It has been a crazy few weeks at our house, our NEW house that is. For those of you who may not know, we have finally finished our rennovation and moved! Yeah!! We are finally getting unpacked and settled in and we love it. Granted, it is not too much diffenent from our old place but it is bigger and better. We have listed our old condo with a realtor and are keeping our fingers crossed.

Gracie is one!! My how time flies. She has changed so much in the last month. She has left babyhood in the dust and is a full fledged toddler. The picture is of Grace eating cake at her first birthday party. She had a mini cake all to herself, and she ate it all. Such a mess, and so much fun!

We had a great halloween this year. The whole family came over to Cindy and Steve's and we took Lucy, Jia, Dalton, and Gracie trick-or-treating. Grace really didn't get it, but we took her door to door and she held onto her basket with all the loot. There were a pack of grandparents at our heels armed with cameras and camcorders. When we had had enough, we all gathered back at the house for a big meal. We spent the night and left the next morning to work on our condo. It's almost done!!! We are doing all of the finishing work and cleaning up from the construction mess. We hope to be moving in next week.

There is a church by our house that has become a pumpkin patch for the season. We took Grace there to pick out her first pumpkin. She crawled around in the hay and tested several pumpkins before deciding on a large crooked one. On halloween, we are going to Bourbonnais for trick-or-treating and mom's sloppy joes. Grace is going to be a chicken!

All Hallows Couture

Lucy and Jim turn 3!!

We had two birthdays, one party, and some of Grandma Ellen's world famous cinnamon rolls at the end of September.

Grace goes to Vermont!

We just got back from a weekend trip to Burlington, VT where we attended cousin Bill Simmon's wedding. We flew out on Saturday and spent three nights there. The weather for the most part was beautiful and our hotel was directly across the street from the mall, what's a girl to do?? The wedding was Sunday, we had such a great time. Grace had fun showing off her moves on the dance floor (really it's just rocking back and forth but don't tell her that). She was entranced while watching the older kids dance. They would run up and give her a hug- I am sorry to say I don't have a picture of that because it was so cute.

On Monday we went to Church Street and had a Simmon family + Richie and Julie pub crawl. Church St. is a quaint, brick paved street full of bars, restaurants, and shops. I think we made it to six bars before calling it quits and heading to dinner. On Tuesday we flew home and are back to work on our rennovation. The new concrete floor is poured and Grant is at this moment working down there with our carpenter building the walls. It is fun to watch as the dungeon-like basement transforms into a beautiful master suite, I will post pics soon. Cheers!

I just got these photos from my friend Heather and thought that I would share them. Heather is a friend from St. John who now lives in Austin and was in town for the weekend. This was the best sailing day we had all season. It was a beautiful afternoon in August and we were out on Jug Band with some friends from Chicago and a couple of friends from the islands.

Nine months and growing

Grace had her nine month visit with Dr. McGarry last week and everything is right on track. She has done a lot of growing since her last visit. She is no longer in the 10th percentile for size, she is now in the 25th for weight and 75th for length! She weighs a whopping 17lbs, 4oz.

In other news, my charter season pretty much wraps up after this week. We still have some cruises but I will have much more free time. I am looking forward to putting some time into the new condo to paint and get it to move in condition. We have hit a few bumps in the project, but we are back on track. Grant sandblasted the brick that is going to remain exposed and it looks great. The plumber is starting the "rough in" today for the bathroom. I have no idea what that means but it sounds labor intensive.

Well, where has the summer gone? It seems that once you have a baby time starts flying by at warp speed. Grace is already 8 1/2 months old! We bought the second condo and have been busy starting the renovations. We hope to be done and moving in two months, we will keep our fingers crossed. When we are not working on the condo, we have been busy working our jobs. August is my busiest month for charters, and I have really been enjoying this season.

Grace is more mobile than ever. She does not ever want to sit still unless she is going to sleep, I am sensing real trouble in the years to come! I have heard stories about one year old Grant dive bombing off of furniture. I don't know wheather to be proud or terrified but Grace seems to have her daddy's sense of fearlesness and adventure!

Grace & Leo

Well, Grace is officially crawling- fast. No more of that flopping forward nonsense, she knows where she wants to go and she means business. Now that she has realized that she is mobile, she is suddenly EVERYWHERE! I set up the pack and play in the living room for her to play in but she presses her face against the side and yells to get out. She likes to be on the floor with the freedom to go where she pleases. I have figured out how to fit together all of the furniture in my living room to make a "Gracie pen" so that she thinks she is on the loose but can't get into any trouble. Today I saw her pull herself up to standing using the ottoman to our chair.

This week has been another busy one. We spent the first part of the week in Bourbonnais visiting with parents and grandparents. We stayed out at the Simmon's house and got to spend an afternoon relaxing there. I took a nap in the hammock, it was bliss. We also had a barbacue at the Billadeau's with burgers, brats, beers, and swimming. On Monday we had a wonderful lunch at the country club with Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Strand. That night we went to Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Serve's house for dinner. It was Jia's birthday on Wednesday and Grandma baked her a cake and we she opened presents. Grant and I got her a "band in a bucket" with several instruments in it. She loved it because she can now hear the music!

We have decided to buy another condo unit in the building we live in now. Our neighbor is moving out of the country and we were able to make a deal with him before he put his unit on the market. His unit is almost the same as the one we are in now, but it is a little bigger. He has the unfinished basement space below his unit that he has not started work on yet, so once we close we will begin the renovation project. We are excited to get started!

We got back from our week in Orlando late last night. We had such a great time! The Przylucki girls (Uncle Tom couldn't make it but we missed him!) came down for a few nights and we had a blast. It was a vacation of firsts for Gracie. She took her first airplane ride on which she slept for the first half an wiggled around in our arms for the second half- no crying! She went swimming for the first time, she loves the pool but was scared of the ocean. She crawled forward for the first time. It was really more of a flop forward, but hey at least it is in the right direction. She is also cutting her first tooth!

We spent a couple of days just lounging by the pool and drinking margaritas. We also had a beach day and a shopping day at the outlet mall. The guys went golfing and to the Nasa space center. On Monday we all went to the Universal Islands of Adventure roller coaster park. They have an option for people with babies that allows one person to go to the front of the line and wait with the baby while the rest of the group rides. When the ride is over you swap babysitters and ride again. This worked out great for us because we all got to ride all of the rides. We ate lunch at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville and ran around the park for the rest of the day. At one point it rained and the park cleared out so there were no lines. Although she was too small for the rides, Gracie spent the day napping in her stroller and smiling at strangers. She almost made it onto the merry-go-round but they kicked her off because she was not wearing shoes! Grandpa Steve didn't agree with this at all so he talked them in to letting her back on. We spent the last day by the pool followed by a truly unforgettable seafood dinner at Downtown Disney- the perfect end to a wonderful trip!

We have had such a busy week! Andersonville Midsummerfest was last week, this is a neighborhood street festival that takes place every year across the street from our house. We spent most of the weekend there eating yummy food and listening to music. This past weekend Grant worked on the tech for the taste of randolph festival in the west loop and I have a couple of charters this week. It feels so good to be working back out on the water again, I didn't realize how much I missed until I got back out there. On Saturday we watched Leo for a couple of hours in the afternoon. He and Grace had a good time rolling around and pulling each other's ears and hair. It is amazing how fast they grow, Leo has two teeth already! We are leaving on Saturday for a week at the Homestar Bank house in Florida. This will be Grace's first trip on an airplane! I am a little nervous about being the people with the screaming baby on the plane, but she is a good little traveler and it is only a 2 1/2 hour direct flight- we shall see. We are so excited to take her to the beach and possibly Disney World!

Is this cute or what??

I apologize for the lack of updates, summer has brought us beautiful weather along with busy schedules. We have been spending as much time as possible outdoors in the sunshine. Grant has been working big shows on most weekends so that has left us much of the week to spend together. Boating season is upon us, so I have started working on the charter boat that I have worked on for the last two seasons. We have inherited a jogging stroller from the Billadeaus and Grace loves it. She will happily sit in it for hours so we have been taking long walks around the neighborhood almost daily. I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer and I promise to update again soon with more Gracie pics!!

On Sunday we celebrated mother's day a week early with the Simmons. We went to the Chicago Yacht Club where they were having a car show, followed by brunch and a sail on Jug Band. This was Gracie's first time sailing and she took to it like a pro (thank god!) At nap time we anchored her seat to the deck and she was quickly rocked to sleep by the waves. It was such a beautiful spring day. There is nothing quite like Chicago in the springtime, I love it!

On Saturday we went to visit Deirdre, Mark, and baby Carter. Carter is getting big just like me! We compared strategies for rolling over, and since I am a whole month older I showed him how to blow a raspberry. After that our parents took us to the park and Carter and I got to swing. What a day!

Life has been pretty much as usual here. Grace is getting bigger by the day. She rolls over both directions now and has started trying to scoot on her stomach to grab toys that are just out of her reach. She is such an active baby she never wants to sit still, I think she will be crawling soon. We also started feeding her peas this week. She makes a face but always cleans her plate!

Our good friends Richy and Julie visited from Vermont. It was Julie's first time to Chicago and Grace was an excellent tour guide. Being a life long Chicago resident herself, Grace knew exactly where to take them. The day started with a trip to the top of the Sears Tower and then a quick bite to eat at Ed Debevic's. Their visit was short but we had a great time.

We had a wonderful Easter weekend. On Saturday Gracie met the Easter Bunny at Homestar Bank's easter egg hunt. She was very excited. This last picture is of four generations of our family, Great Grandma Jean, Grandma Cindy, Nicole, and Grace.

Gracie had her four month doctor visit and she is right on track. She weighed 11lbs 8oz. and is 24 inches long. Dr. McGarry said that we could start to introduce solids to her diet. We have started with rice cereal and she absolutely loves it. She takes bites from a spoon and sort of slurps at it until the cereal is gone. She gets a little bit better at it every day. In a couple of weeks we are going to shake it up a little and try peas!

After visiting Loudon, TN, we we were on our way home when the weather got really bad. There were tornado warnings all over the state and they shut down the highway after one touched down. We knew we were going to have to stop for the night so we detoured to Gatlinburg, TN. Grant spent many family vacations in Gatlinburg so it was extra special for him to be able to bring Grace there. It just so happened that Jaymie and Harry were in the area bike riding some of the Smoky Mountain trails. We met up and decided that it was too good to be true that we were all in the same place at the same time so we decided to extend our trip for a few days and rented a chalet. We rode go-carts, shopped, relaxed, and ate lots of food. Grace had a wonderful time on her first vacation and was a breeze to travel with. She was all smiles all the time and attracted TONS of attention everywhere we went. Every morning Harry worked with Grace on her "tummy time" and by the end of the trip she had learned to roll onto her back all by herself. She is getting so big!