Alice has taken an interest in the arts. She IS the granddaughter of Mary Jo O'Hearn, who is an incredible artist, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I think it was surprising that it happened so early in her life. She started coloring before I even thought to introduce crayons to her. She was probably 11 months old and while Jack was coloring she took a marker and tried to draw something on a piece of paper all on her own. So, at 16 months old, I figured she's ready to paint! She was very excited. I didn't even have to show her much more than how to dip the paintbrush in the paint. Then she got right to work.

We have been a family of four for 17 months but we've never had a formal (or informal for that matter) picture taken, which is unheard of for me! Well, that all changed last Saturday when we met this awesome photographer, Amy Tripple, in the forest preserves of Downers Grove. She was amazing and in no time had the kids relaxed and laughing. It was so much more my style of a photo shoot as opposed to the usual sitting in a Sears Studio trying to get the kids to NOT move from a pose. Needless to say, I'm overjoyed with our first series of family photos....

Don't put a pop-up book in your daughter's crib to keep her happy for a little longer, otherwise you'll get THIS:

Now, I of course I know better than to do something like that, but here's what happened: On Saturday morning, Jack crawled in our bed at 6am and I was really hoping we could get another hour of sleep in. Not 2 minutes later, Alice starts calling me from her crib (Her new thing is to say Mama over and over again until I answer-Cute at first...not so much anymore!), so Jack whispers, "Mom, Alice is calling her you have to go get her!" So I say half-jokingly, "Why don't YOU go get her." And I thought he'd say no, and that he's not big enough or whatever, but he jumped out up and said, "SURE!" Yes! I scored at least a FEW more minutes in my bed! So, I listened as Jack went into her room, and he started talking to her the same way that I do, with the exact same intonations and everything. "Good morrrning, Alice! Did you have a nice sleep? Do you want to get up?" She squealed when she saw him, and then they played peek-a-boo and giggled together for a few minutes. It was really sweet. At some point he must have offered her a book, but I never looked in her crib when I came in the room to get her out. It wasn't until the next morning when I discovered that SHE discovered this book in her bed at some point and decided to totally disassemble it. I swear, of all the pop-up books we own, Jack NEVER tore one of them. It's this 2nd child thing! They don't get as closely supervised, therefore they should NOT get POP-UP books. Because now, most of our pop-up books are books of animals and insects missing heads, tails, wings, and legs. Lesson learned.

I love that Halloween fell on a Saturday this year. It made us be able to spread out all the things we had planned over a few days, rather than try to cram it all into one. So, first it began at school. Jack participated in his first school Halloween parade. He was dressed as one of his favorite racecars, Lightning MCQueen (And it was perfect since he Vrooms all over the place). All of the preschool and kindergarten students walked the halls as they were applauded by the older kids (to which one of my students exclaimed, "They LOVE us!" It was priceless). Since I'm the kindergarten teacher at the school, this is something I always am a part of, so it was kind of surreal for me to see Jack parading along with us! But there he was....Proud and as happy as can be. When he saw me, I was holding a student who was having a hard time. Jack waved at me and then walked up to me and rubbed my arm with a big grin on his face and then continued on his way with his class- It just melted my heart and broke it at the same time because I couldn't hug him and he was ok with that. It is so hard sometimes to have to devote more of myself to other people's children when my very own son is right there. But in the end, he knows that he's always going to be my #1 guy.Then the fun shifted to the adults! Friday night was our night. Jamie was invited to an exclusive party through work at the Alhambra Palace downtown. So we got dressed up and headed out in full pirate gear:The party was really something to see. Hundreds of his fellow employees all dressed in ridiculous costumes drinking and dancing in a huge room with vaulted ceilings, velvet curtains and a gorgeous Moroccon decor (I wish I had brought my camera, but I left it in the car! Believe me, it was awesome). We decided to try Moroccan food since we were there. We found a table and had a very delicious and savory meal (I think mine was called Chicken Tangine? Yum). And, while it was fun to people-watch and enjoy the atmosphere, we weren't there to get wasted like most of the party-goers there were and we had another party to hit. So, we headed off to Kerry and Matt's house. This was a much smaller gathering of mostly my siblings and a few other friends of theirs. But it was Bert and Ernie--I mean, Kerry and Matt's first official party at their new house! This is Erin as Kiera, from Xanadu...A movie I loved to watch with my sisters as kids. We had a really fun time.

A few funny things have happened over the past several weeks-All involving 3-year-old conversations, which is always entertaining!

I celebrated my 32nd birthday last weekend, and it was really a great one. I was able to see many of my friends and family throughout the week. It kicked off on Thursday night with a little dinner at Emilio's tapas restaurant with my "old school" friends (The handful of girls whom I've known since I was 5). It was really nice and low key--MUCH different than how we used to celebrate! We laughed about how nice and quiet the restaurant was and how we were happy that we would be home before 11 (In our defense, it WAS a weeknight!).