Uneventful Weekend

Not too much to report here. We all spent the weekend cleaning the house in preparation for Claire's 1st birthday party and house guests, Lucian's Aunt Sandi and Uncle Jeff from Kansas City. I suggested we put the house on the market, it is in such good shape!

Here is the email invite I designed. If anyone is in Milwaukee on Monday, feel free to stop by!
Spencer and I went for a bike ride on Saturday. We took a little detour down to the lake. It was beautiful, however, the enormous hill we had to climb to get home was not. Well worth it for the view, however.

Lucian and Claire at the coffee shop on Saturday. Claire loves snacks like puffs, Cheerios, goldfish crackers and yogurt melts. I take some with us whenever we are running errands now. She is also learning to drink from a sippee cup (instead of just playing).

We watched our friends' 3-month old little boy, Owen, on Saturday night. I could not have done that without Lucian! Claire was a little bulldozer. She wanted to touch him and crawl over him and would do anything to get to him. She also seemed quite jealous when I held him. The hour and a half they were both awake made me wonder how anyone with kids that close together does it.

Lastly, I started making some tissue paper pom poms for Claire's party decorations. Lucian put one on his head. I think he belongs in a Dr. Suess book.

Reunion Weekend

This past weekend Claire and I traveled to Rochester, NY to visit with 2 of my college girlfriends and their kids. We left Friday morning and returned Monday evening. It was a great long weekend with friends I wish I could see much much more.

Claire did great on our flights. I must say, people are really nice when traveling alone with an "infant." (I use that term loosely, since she will be 1 year next month!) We had great seats, cooperative passengers next to us and lots of help from the airline. Claire napped on our first flight and was well behaved and awake on the second.

Somewhere over Ohio?

Napping peacefully

My big girl:)

We had lunch at Mike and Nicole's house upon arrival and let the kids break into the toys. There was quite the selection.

Then we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. All the kids loved the kiddie pools. I think Claire is about to "hug" Nathaniel here. He was so-so with the hugs.

Nicole's son Carter has a bounce house that they all loved. I told Lucian I think we may need one of these. It was really fun and Nicole has a great back yard for such toys.

Carter and Nate bouncing it up

All of the kids got along really well. In this photo, everyone was crawling (in their jammies) behind Claire in a big train. She had stopped at the window to look outside.

On Saturday, after a lazy morning at home and a marathon nap from Claire we headed out to the Rochester zoo. It's fairly small, but was perfect for the young kids and the amount of time we had.

Here's Claire and I at the tiger cage

Nicole's parents joined us for a cookout in celebration of her birthday (which was on Thursday). Krista and I were happy to be there too.

Sunday we headed to the Strong National Museum of Play. This place was insane. They had floors of exhibits, fish tanks, Sesame Street sets, a train, a pirate ship, a carousel, sand... too much to mention. Claire was a little young for most of it, but they had a fun soft crawling area for the little ones.

We stopped at the food court for lunch where I discovered Claire knows how to use a straw! She had her first sip of juice.

Riding the carousel before we left. Claire loved it!

We retreated to the back yard again in the afternoon. It was a little chilly for pools, but not the bounce house. Claire thought it was great.


And then it was Monday. This is Claire at the airport waiting for our delayed flight. We sprinted to our connection upon landing in Detroit. She was a trooper and they held the plane for a few passengers in my exact situation. Right before we landed, Claire let me know I had given her too many yogurt snacks by throwing up purple on my shoulder. They were keeping her busy so I kept letting her eat. Lesson learned.


I had a fabulous time catching up with my friends and we vowed to not let 4 years go by again. It's funny how with really great friends it's like no time has passed at all. I must say our activities are way different than our college days, but I loved every minute of this trip. Thanks Krista and Nicole. Let's start planning the next one!

It's Been A While

Blog writing has been at a minimum lately, my apologies. Here are a few photos and updates.

Spencer turned 15 on August 6th! He is enjoying an extended summer. We found out last week his high school won't open on time due to flood damage. They promise Sept. 13 as of now, but parts of the renovation still won't be complete. Should be an interesting year.

Spen has kept busy this summer golfing, attending driver's ed classes and volunteering at the Siemens Water Technologies lab at UW-Milwaukee. He rides his bike to most of this stuff so he is staying in pretty good shape. He also helps us with Claire 2 nights a week.

Nana Barb and Grandpa Joe stopped in last Sunday for a quick visit. Claire loved "riding" in the laundry basket.

Claire enjoying a snack

Claire and I leave tomorrow for a solo girls trip. We are flying to Rochester, NY to visit with two of my college friends and their kids. I am a little nervous about the flights, but plenty of kids and moms do this all the time. I know we will be fine and each flight is only an hour. I am really looking forward to the visit. I can't wait to meet the new babies (almost 2 and 3 now!) and catch up with great friends.

Brushing Teeth

We have a Sonicare toothbrush at home and sometimes find ourselves holding Claire while we brush. Here is her favorite thing to do.

Door County

As I mentioned before, we had a short get away to Door County last weekend with our friends Chris and Cait and Chris' boys, Sam and Alex. We stayed in a small cottage on the beach just south of Sturgeon Bay. It was a wonderful escape from the ordinary.

There is a sandy beach on the property, so we set up our camping chairs each day and soaked it all in. The water is very shallow for hundreds of feet out giving the boys a large area to play. The dogs liked it too.

We had no idea that Tatum could swim prior to this trip. I wouldn't call him a water dog, by any means, but with some serious coaxing, he waded out further than he could touch and swam back to safe ground. That was really fun for us. Not sure he'd say the same.

Hanging out on the water

Cuddling with Claire

There was a small sail boat we took out. Here are Chris, Lucian and Spencer leaving the shore.

When we weren't sailing, the boys loved playing with the boat. Seriously this lasted hours and hours.

Chris' dogs love to retrieve. We all took turns throwing tennis balls for them.

Tatum, however, never went after a ball.

Sick Baby

Claire is finally getting back to her old self after a week long virus. We have been really fortunate, this was her first fever ever! We think it was a virus called roseola that consists of a high fever for a few consecutive days followed by a rash that appears as the fever breaks.

She started running a fever last Thursday overnight. We had plans to go to a cabin in Door County on Friday and decided to still go. Claire slept in the car most of the way. She was a little out of sorts, whiny and wanted to be held. With 3 dogs and 7 people at the cabin, it was almost a blessing she wasn't crawling around. We had some pretty rough overnights, but I think she enjoyed the water and being outdoors. I'm glad we didn't cancel the weekend. I'll post some photos of the trip next.

Her fever broke on Sunday, but Lucian decided to stay home with her Monday and Tuesday for some extra attention and pampering. He sent me these photos from their day at home. She wanted to play and crawl around but had no energy. She would start to crawl a bit and put her head down on the ground or cry to be picked up. Lucian put blankets and soft things all across her floor and she decided to take a nap there after playing was too overwhelming.



A sick baby really breaks your heart. You just want to make everything better and get them back to normal. This morning she was crawling around getting into things again. I know she must be feeling better.

Speaking of getting into things. Last night Auntie M watched Claire while Lucian and I went to dinner and a concert with friends. Claire took these glasses out of Auntie M's purse. She texted us this photo while at the show.