CHICAGO

We took a weekend road trip to Chicago during Aug 2-5. We had a super fun time!

 The drive is about 6 hours if you don't have babies. It took us about 8 hours each way because of breastfeeding and road work. It wasn't too bad though because the boys were easy to entertain and slept a lot.

 We stayed in a hotel near the airport, away from the expensive hotels in the city.

On Saturday morning, we met up with the Hill family to go to the beach at Lake Michigan. All summer long, Tanner has constantly been asking to go to the beach. So it was really cool to be able to tell him, "We're going to the beach today!!" And we were pleasantly surprised at how beautiful it was! 

 Tanner touched the water a little bit here and there. But he mostly dug in the sand, filling sand buckets, dumping them, and filling them again.

 Jeremy had some bonding time with Brian's little girl. She's 3. He played out in the waves with her. Funny thing, the water was really shallow, so Jeremy is sitting on his bottom.

There was lots of wind, so Dallin had a hard time breathing. But he was such a good boy!

Later that day, we rode the train downtown the Wriggly Field to see a Cubs game. Jeremy was thrilled and I was intrigued. They have stands across the street on top of houses and buildings! This stadium had a different feel from others we've been to. People were authentic- they were there for the game and for the love of baseball, not for glitzy entertainment.

 Once again the boys did great! We took our big, brand new double stroller and I just fed Dallin in discrete places when he was hungry. 

 On Sunday, we went to church in the suburbs. Then we had our taste of Chicago deep dish pizza. It was super yummy! One interesting difference: they put the cheese on the crust first, then the tomatoes.

 We spent Sunday afternoon at the Field Natural History Museum. Tanner loved the dinosaur exhibit, especially since we are really into the TV show called "Dinosaur Train" on PBS. In some of the exhibits, he marched and crawled around saying "I'm a T-Rex. I'm a T-Rex."

 Here's our new stroller! I love it! When Tanner gets bigger, we can change it so that he stands on it while we push him and the baby around.

 For Sunday dinner, we were treated yummy food at the Hill's house. Tanner had a great time playing dolls and games with the girls.

Look at how much they've grown! Tanner and his friend are only 1 week apart. 

Tanner is giving her a kiss.

Look at these great dads!

Monday we went to Millenium Park. It was so cool!

Here's what I looked like pushing the boys around. 

While we were at the Chicago Cultural Center & Museum, Jeremy figured out the stroller has a special feature for looking at ceilings.

I had no idea that Chicago is such a neat city. We only scraped the tip of the iceberg during our short visit. There will be more visits to come! We especially enjoyed our time with the Hills. They are great friends and examples to us! 

Here is the only family picture we got on the trip. It's was taken after the Cubs game, so we all look a little haggard, but it's the best we could do! 

Photo Journal

Here are some photos of us during the last two weeks of July!

The boys love it when Jeremy makes them fly at the same time.

Jeremy loves his new workout room in the basement. He's been working out 2-3 times a week down there.

 Tanner often joins him and actually lifts weights, too! (with Jeremy's help, of course) This is Tanner's bar for bench pressing. Tanner also does stretches and sit-ups with Daddy. It's adorable.

 Tanner is getting good at using the camera. Here's a shot he took of me. 

 Tanner took this pic of me and Dallin.

 Jeremy comes home for lunch almost everyday. We only live 5 min from the office. It's awesome! Sometimes he can catch a snooze before going back to work.

 Dallin can fit into these newborn flip-flops!

 One evening, we went to the driving range. Jeremy wanted to warm-up for a golf tournament later that week.

We spent a Saturday up in Minneapolis. Half of the day was spent shopping for furniture. We spent 2 hours at Furniture Mart and 4+ hours at IKEA.

 After furniture shopping, we went to a Twins baseball game at the brand new stadium, very snazzy.

Tanner LOVED being at the "base-uh-ball field." He thinks the actual sport is called Base-uh-ball Field. Tanner intently watched a lot of the game. He soon noticed that the batters drop their bat before running to first base. He was really concerned about that. "Oh no! He drop-it bat! He need get bat! Running in circles." 

Tanner really enjoyed a race that some mascots did between innings. Skeetah won the race. After the mascots left the field and the next inning started, Tanner was still yelling, "Go Skeetah! Goooo! Yay, Skeetah!! Yay Skeeeetaaaahhhh!" I didn't realize how much he was yelling until the people in front of us turned around and gave us mean looks.

 We had awesome seats up close, behind homeplate. We got 4 free tickets from Jeremy's work, so we invited some friends from church to join us. It was a great time!!

 Tanner loves his easle from IKEA. 

Dallin is such a wonderful baby! Lately, he has been in love with his hands, sucking and slobbering on them every chance he gets. He is getting stronger and has rolled over several times back to tummy and tummy to back. He likes tummy time about ten minutes at a time. He loves his entertainment sets with toys that dangle in front of him and he is getting very deliberate about touching and trying to grab them. And boy, does he grunt! We call him our little Grunter because he grunts when he's hungry, happy, angry, tired, gassy, anything. He's been trying to laugh, but mostly just grunting is what he can get out. When we talk to him, he lights up and starts cooing, hooting, buzzing his lips, squawking, and echoing us. He also does this with one of his toys- the hanging giraffe. What a sweetheart!  

Tanner loves doing tummy time and playtime with Dallin. He seems to understand better now how to be silly with the baby without hurting him. But there are still plenty of times that Tanner pulls hard on Dallin's arms, or smothers him with a blankie or stuffed animal, or accidentally rolls onto him while playing on the ground. Most of the time, Dallin doesn't seem to mind. What a trooper!

Dallin sleeps well anywhere we put him. As long as he is wrapped up tightly, he does well on our bed, on the floor, in his swing, in our arms, etc. The carseat is a little harder for him to sleep in because we can't wrap him very well. But if we jiggle or rock it for a solid 3-5 minutes, he goes out pretty well!

I love how happy Dallin gets! Every time he wakes up we are greeted with smiles!

Tanner is becoming a busy little bee with his writing, drawing, reading etc. The big calculater is his "puter" (computer). He is such a hard worker! He also has a chore now- he unloads all our silverware from the dishwasher and puts them in their proper places in the drawer.

 Tanner works so hard that he often makes lots of messes. He decided that finger painting was over rated. Spreading paint with a sponge all over the counter was a much better way of expressing himself.