Where my girls at...from front to back..

Just a quick post...she's only went from back to front a couple of times.  But folks, she's got the front to back thing down!  

I have really been trying to get ahold of her smile...shes camera shy...Ill try to capture one of her great conversations soon!

Summer in the City!

We have had a busy few days here in the City...per usual!  

Aunt Laura came in to hang out and we got Elle a lil chair to work on her sitting up skills.  She wasn't sure about it at first, however she seems to be getting the hang of it!  We also got to see our lil buddies Christina and McKenna for a lil playtime.  

Aunt Jamie came to the city on Friday for some fun times in Millenium, the Art Museum, Wickerparking, and just out and about!  We had a slight mishap Fri afternoon with Elle looking like she got punched in the eye!!  Oh eye infections!! We made an emergency doc appt though and she is on the road to recovery!!  Saturday Jason came in and we headed out to the Ravinia for Elle's first outdoor concert experience.  She loved herself some David Brubeck, and who doesn't love a delightful summer evening in the park!  We must do it again!  

Sunday we headed out to Aurora for Caterpillar's 50th anniversary there.  Elle dressed the part of course to cheer on Grandpa Jim!  All went well and Papi and Elle enjoyed some bonding time on the train on the way home.

Busy busy this week as well.  I'm trying to get caught up in life a bit and making big life decisions with Wader...more to come on that soon...

Grandma Blass returns!!

We missed Grandma a lot!!  But we are so glad she got to see Uncle Jus!!  We will post a photo of him soon!  The parents just had a blast with him over in New Zealand, despite the crazy long flight.  They brought Elle back a cute lil explorer hat for her travels!  And yes if you are wondering, my dad did go sky diving!  Craziness.  Fun times were had by the Blass family.  We are so glad to have Grandma back though.  She's so cute!  

GONE

Rolling and holding her head up!!

Road Trip

Here are some cute pics of Elle in her carseat ready for the journey.  Also photos of her in the BOB!

On the road again...

I am sitting here with a great cup of coffee this morning, watching Ellery try and fit her whole fist in her mouth (literally no exaggeration).  She has officially discovered her hands and her little social self!  She is quite the center of attention (like she wasn't before) with her gummy grins, cute coos, and lovable laugh!  

Somehow we were so crazy on the road that I didn't have time to take photos!  Fortunately Robyn was able to catch Elle's excitement.  Ellery had lots of fun with Robyn and Faye (Ellery's new four legged friend who followed her every move!!).  There was lots of licking, walking, car watching, and plant watering involved (maybe a bottle taking as well!).  She had a blast and mom really enjoyed visiting with Robyn and catching up on life.  She spoiled 

me the entire time I was there, making me dinner, walking with me, just taking care of us!  It was great!  Robyn is also a fellow blogger and will soon be releasing her first book in the world of crochet! 

We were able to have a girls night with Robyn and 

Meg that was great.  Nothing like good food and great conversation!  Meg and Paul got Elle an adorable little outfit we can't wait to try out.  We were able to see gorgeous photos of Paul and Meg's wedding.  They looked fabulous and Detroit looked pretty great too!  We are so happy for them and miss fun memories in Cincy!  We decided to let the boys in on our fun too and had a scrumptious lil meal at Ambar (yes folks I was the only one who could finish her meal!)  Oh and I do have a photo of Elle and Megan!

We were also soo excited to meet Ciara and Xhip's (okay Ciara I totally forget how to spell it, but I know it starts with X!)  baby Claire!  She is so so cute at 7.5 months!  I am really hoping she has Ciara's cute Irish accent...we will see what happens!  I unfortunately did not take a photo of Ellery and Claire, what was I thinking!  We met baby Grayson as well.  Grayson is beyond a lil stud muffin and mama is looking good too.  We loved having breakfast and catching up with the Harrington family.  I miss these women they are so cute!  So imagine a super cute photo of Ellery and the stud muffin...Ill have to photoshop one...look for that to come in July when things settle down a bit (if that happens right!)

Somehow Miss Decker managed to dodge a photo too!  We enjoyed a nice lunch at First Watch with Miss Mandy and got to meet my replacement at HLG.  Funny enough we are like close to the same person...so she is awesome of course ;)  Elle is a big Mandy fan and wants her to come live in Chicago.  We are in the process of casting some sort of spell on the winter season to make it less harsh for her...I keep telling Mandy how great Sidley is to work for she could just move her mad immigration skills to a new place!  Awe...she does rock out Clifton quite well though!

So we also stayed with Katie Mark for a couple days (I know you are thinking to yourself...wow they did a lot...and Im responding...yes yes we did!).  I think Elle developed a little South African drawl in the few days at the Charlton-Perkins household.  Kate just finished her Masters in Planning and Mark just took the MCAT...so the poor kids were exhausted and ready to celebrate.  Hopefully we were able to help them out with that.  We loved catching up on the porch and in the sweet pool in the back.  Lots of excitement to come for them as they embark on a new season!

Cincy was fun...we officially supported all of our favorite coffee shops and restaurants!  I had graeters 3 times (the scale definitely confirms it!)  We miss our friends and fun times, but we are glad to be in Chi Chi and ready for the summer!  Somehow its already June 19!!  Time flies!  We will take lots of photos this week!

Oh and Elle officially loves road trips, she slept the whole way, with just one stop for a snack!

Unbelievable!

So with the conclusion of one road trip, we start another tomorrow!  Elle and I are heading to Cincinnati for a super extended weekend!  Wade will be taking the Megabus out on Friday to join us, however we will be attempting the drive by ourselves tomorrow.  Elle has been working on her laughing and smiling for the last week, so we wanted to share some of her super cute moments!  Yeah for beautiful weather today, hopefully it will keep up!

Congrats Gurnsey's

So Janelle looked absolutely amazing for her wedding day!  What an amazingly gorgeous bride!  

We survived the road trip with style!  We started on Thursday night with a drive out to Blass Lodge.  We were able to see the cousins softball game and spend some time with them before leaving baby Maddy with Brian for a week!  Ahh!  Last year this time Maddy spent a week with my parents, however as they are visiting the bro in New Zealand Brian is taking care of her (with support from the whole crew of fam I am sure!!)Friday we cruised on down 55 to visit Jamie and then on to the rehersal!  Elle was great in the car and we made it on time and everything.  The decor and church, everything was amazing for the wedding.  Janelle's mum is quite the decorator and really outdid herself.  The tornado's and rain even held off leaving Janelle with an absolutely gorgeous day!  Wade survived his first day with Elle on his own, and I survived my first day with out her!  (so maybe it was just a half a day...but it seemed like an eternity).  We are so happy for Janelle and Neil and gracious to be a part of their day.  We look forward to many fun memories with them in the future.

Stressing Mama...

She is seriously so cute right!  Oh it has been an eventful week for sure.  The biggest event being the vaccines on Tuesday.  Although I am not sure about my pediatrician or practice, we survived.  I broke down in tears to hear Elle's wail of pain.  She seems to be doing well though.  She was seriously laughing within like 15 min of the shot!

Since the events of Tuesday, mom has been trying to leave Elle in periods longer than 30 min!  Ha...yeah so the separation anxiety is huge for the both of us.  But she is almost 2 months now and some women would be already back at work, so I know we can do it.  However to date, I still have not left Elle for more than 45 min...Wade thought it was all in my head that she would scream with someone other than me, but he has seen it first hand.  I know that she is fine though, not in pain or anything, so I have been trying to sneak out for a walk with the dog or a little run so that she can start warming up to other people!!  It's seriously hard for me though, I just feel the need to be with her and always know what is going on.  Yesterday Grandma Jackie and Aunt Casey came down and watched her at our place while I went for a lil jog and then they took her for about an hour walk while I packed for the weekend.  It all went super well...so progress...

We are headed to Springfield IL for the weekend for Janelle's wedding.  I have been pumping all week and Wade will be playing Mr. Mom for the first tim really, since I am in the wedding.    I am super pumped for Janelle and while I am a bit stressed about traveling with Elle at 2 months, I am sure everything will be fine.  Its definitely a good thing I have a super laid back husband to mellow me out!

The Adventures of Jenn and Elle (oh and Papi too!)

I know she is so freaking cute, you don't have to tell me!  Oh wait you can if you want, she likes to hear it!

So after discovering that Elle does much better if we are out of the apartment we spent the last week doing just that.  My friend Christina and I decided to check out a moms group, which was fun.  It is great just to get out and meet other people who understand your world.  Plus we love just doing anything with Christina and McKenna they are just a lot of fun!  We also convinced our men to come with us to an Infant massage class on Saturday.  We hit up May Fest for some lederhosen, brats, and beer first and then headed over to class.  We really learned a lot of great techniques and ideas for calming Elle and relieving gas pain.  She really seems to enjoy the massage and relax when we do it.  Nice to have another way to calm her down!  PJ and Wader finally got to meet which was very exciting!  

We also got to hang out with the old roomies and Jason and Krista for some dinner and relaxing on Friday night, as well as Angie and Zach for some Division Street Streetfest on Saturday!  We really loved seeing everyone and enjoyed lots of outdoor time in Chicago.  Wade finally got his vegetable garden moved outdoors and was officially taken out by a pint sized girl at his soccer game on Saturday!

phew...these were long posts!  Next time I won't wait so long...so they can be more focused and fun!  Hope you are all enjoying the summer weather!

Operation get the mum (G Blass) to New Zealand

So many of you know that my brother is currently living in New Zealand.  Which is yes yes pretty much on the other side of the globe.  The air time from Chicago to NZ (not including airport time) is like 22 hours!  Needless to say, Elle and I will unfortunately not be making the trip.  However my parents have been planning to go for months.  My mom has a small phobia of heights, thereby making air travel less than pleasant for her.  She loves the bro so much though she decided to make the trek with Pops.  They were due to leave on Thursday, however that is where the Operation began...

Elle and I were busting around on Thursday with errands and such, when we received a distress call from mom.  They would not let her on the plane due to this new New Zealand reg that states your passport must be valid for at least three months when you enter their country.  Moms passport was only valid to July.  I was so devastated for her and determined to help her get to NZ.  Thursday night was spent on the phone with the DOS (Department of State) trying to figure out if we could make this happen.  My mom got to my place in relatively good spirits around 9 and we plotted out the next day.  She was able to handle everything by insisting that she was dreaming (so incredibly adorable and a great idea!!).  Friday found us busting it downtown to apply for sameday passport service at the passport office and hope that we could get the passport before her 5pm flight.  So Elle and I trekked around with mum, got her passport, got all of her stuff, fixed her up with a great music selection on her ipod, and blue lined it to ohare by 2...yeah I know we really rock!  So mom got there for her flight, only to find it was delayed.  I then spent the next 24 hours trying to coordinate moms flights and dads flights and Justin in NZ waiting for them all.  

Dad ended up being delayed a zillion times on his way over there (he left on the original flight on thursday..49 hours of transit) and Mum ended up getting their saftely on Saturday evening (about 32 hrs of transit).  Thankfully they will have 11 days to enjoy the land of beauty before making their return trek!  I will be happy to hear about all of their more fun adventures.   Elle just loved bopping around town with Gmum though and really had a blast (aka she slept the whole time...mom splinter loved this and definitely noted Elle's love for adventure!!  I am seriously considering opening up a crisis intervention business.  I love solving other peoples crisis' and Elle really enjoys it as well!

crazy crazy busy!

I cannot believe it has seriously been a week since my last post!  Jeez...I'm trying to even remember what we did last week!  Ha!  How is it seriously already June?  Oh my goodness seriously.  Well we are getting ready for our big 2 month pediatrician appointment tomorrow for Elle.  I was really trying to research vaccines as much as I could last week, between the craziness of course.  I have decided to go with Dr. Sears recommended Alternative Vaccine Schedule, tweaked a little bit based on my research.  This schedule pretty much has Elle getting all the vaccines, however just spread out a bit more.  Oh the crazy world of vaccines!  So Elle will actually only be getting one shot tomorrow, the DTaP and then the oral Rotovirus vaccine.  We will also finally get a weight update here.  So I just wanted to post some cute photos of Elle Belle...I will post more about the craziness in a few!