Busy weekend

Happy birthday to Andy (yesterday)! He spent his birthday weekend at the lake house with friends, while Jack and I were busy back in Chicago with all sorts of other activities.

On Saturday, we went to visit our friends the Pedersens. Jack got to play with Hannah, who's almost 2. New baby Katie slept most of the time we were there, so I didn't get to take any pictures of her. But we could definitely tell she's a cutie from the little bit we got to see her! She looks a lot like her big sister.

Jack helping Eric feed the fish.


On Sunday, we made the trip out to Union, IL to visit the Railroad Museum with Grandma and Grandpa Nold, and Aunt Lisa. This weekend and the past weekend, Thomas the Train was visiting. Here's Jack and Aunt Lisa watching a model train.

Playing with a fire hydrant set up by the local fire department. They also gave Jack some cool firetruck stamps on his arms.

Jack and Aunt Lisa checking out one of the trains.

Our train ride with Thomas (Thomas was in front pulling the other cars).


Waving at Aunt Lisa

Here's Thomas!

New pool

On Sunday, the Words came over to check out our house. We inflated Jack's new pool, and he and Aubrey had fun playing with it. Aubrey got in the pool, while Jack mostly splashed in the water from the sides. He did go down the slide once, but that was enough for him. The pool had also just been filled, and the water was pretty cold, so that didn't help.

Pretty cool, huh? They sure didn't make things like this when I was a kid. I think this pool was around $30; there are some amazingly extravagant pools out there if you spend more money.

They also got into the sidewalk chalk. (I didn't notice until I pulled this picture up on the computer that Jack is sitting in the midst of a beer bottle and flattened Sam Adams container. Classy.)

At one point, Jack went off by himself and sat in this chair far away from everyone else. He was just lounging in it, watching us like he was sitting on his throne.

Big boy bed

Jack made the switch this week to his new big-boy bed! We figured it was best he gets used to it before his little sister arrives in a few weeks. (Thanks to the Words for letting us borrow their bed rail!)

Jack made the transition surprisingly well. As we expected, the first night he did get out of bed and come to the door a few times after we first put him down. But when he got tired enough, he fell asleep and didn't wake up all night. It also only took him one day of not napping well to adjust to the bed, and since then he's been fine at naptime.

He does enjoy his freedom in the bedroom at night. He usually gets up at least once to wander around his room and play with things, and he's recently discovered that he loves knocking on the wall by his bed. Yesterday, I went in to wake him from his nap because we needed to get in the car to head up to Michigan. I discovered that after our nanny had put him down to bed, he apparently got up and put his shoes back on, and then fell asleep that way.

Doughnuts

Jack was hamming it up for the camera on Sunday. Andy was out of town for the weekend, so Jack and I spent some quality time together. We went to the grocery store, and as a treat I bought a pack of little doughnuts. Despite his usual aversion to messy food, Jack gobbled them right up. Looking back, black was probably not the ideal shirt color to be wearing.


All done!

Pool party

Congratulations to our friends Dan, Sarah, and Lillian Flynn, who became a family of four last Friday with the birth of their son Colin James Rock Flynn!!



On Sunday, we went to a birthday party for Chloe, the daughter of our friends Rachel and Bobby. The party was at this awesome pool in Glenview. As usual, Jack was a little hesitant about getting in the pool, but at least he had fun with all the water spouts and fountains.


Jack's one trip down the slide didn't go over very well. This picture shows up too small on the blog for you to really see the look of terror on Jack's face.

Jack was a big fan of the food. Here he is chowing down with Sammy Murante.

Fun around the house

I'm slowly getting around to taking pictures of our new home. Here are some pictures of what really sold us on the house--this huge, double-lot backyard. The grass needs mowing, and some of the bushes need trimming, but this at least shows you the size. Jack and Lou both love the space (see Lou in the top right scampering back toward Andy as they were playing fetch with a tennis ball).

A view of the back side of the house.

Jack seriously concentrating on pushing his dumptruck.

Jack testing out the little chair we bought for him.

Lou, worn out from all the running.


And inside the house, Jack continues to have fun in his toy room. The 3 boys were wrestling around on the bean bags the other night.



Jack showing his skills at landing (or not) on the bean bags.

Finally!

Today was the big exam day. For those of you that don't know, I've been studying for close to a year now to take the exam to become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). If you don't work in the health care field, you probably don't have a clue what that means, but basically it's the highest certification possible in the field of lactation.

In order to qualify to take the exam, I had to obtain over 1,000 hours of working with moms and babies, and training staff in breastfeeding (this was in addition to meeting certain education background and continuing education requirements). I've been studying for most of this past year; obviously from my education and work experience I already had a good background, but some studying was necessary to bone up on maternal/infant pathology, drug interactions, specialized medical equipment, etc.

I won't get the exam results until October, and I don't want to jinx anything, but I'm cautiously optimistic about how things went. One of the first things I did afterward was go to a bookstore! It's been a long time since I've allowed myself to read anything other than study materials :)

And, just because blog entries without pictures aren't as interesting, here's one of Jack I took a couple months ago and never posted. He was at a birthday party and had just finished a cupcake.