vals shower

We had valeries bridal shower june 29th at Mongolian BBQ and it was great. she got wonderful gifts and we got to eat good food too. She is getting married on Sept 5 in woodridge at the seven bridges in which I am the matron of honor and Kathryn is also a bridesmaid- here are a few more pics of the shower.

Erica is ONE!

WoW, I can't believe she is ONE!! It has been an awesome year I can't beleive how much she has changed and it is the most amazing feeling to be part of something so wonderful. To know that jimmy and I played a part in all the great triumphs she has gone through this year. I have been scrapbooking trying to catch up--yeah right! but going through all the pics and everything we have done this year I feel truley blessed to have such a wonderful girl in my life to show me the good things, the bad things, to make me laugh and cry and of course teach me patience and confidence. So thank you to Erica!

Well she is not yet walking on her own just holding on to everything- she is on whole milk and drinking lots of it- wow. We are trying to transition the bottle this month most days she uses a cup and only bottle at night but she has her cranky days too. She loves ice cream - this is not a big shocker! We have her offical one year appointment on thursday.

Her birthday party was great I can't believe what a beautiful weekend it was - 80 degrees good breeze yeah!! It was great so have friends and family share the moment with us- she got such wonderful gifts including four shopping carts-- very popular item. She was not too happy once it came to cake time she cried but we saved the cake and did part two with mommy and daddy over the weekend and she realized what she had been missing because she loved it.

Pics to come...

Adam and Ambers wedding

We were in California for a reason- not just vacation, we went to a wedding. Jimmys cousin Adam got married on a cruise ship. They of course went on the cruise for us we had to disembark oh well. The wedding was great Amber looked beautiful here is a few pics from the wedding. CONGRATS!!

San diego zoo

We went to the zoo on tuesday and got to see a ton of animals. The snakes were the highlight shockingly... there was one snake that slithered to the window and then up it until it was face to face with Erica. Erica was scared once she was face to face though it was behind the glass. We went to the petting zoo though erica was not into petting the animals as much as she likes to pet Ellie and babe. We saw all kinds of animals including the panda's, elephants,giraffes and polar bears which was great.

can you see the snake- yikes!

the panda looks like it is posing for the pic- you see a slight smile

look at how cozy this little guys is..here is a close up

Trip to San Diego

Well we are back in town finally and not leaving for quite some time now. We were on two big trips within one month of eachother. The plane ride out to california was great we sat in first class thanks to my miles and what a difference more room makes!!! Erica was happy to play on the floor and look out the window she was so good and then she fell asleep for almost 2.5 hours- Crazy! We got food and cookies ( chocolate chip- YUM!) The weather was great while we were there always sunny no rain beautiful. The first day we were there was a little hectic with getting the car rental and all our stuff unpacked but we did make it to the beach in Coronado- that is where they have a naval base and tons of awesome beach houses along the ocean.
Erica did so good at the beach she even collected her first sea shell. The water was freezing but our little fishy didn't care! Beware lots of pics...

Here is erica playing in the sand for the first time.

She finds her sea shell .....

then tries to eat it!!

She loved being in the water though it was chilly

look out for the wave..

She got a bit scared when it hit her --

She decided to crawl toward the ocean though

look at the beautifu view!

being sick

So I have been feeling terrible for the past few days and thought I had some food poisoning, I actually went to the hospital on Sat. because of how terrrible I felt. Of course my doctors must have thought I was crazy and told me to use OTC medications. I had some labs done though as well. I was planning on finally going back to work- not because I feel better because I still do not but I a tiny better I guess. My doctors office called- guess what I have....... Salmonella?? Great, so I am off work the rest of the week- hopefully though I will be in better shape for next week we leave for vacation on Monday. I also got a nice call of the will county health dept. with a million, trillion questions. so my labs are now in transit to the Illinois dept of public health- great. Jimmy was teasing maybe we should call Ch. 5 and get ont he news...thats all I need right that and the bathroom. So I am on antibiotics for the time being and have doctor appointments. Well hopefully this is almost over!!!! We have gone through lots of T.P. lately! :)

catch up

Well things here have been super busy- over the past month Erica has gotten so much smarter....and into more trouble! Well she is eleven months old now and getting into everything. She has found and learned to do the stairs though we are always right behind her, always eating more people food and less baby food, she likes foods that are orange....including oranges- peaches- cheese- goldfish. Erica is getting another tooth on the top this time and it is very painful for her unfortunately. We are working on walking....she is holding on to everything as she walks by she is aso holding our finger as she walks by. Poor Ellie, today she tried to use her head as a step to get up on the couch- the dog of course just laid there.

Happy Mothers Day- it was a great day even if the weather did not cooperate.

Jimmy and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on 5-17 and we has a great dinner by ourselves for the first time since Erica was just one month old so that was nice. We did not feel like we had to rush. Here is a pic before dinner

We have gone on a little vacation this month as well, I had a conference in San Antonio so jimmy and Erica came too. we were a little worried about the plane ride but she did pretty good. we did have to give her some benadryl though so she could sleep for a little bit. She did awesome in Tx though, it was about 98 degrees so we introduced her to frozen yogurt and of course she loved it. She was in her stroller for a big portion of the time walking around the river walk though she was in the pool a ton too!

About me and the new baby I am 20 weeks today and we did have the big ultrasound.....well Jimmy and I were pretty sure on what each of us thought- I was 100% boy though he was 100% girl,...Mommy won yeah! It is a boy, the baby was being somewhat stubborn in the beginning though by the end of the session he gave in. Erica is going to be a great big sister!