Happy Memorial Day!

After a weekend full of crappy weather, it was finally beautiful today. A little hot ( 9o degrees) but after all the rain and cold temps, I'll take it! Since it had been a busy weekend, we decided to try and take it easy today. We started out the morning by going to the Naperville Memorial Day parade. This would be our 1st parade with Anabelle and I wasn't sure how she'd like it.

We didn't think that Anabelle would be patient enough to head over early, so we left the house around 10 (the parade starts at 10:30) and hoped we would still be able to find a good spot. After a ten minute walk to downtown we settled on a spot that was not shady, but at least we would be able to see a little of the parade. We passed some time by taking a few pictures and then we waited for the parade to start.

And waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally around 10:50 it started, by then Anabelle was getting antsy. We tried to put her on John's shoulders so that she could see better. She liked that for a little while.

And she thought it was really pretty funny to be up on top of Daddy.

And for about 5 minutes, she was great and really liked the parade.

And then she was ready to be done. She wanted to get down and run all around, but it really wasn't the kind of setting where she could run around. After spending 5 minutes chasing a toddler around, I made the executive decision to head back home. After being out in the sun for about an hour we were all hot and sweaty, and Anabelle wasn't really watching the parade anymore. Shockingly, John didn't protest.

Once home we had lunch and Anabelle made a lousy attempt at taking a nap. While she did that I washed the car. It's so nice to be able to wash your own car in your own driveway. I know that seems like a small thing, but after years of living in apartments and condos you learn to appreciate things like a hose and driveway. I also broke out the shop-vac that our landlord has in the storage space. I am in love with that thing now! It must have sucked up a million cheerios, you gotta love driving around a kid. Our little car is all clean and pretty now, yay!

After a short nap, Anabelle decided it was time to play outside in the sun.

John grilled us some hot dogs for dinner and along with some onion roasted potatoes and watermelon, it felt like the start of summer. I hope you all had a relaxing Memorial day, and a great kick off to your summer!

Last Saturday Michael and Stephanie had a reception to celebrate their wedding with friends and family. The party was held at the clubhouse of my parents townhouse association. It was a Hawaiian theme, which I love (of course). I didn't take any pictures because I was busy chasing one very happy and excited toddler around. So these pics are courtesy of my Dad. Michael and Steph did a great job of decorating and providing lots of delicious food, it was a great party. Anabelle had a great time, she was very excited and really just loved running around like crazy from room to room. I was worried she was going to either get hurt or break something, but luckily neither happened and it was a fun night. After a little while Anabelle went home with Grandpa to get some sleep and Mom and I stayed to have some fun.

Anabelle's little dress was a souvenir I picked up for her in the Bahamas.

After over an hour of non-stop running, she finally took a moment to sit.

On Friday John and I took Anabelle out to dinner at Domo 77. She really enjoyed watching the chef cook all the food and bang the spatula around. She loved all the food, even the shrimp (yuck!), and ate a ton!

She even tried to use chopsticks-so cute!

On Saturday John and I went to see the Cubs play the Pirates with Joe and Kari. It was kind of a rainy, yucky day and the pirates beat the Cubs 10-o, but we still managed to have a great time.

It was a wet walk home.

More of this & that...

I haven't felt like blogging this week, but at least I have been taking pictures, here's what we've been up to!

Our irises are in full bloom.

It's getting warmer, time to fire up the grill.

1st ice cream sundae at Colonial Kitchen, she ate the whole thing all by herself!

And loved it!

Doing great with her booster seat; fruit and raisin bread toast for breakfast-yum!

I got a haircut, and decided to go with bangs for a bit. I also have been making some summer outfits for Belle, here she is wearing a little jumper I made.

It's hot out, time for water play!

Love our little frog pool.

Hopefully this week I'll feel more inspired to blog, have a good week everyone!

Little bit of this and a little bit of that...

I sometimes have a few pictures from the week that never make it into a blog post, just some random shots from the weeks activities. Here are a few from the past 2 weeks.

Downtown Naperville has an amphitheater that Anabelle loves to run around and climb on. It is perfect for practicing going up and down steps. It also has a wide open space to run around in. It's a great way to wear off some toddler energy.

Here we are at Riverwalk Park, one of our favorites. It was SUPER hot this day and Anabelle had been running around on all the bridges slides. I finally got her to stop and drink some water. She definitely inherited the ability to get very red-faced after only a short amount of time running around from her Momma.

It was so hot that day that we left the park and went straight home to get into swimsuits and play in the water. Here Anabelle is modeling her new bikini from Aunt Steph and Uncle Mike. I think it is just about the cutest thing ever!!

Another favorite thing for us to do is to walk to the fountain by our house. It is just a short 10 minute walk along the river. On this day it was the first time we had seen it running since they turned it off for the winter months. Anabelle was very excited!

Brookfield Zoo

John and I decided to get a membership to the zoo this year, it is a great deal if you think you'll go to the zoo more than 3 times in a year. I like having a membership because then I don't feel pressure to get the most out of every visit. You can go and if it starts to rain or Anabelle decides to be cranky, you don't feel like you wasted money.

My Mom joined Anabelle and I today for a trip to the zoo. We got there early, just in time to see lots of animals out either eating or enjoying the sun. It was pretty crowded with children on field trips, but we still managed to see plenty of action. Anabelle definitely was able to see some of the big animals and often made her signature "barking" noise that she makes for animals when she doesn't know what sound they make.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and in the 70s, a great day to go to the zoo. This zoo is so large that it is best to just pick a few exhibits that you want to see and rotate with each visit, otherwise you will never make it around to everything. Especially when you are trying to make it home at a reasonable time for a toddler nap. After looking at all the animals we had a lovely picnic lunch. I really appreciate that they allow you to bring in your own food, so you can save money. We had a great time, and will definitely get a lot of use out of our zoo membership.

Water play!

Anabelle got this wonderful sensory table for her birthday last year from Marena and Adam. We have had it in our rec room since September and have used it a few times. As you can imagine Anabelle has not yet learned how to keep the water in the table, so I haven't been able to take any good pictures of her playing because I am usually busy hovering nearby making sure she doesn't decide to put any non-water toys in the table or dump all the water on the floor. She loves playing with water and today played outside for well over an hour. I am thrilled that it is now warm enough here to move the table outside to play, and I can relax and take pictures. I look forward to playing with it all summer!