Roll the sleeves up, it's rib time!

David and I made some baby back ribs for dinner 2 nights ago. Mmm! They were so good! We were chowing down and not paying much attention to little David. He really didn't like that. I think he was a little fed up with eating his chicken and cottage cheese dinner and just watching us. He wanted to be part of the rib action! I picked a few little pieces of meat off the bone and threw it on his tray. He went nuts! I gave him a little more and that round quickly disappeared too. He was eating as fast as I could give it to him. Everytime he ran out he would start banging on his tray and crying and I would drop a few little pieces of meat on his tray and he would get really quiet and eat. So funny! I couldn't keep up with him so I gave him one of my bones that was mostly cleaned off. Wow. His reaction was priceless and the pictures are even better. Look how happy he is!!

Just getting started:
















"Mmm! Ribs!"















All done eating. He looks so satisfied and content. :)

Vacation

Day One: We drove to Michigan City, IN to catch a train to Chicago. Once in Chicago we had to catch the "L" to get from the downtown loop to Midway Airport. We got through check-in and security in just under 45 minutes and then ate lunch and went to our gate to wait for our flight to Denver International Airport. By this time, little David was done traveling for the day. That posed a problem considering we had another 5 hours to travel. After being awake for 7 hours he slept in my arms at our gate for 30 minutes. Unfortunately, that was not quite enough and our 2.5 hour flight was a bit rough. There were 2 other babies on board so our little guy wasn't the only one to act up. Take off was the worst because the change in cabin pressure hurt his ears. We landed in Denver at 4pm and met up with our Aunt Linda who drove us back to her house where we were staying. My poor boy is trying so hard to be good right now, but he's soooo tired! :( We crashed in the basement at my Aunt's house and watched TV. We are so tired that I don't think we were capable of much else at this point. :)

Day Two: Up at 6am and head straight to breakfast. After that we all hit showers/baths and got dressed. We are fighting some serious jet lag today. We are exhausted and not feeling very well. Kinda in a haze. We pretty much sat around all day and let the baby nap a lot. He discovered the cat today. He kept yelling "Dog! Dog!". I never did get him to say "Cat". We were finally up for some sight seeing around 5pm. We grabbed a little dinner and went out to see Lookout Mountain. It was sooo pretty! It looks over all of Denver and the surrounding area - and it's beautiful!!! We saw some Denver mountain deer while we were out. They are nothing like the fat, well-fed, fraidy-cat white tail deer we have here at home. They were just eating in someone's front yard and decided to wander into the road in front of our car. We slammed on the brakes and waited for them to mosey past. How funny! That is not quite how it goes at home.

Day Three: We are rested up now and wanting to get get out and about. My little guy slept very well. That's good cuz we are planning a long drive through the mountains today. We went to Breckenridge, the Continental Divide and Loveland Pass. We hit nearly 12,000 feet and the temp dropped from 62 degrees to 39 degrees. The air is so dry here that it doesn't feel cold so I'm still in a T-shirt standing here in the snow. HA! That doesn't happen at home. After our mountain adventure we got lunch and took a little nap then headed out to take a walk by a nearby lake. We got back at 5:30 and put the baby down for another nap......he ended up sleeping all night and I didn't hear anything from him until 6:30am! Wow! He was tired.

Day Four: We went out exploring downtown Denver while Uncle Tom and Stacy stayed home with my napping boy. We saw Mile High Stadium! How cool! We ate a quick lunch then headed out to the airport. We planned it just right to only have to sit and wait for 15 minutes at our gate, but T-storms in Albuquerque, NM held up our plane and our flight was delayed by 1.5 hours. Ugh! That meant that our train in Chicago was going to be pushed back a bit too. Instead of catching the 7:10pm train we had to get on the 8:40pm train. This put us back into Michigan City, IN at 10:30pm and we still had an hour and a half to drive to get home! With all the time zone changes and such factored in, we didn't get home until almost 2am.

We were exhausted and ready for bed when we got home. It was good to get away from home and to see family, but I don't think I could do it again without my huzband. He is such a help and I really need him! It took about 4 days for us to get used to eating and sleeping in the Eastern time zone again. It may have been only a 4 day vacation, but it really threw us off! We are all settled in now and life is back to normal. Home Sweet Home!

3,2,1, Let's go!

......And we're off! It's vacation day! My flight leaves Chicago in 8 hours. See you all in 4 days!!

Silly little dream

So I had this dream last night. I was running in a huge cross country style race (think Tour de France minus the bikes). It was somewhere in Europe (what? why Europe?).

There was a very large crowd of people running. I was doing very well against all of them I must say. I broke through to the front of the pack. I was competing closely with only a handful of people now. I broke away on the long stretches of back country road. Eat my dust, people!

I see a town! Weaving in and out of the quaint little roads was slowing me down a bit (cobblestone streets are hard to run on you know), but I was still doing good. It came down to the last few miles of the competition. I could see the finish line. My entire body was aching from all the miles of running. I had been pushing myself to the limit. I had entered a state of pure exhaustion several miles back, but I was determined to finish.

I heard someone coming up behind me. I had several yards on them, but they were still making me nervous. I was so close to victory that I could taste it. The finish line was getting closer by the second. I couldn't watch it anymore. I had to just put my head down, look at the ground and keep on going. Run, run, run. I looked to my shoes. I had all but worn through this pair. I would celebrate my victory with a trip the shoe store (even in my dreams, I am such a girl!). I looked at my legs. Oh! My poor aching muscles. I couldn't wait to relax with a bath and scented candles (I'm a very girlie girl). I looked at my hands and they were dirty! I could NOT finish the race with dirty hands! I dodged into the next building I passed (Oh good! They have a public restroom!) and started scrubing my hands. I was really into it. I was getting in between my fingers and under my fingernails and everything. All of a sudden I remembered the race. OH NO! I ran back to the door and peeked my head out just in time to see my closest competitor cross the finish line and steal my glory. Victory was theirs. Bummer.

I lost the race to wash my hands!?!??! What a stupid dream.

He moves!

Little David, Ashley and I are leaving for vacation in 3 days. We are going to Denver to visit some family. We will be staying with them for a few days. My aunt has assured me that I don't need to worry about anything but getting there, but I have been frantic trying to get everything ready. Vacation with a baby is anything but relaxing!

I know it will go much smoother than I am anticipating however I still feel that it is my duty as a mother/wife to worry about every last detail. I must say, I am doing a very good job! Not only do I need to prepare for myself, but I have to get all the baby's stuff around AND I have to make sure everything is lined up for David while I'm gone. Whew! This is putting my worrying skill to the test! I have several husband friendly meals lined up (some of them pre-cooked, some not - I hope he can handle it), I've stocked up on his shampoo, soap, deoderant, toilet paper, paper plates and pizza coupons - you know, all the essentials. I can't have him running out while I'm gone. I don't know what he'd do........wait a minute, yes I do......nothing. Showers wouldn't happen, meals wouldn't be eaten and I'd come back to a mountain of dirty dishes.

I have had several moments during this planning process where I have thought I might lose my mind. Perhaps one of the worst moments came somewhere between making To Do list #3 and What to Buy list #5 (I'm not kidding. I have 6 lists going. All are colored coded and have at least 3 sub-categories per page. Hi my name is Lauren and I suffer from OCD. :D) I called my mom to vent and unwind. I was wondering the house and checking over my lists when I heard the oh-so-familiar sound of the most obnoxious toy in the house playing from the living room. I let it play for a few minutes, trying my best to ignore it, when I realized I had put that toy away several days ago so the baby couldn't get it. Hmm....why am I hearing it I wonder? I made my way back to the living room to check it out. Little David had made it all the way across the living room by walking along the furniture and had some how weaseled his way behind the exer saucer seat to reach halfway back on the end table to get to his toy. What the heck. How'd he do that?!?! He's got walking skills. I was stunned. I explained the situation to my mom. She laughed (thanks, Mom!).

I had more packing to do and didn't want anymore mischief so I decided to contain David in the baby seat he had climbed around. Sounds like a good idea, right? Yeah, it started out that way. After just a few minutes, I heard some banging around in the living room so I went back to check it out. David had pulled all the remotes out of the endtable drawer and was chewing on them (this is a big no-no in our house). Since this is the first time he had ever been "naughty" I didn't scold him, but instead ran for my camera (of course!). By the time I got back, the end table drawer was on the floor and remote controls were everywhere. He was very upset that the crash had scared him enough to drop the remote he was holding so he started to climb out of his chair to get to it.

In other news, we have decided that now might be a good time to put plug protectors in all our outlets. :)

Motherhood is a lot of things, but boring isn't one of them.

Fun with clothes

We like to find creative ways to wear our jammies.

Play day with the pals

Little David and I are part of a play group with all our friends now. We were going to take the kids to the park to play and then go for a walk, but the rain changed our plans. We headed downtown to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum instead. It was a great day. I wish I could have gotten more pictures!