Order & Cleanliness

Those of you that know me pretty well know that I have always been very organized. I love ORDER! I used to alphabetize my dad's record albums and our VHS tapes when I was little. I would go home for a weekend during college, and when I got back to school I had to put everything away right away. I always made my bed. Everything has its place. Car keys belong on the basket on the counter. Mail and bills belong in the basket or filed in the appropriate folder in the drawer of the desk in the basement. Lucas' toys get put away in the basket that sits on the fireplace.

Those of you that know me pretty well know that I have also always had a clean room/apartment/house. I love CLEANLINESS! I enjoyed helping my mom clean was I was little. I dusted my dorm room/house regularly in college. I love seeing the lines in the carpet after vacuuming. I hate seeing crumbs on the counter. I greatly dislike the feeling of "stuff" on my wood floors. I love clean mirrors. I love the smell of a clean home.

But somehow during the world of pregnancy and motherhood, my organization and cleanliness have fallen a bit to the wayside. I knew this was to be expected. I knew that my standards were going to have to be lowered a bit. But things have gotten a bit out of hand for me...I need order and cleanliness back in my life (but not at the expense of my precious time with Lucas and Wally)....how am I ever going to do that?????????

Well I actually called Molly Maid and got an estimate....uuummmm....I don't think so! Their price for our house was ridiculous! I knew it was going to be a lot, but I think that is just what I needed to get motivated. I am finally getting order and cleanliness back in my house little by little on my own...this summer has taken it's toll on my organization and cleanliness. I try to get some stuff done at night after work and after Lucas has gone to bed, but I mostly just have the weekends and summer weekends fill up pretty fast. I am actually sort of looking forward to the Fall and getting back in to a routine...did I mention that I also LOVE routines???? Call me my mother's child if you must (have you seen my parent's clean & organized home?)...

I am not totally anal about all of this, I would much rather have fun with Lucas than worry about cleaning, but I can only let things go so far and then I am angry and stressed and feel very anxious that there are water spots on the mirror (LOL) and I need to just CLEAN! Then once I do, I am the happiest mommy and wife in the world!

Why did I write this post?? I have no idea, I guess I am just procrastinating even though my house needs to be cleaned and organized....uuugggghhhh......

Ok - here is what you really come here for....

Weekend Update

We had another great weekend!

Saturday was date day for Wally and I. My parents came up in the morning to watch the little guy, and Wally and I headed into the city to see Mary Poppins at the Cadillac Theater. Wally had gotten the tickets for my birthday. Despite a very stressful ride in (we ran into some unexpected traffic and were in our seats at 1:58 for a show starting at 2 - yikes!!), the musical was amazing, magical, and practically perfect in every way!! I can't even begin to explain how wonderful it was which is exactly the way I think you should feel when you see a Broadway musical. I felt the same way about Jersey Boys. We had the best seats - 7th row and smack dab in the middle (nice job Wally). Mary Poppins flew right over our heads at the end...just awesome!! I only wish that we would have went to see it sooner so that I could tell everyone else to get their tickets and go, but unfortunately the show ended on Sunday. I am telling you though, if it ever comes back, you HAVE TO see it! Both Wally and I loved it!

Anyways (I could go on and on about Mary Poppins), after the show, we had some time to kill until our dinner reservation at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse so we stopped in at Harry Caray's for a few drinks and to catch the end of the Cubs game ("W"). We walked around for a bit and then headed to the restaurant for a fantastic dinner that included wine, soup, salad, potatoes, and of course steaks...if only we could make our own steaks at home that good! We were STUFFED from dinner and decided that we could use some more walking. We walked along the river, made our way to Millenium Park and then back to the parking garage to head home. It was a wonderful day and evening and a very much needed night out for Wally and me!

Concert in the Park


Wally "holding up" The Bean... :)

On Sunday morning we went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast with my parents before they headed home, went to church, and then home for the day. Oh and Lucas was extra talkative in church that day. The older woman behind us told me we should sign him up for the choir. His "talking" these days consists of a lot of high pitch screams so we had to try to get him to keep it down a bit in church, but not much you can do with a 7-month old. We just laughed and hoped that everyone else around us thought it was just as cute! It was a beautiful, warm day out so we were finally able to get into our pool. Lucas enjoyed it just as much as he did the first time in Lake Lawn...this excites me to know that we will be getting a lot more use out of our pool in the future! He kicked his way around the pool in his racecar float. After pool time, we headed in for nap time (for all of us). We slept for 2 hours...oh the millions of things I could have been doing in those couple of hours, but clearly I needed sleep :) We relaxed the rest of the night by watching the 2nd game of the Cubs doubleheader and then headed off to bed.....

Another great weekend come and gone too quickly!

Fourth of July Weekend - Part IV

Sunday was THE BEST day of the weekend! Lucas attended his very first Cubs game - yay!! Wally jumped on stubhub.com that morning and was able to get some tickets (terrace reserve-infield - not bad...in the shade and still decent). As a side note: Stub Hub is the way to go. We were able to get the tickets for quite a bit cheaper than regular price and being only 30 minutes away allows us to decide last minute that we want to go...good deal!! We dressed Lucas in his Cubbie outfit, we went to church, and then we made our way to Wrigley Field. We got there early enough so that we could take Lucas around the outside of the field and try to get some photos next to the 2 statues and in front of the marquee. Lucas was "eyes wide open" the entire time. We headed into the stadium and just walked around for a bit in order to prolong having to sit down with Lucas for too long before the game even began. We got to our seats and of course Lucas was a hit with all of the people around us. Around the second inning, he was exhausted already and started to get a little fussy. I got up with him and stood in the standing room only section. He quickly fell asleep in my arms so I headed back down to our seats. He slept through the 4th inning and then was up and HAPPY! We were having a lot of fun and the Cubs were winning! Around the beginning of the 7th inning, Lucas was ready to get up again. We decided to just grab our stuff and stand the rest of the game. We sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and "Go Cubs Go"...Lucas must bring them good luck!! Cubs won 8-2! Since Lucas was still in a pretty good mood, Wally wanted to wait around for it to clear out a bit so that we could get down a little closer to the field to take some pics. We finally made our way out of the stadium, picked up a little Cubs hat for Luke at one of the vendors and headed home. Lucas was exhausted, but it was AWESOME!! It was a beautiful day with a Cubs victory and a dream come true for Wally and I to take our little boy to a Cubs game!

All in all, it was a great weekend full of lots of "firsts" for Luke!



My main men - Harry Caray and Luke




Adorable!!



He's pretty excited!




Sleeping Boy




What a ham!!

Fourth of July Weekend - Part III

Saturday was a lousy weather day. I had wanted to go to the Monee 4th of July Parade, but apparently I was mixed up on what time it was at and we missed it (oops!). Then it proceeded to rain basically all day so we just took it easy at home. While Lucas napped, Wally and I got a little crazy and played some Scrabble - yep, we're WILD!! The rain moved out by early evening, and we weren't sure about heading to some fireworks or not. We were going to play it by ear and see how Lucas was doing, but first we thought that we would head to Balmoral Race Track (horse (harness) racing), which is 15 minutes from our house. This would be Lucas' first time at "the track" (it's never too early to introduce Lucas to gambling right, I mean we are originally from the Illinois Valley - just kidding). We placed a few $2 bets, lost a lot of races, but had a good time. Lucas zonked out after awhile so we just headed home and decided to skip the fireworks for this year.

Back from the parade that we missed...


I told you we played Scrabble! This was as far as we got and then gave up :)


Harness racing


Daddy showing Lucas the horses!




Lucas "yelling" for Horse #4 to win!!

Fourth of July Weekend - Part II

Friday we spent the day just doing some stuff around the house and getting ready for a cookout that night with some great friends! Unfortunately, we had to head inside once the mosquitoes got out of hand, but it was a good time. This was our first cookout since our deck was refinished so we were excited to spend some time out there. (On a side note: the pool is now open, so come on over!).





Blake and TJ playing some bags!


Lucas looking like he wishes he was playing bags too!


Blake and Lucas

Fourth of July Weekend - Part I

We kicked off our 4th of July weekend by introducing Lucas to one of mine and Wally's favorite past times - minor/independent league baseball. One summer in particular when we were both in college, Wally and I would go to 2 sometimes 3 games a week. We would travel all over Illinois (a lot of teams are within an hour or two of L-P). So we thought it was time to bring Lucas to one. We headed to the Windy City Thunderbolts (independent league) baseball game. This was Lucas' first "real" baseball game and he seemed to enjoy it - well at least the people watching part of it. He really could have cared less about what was going on on the field. The best part though - $1 beers, $1 hot dogs, $1 popcorn, $1 soda...are you serious?!?! We knew minor league baseball was cheap fun, but this was crazy!!! We will be heading to more Thunderbolts games in the future!!

That Just Isn't Right....

those are my dad's words when seeing Lucas zoom around in his "zoom zoom" (aka his walker). He has been moving like this for about 2 months - you should see him when Nala is around...he is a little Speedy Gonzalez!