Lucky number 11

Claire is 11 months!  

Here are her stats:

22 lbs

29.75 inches

Can hardly get her to stay still to take one picture!  

Luke wanted his turn in front of the camera, and for once he posed for a picture!

Last visit before the grand-birds fly south for the winter

Fresh off our visit to Arizona we headed up north to spend the weekend with my parents before they left for Florida for three months.  The snowbirds were flying south, so we had to squeeze in our last visit.  The next time we see them we'll all be in sunny FL!

We had a great weekend.  We celebrated Claire's first birthday a little early with them, we visited Milwaukee's Betty Brinn Children's Museum for the first time, and even introduced Luke to the awesomeness that is Gille's custard.  We all had our treats, then when we were getting back in the car to go home Luke says:  "I'm a little bit cold from my Wednesday." All of us were like:  "Huh?"  Then Matt realized what he meant and said "Luke, it's called a sundae, buddy."  Hahaha!  Definitely a cutie!

Reading books with Grandma

Matt's height came in handy to paint the edging up near the ceiling.

Luke slid down this from the top to the bottom, it was so steep!

Tandem snow angels, awww

Presents for Claire Bear

She liked her new recordable storybook

Let's Go Fishin' crab game still a big hit for all ages!

Popcorn and movies with Grandpa

Shopping for a basket of tomatoes at the children's museum

Calatrava in the background

"What are you building down there?"  That tower  to the left was just one of her many architectural designs.

Grandma's angel - hand me down from Grandma's first angel grand baby

Luke loved the museum and didn't want to leave

Jimmy sundaes, or should I say Sundays?

Homemade first birthday cake

Yum yum… I could say this was her first bite of cake and/or sugar…but I'd be lying so I won't!

Arizona

We took our first family trip out to Tucson and it was awesome!  With both the Carpenter's and the Richardson's there it was perfect.  Everything with these guys is just easy and fun.  Time zipped by and it felt like as soon as we got there we were packing up to head home.  The super warm weather was a wonderful reprieve from the uber cold winter we've been having back home.  Thanks for being such great hosts!

Luke was so excited to see PJ and she wasted no time showing him around her house,

The work that K&C have done to their home and yard is AMAZING.  My favorite part is the backyard.  Between the views and the landscape and the awesome "adjust the amount of sunshine to your liking" ramada lounge area, it is the best.

Note their toes touching.  They are so cute.

Desert dog walk

Look at all four of these kids interacting together!  Warms my heart.

Katie & Joe had us over for dinner one night, so we got a chance to see all the awesome work they've done to their house too.  Beautiful!  I very much admire the interior design and frankly, the impressive lack of clutter (especially compared to my house!) in both Katie and Kristin's houses.

Girls & kids head to the Desert Museum while the guys golf 18 holes

The guys had an awesome day together.  

We left the men home with the kids and us gals went out to a yummy dinner and concert date.

Pink Martini!!  The best.

My first time to Old Tucson and we all had a blast.  Luke said it was his favorite part of the trip.  We wasted no time getting an authentic stage coach tour of the whole place.

Yummy Mexican lunch.  I told Kristin I couldn't go to AZ and not eat Mexican food, so she found a way to squeeze it in for me:)

Last night in Tucson so we took advantage with a group dinner out to Oregano's

Before leaving on Tuesday we celebrated Christmas with K, C & PJ.

We had a bit of a delay getting back to Chicago, but the kids did great!

Phew!  Looks like we can carry her on after all.