ChicWOWgo

Last week the whole clan packed it up and took off to Chicago. Patrick had a conference/training deal-o there and I thought it would be fun to take advantage of a nice hotel room in the city! (Plus Patrick didn’t want to spend too many nights away from his “girls”) It was great for me because I was able to visit with a friends from grad school (Sara came by the first night before leaving for a trip to Las Vegas) and college.




The theme of the trip was WOW. Evie has recently converted from an unintelligible chatterbox to a marginally understandable chatterbox. One of her new favorite words is wow. On our first day we went to Millennium park and took part in some fun free kids festivities that included a circus show. As the jugglers juggled and the balancers balanced she started clapping and saying “wow”. I was soo amazed because this was the first time she was really saying things all on her own in reaction to something abstract as opposed to just the good old doggie or milkie.



The wows continued into the next day when we took a trip to the Art Institute. Patrick and I would show her a painting and she would look up at it and say wow. Although, quite frankly, it was the sculptures that really caught her eye. Fortunately for her the whole basement of the Art Institute is kid friendly and included a number of touchable works of art.

The biggest wow of the vacation was definitely Saturday morning at the Shed Aquarium. I let Genevieve out of her backpack and allowed her to wander around the exhibits. She would toddle up to an exhibit, smush her little nose on the glass, look back at me and then proclaim, “wow”. We stood at the Caribbean reef exhibit for at least 15 minutes (which to a 14 month old is the equivalent to 3 years I think).



On Saturday afternoon we went to visit my good friends from college Rachel and Lara and Rachel’s husband Mike made us a fabulous lunch. Rachel is pregnant and I am a bit afraid that Evie’s visit put the fear of baby-proofing god into them…. Don’t worry guys you have plenty of time before you need to do it ☺

When not out and about, Evie and I spent quality time in our hotel room. The biggest wow-factor here was the huge window complete with a ledge big enough for her to stand on. Literally every morning I had to drink my coffee and stand behind her (in case she got too brave and tried to walk along the ledge) for a good 20 minutes while she wowed at the street below.



Overall it was a fabulous trip and I was a bit sad to see it end because Evie and I really got to spend 5 solid days of mommy/daughter time, just a reminder I guess to do it again and again.

A hairdresser I am not...

OK. I give up. How the heck to other moms with little girls get their hair to be so darn cute? I have given this my best shot, honestly, and all I can come up with is a daughter who looks like an escapee from a Dr. Seuss book. Everywhere I go I see little darlings all dressed up with enviable pigtails and other forms of cutsy up-dos.

As I see it I have a couple of (pretty significant) forces working against me in my quest to be a master baby hair doer. 1) The only time Evie stays in one place for more than T-minus 10 seconds is when she is asleep (and even then you only get about a minute before she tussles one way or the next) 2) Having never really had luxurious locks of my own I have very little experience in this department and 3) The hair clip for the extremely fine-haired baby like my own has yet to be invented.

So I guess for the time being she will just have to be a stunt double for a Sneech (hopefully she won’t really be a snooty starry sneech though)

Paper Products

About a year ago Patrick’s Dad, Gerry, came to live with us for awhile because Monique, Patrick’s step-mom, was helping us watch Genevieve while I worked and Patrick studied for the Bar. One of his biggest concerns with our lifestyle was the serious lack of “paper products.” Gerard was appalled at the notion that we would not have any paper towels or paper napkins and only two or three spare rolls of toilet paper in the house at any given time. Living without an abundance of paper products was, well, not quite living. I thought this paper-rich lifestyle choice to a bit odd at first but have since accepted it as just another way of approaching a problem. (I myself am a cloth rag girl, for everything but toilet paper of course). Having accepted his way of life; whenever Gerry and Monique come to visit I make sure to go buy the jumbo pack of toilet paper and a few rolls of paper towels just so that they can feel at ease.

As it turns out my early acceptance of this lifestyle is a good thing because the “paper products” gene apparently skips a generation. Yes Gerard you will be happy to know that your granddaughter shares your penchant for paper products. Unlike her Abu, however, Evie is not satisfied with just an abundance of paper in the house. Oh no our little paper princess loves it so much that she feels the need to not only immerse herself in it but also to trail it around the house like a blankie. And all this would be messy but none too problematic, but Evie must, as is per usual, take it step further and has acquired a taste for paper, and therefore insists on carrying any paper she finds around with her like a snack, taking little munches here and there as the hunger takes her... (And yes I do think this is a comment on my cooking….)

Alas, I was originally hoping that the paper obsession was just a phase…. Given her family history, however, I fear it is going to be a permanent problem!

Snow days?!

The whole crew headed up to the cabin on the Blue this past weekend. Only this year it was not to escape the heat… in fact in Tucson last weekend it was a gorgeous 70ish degrees… which meant it was downright cold and in fact SNOWY up in the mountains. We drove through honest to goodness snow for about 2 of the 5 hour trip up to the aptly named White Mountains. Originally Patrick and I had lofty plans of backpacking overnight sans Evie to celebrate our 6th anniversary which is this weekend. Well we are both pretty hard core, but neither of us are masochistic per se, so when we saw all the snow we decided to scrap the overnighter for a nice long 18 mile hike up a mountain (Mt. Baldy) as our anniversary date. By Sunday it had stopped snowing and in fact most snow (well really we thought all snow…ohh how wrong we were) had melted away.

Excited about the exertion we took off in our car just like the good old days, Kita was the only child again ☺ We, however, only got as far as Big Lake (about 20 miles from the foot of Mt. Baldy) where there was sooo much snow (like 5 ft) and the wind was whipping so hard I felt like I was back in Wisconsin. Now this didn’t deter us totally. What really put the kibosh on the climb was actually the fact that the road to the trailhead was closed, it hadn’t been plowed!! (I later found out that actually the road has been closed for a whole year now because they are doing work on it and only open it on the weekends during the summer)

Plan B now thwarted we moved on to C, which was to drive to Greer and get a big ole greasy breakfast (ohh yeah it is almost like hiking :) While in Greer we wandered into this great little gallery where I found a fabulous painting that I decided we had to have. The price was right and Patrick agreed it was beautiful so we decided to buy it. (Clearly hiking is more cost effective for us) Well the only problem with our beautiful art is that it is ohh about 5 ft by 4 ft large and we don’t have a terribly large car. Getting it back to the cabin was no problem because we didn’t have Genevieve with us… but getting it home was another story… one involving Kita riding home in the front seat, Patrick scrunched up into such a little ball that the normally steel stomached man got car sick and me driving a car with NO visibility whatsoever. Anyway to make an already long story not too much longer we arrived home safe and sound and the painted was unscathed. Woohoo adventures with the Lacroix clan.

On the baby front – Evie had a great time playing in the “wilderness” She mastered the not so easy task of walking on uneven ground with a only a few muddy nose dives, got to swing in her fancy new airplane swing, played along the Blue in the sand and even was allowed to stay up late and watch Indiana Jones with the big people!

The American Dream....

Ahh the American Dream: the car and the house with a shiny pool. Life is easy and you are living large. Friends come by and enjoy and celebrate your success... Well folks I am happy to say that at the ripe old age of 13 months Evie has achieved American-Dream Status. Yes, she worked hard to get here and is very grateful to those who helped her along the way: Nanny Nicole provided the sumptuous cottage, cousin Melissa the fast wheels and Nana Mary the luxurious baby-olympic-sized pool. (And of course a nod must be made to me, aka Mom, for turning a lovely shade of purple in my effort to blow up the gargantuan pool)

Now that her dream is complete she goes out everyday to survey and enjoy her kingdom. First she takes a ride in her car. So far she can only manage to propel it backwards on her own, a bit dangerous, but worry ye not she is very good about looking back over her shoulder to ensure she does not run over any residential cat or dog. If moving forward is required she must elicit the help of one of her big people; who are generally more than happy to oblige. Then, once the car is nice and warmed up, she “drives” herself home to her plush baby-mansion and does any number of domestic tasks: open and close the shutters and/or door, cook a meal at the sink or just sit inside and enjoy the tiny roof over her head with a nice snack (provided once again by her big people). Then she suits up and jumps into her aquarium pool. Splish splashing around without a care in the world one can hear the giggles of happiness, her squeals of joy and the sighs of content that can mean nothing but ahhh yesss I have arrived.

Finally. and this is the apex of her day, she gets to take the inhibiting swimsuit off (or at least mostly off… she insists that wearing the top as a hat sets off her eyes and who am I to argue). She then gets to enjoy the most important part of owning your own kingdom… running around in the buff without any reproachful roommates or nixing neigh sayers!

Hula!

My folks just got back from Hawaii this Friday... sounds like it was an awesome time! They brought back Evie this rockin' hula outfit which (much to my surprise) she loves to wear!!

Little Miss Bubble Mouth

I’ll admit it, Evie does not take a bath every day… or really most of the time even every other day. It is more like every two days or so, provided that there are no extenuating circumstances (most of which you really don’t want to know about, trust me). This lack of suds means that when she does take a bath she gets pretty excited about it. She splashes, squeals and generally has a good old time. Splashing and happy babble are welcome bath time activities. I am afraid, however, that not all of her bath happenings are quite so innocuous. One of her favorites is to “pretend” like she is drinking the shampoo bottle. Although we do not bathe her every night, we are not reckless parents. We always check to see that the bottle is closed before she begins her faux imbibing. Or so we thought….

Last week Patrick was giving her a bath while I was cleaning up from dinner (which Patrick proclaimed to be Space Food… but that is another story entirely). I went in to check on them and sat and watched while they played and noticed that, as is per usual, Genevieve was drinking the shampoo. I mentioned to Patrick that maybe we should take the bottle away from her because it isn’t exactly a desirable habit for her to have. He pooh-poohed me and proclaimed the bottle closed… no worries. We went one for a few more minutes talking while Evie splashed, and then, Evie looks right at me, smiles really big, opens her mouth and a HUGE bubble comes floating out as she begins to babble. Guess that bottle did have some soap in or around it eh? The look on her face was utter shock and disbelief at her ability to produce something she was sure only came from the magical little pink bubble stick and bottle. After her initial shock she realized the comedy in the situation and started giggling, the whole thing put Patrick and I in stitches too.

Needless to say that tonight during her bath duckies and cups were in abundance but shampoo bottles were decidedly not.

Nature girl....

Genevieve is a nature girl! Every morning the first thing she wants to do is go out back and play in the dewy grass. She will toddle over to the door, look longingly out the window and make her "I want that" noise (and of course say doggie if kita is outside too). The throughout the day whenever she disappears from sight it is always to go stand at the back door (or front door if it is open to the screen) and bang on it hoping she'll be let loose.

Her recent journeys into nature go beyond the backyard however. Two weeks ago, on my flex Friday, we went out to Sabino Canyon and went on a nice little hike. She rode on my back the whole time ohhing and aweing at the flowers, lizards, birds you name it. The highlight of that trip though was definitely the creek where she got all wet and messy. (She also learned that walking in a stream is no easy feat and would not let go of my hand because she was afraid to fall)

Another recent outdoor adventure was last weekend when my folks came down and we took them out to Tohono Chul park. (That is where the pictures are from) We had a great breakfast at their tea room and then walked around for a bit (not too long though because it is already getting hot!!) The park has a children's area that Evie thought was pretty cool... again the water feature/fountain was the biggest hit. (Ahh way into water, she must be my daughter :)

Then just today we went out to the zoo for the second time. She was much more into it this trip... pointing at all the animals and laughing at them. I even let her toddle around in one of the aviaries. She thought that was really cool until she came upon a bird with big eyes that kept squacking at her and clearly made her very nervous... she wouldn't walk past it and had me pick her up to go by it.... too cute.

OMGTC phase

Over the past few weeks Evie has entered an exciting phase of her development… the oh-my-god-too-cute (OMGTC) phase. Now some may think that the OMGTC phase begins at birth and I am willing to concede that the precursors, building blocks to too-cute if you will, are definitely there. But once your child truly enters the OMGTC phase you’ll know it and understand how all the early cuteness was just training for the real deal.

And of course, because one would expect no less of me, I have been taking notes and gathering evidence to support my declaration of the beginning of the OMGTC phase.

Example A: Evie and I were shucking fava beans on the floor last week and she was “helping” me by trying to put the already shucked beans back into their pods. The best part about it was that she got this very serious, “I’m working here people” look on her face as she did it.

Example B: Genevieve took one of her shirts out of her drawer and proceeded to spend a good 10 minutes putting it on her head like Carmen Miranda… giggling at herself, taking it off and then putting it back on again.

Example C: We have booster chair for Riley that stays on the floor in a corner during the weekend when it isn’t needed. Yesterday Evie grabbed her spoon and a bowl, sat down in the chair and pretended she was “eating” while all the time talking to herself about her meal in a higher pitched version of her normal gnome.

And this, folks, is just one weeks worth of data gathering… I’m sure there will be much more to come!

Chatterbox

Evie takes after her mom.... she just talks and talks and talks. I am proud to say she is now fluent (or I am pretty sure because my skills are a bit rusty) in her very first language.... gnome.

Bagel Monster...

All visitors to the Mott Lacroix house be forewarned. There is a monster in our midst. She lurks beneath the kitchen table at around about the hour of 7 am. Appearing innocent enough, this monster cases the table’s underbelly waiting for her moment to strike. One must be vigilant, clever and quick in order to evade this monster, for she is swift, relentless and decidedly hungry. Yes danger waits for those foolish enough to try to eat their breakfast of the seemingly peril-free…. bagel and cream cheese.

Through weeks of suffering through this morning menace we have, as all good parents, learned to adapt. Simply feed the mini monster and occasional “bagel tariff” and all remains peaceful and good… but oh woe to you if you do not. The terrifyingly cute eyes will stare longingly at your feast, small precious hands will reach out for your hard-toasted fare and, if you are not paying enough attention, you may soon find your entire bagel and plate on the floor in the domain of the dreaded bagel monster (and of course her devious companion the D.O.G.).

To and fro this bagel monster roams. First a small morsel from dad, then a toddle over to mom for another bite, back and forth she will go until utterly sated. So, friends, family and visitors of all sorts consider yourself noticed. Should you choose to dine at breakfast time at our table a bagel tariff will be required of you!

Birthday Paarrrty!!

Evie's b-day is much like her... it just keeps on going and going and going! (But really you only turn one once, right?)

On Sunday we had a little group b-day shindig at Reid Park with all her baby pals from the birth center. It was so neat to see all of the kids at one year and how much they have changed! The theme of the party was storybook. I put together a little invite:

Anyway we all brought books to trade among the babies, but mostly the time was spent enjoying their cute little faces and trying to keep them coraled under the ramada. Evie was lucky to have some friends other than the birthday kids show up to wish her a happy one... including Evie's Uncle Brendon (who came all the way from Phoenix AND bought her a ice cream birthday cake) my aunt and uncle Lisa and Bob and cousin Melissa (who donated the awesome car to Evie which turned out to be a real hit at the party), Keren, Jeff and Zev and Annie!

Happy Birthday Genevieve!

Today was Evie's 1st Birthday!! It was a pretty laid back affair; attended by Patrick and I and my folks who came down from Phoenix for the weekend to celebrate with us. On Saturday we went down to the 4th Street festival and picked up a few presents for her... dad bought her a cool truck with a trailer full of blocks and grandma Mary picked her up a fabulous birthday dress and a cool jungle toy tote bag. Then today we walked over to Ikes for breakfast and my mom and I baked her a carrot cake. During a trip to the grocery store Evie got really excited about the mylar balloons so we decided what the hey, ya only turn one once and picked her up a balloon too :)



After the cake was made we threw on the b-day dress, put her in her "throne" (which was my little brother's chair originally) and tried to get her to open up the presents we had bought for her. Good thing there weren't too many of them because it was quite a challenge to get her to focus in on the task at hand. She kept crawling or walking off to go investigate the dogs... or the door... or the last thing she had opened.... or "wait guys aren't these bows on my dress cool?" Anyway it was all pretty cute and as you can see very well documented. Once presents were opened we sang happy birthday and tried to get her to blow out the candles... when it became clear that the candles were going to burn into the cake before she would blow them out Patrick and I gave her a hand. For Genevieve the highlight of the whole affair was definitely the cake. Man did she scarf that piece we gave her!! (Of course you'll see we had to remove the dress first; we didn't want it in the frosting line of fire)

Look who's walkin'

It occurred to me last weekend that Genevieve was starting to really walk and I had not yet captured the moment on film... So the dutiful milestone preserver that I am I took a little video... Here it is. As you can see crawling is still the quickest way around for her but she is looking pretty good as an amateur walker :)

Evie's Easter Eggstravaganza

Now officially last easter was Evie's 1st... but really I don't think it counts seeing how she was only about 48 hours old. Anyway, Evie's "first" Easter was a multi-day many partied event complete with THE perfect outfit.


Last Thursday we were fortunate to receive her Easter duds in the mail from Oma Monique who crocheted them from scratch! As you can see from the photos, this is not an outfit folks this is a work of art!

The weekend started with the dress debut at Annie's b-day party. We had a ton of fun and even hit the pool for the first time this year. The too cute bathing suit is courtesy of my aunts Barbara and Anita Mary (Evie is such a clothes horse... she has more swim suits than I do!)

Then on Sunday we showed her off at an annual easter egg hunt/brunch at a friend's house where I walked her around and helped her procure an egg or two. This had to be the coolest easter party ever. There were tons of kids and the eggs were hidden all over the desert behind their backyard. I can't wait until Evie is old enough to actually hunt herself!

And then finally easter dinner at my aunt and uncle's house complete with another egg hunt. This hunt was coordinated by my 7 year old cousin Melissa who was thoughtful enough not only to just place the eggs on the grass so Evie could easily "find" them but also to fill them with Ritz crackers so Evie could actually eat what was inside. They have two very pregnant pygmy goats so we were hoping for a little easter birth but no such luck. Evie enjoyed the goats so much that we are thinking about adding a few to our yard :)

Whew what a weekend!

Mmmessy

This past Friday it was so beautiful out I decided that Genevieve and I just had to go play in the backyard... with water. I knew this was going to be a messy endeavor but boy howdy did I underestimate her capacity for filth creation. By the end of our backyard playtime she was soaking wet with mud, grass, leaves and dog hair. So bad that I felt the need to strip her down to her skivies before letting her back in the house. It was great! The best part about it though was that she was totally oblivious to just how wet and messy she was!

EVS DAD

A pretty momentous weekend for the Lacroix household. No Evie did not say her first word... no she did not finally figure out how to open the fridge (aka baby mecca)... it wasn't even the momentous I can really truly walk weekend.... No indeed this weekend was the weekend that her dad graduated from just plan old Patrick to "I-am-super-cool-I -have-a-fast-car Patrick" Yes as many of you know this day has been long in the coming. Many nights were spent purusing E-Bay, Craigslist and you name it. Many days were spent a-dreamin' of the speed and now that the moment has finally come let me tell ya Patrick has an unerasable smile etched onto his lips. So with out further ado I present to you... the newest member of our household, our 2003 Honda S2000 in Belgian Racing Yellow named Puppy!! (You'll have to ask Patrick about the name :)

A thankless job

I tell ya what folks; this motherhood gig is a thankless occupation. I know, I know its trite and has been said before by many before, but by god add me to the list of millions….

After all my hard work and sleepless nights, my babbling baby girl will not utter a single mama for her mama. Her skills in the dada department are, however, very well developed. So well refined in fact that she does a perfect, clear as a bell, “daddy”. Now this isn’t to say that Patrick is undeserving of her vocal attention, he certainly does his part, but even he will admit that most of the more grueling baby tasks fall onto my shoulders.

Being the proactive parents we are, and in an effort to right this wrong, we have begun Say Mama Bootcamp. Genevieve now has a series of daily Say Mama exercises that must be repeated ad nasueum:

Exercise One: Patrick points to me and says there’s Mama. I then wave and say Mama. (We originally played this game with me pointing to myself and saying Mama and Patrick pointing to himself and saying Dada…. But after a week or so the result was a baby who pointed to herself whenever we said Mama or Dada….)

Exercise Two: Whenever I leave the room Patrick says “Where’s Mama” I then respond by calling out Hi or some other such thing to her.

Exercise Three: Stare at Evie and repeat over and over and over again mamamamamama.

Exercise Four: (This one is hard core) Set Evie up in her highchair facing a doorway. We then hide on either side of the doorway and take turns jumping into view and saying “I’m the Dada (or Mama)” or just a plain old excited proclamation of “Mama!” or “Dada!” (Sometimes we have to quit this exercise early because Evie gets nervous with us disappearing and reappearing on her like that.)

So far this workout has led to mixed results. A few mama utterances have been recorded in recent weeks but never in my presence. Here’s to hoping she gets it soon because this sort of routine really wears you out!

In other news we went on a fabulous hike this past weekend with Ben, Annie and Maxine. It was really great to get out and spend sometime in the desert. Evie figured out how to use the camelpack and I think spent the entire hike drinking water because at the end of the hike all 1.5 literes were gone! The other momentous event of the weekend was Evie taking two honest to goodness steps… only two at a time so far but she is definitely on her way to walksville.

B-day Party!

Last weekend was a blast! Patrick and Annie threw me a 30th b-day party at our new digs. The theme was shoes and beer... two personal favorites, everyone was supposed to wear their fav shoes and tote their best beer. (As a result we have a ridiculous amount of beer in the fridge now but hey I think Patrick and I are up to the challenge :) Annie made fabulous carrot cake cupcakes and Patrick put together all sorts of yummy appetizers. It was pretty funny though... given the age of some of the participants (i.e. the babes under a year old) the party was all said and done by 8 pm... woohoo are we crazy or what!

Because we got to sleep so early we were able to easily make it up to Phoenix for the annual Wheels of Britain car show. Dad had both of his Lotus entered into the show so he needed Patrick to drive one of them home (goodness knows mom and I didn't want to stay for all 6 hours of British cars... been there done that :) At Patrick's request below is a picture of his favorite car... a Lotus Formula Ford... in British racing green of course.



Anyway, thanks to everyone who came to my party this weekend or who sent their well wishes... y'all certainly made me feel special! Here's looking forward to the next fabulous 30 years!!

Genevieve heart Boys

Ohh the trouble it is a startin’ early. Two weeks ago Nicole took Genevieve and Riley to the baby story hour at the library near our house. The girls had a great time… especially Evie who seems to have taken a liking (or more accurately put a licking) to one of her baby peers of the male persuasion. Apparently Nicole was just hanging out watching the kids play and looked away for just a second and when she looked back she saw Evie kissing one of the little boys, her big ole maw open on the poor unwitting kid’s cheek! Well once was enough to get her dad worried (I mean he thought he had a good 10 or 11 years at least before he had to purchase a boy-warding firearm of some sort!) I am sad to report however we have now two data points on our the chart for our little vixen. This weekend at my mommy book club she came up and accosted (well really it was just hug) Ksenija and David’s little boy Joe. (At least she has good taste in men… what a cutie) David managed to take a picture of the event so I even have proof this time!

In other news it is high time we post a picture of Nicole and Riley… so here they are!


I also caught Evie this weekend contemplating her cookie….hmm yeesss, brilliant yes brilliant....