Moving Day

Depending on where you live, you may be sad or excited about our move.

Tomorrow, we leave for Utah.

Personally, I am partly sad and partly excited, too, about our move.

I am not a fan of Utah.

Say what you will but it's Utah.

It's what we need to do right now since Matt has been out of work for a couple of months so here we go...

Here is Quinton and his #1 favorite babysitter, Jen.

She babysat for us one last time and she even did it for free!

Quinton is slightly in love with Jen and I know he'll miss her.

I said goodbye to my friends at the Alford Group, today. I used to work there and made some great friends, like Claire and Karen (below). It's been fun to be nearby to show off Sawyer so I will miss these ladies!
And this is my reality right now.
I have a love/hate relationship with our house.
I love the neighbors, the neighborhood, our yard and our cozy little house.
BUT
I hate the spiders who call our cozy little house their home, the leaky ceilings, the YUCKY bathroom with mold, the DRAFTY windows, the blinds in the front room from HADES and the list goes on. So movving is bittersweet to say the least!
Since our last three moves were done by professionals, I was SCARED about doing this ourselves. Between Matt and I, we decided to get rid of A TON of stuff. We have had three garage sales and a couple of big piles of trash at the curb.

This is about what we are down to at our house.
And if you are one of my local friends, this next picture may make you cry...it makes me want to cry!

That big yellow truck means the end is near...so on to the next adventure.

The Many (Cute) Faces of Sawyer

Happy 10 week birthday, Sawyer!

I CAN'T get enough of this little boy and the delicious smell that tempts me to kiss him at every turn!

Happy Daddy's Day!

Happy Father's Day!

We had a great time celebrating Matt, our Daddy Extraordinaire, on his special day! First, Sawyer and I let Matt sleep in a little and then Quinton and I presented him with breakfast in bed! Then Quinton and Sawyer gave Matt his candygram card (which he kindly shared with all of us later in the day) and Father's Day presents: two ties and a picture collage of the boys.

After church, Quinton helped me make our yummy build-your-own crepes with nutella, strawberries, bananas, turkey, gouda, swiss and avocados! Not all of that goes into ONE crepe but you get the idea, I hope. Once our bellies were full, I took both boys for a nap so Matt could enjoy watching World Cup Soccer. Not a bad day!

We also want to say Happy Father's Day to our wonderful Grandpas, GREAT Grandpas, Uncles and all the other cool Dads we know!

Love you all!

Aunt J Was in Da House!

How lucky am I that my sister chose to come to Chicago for a visit as her birthday present?

Pretty DANG lucky, I'd say!

She was so awesome to come and hang out with us and be only the SECOND family member to see Sawyer! She was happy to hang out with us and go to the park and we even had a chance to get out a little.

Doesn't she ooze squishy love for Sawyer?

On one of our girl's only adventures, we were supposed to go on a Segway tour but my GPS sent us to the OTHER side of Chicago - I mean WAY out of the way for our desired destination!

We ended up missing our tour time so we took the opportunity to do some sightseeing in Chicago. Jessi always asks about Oprah tickets when she comes to town but they are VERY hard to come by and the Oprah show tapings are done for the season. I did take her to Harpo Studios and apparently, there is an Oprah store right next to the studios. EVERYTHING in there has a big "O" on it! From workout wear to doggy sweaters to baby clothes and even clothes for sale from Oprah's closet (well-worn Chanel shoes for $250!).

After Oprah, I rushed Jessi over to Ghiradelli's for this DECADENT cookie sundae.
Um yeah, it TASTED as good as it LOOKS!

On Jessi's last day, we surprised her with a birthday cake complete with LOTS of candles!

Quinton spent the entire morning BEGGING us to set the cake ablaze and dig in...lucky for him, Jessi and I had to leave early in the day to catch our re-scheduled Segway tour.

Wonder what she's wishing for!

And here she is on our famed Segway tour. I've done one before so I knew the ropes, but Jessi's horseback riding background made her a natural at riding this mechanical pony on her first time!

This tour was around a local beach at Foster Avenue. It wasn't as cool as the downtown tour but it was still a lot of fun.

Here is Jessi at our break with helmet hair!

Alas, Jessi had to get back to her 3 little yahoos in Utah and we miss her sooo much! I don't think Sawyer knew what to do with all of the attention she showered on him!

Aunt Jessi, we love you and miss you lots!

--Da Boyz

Time Flies...

Seriously, time flies when you aren't feeling well for the third week in a row - especially when Matt spent a couple of days in ALASKA for interviews this week. It'll be a hard adjustment when he goes back to work since we've had him to ourselves since the end of January! For now, we love to enjoy our time together, especially with Sawyer in the mix!

Quinton LOVES to LOVE on his baby brother as illustrated below...doesn't Sawyer look like he's having a blast, too?

Today, we enjoyed a glorious Chicago day at the beach. Awesome days seem to happen at irregular intervals these days so I was all for taking advantage of today's sun & warmth!
Sawyer enjoyed himself, too.

You wanna squish him, huh?

You know you do!

Gratuitious Pictures of the Newest Harker

I was once accused of having "First -Time Parent Syndrome" because I had sooooo many pictures of Quinton to email to friends and family but here, with the blog, I can still be a shutterbug with my baby but not bore friends and family with so many pictures in their email inboxes! They are here, waiting for you to view at your leisure (and as many times as you want)and I can snap away to my heart's content.

So without further ado, here is precious Sawyer, or as Quinton likes to call him, Squirt. Use your imagination to figure out where Quinton derives that name for him!

This was Sawyer's fashion faux pas from Thursday. He went the majority of the day still wearing his tag! I know I should have washed the outfit before he wore it but I never got around to it and realized at the end of the day that Sawyer's tag was still on his outfit!

Silly mommy!!!
This final picture was taken today while Sawyer took his Sunday siesta on daddy's lap. I thought it was cute he looked like he was giving me the thumb's up to take a picture!
On Friday, Sawyer turned 1 month old. So crazy to think he's been here a month already! He is such a sweet baby and lets us sleep a little bit, which is very nice of him!
At his 1 month appointment with his pediatrician, Sawyer weighed a whopping 10 pounds 3 ounces! Talk about chubster! He also grew 1 entire inch for a grand total of 21.5 inches now!

Matt and I are still pretty sleep-deprived but it's worth every moment of fatigue for how adorable this little boy is to us!

What a difference a week (or two) makes!

Introducing...

Sawyer Matthew Harker

Born April 23rd at 1:09 am

7 pounds 11 ounces

20.5 inches

I know he's almost 2 weeks old as I'm finally getting around to posting this but it's been a busy time!

My wonderful friend, Sarah S., who is also a photographer, took pictures at Sawyer's birth. Plus, she did an awesome recap on her blog, so go here for some great pictures and details:

Sarah's Blog