Happy 4th

This is the first 4th of July I can remember the weather being cool and rainy. It was 65 degrees and rained all day. We didn't let the rain stop our celebrating, though. D started his day bright and early with a local 5K. N and I opted to stay home and sleep in a little. Fortunately N slept in longer than I did, so I was able to get in some yoga before he woke up. D brought home our typical Saturday morning McDonald's breakfast after his race. D ran his best race time of all the races he's participated in this season. (Good job, babe!)

My sister Skyped from the Netherlands later in the morning. It was wonderful to talk to her! N threw kisses to Aunt J through the camera, she blew kisses back to him. He accepted the kisses first, then pretended to spit them out and said they were sour. What a goof ball! Aunt J laughed and took it very well. After we got off the phone with Aunt J, we played and painted red, white and blue pictures together in the garage. It was lunch time by then, so we had lunch and put N down for his nap. D and I worked on a few "to do's" while N napped. (Thank goodness for nap time!!)

I read about an interesting 4th of July tradition in one of my toddler activity books, so I gave it a try this year. I made a birthday cake for the U.S. It's hard to explain to N why we celebrate the 4th. I thought this was a great way to explain it to him. He loves birthdays and he loves cake, so I made a birthday cake for us to eat in honor of our country's independence and I explained to him that our country is turning 233 years old... I'm not sure how much he understood, but we can talk about it every year and he will eventually get it. I debated between making a reduced fat strawberry cake and a Portillo's chocolate cake recipe...I went for the gold and made the chocolate cake. It was delicious!! The recipe is below.

Portillo's Chocolate Cake

1 betty crocker super moist chocolate butter recipe cake mix
3 large eggs
1 cup water (or coffee as it brings out the chocolate flavor)
1 cup Hellmann's mayonnaise (not light)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.Grease 2 round cake pans (or your choice of pan; cupcakes works great too).Beat all ingredients for 4 minutes (makes it fluffy).Pour into prepared pans.Follow baking instruction on box for your choice of pan, elevation, etc.Use toothpick to check for doneness.


N took a great nap today! Thank goodness because we had some fun plans for the evening. We got to Old Chicago right at 5:00 to eat supper in hopes of beating the rush. We made it just in time. There wasn't a wait and N was very well behaved at dinner. It's sooo nice when we take him out to eat and he's a good boy!! There were lots of activities planned for the 4th on the river front. There were supposed to be free inflatable toys to play on, however they were cancelled due to the rain. We didn't realized this until we got down to the river front. N was really excited to jump in the bouncy house... It was hard to tell him it got cancelled because he got pretty upset. Poor kiddo. There was still one activity set up that held up in the rain, so we played at that tent for quite a while before heading home. When we got home we sang Happy Birthday to America, blew out candles and ate the birthday cake. We watched the Macy's Fire work display on tv and played for a while. Then it was bed time... Past bed time actually... N had a hard time falling asleep. He was still playing in his room when D realized we could see a great fireworks display from one of the bedrooms upstairs. Since N was still awake the three of us sat together in that bedroom and watched the fireworks. Those were the most comforable, relaxing seats I've ever watched fireworks from. :) So, it's been a nice day. We got to do a lot of fun things and it was even more fun to have a toddler to share the day with. It's fun to have a little kid around to bring the kid out in us. :)

Happy 4th!

Eyes

Tonight D and I were putting N to bed. The three of us were taking turns pointing out something blue in N's room. D said to N "You're eyes are blue like Mommy's." N looked at me and paused and said "I love those eyes." So sweet!!

26 Weeks

This is what I look like....



This is what I feel like..

Summer's in Full Swing!

It's been three weeks since my last post. These three weeks have floooown by! We've done so much...and I continue to get bigger as the baby grows. I've gone from 22 weeks to 25 weeks. This post is a recap of what we've been up to.

I am finally over an infection I had. I was having symptoms that are common in pregnancy. I kept asking my doctor to check things out and she did. She said everything looked good so I accepted the fact that the symptoms I was having were normal... Well, after three months of this I started having contractions, side aches and other internal complications. After a few tests my doctor realized I had a bladder infection. Since I'd had the infection for so long it was causing these serious side effects. I took a full course of antibiotics and all my aches and pains are gone and I am back up to my normal energy level...we'll, I'm back up to my normal pregnancy energy level!! Ha!

With summer now in full swing we are realizing just how much N loves playing in the water!! One of D's coworkers organized a beach and boating day at a nearby lake. (Before we drove to the lake, we started the day with a very nutritious swimsuit friendly meal...as you can see in the picture of N eating an apple fritter the size of his haed.) Several of D's coworkers took their boats to the lake, we all brought toys for the kids to play with at the beach and everyone shared a great picnic lunch!! N was a fish in the lake. It was so cute to watch him frawlic in the water. Once he discovered the water and the beach N had no interest in going for a boat ride. We honestly could not talk him into a boat ride. We thought he'd love it, but we didn't force him to do it.



There is a great park nearb our house that we call the Sprinkler Park. It has your typical playground equipment set up on wood chips. It also has a pavillion and a paved area set up with equipment that sprays water. N's favorite thing to run through are several metal tubes that are shaped (and colored) like a rainbow. The tubes have holes in them and the water gently mists out of the tubes. The "rainbow" is arched high enough that the kids can run under it. It's so cute to see how kids do as they run through the rainbow. Some look up at the water, some close their eyes and some run through with their mouth wide open...N runs through with his mouth wide open. I don't know if he does it to catch water in his mouth or if he does that because he likes to scream every time he runs through. :) The day we were at the sprinkler park there just happend to be four other boys there. They all played together. If you didn't know it you would have thought you were hearing five girls play in the water because every time the boys got wet they all screamed like little girls.. So cute.




D took a day off from work a couple of weeks ago so we could take a family day trip to a zoo our friends reccommended. The drive wasn't too bad and the weather was gorgeous!! The zoo was really cool. It had lots of animals, but was small enough that we could see the whole zoo in one day. The camel had given birth to a baby camel a few days before. The elephants came right up to the fence to greet us and the giraffes bent down to eat grass in front of us. The zoo has a small train, a carousal and ponies to ride.





N had his last ever day of music class. We've been in this class since he was six months old. It was really fun to watch him grow in this class. I was sentimental about N having his last day of music class because we'd gone every Wednesday for so long. I was looking forward to his last day being fun and exciting and memorable... Well, it was memorable, but not in a super fun way. He cried and said he didn't want to go. He acted up during class so much that we ended up leaving early. This was not the first time we had to leave early this session. N showed a lack of interest half the way through the session. The teacher offered to let N be the class helper. He did a few things to be the class helper and enjoyed doing it, but he was kind of naughty the rest of the time. There were times when he'd get up and dance and play with the other kids and enjoy himself, but I just think he's outgrown the class and is ready for a more physical oriented class... So I signed him up for swimming lessons. Hopefully they go better!




And last, but not least, we celebrated Father's Day this weekend. We met my parents half way at a well known restaurant for dinner one night, we celebrated at our house as our own little family one morning and headed home to spend the evening with D's family to celebrate Father's Day with his Dad.