Halfway There...

Matt and I had planned on taking Quinton to the Museum of Science and Industry on Friday, as part of Quinton's birthday week festivities. Instead, we decided we wouldn't have too many opportunities to take Quinton to a Cubs game, this season, so we ended up picking up tickets at the last minute and headed to Wrigley Field for the Cubs vs. Cardinals game.

Unfortunately for us, the Cubs didn't win, but it was so FUN to take Quinton to his first MLB game at Wrigley Field!

The score shows us "Halfway There" in the ninth inning but the score stayed the same until the end.

One of Quinton's favorite parts of the day was taking the EL down to Wrigley Field. It's actually a lot of fun because as you stop at each stop, more and more Cubs fans start filling the train cars.

This is Quinton's method of passing the time on the train...


And entertaining everyone on the train...

Practicing his dance moves for the game. I think he was hoping to make an appearance on the Jumbotron.

We met up with Matt, just as the game started. If you can see the Wrigley sign, we were already down by 8 in the 2nd inning!

See, I was there, too!

I don't just write this blog, I actually appear in pictures every once in a while. Kind of like a "Where's Waldo" deal!

Our lovely seats in the upper bleachers.

This is Quinton as we stood up in the 7th inning to sing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game". Quinton made it to the bottom of the 6th inning before passing out.
Okay, this is a funny side story worth telling. The guy in the picture below was sitting about 6 seats away from us. A different group of guys directly behind us dubbed this furry dude, "Cowbell," because he looked like Will Ferrell's character in the infamous Saturday Night Live Cowbell skit featuring Christopher Walken.

The one guy directly behind us kept saying COWBELL, COWBELL, COWBELL! He would then pretend he had a cowbell and dance and pretend he was hitting the imaginary cowbell. The whole time, the guy in the picture below would NOT look our way. Maybe you had to be there, but I was almost falling over laughing!

Half of the fun of going to a game is the social aspect!

Here we are at the end of the game. Quinton was kind of awake but not happy about posing for a picture. We had such a good time, even though the Cubs didn't win. I hope we have lots of opportunities, as Quinton gets older, to do fun stuff as a family!

Look At Me! I'm 3!!!

Diaper Diaries

Day #1,095

It's really weird to think that Matt and I have been changing diapers for over 1,000 days!

It seems like we can hardly remember life before Quinton because he brings us so much joy and I almost feel guilty for thinking he is the most wonderful 3 year old in the world!

Here was Quinton at 10 days old...

Now look at him!

Quinton's new friends Makena and Ethan were so excited about Quinton's birthday, today, they brought over this gigantic #3 last night! Quinton has had more fun with this balloon that dwarfs him! It will be a sad day when this balloon deflates and there is no more giant #3 to welcome him everyday.

We've even tried potty training for a couple of weeks and this morning, I asked Quinton if he wanted to go to the bathroom and as if by the pure magic of being on this earth for 36 months, Quinton said, "Sure." And he went!

We were high-fiving each other all morning...after he washed his hands, of course!

Quinton and his precious balloon...

When Quinton woke up this morning, he had several cards and presents waiting for him. This year, he was really excited to open everything!

My grandmother, Quinton's Great Grandmother, sent him this really funny book with googly eyes. Quinton kept moving the book to see if the eyes would follow him and sure enough, the eyes went around, upside down and every which way to Christmas, following him the whole time! We'll have to make sure and read this during the day time because I think it freaks him out a little.

After Quinton's Montessori class, we headed to one of my favorite places for a celebratory lunch, Chuck E. Cheese's! I joke with a friend that I will start a phenomenon (not unlike the whole Target being pronounced Tar-jay to give a french air of sophistication to the brand) where people will call Chuck E. Cheese's, Chuck de Fromage, so that I am NOT slightly embarrassed to admit that I love the place!

Seriously, Quinton loved it!

The guy behind the toy counter even slipped Quinton a free bag of cotton candy when I mentioned Quinton was the birthday boy. Next time, I'll have to thank that guy for my 3 year-old running around in circles and jumping on my bed at 10 o'clock at night because he sneaked into his bag of cotton candy at 6 pm!

Thanks, dude!

We topped off his birthday festivities, tonight, with a steamy bowl of Mac N' Cheese at his favorite local restaurant. Of course, it's only his favorite restaurantr because they have those blasted quarter machines that vend such novelties as bouncy balls that once bounced, are nearly impossible to find! But hey, it's HIS day, right?

More festivities are planned for this weekend, so stay tuned!

Random Pictures From Me!

This wasn't exactly Quinton's first day of Montessori since he's been going all summer long, but this was the first day of the fall session and since almost all of my friends' blogs have pictures of their cute little darlings heading off to their first day of preschool/school, I wanted to give Quinton the same kind of blog space. So here is my baby, who turns THREE next week. That has given me a whole new kind of anxiety!

So the rest of these pictures are a little random. Below is a picture of my luscious fruit pizza I made for a Sunday dessert at our friend's house. It was even more deliscious than it looks in the picture!

Quinton is at the age where I CRINGE when I see one of these rides inside a store! I cringe because I know that I had better have at least 2 quarters in my purse or I am in big trouble! Lucky for me, I had the 2 quarters in my purse when we saw this too fun truck for Quinton to practice his driving skills.

And last, but not least, between my sister's camera and my camera, we took over 1,500 pictures of our vacation in Utah! I have been VERY slow at putting up any pictures on the blog or even in an online album because there are so many!

Below is one of my favorite pictures from the trip to McCall, Idaho and if you go through old blog posts of mine, you'll see almost the EXACT same picture from last year, only the kids are one year older and there is a new one, Charlotte, aka ZuZu.

I also found out this afternoon that one of my favorite people fom Tulsa, Erin, is coming out for a visit in October, just to see MOI! I am so excited!

So you wanna be a rockstar?

Um yeah, I think I'm a cool hip mom - some days - since I can name every member of New Kids On the Block, still (thank goodness they are in again, along with leggings!). But as I was blog surfing (you KNOW you do it), I came upon a blog that had some really cool music - the sad part was that I had never heard of any of the artists on this person's music list...except for Deathcab for Cutie. I've heard of them, I think...or maybe it's Dashboard Confessional...I could be confused, both of them remind me of cars so I could have them mixed up.

You may not know this about me if you've known me less than a decade or so, but I used to dance my way up and down the club scene in the Wasatch Valley (If you are my mom and dad, none of this is true, I'm making it up!)! Those boxes at the Edge/Omni in Provo....yeah, that was me up there! That "cage" at the Vortex...nope, it wasn't me, but it was one of my roomies!

Anyway, sometimes I miss the good old days of being "Astronaut Girl", but honestly, hearing the Q man say "MOMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEE" a thousand and one times a day is way cooler than being hip anymore.

Thanks, Paul!

My friend's dad, Paul, has a very fancy Nikon camera that he loves to take pictures with (and is REALLY good) and when we were over at their place for dinner, tonight, he snapped a nice family photo of us and sent it to me!

Thanks, Paul!!!!

Home Sweet LITTLE Home!

Well, we haven't spent more than about 5 nights in our new place, which is mostly filled with boxes, but I am already enjoying our closer quarters. Quinton no longer yells at me from a different floor to come and get him. Our laundry is on the same floor as the kitchen - as the bathroom - as our rooms!

All this 'new' luxury wasn't without it's elbow grease before we even moved in! I really liked all that this little house has to offer but I knew when I saw it that it could use some TLC. Matt was patient enough to indulge my need to make this rental a little bit nicer and helped tear out the carpet and refinish the hidden hardwood floors underneath so we have a MUCH cleaner living space.

Here is one of the views of the carpet in our bedroom. It doesn't look too bad, although if you look close, the color of the carpet is a beige-ish gray and had some icky looking stains.

Below is the carpeting in Quinton's room and was just as icky as the carpeting in our room. Matt and I were both convinced that whatever was underneath the carpet couldn't be any worse than the carpet so we asked the landlord if he wouldn't mind us pulling up the carpets, checking for hardwood and refinishing the floors. Lucky for us, the landlord was cool with us taking the initiative!

When Matt pulled up the carpets, even he was grossed out! Underneath, you could really understand how old and gross the carpets were and there was a black sand/dust/dirt pile leftover from pulling up the carpets.

Thank goodness for Youtube! I looked up how to refinish hardwood floors and Matt and I watched a couple of tutorials, rented some equipment and VOILA!

Even though there are some visible stains in the hardwood, I am WAY less skeeved out by these stains than the ones in the carpet!!!

Not bad for never having done this before, eh?

Even though I miss our temporary mansion by the lake and even our cozy Tulsa starter home, I know I'll be able to make this place feel like home...once I get some of these boxes out of the way!

Shhhhhhhh! I'm reading!!!!!

So I know we're moving tomorrow and Matt will be at the UHaul store to pick our 24 foot truck at 7am sharp, but I couldn't resist going with my fabulous friend, Mrs. R, to the release party at Barnes & Noble for the fourth and final book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn. Even as I am typing (at 12:39 am), I really want to be reading but I just had to blog about buying the book a little after 12 am this morning!

Here is Mrs. R and me, it's blurry, but you can tell we are excited to start reading our books and ignoring our kids!

There were two YOUNG girls in line behind me and one girl was saying her mom said she could only read 2 chapters tonight before she went to bed. In my head, I thought, "Gosh, I'm glad this book came out when I'm old enought not to have my mom tell me how many chapters I can read each night!" But then again, I should listen to her since are ARE moving tomorrow!

We'll see!