a little MIA

I haven't posted in a little while...we were in Dallas for Thanksgiving and got out of the habit of posting.  Jared and I travelled to Austin for an evening alone - the first time since Josh has been born.  We stayed downtown and enjoyed some Rudy's BBQ on the way.  walked around town, missed out on a river tour due to my misreading the website, but we did get to check out 6th streelt.  Drinks at the  Driskill before dinner at Bess Bistro.  We enjoyed breakfast at the Old Pecan Street Cafe - just delicious french toast!  We tried to do a segway tour, but were denied since I'm pregnant.  

We had a family picture taken, ran the Turkey Trot and generally just enjoyed family time.

We checked out the Wonderland Express at the Botanic Gardens.

When we got back, we met Aidan and Sara at Jumps and Jiggles.

Josh and Aidan at the Jumps and Jiggles Carosel

The Brookfield Zoo has an event where they put up a lot of lights to see after night falls.  We would have stayed longer, but it was very cold.

the best family picture we could get at the zoo.

Josh's Big Boy Room

It's time for the Final Reveal...we've teased you with several before and afters along the way...

before we knew we were expecting/started converting his room, this "Blue Room" we used mostly for storage!

all cleared out

big boy bed

Bed dressed in sports themed bedding

the closet before

and during "Construction"

after, with more shelving, drawers and double the closet rod space...plenty of room for him to grow and get more clothes!

the desk and chair, for work or art projects during quiet time

the new blinds

The final decorative touches

baseball knobs on the closet doors

sports themed decals on the wall..easily removed or re-positioned as preferences change

Bean Bag chair for reading quietly

Bookshelf with a lot of room to grow, or borrow from the library

Josh's name welcoming him in.

We hope he'll like it for years to come...he "helped" with most of the construction projects and even over-ruled me for where his name should go on the wall!  Even though the walls are two different shades of blue and the CARPET is blue too, we found that once we picked the bedding, we didn't really need to change the paint color, so luckily that was a big step we never had to take!  Now, on to updating the nursery...we only have about 9 more weeks until she arrives

Blinds

We purchased black out shades from o.co because we knew how much they were a lifesaver in the nursery.

before: the plastic blinds that did little to block the light coming in.

Josh helping again.

they have been great at keeping the sun light out... though now that we have fallen back, it's not so necessary for night time.  Good for nap time though.

Bookshelf

Remember how this shelf unit used to be in the kitchen?   Josh hasn't played with the pots and pan (much to my ears delight) so Jared suggested we move it up to Josh's new room as a bookshelf.

I think it looks great.

Navy Pier Children's Museum

Jared took the afternoon off, so we decided to use our reciprocal membership from the Kohl's Children's Museum to get in to the Navy Pier Children's Museum

They had a pretty interactive fire fighter exhibit.  

Josh up the ladder, with the fire hose

sliding down the pole

they also had a building exhibit

And Kidtown...with a replica of a CTA bus.  Josh liked driving the bus...

Measuring

We had the tape measure out to measure our garage for an upcoming project and Josh really wanted to measure Jared.  The result:  Jared is still 5'11"

snack time at Madden's house