, Charlie. But breaks are nice :)
This was funny. We rented the cheapest car possible, and ended up with a Kia Soul.
Marty wanted to do the Party Rock hamster dance every time we got into it.
We had California license plates, and the most hilarious rental car plate number ever...

Basement
The last time I was pregnant, we (and a lot of wonderful, cheerful, incredible helpers) renovated a house. This time, we took on a slightly smaller project: our basement. We finished off a section of it, so the boys could have a place to watch TV and throw balls without worrying about breaking anything ;)
Marty did the majority of the work, night after night... after night, after night, after night.
I've mentioned this before: I'm so thankful I married an optimist.
(The kitchen floor, while we were drywalling.)
I don't have any good "after" shots yet, because we've still got a few things to finish up.
But here are two pictures we took, the night I finished carpeting the floor.
Not sure why an upcoming baby spurs on lots of over-the-top projects for a lot of people,
 but this one definitely almost killed us.
My almost-finished to-do list is now crumpled up and sitting at the bottom of a drawer.
I'm so thankful that (1) we've got a useable space in the basement,
(2) we were able to take this on in the first place
(whenever I got discouraged, I kept telling myself, we have a house. we have a HOUSE. we are so blessed.)
and (3) we're basically done with it.
If you have any boys, send them over to watch TV and throw balls around :)

Babies
Charlie has the funniest personality.
He's a tough cookie, and he's really hard to handle sometimes. But he's also a sweet, sweet, sweet little boy.
The other day, he looked up at me and said, "Mommy, you're so beautiful," totally out of the blue.
He had no idea what he was saying, but he knew it would make me happy.
It did :)
He's really into watching this dance recital DVD we got from my sister Alicen (who happens to be an incredible dancer). He dances around the living room and mimics the moves of the people on stage.
This is his "finger point" (notice, the dancers on the screen are all pointing to the sky, too).
He takes his dancing very seriously :)
Ah. This is the one time this summer that we went out to eat, just our little family.
It ended in a meltdown, but we had happy moments, too ;)
Charlie loves the semi-truck-sized shopping carts at Target.
We last about 20 minutes longer in the store when I push him around in one of these babies.
It's a little humiliating... but my shopping gets done. Check.
Charlie's been really into helping Daddy fix things.
One morning, I gave him his toolbox and said, "Fix something. I need to put on my makeup."
This was my first rookie mom mistake.
My second mistake was when I heard banging coming from the other room... and chose to ignore it for a few more seconds, in-between mascara swipes.
I walked into the other room a minute later to find this on the (freshly painted) wall:
I'm thinking of leaving the gouge-marks there permanently, a friendly memorial to my silly mistake.
Giving a 2-year-old boy a toolbox and telling him to "Go, fix something"?
Ridiculous, I tell you. RIDICULOUS.

So now, we're waiting for Baby Brother to make an appearance. Charlie was a week overdue... so I keep telling myself that it could, quite possibly, be another three weeks. In the meantime, I'll be taking a deep breath, thankful that this busy summer is coming to a quick close.

Life's about to switch gears. I'll keep you posted ;)

Friday, July 6, 2012

mike + leslie :: engaged

Hi everyone. 
Want to see a cute couple?
Meet Michael and Leslie.
Mike likes hockey, Leslie likes basketball. Les is a huge, ginormous Beatles fan, and Mike has this incredibly contagious laugh. Mike comes from a big Italian family that has a giant seafood dinner every Christmas Eve (my mouth waters every time Leslie tells me about it). Leslie comes from a big Slovak family that eats oplatki at Christmastime and carefully keeps some very beautiful family traditions. They got engaged last year at Niagara Falls -- at night... while the falls were lit up... with a guitarist playing their song... really! -- and they're planning a wedding next summer that'll blow your socks off. I'm really excited for them, and watching them together makes me smile a whole lot.

So here's a quick story for you: Back in the middle of June, Chicago temps were happily camped out in the mid-90's, and things were pretty bearable. I remember feeling a little hot, and texting Leslie: Still on for tonight? She, being the sweet, considerate person she is, said something along the lines of, As long as you are! ...probably referring to my [very] pregnant self. So we went ahead with it... and wowee, I'm really glad we didn't put the session off longer. (For all you out-of-towners, Chicagoland is currently baking in a 100+ degree oven. Someone turn the heat down, or throw some waterballoons at me, please.)

:)

p.s.
Leslie is beautiful.
The end.

...and check out Mike and Leslie's slideshow below! (or ***Click here to be redirected***)