Trick-or-treat!

Halloween = Fun!

Halloween 2009

We headed out to Royal Oak again this year to join in the Halloween festivities. It's such an adorable costumed kid fest! And this year a few of the adults joined in the fun too. Heather and Jeremy put on a great party (loved those witch cupcakes Heather!). Sorry about the pink that Winnie (aka Clifford) left all over the place! Sure was funny though. Gwen is a huge fan of the Big Red Dog right now so she wanted to be Emily Elizabeth. She was even more excited about it when we told her Winnie could be Clifford. Ha! Emmett was adorable as Yoda (so was Jake!). Lots of fun. We'll be on a sugar high for a week.

Army Crawl

So apparently I've forgotten to mention that Emmett is crawling now! It's mostly the army crawl (just like Gwen, without the leg kick), but more and more often he's up on his hands and knees. He'll be speeding around within a week or so. He's already speeding around in the walker! He loves that thing, being able to keep up with Gwen and get where he wants to (like into the potted plant, fun!)

Visiting the Neigh-bors :)

Gorgeous fall day yesterday. I spent quite a few hours working on my computer, but we did make it out for a family walk in the woods and out to the horse pasture next door. Note the white horse...Twinkie is back! (Gwen's favorite, who went elsewhere for many months.)

My baby is 4!

Birthday Weekend

This past weekend we celebrated a lot of things...a fun, home Michigan game, Justin's birthday, and Gwen's birthday! I joined in on the tailgating fun Saturday morning. It was a nice, sunny day and Brit and her group of gals were there, along with my co-worker Ben, and all the other usual suspects. I went home as the game started though so I could prepare for Sunday and be there for Jen and Lynne who were showing up that afternoon.

The game folks had way too much fun tailgating throughout the day, but luckily the girls were able to rally and Jen and I went out later that night to share a few drinks, laughs, and booty shakes together. Rachel took a bunch of photos so hopefully I can share some of those eventually :)

Then on Sunday we had a party for Gwen. She was so giddy all weekend and especially after some of her friends showed up for the festivities; Abby, Kendall, Nick, Barrett, Jake. They had a blow up bouncy thing to play on (thanks Kele!) and lots of new toys to play with. It was chaotic and messy and tons of fun. Thanks to everyone who came and helped out. It's the best thing to see your child so happy. She's growing up into such a wonderful, amazing person. Life is so cool.

Family Roadtrip

Roadtrip!

I'm still tired, but we successfully drove over 1400 miles around the midwest with kids in tow (Winnie stayed with Anne & Justin, thanks guys!), stopped in Cinci, Nashville, and St. Louis, and made it back almost completely tantrum-baby-meltdown free! I'm still smiling about how great the kids were. Emmett was born to ride I think. And Gwen was pretty darn happy about her new movies from the library.

We started Wednesday night after work and made our way to Cinci to see Aunt Jen Jen. This was perfect to break up the drive to Nashville the next day. We made it to DJ & Cherie's by dinner the next day, having a nice, slow morning with Jen before leaving. We spent two nights at the Reyburn's. The kids had a blast together. Iris was in awe of Gwen, Emmett was enamoured by Iris, following her around in her pink walker :) We went to the park together, relaxed, celebrated Gwen's b-day, became late night rock stars after the kids went to bed (my first time playing, what a riot, loved the drums!). Such a great time.

On Saturday, we packed up and headed west... but not before enjoying another nice lazy morning which included chocolate chip pancakes. We made it to St. Louis in time for dinner and the U-M game. This turned out to be another frustrating one, but Brian was the right guy to lighten the mood ("De-nard! De-nard!") On Sunday, we made it out (after "disco breakfast!" and went to the St. Louis Zoo and a beautiful city park to help their friend's little girl celebrate her 3rd bday. Baby James is such a doll and those Rich's are just too much fun.

Yesterday was the big drive home. It took about 10 hours, but that included a birthday stop at Chucky Cheese's outside Indianapolis for Miss Gwen. That helped break up the day, and amazingly the rest all went smoothly.

Thank you to both families for all of their hospitality and generosity. I'm so glad we went for it and made this trip work. Looks like we'll have to put the minivan to use again sometime soon!

No, I'm not having a baby, Marta is!!!

(You probably wouldn't even be able to tell she was prego here if she weren't cradling her belly!)

Yesterday, Anne, Gwen and I went to Canton to attend a baby shower for Marta, my friend and former Q colleague. It's so fun to see her and Tom at this point in their lives. She started at Q right out of college; we got to celebrate Kate's wedding festivities together, and then she was there to watch me go through Gwen's pregnancy and early baby experiences, while at the same time she was getting married!

And now it's her turn to become a mama. Awe. She and Tom are going to be super fun parents. I wonder how young the wee lad will be when he stars in his first homemade movie?!

p.s. And speaking of homemade movies, that's all I've got right now! my Flip video, and while I love it I am totally having camera withdrawl. My #@$ phone doesn't even have a camera. Thankfully, Anne & Justin are going to let me borrow their old digital camera for our road trip this week. We leave on Wednesday for Cinci, Nashville, then St. Louis to visit Jen, the Reyburn's and the Rich's. Wish us luck!

ArtPrize... Grand Rapids wins!

A week ago Friday, I escaped across the state all by my lonesome to join my brother and family in Grand Rapids. We gathered to celebrate Rex; his birthday was the following day and his piece was displayed downtown for ArtPrize. It was so much fun!

We started with dinner out on the Beltline with Rex, Monica, her parents, Dad, and Brit. It was great to be with my dad and siblings like that, just our original family unit. It feels good. We had a few margaritas and lots of laughs. From there we buzzed (in a few senses) downtown to catch a modern dance performance at the Federal Building where an old Portland friend was performing (Autumn Horrocks, I think that's her bending over in the pic below).

We were also able to register to vote in the Federal Building so that was handy. The premise is that you have to come to the city to register, after that you can text your votes in or vote online. They want to drive people to the city, enhance arts and culture there, stimulate business. The winner takes home a $250K prize (funding by the big DeVos' family) I think it totally worked. I was so impressed with the event, the art in so many forms all over town. Businesses and different spaces downtown were the venues.

Rex's work was up in the WMCAT, an art center where they have classes, studio and gallery space. They were throwing a reception that night; a DJ spinning tunes, cocktails, great ambience. Rex's piece is a digital illustration of six comic book covers, each one addresses different art/design concepts and lessons, i.e. the hero is "lost in negative space!" Amazing technique. I geeked out on all the fun plays on terminology he used.

It was during the WMCAT reception that I dropped my camera (while on!) and smushed the lens structure rendering it totally useless from here on out. Tragic!!! I was rather put out by this, especially as the night wore on because I saw so many other cool things. So for this post I had to steal photos (gotta love Flickr!).


Here are a few more ArtPrize highlights. I recommend for anyone in the area to get over to GR to check this stuff out in person. At least Google it and look at more imagery. This guy has a great set. The huge installations in and around the river were stunning. We trekked all over town and later relaxed with more cocktails before hitting the dancefloors at the BOB (big ol bar). Great night. Go Rex, go GR, go ArtPrize!

Woot Woot!

the beginning of the night

the end of the night

Mama's getting her groove back! Ok, ok, so I did get to shake it quite a bit on my trip in NOLA but I have not been out with my favorite ladies, free as a bird, sippin' martinis, and dancing until the wee hours of the morning (you know, like 1:30) in a long, long time! The girls came to Ann Arbor and we left from Kele's. The night started out with big laughs over Kele's shoe oops, trying on different heels and then accidentally wearing them both out to the bars! We laughed so much, danced so hard. I loved, loved, loved it. And of course I had my camera and it was documented well!