Rachel's Party - Saturday February 16th

Trying to catch up with our posts to get to a really special weekend in March for Brady's baptism.  But as always, we are a little behind and have some really good picture to post with this one.  On Saturday February 16th, our good friends Rachel and Pete had a party at their downtown condo.  We were really excited for it so we scheduled one of our babysitters and planned to have a little night out.  However, a few days before the party our babysitter cancelled and we couldn't find a replacement so Brady got to go to the party and see his buddy Eli.  Unfortunately for the babies, since the party was in the evening, they were both going to bed at different times and didn't really even get to hang out.  We were smart enough to not put both babies in the same room so they wouldn't wake each other up, so Brady slept in Rach and Pete's master bedroom in a pack-n-play and Eli was in his room.  Rach and Pete even had a dual camera monitor that we could watch both babies.  It was a lot of fun hanging out with Rach and Pete and meeting some of their friends.  

Here is a picture of Brady all dressed up for the party (he was probably only awake for a total of 20 minutes before he got changed into his pajamas).

 Love him so much in this outfit, he looks like such a little man.  

Play-dates and Waiting for Spring

It is amazing how time is flying by while I have been out of work.  Being a temporary stay-at-home mom has definitely been fun and a lot busier that I thought it would be.  The weather hasn't been too bad this winter for our first one in Chicago, but I am definitely ready for Spring so that I can get the stroller back out and go on walks with Brady and Griffey.  Poor Griffey is not a fan of the cold weather and snow and has even put on an extra pound because he hasn't gotten much exercise this winter.  However, until the snow melts and the weather gets warmer, we have been finding plenty of things to do indoors.

In January, I tried a Mommy and Baby yoga class which was sort of fun.  It wasn't quite what I expected though because I thought they would teach us yoga moves to do with the babies but the babies just laid on the floor in front of us while the instructor guided us through yoga with babies crying and rolling all over the place and mom's chasing after them...not exactly relaxing.  Brady thought it was fun to scream excitedly all through the class at the baby next to us, so we havn't been back and now that he has started rolling all over...I think I can forget about mommy and baby yoga.   

Chicago also has all sorts of great indoor place spaces for babies/kids, which will be even better once Brady starts walking.  One of the places that I found that I like the best is called "The Little Beans Cafe" which is kind of like a Panera Bread with a large living room area filled with toys for babies and toddlers.  

And we are signed up to start Mommy and Baby swim class this month with my friend Rachel and her baby Eli.   

Another thing that has been fun this winter, has been planning play dates with several of our friends who have babies close to Brady's age.  Brady is already becoming a social butterfly and seems to love seeing and interacting with other babies, which is so much fun to watch.  

Here are some pictures from our play dates and just having fun this winter.

(All bundled up for our lunch date with Rachel's baby Eli)

(Brady and Bobby Gottfred, one of Charlie's fraternity brothers and old college roommate's baby who was born just 2 month after Brady) 

And just hanging out with Mommy and Daddy.

A Week in Eaton - January 28th

The week of January 28th, Charlie had to go to Denver for work and Katie decided to pack up the kids and drive to Eaton to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Carico.  Katie really enjoyed being in Eaton because it meant having lots of help with Brady and Griffey.   And Griffey especially likes their house because they have a loft where he hangs out at the top of stairs and keeps watch over the house.

On Tuesday, Katie, Sue and Brady drove down to Cincinnati to see Grandma Leslie, Aunt Abby and Grumpa.  Grandma Leslie took us over to the Cincinnati Women's Club where she is not only a member, but the President.  So we got to park in the President's parking spot and had a diaper changing meeting in the President's office.  We had a very nice lunch which included a dessert called "Gooey Butter Cake".  I'm sure Brady will love to try this some day as it was awesome.  Poor Brady had to stick with his pureed green beans and oatmeal.  Leslie took us on a tour of the beautiful building which is located in Clifton and Brady flirted with all the ladies.

On Wednesday Katie's good friend from college, Sarah, drove down from Columbus to see Brady and hang out for the day.  They had a great time catching up and Brady even fell asleep in Sarah's arms.

(ugh..why do I always blink in picutres ? I wish we would have taken another, but this was just too cute not to post even with the blinking) 

The rest of the week in Eaton was basically just spent relaxing and Katie caught up on some things and miscellaneous errands while Bob and Sue enjoyed every last minute of watching Brady. 

(Brady loves it when his Grandma Carico reads him books, especially when she makes the buzzing sound of bumble bees.  And Griffey seems to like story-time as well.) 

(Katie's Great Aunt Mary stopped over one day, so Brady got to meet his Great Great Aunt Mary.  She was very impressed at how good and happy he was.  

Griffey always stay right close to Brady when we are packing up to make sure he doesn't get left behind.  

Step Up For Kids - Sunday January 27th

On Sunday January 27th, Charlie's employer, KPMG, sponsored the Step Up for Kids event to raise money for the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago while climbing the stairs to the top of the AON Center (which is where KPMG's office is located).  The AON Center is the 3rd tallest building in Chicago with 83 floors.  

Whoa! This seemed like a daunting task but for such a great cause, we decided to sign our whole family up ....including Brady who cannot even crawl yet, but we figured with the help of Daddy (and the Baby Bjorn) he too could make it up 80 flights of stairs.  

Brady was quite the trooper and made it all the way to the top.  He seemed to like that every 10 floors they had a water stop with volunteers to cheer people on.  Of course everyone wanted to say hi to the baby and he enjoyed all the smiles and attention.  Mommy was quite wiped out by floor 40, so she decided to get off the stairs and take the elevator up to the 80th to meet Daddy and Brady.  Daddy took lots of stops at the water floors to make sure Brady was ok, but he seemed to be enjoying himself.    He even became a bit of a celebrity because he was the youngest one there and the photographer from the hospital wanted a picture of him to put on their facebook page.  

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=517541501599520&set=a.357468387606833.81316.167818016571872&type=1&theater

Here is a picture of the 3 of us right before we are about to go up the steps.

 The view from the top,

 And here is exhausted Katie feeding Brady a bottle at the top.

Daddy and Brady crossing the finish line were all smiles.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=517541501599520&set=a.357468387606833.81316.167818016571872&type=1&theater

Brady's (and Griffey's) first babysitter

Since moving to Chicago, we have walked or driven by lots of cool bars and restaurants and thought wow that would be fun but most of these places are not exactly baby friendly places.  So it was about time to find a babysitter so that we could start going out on some dates again.  Katie joined a website called Care.com where you can search for babysitters using certain criteria and run background checks on them.  The website even allowed her to search for local babysitters that went to Miami University (our alma mater), which gave us some level of comfort that the babysitter had similar tastes in colleges and went to what we consider a good school that produces trust-worthy people.   Obviously, in this day and age you can never be too careful though, so Katie did her due diligence and interviewed her at a neutral location, ran a background check and called several references before hiring her.

After everything seemed to check out, we asked her to babysit for the first time on Saturday January 26th for a short night out (4-7pm)...thought we would start off easy.   When she first arrived, Griffey must have thought that he hired her, because he was so excited and jumping all over her and trying to get in her lap...he even went over to his toy box and pulled out several of his toys to the middle of the floor as if to show her "look, play with me".  It was really cute, but unforunately Brady was getting more of the attention because Katie had to show her the routine with Brady.  Griffey seemed ok though and just followed us around the house as we showed her where things were located.

Charlie had picked up food from Toon's, a nearby bar on Southport Ave, for us a few weeks ago and saw an advertisement for their Annual Wings Fest.  The Wings Fest was being held from 3-7pm on Saturday, so we decided we would go there for an early dinner.  Charlie being the wing connoisseur that he is was quite excited for this event and Katie was just excited in general to get out of the house and have a couple of beers.  Apparently it was only the 2nd Annual Wings Fest at this bar, but word must travel fast, because it was packed.  We got there at 4pm and could barely get in the door and purchased the last 2 tickets for the all you could eat wings buffet.  $20 for all you could eat wings and a drink ticket.  The wings were very good and they had all sorts of flavors to try like Bacon and Jalapeno.     There was also a lively band called BS Brass which was a group of 6 guys - 1 trombone, 1 trumpet, 1 sousaphone, 1 drummer and 2 saxophones.  It was quite the outfit and they even marched through the bar.  It was was a lot of fun listening to them and enjoying a couple of beers.

When we got back to the house, we were relieved to hear that Brady and Griffey had done quite well with the babysitter.  She seemed right at ease with both of our babies, so that made us feel very comfortable.

Michigan plays at Northwestern - January 3rd

We are a month behind again but right after New Year's on Thursday January 3rd, Brady went to his first big ten basketball game.  Michigan was playing right up the road from us at Northwestern, so Charlie couldn't resist and wanted to take Brady to his first basketball game.  Luckily Brady got a warm snow suit for Christmas from Grandma Leslie because he definitely needed it that evening.  Once Charlie got home from work, we drove up to Evanston which was quite the debacle because we learned 3 things:  (1) there is no easy way to get to Evanston from Lakeview, only small side streets (2) an 8 mile drive takes way longer than you think at 5:30 on a Thursday in Chicago and (3) there is very little or at least hard to find parking at Northwestern's basketball arena.

After all this, we finally got parked at 6:20 (the game started at 6pm).  Northwestern's basketball arena is quite small compared to what we were used to at OSU.  It seemed closer in size to a big high school arena than a Big 10 arena - but it has a lot of character.  And, it felt like we were at a Michigan home game rather than a Northwestern home game.  Michigan has a lot of alumni and fans in Chicagoland because it was probably 80% filled with Michigan fans.  And I guess Michigan being ranked #2 in the Nation at the time probably helped their numbers.

Once we got to our seats, it was pretty much standing room only, and our seats were at the very top.  So we just squeezed in at the back of the stands.  Brady was mesmerized by all the people and sounds and Charlie was equally mesmerized by being amongst so many Michigan fans.

Living in Columbus for so long, he had forgotten what it was like to go to a game not in enemy territory.  Keep in mind that Katie is writing this post...so the specifics on the game might be a little lacking.  I'm not quite sure if Michigan proved their #2 ranking or if Northwestern was just not that good, but the Wolverines won 94-66.  Charlie seemed happy with the victory though and introducing his son to the Maize and Blue.  And of course all the Michigan gear that Grandma and Grandpa Mowry have gotten him got put to really good use.

Enjoying Xmas presents and starting solid foods!

After New Year's, we have been spending most of January enjoying Christmas presents that we received.  One of our Christmas presents was a high chair for Brady, which has been getting quite a lot of use.  On Friday January 4th, Katie gave Brady his first tasting of solid foods.  Not sure if you can really call them "solids" per say, it is more like "soup", and we wondered how he would like them but of course it seems like so far this kid will eat almost anything we give him.  The first day he was a little hesitant and gave a look like this is the worst tasting food ever,

       

but after a few spoonfuls, he quickly warmed up to the spoon and started eagerly opening his mouth and gulping it down.  Each week, we have been introducing a new food, so the first week was all rice cereal, then pureed peaches, then sweet potatoes, then green beans, and now we are on pureed carrots.  It seems as thought sweet potatoes has been his favorite and green beans have been his least favorite.

Other than eating solids, Brady has been trying to roll over more.  He rolled over for the first time from belly to back on December 1st but now it seems like he has forgotten that task while learning the other way from back to belly.  He likes to flip over from his back to belly but starts to get frustrated because he can't figure out how to get back to his back.  I think maybe he is getting stuck on his big "milk belly", but it is so fun to see him try and learn all these new tasks.  However, it has started to cut into our night-time sleeping through the night.  We have been very spoiled since around 7 weeks old, he has slept through the night but now quite often he wakes us (well actually just Katie...Charlie sleeps through just about everything) up screaming because he has flipped over to his belly and trying to get back over.

He also got a Baby Einstein musical bouncer seat for Christmas and loves to bounce in it, so much that he seems to try to bounce even when he is not in the seat.  Every time we pick him up, he starts to kick his legs trying to bounce while we are holding him.  I think he is working those leg muscles to run track like his Daddy some day.