Where’s Buster? January 28, 2012

This morning Ivy decided she wanted to cover Buster up with a blanket and pretend she had nothing to do it. Either Buster is getting too old to resist or he’s just really tolerant of Ivy’s antics.

Playing with Snowman January 28, 2012

We’ve had a pretty mild winter this year. So far I’ve only had to shovel once. So when the first “real” snow fell (maybe a couple inches tops and all melted in a couple days), I thought we could build a snowman since we may not get the chance again. Ivy was really excited when she watched me build it from the window and kept telling Robin that she wanted to “play with snowman”. Apparently I didn’t build it to her liking because she thought it needed some touching up. Buster decided to help too. He decided the snow was a little bland so he decided to add a little color to it…namely the yellow and brown kind. Gross.

First post of 2012 January 28, 2012

Even a month after, Ivy is still a pretty excited about Christmas. She’s always talking about going to “gi-gago” (Chicago) and getting presents. She still asks where santa is and always asks when she will see all her cousins, aunties, uncles, grandmas and grandpas again, i.e. “go to Logan/Ella/aunties house?” or “grandma go to Ivy’s house?” She obviously had a good time. Thanks to everyone for making Christmas so much fun for her…and of course all the great presents!

Wanna-be Swagger Wagon December 15, 2011

When your wife says, “I am never driving that car again” because she felt unsafe after sliding in the rain a couple times, it makes the decision to trade in the Honda Pilot for another car pretty easy. Since min-vans were out of the question, we instead got the wanna-be swagger wagon. We ended up with a 2009 GMC Acadia SLT. Check out the new ride.

Santa Visit 2011 December 5, 2011

Ivy was very excited to visit Santa this year after our nanny spent much of the week talking about Santa and Christmas. She saw Santa at the mall and immediately knew who he was. She was impatient in the line, but luckily it wasn’t too long. As soon as we were ready to see him though she got scared and didn’t want to visit. However, Santa was great and talked her through the whole picture process. There were no smiles, but at least there wasn’t any tears!

Decorating the tree November 27, 2011

Ivy was really excited this morning when we started with Christmas decorations. She even helped us decorate the tree. The whole time we were putting it up, she kept saying “pretty!”….that is, until it got dark and the lights turned on. She got really scared of the tree when it was lit. She was inconsolable. Only thing that helped was turning the lights off and even then she stayed as far away as possible. I wonder how she’ll react to Santa….

Big Girl Bed November 22, 2011

Ivy had a big week leading up to her birthday. Not only did she get a sweet slide, a fun party and got to hang out with her cousins, she also got her crib converted to a big girl bed. Actually, we probably could have done it a couple weeks earlier because when Logan and Dane were in town, she managed to climb out of her crib. We were a little worried that she wouldn’t stay in her crib. In fact, the first night, she actually rolled out of bed and we found her on the floor. She was fine though and Robin just scooped her up and put it right back without even waking up. Nowadays, she does pretty well. She climbs into bed by herself everyday and so far no more rolling out of bed.

Slides make things all better November 21, 2011

For her 2nd bday present, we decided to get Ivy a slide. Robin had to convince me but we ended up assembling it in the basement. It was a good choice because now Ivy has a way to release all that energy when time spent outdoors is drastically reduced during the winter time. When we gave her the slide, Ivy couldn’t understand why we wanted her to go into the basement. In fact, she started out refusing and screamed from the top her lungs. All it took, though, was one look at her new toy and all was better!

Ivy Turns 2! November 20, 2011

For Ivy’s party this year, we decided to stay in town rather than holding the party in Chicago like we did last year. The best part was we still had a great turnout. We had grammas, grampas, aunties, uncles, cousins and Ivy even made some new friends (Robin’s coworkers are a great pipeline for Ivy’s network of friends, i.e. they brought their newborns to the party…LOL). Robin did a great job with the decorations. We had Toy Story theme complete with hay, straw hats and even a horse (no kidding)!

Ivy the Owl November 6, 2011

Last year, Ivy dressed up as a lion for Halloween but only because the owl costume that we really wanted was sold out. This year, we ordered said owl costume early. We went back to Boo in the Zoo and, of course, went trick or treating. Ivy didn’t really get the concept though. She would ring the bell and try to go inside the houses. Then after she got some candy, she would dig through her basket, pick her favorite and abandon the rest. We finally gave in and gave her a sucker while we carried her home.

Putting the finishes touches on the costume at Boo in the Zoo

Cool tunnel!

Posing next to a fake turtle shell

Quickie photo shoot on our porch

Only one house down and already got her eye on her favorite piece of candy