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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Happy Birthday to Grandma & Grandpa Mackus!

Before we get to this week's news, Happy official birthdays to my Dad (March 24th) and my Mom (March 27th)!!  Here's to a great year ahead!  Love you both so much!

From last week's blog entry at their birthday party.
Last Saturday I had the good fortune to host a potluck picnic brunch for several of my friends from business school and their kids.  Originally this brunch was planned for a time when I thought the kitchen would SURELY be done (don't call me Shirley!), but alas,the date crept up and it was not so.  Instead of cancelling or rescheduling we turned it into more of a picnic in our house.  Bethany and Tonya brought the main dishes, and everyone else brought the rest.  It worked out great!  I can't believe we had five kids under 16 months there, can you tell we all waited to finish school and then had babies right away?
Amy Huebner, Katherine & Luke, me, Keli, Bethany & Rio, Kathleen & Jordan, Tonya & Drew (Liz & Charlie not pictured)
There are Liz & Charlie!
Enough seating for 8 adults& two high chairs - loving this new space!

Play area set up next to table
As for the rest of the week, we were thrilled to have a visit from Andrea, Ivy and Josie Yttre on Friday evening.  Sunday we went to Downers Grove to visit with Grandma and Grandpa Baranko.
Josie checking out the new-to-her toy action


Luke is definitely becoming so much more of a little person now.  He can sit up on his own (Matt and I saw him sit up for the first time on the video monitor) and is so good at playing with his toys. He is getting really mobile, much better at the army crawl and even starting to move on all fours.  The other new development is a discovery of his tongue.  He is starting to stick it out more and more, and also like to blow raspberries.  See for yourself here.

Adorableness

 
I'm going in after 'ya toys!

Tired out after my play date on Saturday

Awwww
Food is FUN! 

In my newly assembled high chair


We're in Week 8 of kitchen remodel and not much new to report from the past week.  We got our refrigerator installed last week, which was very fun, and the rest of our cabinets that had to be reordered due to a sizing issue came in.  But TOMORROW is the big day!  Countertops will be installed, then it will be a domino effect of progress.  The plumber, the electrician, the heating guy, the backsplash guy, everyone...they'll be ready to rock!  Stay tuned, there may have to be a special report. 

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Birthday Party & Play Date

This week was fairly uneventful.  Luke continued with his culinary discoveries by trying avocado and banana for the first time.  He loved avocado, it was very smooth and went down easily.  The banana was his first sweet food, and he seemed to like it, but spit a lot of it out too:)  Donna and Emil came over Friday night for a visit and we ordered in a delicious fish fry.

The weekend was busy though.  Matt headed to Purdue with his friends, and Luke and I headed to Wisconsin for a visit.  Saturday we hung out at Mom and Dad's in the morning, then went over to Aunt Susan's house to celebrate all of the March birthdays.  We had a great time!


Jessica, Melissa and Katie - Birthday Girls

Lounging watching the basketball game


Mom and Dad - Birthday Couple
On Sunday we had a fun play date at Andrea's house after a little family time in the morning.  Abby, Kristin and PJ, Jen Miller and Elise (just moved here from CA) all came for a visit.  So fun!!!  Josie and Luke are exactly the same size and starting to be so much more interactive with each other.  Thanks for hosting Andrea.

Grandma and Grandpa playing with their grandkids by the toy box:)
Abby had her hands full!

Josie and Lukers had a great time rolling around on the ground together:)  


All the kiddos - Elise, PJ, Josie, Luke, Isabelle

Jen and Elise
PJ and Ivy got along famously
 Not really any news to report on the kitchen front.  We're on week 7 and playing the waiting game on our countertops.  Hoping to get some appliances in before the end of the week!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Sweet Potato Pie

After all that happened last week, you'd think this kid would take a week off.  But no!  He forges on, constantly learning, growing and eating at a ferocious pace.

This week we introduced his first baby food outside of rice cereal.  Sweet Potato for our Sweetie Pie.  He liked it so-so.  The consistency of the pureed sweet potato (mixed with milk of course) was still thicker than the rice cereal ever was, and it was so funny watching him trying to swallow it.  You could see his little brain thinking hard about it.  The rice cereal had just sort of slid down his throat, but this food took some actual swallowing!  I'll be honest, most of it ended up on his bib.  He would mix it around in his mouth than slowly spit it out.  You have to start somewhere though:)



The game he is REALLY into now is peek-a-boo.  He loves it.  Take a look.

I've been afraid to jinx it by mentioning it on the blog, but Luke has been sleeping really well for the past couple weeks.  Through the night for the most part!  It has been amazing.  It took only one night of Ferberizing, and really not that bad compared to some of the stories I've heard.

So other than food and sleep, the Luke news is just that he is growing up and becoming so much more interactive.  He wants to grab everything in sight!  I think Allison calls this "octopus arms" and she is right!  He is such a wiggler too.  He used to just be content to be held in your arms, but now he is climbing you, wiggling to grab something, turning to look at something else, you name it.  He's hard to hold onto!

We're on Week 6 of kitchen remodel, and I'm proud to say we have cabinets!  Yay!  Cabinets really help make the space you're going to have come alive, and we love it.  I am already picturing kitchen usage occasions big and small - from hosting Thanksgivings to running in for a snack at commercial breaks.  It is going to be so amazing, open and versatile.  Now that all the dust part is over, we moved our kitchen table over to where our dining room table used to be.  Having that wall down really opens that space up too - and we were able to put the leaf in the kitchen table and still have plenty of room.  With such a big table Matt tried out our little chair for Luke, and it has been working great with all of this eating he's doing.  Now we're kind of in a holding pattern until the countertops come in.  They were measured for and ordered yesterday and should take about two weeks.  The end is in sight!


The only other bit of interesting news left to share for the Baranko Family is that I gave blood for the very first time on Monday through a blood drive at work, and I passed out!  I was still sitting in the chair, almost done filling my bag of blood, when I suddenly felt extremely light headed.  The next thing I knew I was coming to, totally disoriented, surrounded by strangers.  Very weird feeling to say the least.  I'm quite the rookie!

Last weekend we had a really nice low key couple of days at home.  We went for a walk to admire the buds on the trees, and Matt pointed out my tulip bulbs starting to pop through (I'm very proud, I planted bulbs for the first time last Fall).  That means Spring is almost here - as also experienced through daylight savings time.  I don't know about all of you, but I have Spring Fever.  Actually, it is more like Summer Fever.  I can't wait for Summer and our pool to be open!  It is so fun!  Soon enough.  Until then I'll just snuggle with my sweet baby boy and cutie hubby:)

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Benchmarks

What an amazing week it has been.  Not only did Luke turn 6 months old AND sort of start to crawl, he also had his first solid food feeding outside of his bottle.  Matt and I mixed up a little rice cereal in a bowl, and fed him with a spoon for the first time.  He didn't really know what to make of it, but he started getting the hang of it.




This week we also had Luke's 6 month photos taken.  There were so many cute ones!  He did great, falling over only once during his seated shots.  Mostly he was very smiley.


Luke had his 6 month doctor appointment on Monday and here are the stats:

Weight: 17 lbs. 6 ounces, 50th percentile
Length: 26 3/4 inches, between 50-75th percentile
Head Circumference: 43 3/4 cms, 50th percentile

The doctor says he is in great health.

The kitchen is also making good headway.  The drywall got mud, taped and sanded.  The wood floor was patched and the tile was patched so now the floor is totally done!  Everything was primed and most of it painted.  It is ready for cabinets on Thursday, yay!!



Here are some other cute shots from the week, including our fun visit with Nathan and Ben Sosne on Saturday.




Friday, March 4, 2011

Breaking News!

Our baby is 6 months old, can you believe it?  AND to mark the occasion he started crawling!!!  Brilliant child!  Ok -it is more like an inchworm army crawl, but it still counts:)

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Sit Ups & Daddy's Birthday

This past weekend was busy!  Saturday night Matt and I went to Les Miserables downtown for Matt's birthday.  The show was amazing and we had a fun date night.  We were very lucky to have Katie come into town just in time to babysit Luke.

Sunday was Matt's actual 33rd birthday.  His first birthday as a Daddy.  We celebrated, sans kitchen of course, with a little get together with Katie, Kristin, Cory and PJ.  We had a nice nature walk and some presents, cake and ice cream.

White Sox ROCK!
"Dad's Awesome" - you got that right!


The ladies
Family Pic

Snow babies



Updates for this week:

Kitchen -We passed our inspections after a few minor adjustments which meant we were clear to put in the drywall on Tuesday.  It is really coming together!


Lukeroni and Cheese - He can do sit ups!  Take a look for yourself.  Does he have abs of steel or what?  He also is really good at sitting up all by himself.  Last week he was sitting up by himself, but falling over almost immediately.  Now he is staying seated for long periods of time, playing with his toys.