The Baranko Family: A Maternal Birthday

This year my birthday fell on Mother's Day. How nice to be able to combine these two special days! Both were well recognized by Matt and my family and friends, thanks everyone:) Obviously it has been a great year, capped off by my little girlie joining our family.

We did a bunch of other fun things this week that I, of course, documented.

Monday afternoon Matt and I went canoeing on the Des Plaines River near our house. So fun!

Wednesday we met Justin, Sara, Orrin (4) & Lila (1) at the Brookfield Zoo and enjoyed a gorgeous day there.

Orrin and Luke were so cute together. They would hold hands and run around looking at the animals. Luke would spontaneously hug Orrin, too.

We went to the Dinosaurs Alive special exhibit there. Matt held up Luke to see inside one of the dinosaurs mouths (they move) and Luke cries out "No! Don't eat me!"

Excavating these dinosaur bones was Luke's favorite part of the exhibit.

Picnic lunch at the zoo

Sara and Orrin

Justin and Lila

That night we took Donna out for dinner at a local train themed restaurant. Luke LOVED it. They actually bring your food out on a little train, it is so cute.

Donna and Emil's flowering bushes and trees were in bloom at the old house, it was beautiful!

Friday night we celebrated my birthday and Mother's Day with Donna & Emil.

Mother's Day honoree.

Making Claire laugh.

Marvelous flower bouquet from Matt.

Saturday we headed up to WI and had a playdate with the Yttre family before the birthday party that my Mom & Dad hosted for me with my extended family. Here is Andrea and I with our babies, her third baby girl Eloise is 8 months already!

Josie, Isabelle and Luke had a grand time playing together. This is them in their little fort.

Elmbrook Swim Club pizza time! Tastes exactly the same as when Andrea and I made them:)

Birthday party - Mel dawg with the Claire dawg

Pattie & Doug were in town from CA, so they were able to attend the party, too.

Sunday we had a fabulous Mother's Day gourmet brunch at the lakefront restaurant, Coast, in Milwaukee. Cheers to the Moms! Me with my Mom and Claire with her Mom:)

Melissa with her Grand-Mom!

Now on to the importance stuff, like a few cute pictures of Claire throughout the week and updates on Luke's adorable antics. Claire is a standing fool, she almost always wants to be standing if she can help it. She really is getting so strong. She also is "talking" up a storm. If you make eye contact and talk to her, she makes all these verbalizations back at you. Her little sounds are freakin' adorable, I can't describe them as anything else but her trying to talk. She's so chatty already, I love it!

We accessorized her workout outfit with a flower!

Adorable tutu personalized outfit from Kristin, Cory & PJ.

We accessorized this outfit with tights and little ballet shoes. She's all ready for Swan Lake! Accessorizing this baby is such fun!

The cutest thing that Luke has been doing lately is that when he wants to interrupt adults who are talking he says, "Excuse me, guys." but he doesn't pronounce it correctly and it sounds like "Ex-snooze me, guys." We told him that it was good manners to say "Excuse me" if he must interrupt someone, but now he is definitely abusing it. The concept of "only occasionally is this acceptable" is a little hard for his 2 year old brain to grasp so far. Anyway, he says "Ex-snooze me, guys" over and over at escalating volumes until you stop the adult conversation you were having and say, "Yes, Luke, would you like to say something?" then he may or may not actually have anything to say. About 80% of the time he just says "Ex-snooze me" again and then smiles at you with nothing to say, just wanting the attention back on him. Heaven forbid it leave him for more than a nanosecond!

After finishing his alphabet puzzle he likes to run up and down it and try not to slip and fall while doing so. The look of pride on his face when he finishes one of his puzzles should be bottled, it is awesome.