Chicago Weekend

To celebrate Cory's parents, Ann & Ron's anniversary, we went to Chicago for the weekend.  They are both loyal cubs fans so on Friday they invited some of their closest friends and family to watch the Cubs vs. Cardinals game in a suite.  Despite it being rainy and cold we had a great time.  The suite certainly made the inclement weather much more tolerable.  I think most of the Woods family would say the Cubs win was the highlight of the day.  My personal highlights were the heat lamp and dessert cart.   

During the game, Ron & Cory were in the restroom at the same time as Tom Ricketts.  If you're like me and have no clue who he is, he is the CEO of the Cubs.  Ron & Cory came back to the suite and told the group they saw him and Katie took off on a mission to find him.  Shortly after we had a visit from Tom Ricketts. 

On Saturday we had a nice dinner at the Melting Pot.  Brady did great at the long dinner thanks to an iPad loaded with a few new games.  Ellie did great as well until she had a huge blow-out towards the end of dinner.  I think I jinxed us because I said on the way to dinner that Ellie was due and I bet they don't have a changing table.  Sure enough prediction came true.  A little creativity and fast thinking averted the crisis.

Happy 35th Anniversary Ann & Ron!  Here's to 35 more!

  

Mill Valley Parade

It was homecoming this week at Mill Valley.  The  parade went through our neighborhood which was pretty cool for the kids.  It didn't go right by our house so we walked about a block to get a good watching spot.  We forgot to bring a sack so had to improvise with a chair sack for candy collection.  I'll have to say Brady was a little uncertain when the high schoolers were running up to him with candy.  When we got home we counted the candy.  Can't remember the exact count, but it was well over 50 pieces.  Just what we needed!

Ellie - 3 Months

Ellie is 3 months!

Stats:

These aren't official stats, but should be pretty close.

Weight:  12.5 pounds

Height: 23 inches

Other highlights from the past month:

• Sleeping -  She sleeps from about 9:30 -10 pm - 6am about 4 -5 nights a week.  The other days she'll wake up around 4:00 for a little snack.
• Favorite activities - Similar to last month, but she now also likes playing on her floor mat and with her bear toy.
• Dislikes - Looking to the left.
• Notable accomplishments - Laughing, grabbing hanging objects
• Eating - She still enjoys eating.
• Other notable activities - Ellie went to the Great Wolf Lodge and started school this month. 

Just a few pics of our sweet baby girl.



Painting the Porch

Cory gets credit for this activity.  Brady loved 'painting' our front porch.  I am amazed by his ability to stay in the crouch/squat position for so long.

Family Masks

One night Brady asked if we could make masks.  I am about the least artistic person in the world so anything beyond coloring is risky business, but surely we could handle masks.  The cutting and coloring part went fine, but then Brady looks at me and says "how is it going to stay on my face."  Then he said, "how about tape."  We gave tape a shot, but clearly it is not designed to hold masks to human faces so decided we could just hold the mask.

Once his was finished he decided that everyone in the family needed one.  Best line of the night, "Mom, Ellie doesn't have teeth.  What should I do with her face?  Can I just give her big lips?"  Sure, big lips will work just fine. 

Conquering the Tunnel Slide

Over the weekend we went to Great Wolf Lodge.  Brady had an amazing time.  We went about a year ago and Brady had fun, but now that he's a year older he enjoyed it even more. 

The only problem with Great Wolf Lodge is that several of their slides are tunnel slides.  If you have talked to Brady about slides you know that he does not like tunnel slides because as he puts it "I can't see the end of them."  He has routinely told us that he will try a tunnel slide when he is older, usually he will quote 7 as the magic age.   Brady was tall enough to go on one of the tube slides with Cory.  Cory asked him if he wanted to try it and we just assumed he would say no because of the tunnel.  However he said he wanted to try.  He came out of the tunnel with a HUGE smile on his face.  Then, he went down the single passenger tunnel slide all by himself.  I guess all we needed is a trip to Great Wolf Lodge to cure him of his feer of tunnels. 

Mini golf, as always, was a huge hit as well.  Brady and Jay figured out how to retrieve the ball after it went down the 18th hole.  They thought that was pretty cool!

Sunday night, we had the final test to see if Brady had conquered the tunnel slide.  We went to the neighborhood playground and asked if he would go down the slide.  To our amazement he did.  He was so proud of himself!

Sibling Love

Capturing pictures of Brady alone is difficult enough, but getting pictures of the two of them together is even harder.  I pleaded with Brady to please let me take his picture with his sister.  He didn't want to hold her so I settled for him laying next to her.  Don't they both look thrilled?