lucyshouse

My brother, sister-in-law and their 4 kids have lived in Wisconsin for about 5 years now… seems crazy!  This was our first visit.  It was wonderful to see them again, to see their cute historic house we’d heard so much about, and experience a nice relaxed mid-west summer, if only for a week.

I did the gallery setting for the pictures, put in the descriptions to each one only to realize you can’t just click through it.  You have to go back for each picture.  UGH!  Kind of dumb the way they have it set up.  I’d do it over again, but I just don’t have the time.  So I hope you don’t mind all the clicking!

Summer is coming to a close, so I thought I better catch up on the trips we took this summer!  We spent a week in the midwest visiting family (more of those pics to come) and flew in and out of Chicago.  On our way out we spent the whole day downtown.  It was hot.  It was humid.  We were outside.  But I still completely fell in love with the city.  If you know me, you know this is a big deal.  Me and heat do not mix and it can overly effect my perspective and/or experience.

Driving in and already hearing the sounds of the city.  Chicago is huge, so I was expecting it to be dirtier… maybe ruder…  You know, major cities have a reputation for that.  I was so pleasantly surprised though because it really was pretty clean and the people there were so nice!  Everyone seemed like they were in a good mood and just friendly.  I was not expecting that! (And people seemed to love talking to little Violet )

This picture makes me laugh because as we were walking I told Dave I really want a picture of me with the kids.  He said, “Okay, why don’t you stand here.”  Then positioned us so we were up against the building where it said, “Marvin & Sons Dentistry” or something mundane like that.  I said, “No, I want a picture of me and the kids WITH THE CITY.”  Dave stared. “Oh.  Right.”  Then we cracked up.  After we left we thought we should have taken a picture of us next to Marvin & Sons just for fun, but it was too late.

We had an evening flight, so our plan was to wear the kids out in the city as much as possible so they would sleep on the plane. Preferably a park, so we wouldn’t overstimulate Drew with all the city noises all day.  We found Grant Park on the iPhone, headed down and were pleasantly surprised since we knew nothing about it.  What a great place for a spur-of-the-moment decision.   Wow!  Buckingham Fountain is completely gorgeous!

I think it was a good idea to try to keep the noises to a minimum.  You can see in this picture little Drew is covering his ears because he didn’t like the sound of the fountain.  You can imagine a fountain that big is pretty loud!  So we only stayed awhile and moved on to check out what else was around.

Oh, have you met my hunky husband?  He looks Irish, but he’s really Puerto Rican. True story.

Collin found a cool beetle we just had to get a picture of… I liked the green and blues that were captured in the background.

We found some shade, got some snacks and drinks and stayed put for awhile. (Remember hot & humid?)

I love this one… the path with the overhanging trees…  It makes me feel like Jr’s about to set forth on a great adventure!

Right across the street from Grant park is THE ENORMOUS Lake Michigan.  It was beautiful and looked like the ocean.  I loved the boats, especially the blue and yellow ones in the distance and had to get a quick picture.

It was a long day back home after our day in Chicago… we were hot, and sweaty and probably stinky, but we didn’t mind.  Although the people on the plane might have not been so thrilled. C’est le vie.

I seriously can’t wait to go back.

A view of the gorgeous Madison State Capitol Building taken on our trip to Wisconsin this summer.  Madison is a beautiful small city with a cool urban feel.  The capitol building is a must see!  It’s huge!  And the inside is to die for!

I don’t know what it is about our kids and apples (see earlier post), but our little girl absolutely loves them!

Bear is mainly non-verbal, but our little dude has been making some vocal strides lately.  The ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) lady’s first visit was Thursday and he was saying tons of different sounds with her!  Like “Ch”, “T,” “Wh”, and “P”.  All sounds we’d never heard him say before!  We were like What the heck!!  Where did all that come from!? He seems to have a hard time with shaping his mouth, so I wasn’t even sure it would be possible without a lot of work. It will still take work for it to be natural… he doesn’t say them unprompted, but wow! What an encouraging sign!

He’s been doing Speech Therapy on and off for about a year and we haven’t seen that type of response.  But ECI knows all the little tricks to hook them in and make it really casual, fun and goofy… thank goodness!   They were encouraging us to be working on the “M” sound and he’s been doing great with that all week.  Asking for milk by saying the “M” sound first, looking for “M” words in books, and of course, playfully saying “M” for mommy at times. He’s been doing great.

In fact, just the last few days he’s been saying Daddy!  You can tell he’s very proud of himself.  He also tries SUPER hard to say apple in the video.  Keep going, Baby Bear!  We’re so proud of you!

That little Baby Bear is one adorable little guy.