Da Bear Losts

Well, this week's game didn't turn out so great! But, at least we had a fun time playing and snacking our way through the afternoon. Will hosted two new lady friends for a play date during the game. (One of the gals I work with lives nearby, so she and her husband and two girls came over.) The kids had fun being wild - not sure if the nutella covered rice krispy treat footballs had anything to do with that - and only minor injuries were reported. (Will tripped and hit the wall during a run. You can see the red bump above his right eye in the photo below.)

And after a dinner of more blueberries and banana yogurt with no bib (who care, that Bears jersey won't need worn again until September. . . .), it was bath time! I tried to get a picture of Will "swimming" in the tub, which is his new favorite tub time activity. But, no luck. To reassure Will fans, Jason was supervising the bathing (those are his towel covered legs and hand) while I was picture taking, so no children were put at risk!

After some cuddles and stories, it was lights out for Will and me! I tried to get a good night's sleep since I'm worried about a cold coming on. Sadly the snow plows woke me up a few minutes before my alarm.

Good Morning!

Just to put Ryan's mind at ease: no, Will is not sick. He just stays busy during the week with school and sleep, and then on the weekends won't sit still enough for a photo shoot! :-) (Well, actually he is a little sick with a cold - stuffed up and coughing - but that's not impacting our schedule at all.) I tried to get a few quick pictures this morning while we were getting ready. Of course it's Bears day at school today in honor of the big game on Sunday. We'll be washing his jersey tomorrow so he can wear it again during the game.

Oh, and it's 3 degrees this morning, so he had to wear a long sleeved shirt as well. This is the one that matched the best, even though it's a little preppy.

I Can Read!

Now that I am the proud owner of an iPad, I am using my "free time," (mostly, my train commute) to read books that I have downloaded from my public library. It's been a bit of a learning curve figuring out the technology and which forms of e-books are compatible with my device (Adobe ePub, yes, but Adobe PDF, no). And I've gotten a slew of recommendations on what to read from friends. Apparently those are very popular titles, however, so I am on the waiting list at the library for most of them. I have added a sidebar of my recent reads in case you want to track my progress.

In the wait list queue:

• The Help
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• The Passage
• The Hunger Games

I am also intrigued about Devil in the White City but it's only available in a non-compatible format, so I need to figure out something else for it. And my library doesn't seem to carry Philippa Gregory books electronically, and there are 3 of those that have been recommended to me.

What does everyone else do? Buy their e-books off Amazon.com? I can download the Kindle app for the iPad. I'm just trying to exhaust my free options first! :-) All recommendations welcome!

Da Bears Won!

If you're sports fans like we are, you know that the Bears won their playoff game yesterday! Next up is the NFC Championship Game against the Green Bay Packers for a chance to play in the Super Bowl. On Friday evening, we were playing a little game we call football-basketball. Here's an action short of the quarterback-power forward about to score: Oh, and you'll notice that Will only got the under eye glare block applied under one eye before Mom got the lid put back on the brown (washable) marker:

Except for the marker face, you can see that Will's left eye looks normal. He was basically himself by Thursday morning (about 24 hours later) and has since incurred a variety of new bumps and scratches as he continues life as an active toddler.

All Better (but still no pictures)

The scratched cornea is appearing to heal itself well. After a Thursday morning follow up eye exam, the eye patch was removed and normal activity resumed (although he did stay home from school for another day). Friday it was back to school on the regular schedule. The eye problem seems to have passed, but the cold that's been thinking about happening for a month seems to be picking up. Some yucky coughs last night. Oh, and now that the crib bumpers have been removed (we don't want him to have any assistance with getting a leg up and out of his crib), he keeps losing his pacifier out the slats at night. For three nights in a row, I have had to perform an emergency pacifier retrieval for a screaming boy. I'm starting to wonder how we faze out that little piece of happiness (for him)? This kid just loves it though; he literally would walk around with it all day (and sometimes does). We ended up going cold turkey on the baby bottles at 13 months; is that how we have to do the pacifier at 20 months?!

A Corrupt Memory Card, That's How

Lost more pictures tonight. This time it was my wonderful husband holding his sad, sleepy baby boy who was wearing an eye patch to cover the cornea he scratched in circle time today. I was sure to double check the picture took, but apparently (according to our tests just now), when we turn off the camera, the new pictures disappear but not the old ones. Anyone have experience with this? Or with how to console a toddler with a hurt eye?

But How?

No, Will hasn't started asking "but why?" for everything yet (just "nooooo" when asked to say please). But somehow I don't have any new pictures on my camera from this weekend. Even though I took pictures of a baby sitting in the diaper box he turned into a seat and his daddy and I turned into a race car. Even though I have several great mental photos of a baby doing touchdown arms after two days home with daddy watching NFL Wild Card Weekend while mommy was at the office. It was a long work weekend for me, but I KNOW that I took multiple shots of Will in that box because I kept missing his smile. So where did they go?!

Better luck for next weekend! Sorry Will fans! Instead, here's a picture from the vault: one year ago - Will at 7 1/2 months old.

Home for the Holidays

We were lucky enough to get to have all of our family come to us for the holidays. No packing up the car or trudging through the airports with a restless toddler for us! That, in itself, is a great gift! But it also meant we needed to get the house in the holiday spirit! As documented in an earlier blog, credit for our beautiful Christmas tree goes to Ryan and Steve. And credit for our beautiful house decorations go to Jason (and perhaps his assistant, Will)! He bought wreaths this year to hang in the upstairs window, on both of the front doors, and to flank the brand new garage door. Absolutely lovely!

Happy New Year!

Jason's parents came up to see us for New Year's and to celebrate Christmas. They even volunteered to stay home to baby-sit so we could go out for dinner! We went to a new-to-us restaurant called Wildfire where Jason had their signature item: a horseradish crusted filet. Yum! I had the scallops and we shared salad and pecan pie.

Before we left for our dinner, we got to see Will in his pajamas. He had an early outfit change after eating three bowls of homemade broccoli cheese soup for his dinner. He got most of it to his mouth, but not all of it!

We also got to watch Will and Grandpa Ed play catch. Ed was very impressed with Will's ball playing skills; especially his ability to carry his basketball, football and baseball all at once! And Will LOVED when Grandpa would through all the balls at once for him to go get, so this worked out great!

Bedtime stories with Grandma
But it's not bedtime! It's game time!
New Toy Story 3 Matchbox cars

Thanks for everything Grandma (and Grandpa)!