Taking Pictures Ain't Easy

This Saturday, I decided to try to take some pictures of Gus that could be potential 'first birthday' pictures, simply because there weren't a lot to choose from after the family photo shoot over the 4th of July weekend. But a few other pictures first.....

Gus and Jackie playing with sunglasses
Gus loves Tunes the Tiger (and his dada)
Gus loves to sit on the couch and play with the curtains. Here he was actually sitting on Satchel and bouncing up and down.....very funny.
Ok, now for my attempt at being a photographer. Gus and I went to the botanical gardens looking for photo opportunities.....
But this is what most things ended up looking like.....
Here are a few of the cuter ones.......




So I'm not sure if I'll just go with the best one the photographer had? Or go with the one three above this one (cropped as a portrait)? What do you think? Yea, probably the photographer's.....

I leave for Montreal Friday morning. I'm very nervous about leaving Gus for so long, especially when I won't be able to call or text anytime (it's very expensive to call 'internationally'!!!). But thankfully my iPhone is working again thanks to parts from my boss's old phone.....so hopefully I can skype for free or something.....wish me luck. And wish Kevin luck, he'll probably need it....

I Forgot......

I am not sure what is up with this stupid blog that it won't let me upload videos anymore. I haven't yet tried with my new computer, so maybe it is hardware related? Something to try this weekend I guess.
Anyway, I forgot to include Gus's stats from his one year checkup in my last post. He was 24 lb 7 oz which was the 75th percentile, and he was 30 inches tall (which I think they measured wrong because he was squirmy) which is the 50th percentile.
I also forgot to mention that Gus is walking! Kind of, at least. He took his first steps at day care the day after his birthday. When I got there to pick him up, he was standing at a table playing. He turned and stood there and you could tell he was really thinking about it, and then he took about 8 steps! So since then he's walking a bit here and there.....but I only finally got it on video yesterday!
Here's the youtube link to a short bit of him walking....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCxKbSAxsek

and here's one of him using an empty wrapping paper roll as a horn (a trick his dad taught him).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U08VruPmOI8

Busy, Busy, Busy

Wow, there has been A LOT going on. I swear to you, for the past 3 weeks I have had maybe two free evenings. Anyway, I'll try to catch you up.

Gus finally got to try out his birthday swing set a couple days after his birthday. He doesn't look too enthused.
My wonderful friend Emily turned 30! For her birthday, we went to Fast Eddie's - a famous bar and grill place in Alton that I had yet to experience so I was very excited!

The girls at Fast Eddie's. I enjoyed many of 'the coldest beers in town' and a 1/2 lb Fat Eddie Burger. Yum!

Then, Gus had another birthday party. Here he is while people are singing to him.

He had more fun playing with the plate....although he ate plenty of cake and icing too!

Sitting in daddy's old rocking chair

Waiting for dad to get one of his new toys out of the box!

Then, last week was spent playing LOTS of softball catch-up, making up some rained-out games. Two more to make up then we finally start the playoffs. Friday I went to Lilith Fair with a good number of my good friends. It was brutally hot and sunny, but there was a breeze that saved us. We saw lots of fabulous artists, including Ingrid Michaelson and Sarah McLachlan. I LOVED Ingrid and can't wait to see her again.....sadly she almost never plays in STL. And so I wait.....

THEN, the Eyrich's have been in town! On Saturday they came over to play for awhile. Spencer enjoyed playing with Gus's new Legos.

Emma did not enjoy Lucy's company.

Gus went crazy when Spencer went outside and they laughed at each other through the glass.

Saturday was also Kevin and my sixth wedding anniversary. Grandma June came to take Gus for the night, and we went to Onesto for dinner. It was wonderful! We thought we might go see a movie, but after a bottle of wine with dinner we were less interested in a movie. Instead, we went downtown to check out the City Gardens at night.....I had heard the lighting was really interesting. Indeed, it was nice.
Sunday I spent an hour picking green beans. My back and legs still hurt today from this. So if you want some beans, I can hook you up! We are also knee-deep in eggplant, cucumbers, and the green peppers and tomatoes are just getting started.
Meanwhile, my blessed iPhone stopped working. I guess it's probably related to when I washed it however long ago - maybe some moisture inside slowly corroded a connection or something? But as of right now I'm using Kevin's old Razor.....so sad. I can tell when I have voicemail, but at the moment I can't figure out how to listen to it.....such fun. BUT, I have a new laptop! So that is exciting. Now I just need to figure out how to skype with Jenny and John.....

Mr. Gus is ONE!

One year ago (yesterday), August John Thole decided he was coming, scheduled or not. I had a C-section scheduled for the afternoon of July 7th, but little Gus decided he wanted to be born a little earlier than that.... My water broke in the morning and my C-section ended up being about an hour or so early (I think? It's crazy how you forget these things). And now, a year later, my sweet little boy is a year old.

This weekend was crazy busy. Jenny and her family were home to celebrate for Jessica's bridal shower, Gus's first birthday, and otherwise take advantage of the holiday weekend. Saturday evening, after Jess's shower was over, everyone came to St. Louis for Gus's birthday party. Kevin made two recipes of BBQ ribs for the festivities.....I think he did this so people could taste both and vote for their favorites, since I like a different recipe than he likes. So I guess he got more votes for his favorite recipe, which means mine might be out of the rotation. So sad.....

Despite the heat, we sat outside....sadly I don't have room in my little house for 15 people. But I think everyone survived. Here's one table of our guests:

And here's the other table. Of course Kevin isn't looking at the camera.....just as well, since his eyes would have been closed.

Even though Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Plocher couldn't make it to the party, Great Grandma still made Gus's birthday cake! It was perfect, and Gus loved it! This was while we were singing Happy Birthday.

On top of the cake was a clown, which became Gus's personal cake. I'm not sure how much cake he actually ate (he mostly ate the icing) but he seemed to enjoy it.

Then it was time to open presents. Here is Gus's first present from Aunt Jess, some Mega Legos with firetruck related pieces. He loves it!

Aunt Jackie got Gussie a pair of sunglasses. I think he's taking them off in this picture....they certainly didn't stay on long. We'll work on that.

Mr. Gus got all kinds of great presents, but showing you pictures of all of them would be very boring. Our house is still a bit of a mess from them all. Gus did great at the party though. I put him to bed around 9pm, and he fell asleep while taking his bottle like he usually does. But as soon as I laid him down, he popped right back up and was jumping up and down in his crib. TOO MUCH SUGAR!!!
We are so grateful that everyone could make Gus's first birthday so special!

This is just a random picture from this weekend of Gus playing the piano. He recently discovered it and likes it very much.

Sunday Kevin wanted to go to the air show downtown. Considering Kevin doesn't usually like to go places, I was glad to go with him. It was pretty nice out - a perfect breeze! Gus enjoyed being outside and seeing all the people.

The afternoon of July 4th we went to Janeice's parents for some pool time. Gus had been swimming before with Aunt Jess, but I had never taken him. He seemed to like splashing in the water. You can see my awesome sunburn from the airshow. I'll need to work on that before Jess's wedding and the strapless bridesmaid dress.....

Gus loves the noodles!

One of the best parts of the weekend was Gus getting to spend time with his cousin John. The last time John was here, Gus was barely mobile. So now it was nice to see them interact a little more. Here I think John is explaining to Gus how the sink works in the fake kitchen.

There are fire trucks galore at grandma's house, and the boys were taking turns/fighting over which ones to play with. Here's one that makes a lot of noise.

We had a very exciting and exhausting weekend! But it was so nice to spend time with the family, and especially to see Jenny and Charlie and John. Thankfully they'll be back in less than two months for Jess's wedding!

Since yesterday was Gus's actual birthday, we had to give him a present. Here he is climbing on it before he realizes he's supposed to open it.


Almost there......

It took Dad 5 minutes to get it out of the box, but then it was time to play! Gus claps in approval of his new toy.

We (and by we I mean Kevin) also got Gus a swing set. I wanted to take pictures of him with it yesterday but forgot. Gus took cupcakes to day care for his birthday. Then last night we went to the gardens to celebrate with Grandma June, and my friends Jen, Sarah, and Keith. Gus had yet another cupcake! It was a fabulous first birthday for Gus!

And one more celebration to go......

The chickens are free, and Gus went to his first Cards game!

After months and months and I don't want to know how much money spent, Kevin is finally done with the chicken coop! Here is the finished product. Sorry for the sun blaring behind it.
So now that the coop is finally done, Kevin was ready to move the chickens out into their permanent home. We decided to have a 'coop warming' party on Saturday to celebrate them moving up! But Kevin decided to move the chickens out earlier in the day instead of waiting for the party. So here is the chickens in their old home.....

And here they are in their new home.....a little confused.
And if you wondered, Kevin has named the chickens....they are General Tso, Kung Pao, and Hunan. Which one is which, I couldn't tell you.
I didn't take any pictures at the coop warming party so I don't have any to show you. Lots of people already had other plans, so it was kind of a small crowd. It was also hot outside so I'm sure a lot of people didn't want to hang out in our yard for that reason. Kevin had ordered a pony keg of Schlafly hefeweizen for the party, and some of it didn't get drank and was thrown away.....So sad! Our only other option would have been to spend more than $5 a day to keep it iced until we drank it all. Oh well. But we still had a nice time, and I think people enjoyed coming to see the chickens and the coop after all the talking about it we've done.

Monday morning, I checked my work email, and there was an email from Friday afternoon that they had leftover free tickets to Monday's Cardinals game. I quickly emailed the person and asked if there were tickets left...and low and behold, there were two. So I called Kevin to see if he was up to the challenge of taking Gus to see the Cards for the first time. And he was! Thankfully the weather was nice, and Gus still (barely) fits in the Baby Bjorn. So off we went.
Here's the best version of the family picture at Gus's first baseball game. The guy I knew that I asked to take a picture didn't exactly know how to try to get Gus to look at the camera, but oh well.
Gus was very good the whole time. Here he is contemplating the last play. And is it just me, or do i look a little Lovekamp-y in this picture? Kind of a scary angle....
The sky looked pretty so I took this picture. You can see the grass on the field is a little beat up from the previous week's Eagles/Dixie Chicks show.
Me trying to take another family picture. I hate when Gus has the Nuk in pictures, but I was too entertained by Kevin's face.
All in all, the game was a good experience. We left at the top of the 7th...Gus was getting a little fussy, but wasn't bad at all....I think we more or less left because we could. The game had been a boring one, and I think we were down 5-3 when we left, but the Cards had a good comeback in the bottom of the ninth. We missed a good one, but I think we were all glad to be home at a decent time. AND I'm going back to another game tomorrow night anyway with ALL of my sisters (and all of my brothers-in-law) but Kevin is sitting this one out. Oh well, who knew.

The empty Schlafly keg is sitting in the kitchen until Kevin returns it. Gus found it, and he likes it.
And this was Gus after my softball game yesterday....he passed out on the way home and then Kevin held him for a little while. Definitely looks like Kevin here. (And look at all that drool! His next two teeth are almost in....)
Who knows what the next post will be about? Gus's first birthday? Or Jessica's bridal shower? Or Gus playing with his cousin John? There's a lot going on in the next few days....

Video, finally

So for the last two weeks I've been trying to upload a video of Gus laughing where you can check out his teeth really well. I even made a wordpress blog to see if I could upload it to there (it seems uploading video to wordpress doesn't work unless you pay money?). Anyway, I finally just got a youtube account, and so here's a link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3qE6BdmVJQ
I know smarter people have youtube videos within their blog posts, but I'm not that smart. So deal with it. I guess if I can't post a video in the future, I'll do the same thing.

A relatively successful trip....

This past weekend Kevin and I took a kind of vacation. We were going to head up to the suburbs to reunite with my college roomies, and I convinced Kevin to take two extra days off to go up and spend a night in Chicago. Kevin said that was fine, as long as I booked a good hotel room. Well, I decided to use Priceline because my sister has had luck with that in Chicago. Anyway, I was less lucky, but I'll get to that.
Thursday morning we were on our way. We had plans to stop in Bloomington-Normal to have lunch with my friend Laura and her family and to see her new house. It was a perfect lunch, and Gus got a chance to eat and play and be out of his carseat for a bit. Then we were on our way to the city, hoping to get there before rush hour. Unfortunately, we hit either an accident or construction (we never figured it out) and it took us an hour to go 2 miles at one point, which meant we hit the city right at 4pm. Nightmare. Anyway, we eventually made it to our hotel and got checked in.
Our hotel was in a nice neighborhood, called the Gold Coast. As fate would have it, it was a block away from where my cousin Amy lived for 5 years until a month ago....figures. It was a neat old building (built in 1926) but left much to be desired. Just pretty shabby overall. The added touch was that as soon as we checked in, I went to the bathroom and the toilet didn't flush. Awesome.
Regardless of our hotel and getting there a little late, we continued on with our (my) plans for the evening. We took the train downtown to Millenium Park. I love this place but Kevin was unimpressed.
Here's our only family photo from the trip.
Kevin being unimpressed by the bean
Regardless, I still love the bean! My favorite piece of public art, perhaps....
So we walked through Millenium Park, and discovered a walkway to the new Modern Wing at the Art Institute - my other planned stop for the evening.
We lucked out because the Art Institute is free after 5pm on Thursdays. So that was nice because it saved us $36, but it was crazy busy as you might expect. So we just saw a few things there and checked out the new building before we headed on to dinner. Here's Gus and his classic smile along with Dad at the Art Institute.
Waiting for the train to go to dinner

So, I love pizza. And I love Chicago style pizza. So I asked my friend Shannon for a recommendation, and her favorite was Gino's East. So that's where we headed for dinner. When we got close, we realized there was a giant line.....I had no idea this place was such an institution. Gus was starving, so while we waited in line I gave him a banana and made a giant mess. We finally got a table and ordered, and then Gus had a dirty diaper, which of course was on his clothes. So he got his clothes changed. Then I gave him his dinner, which he promptly threw up everywhere. It was a fun time. Despite all this drama, the pizza was AWESOME. We enjoyed it with a pitcher of Goose Island 312, so life was good. So back to the hotel we went.

This is Gus trying to bite my face at Gino's East....it's his new favorite thing to do.
Friday morning, we woke up and went to breakfast at a little cafe in Amy's old building. Good food! Then it was my plan to walk around the Gold Coast area to see some of the cool old houses, and then up through Lincoln Park and the zoo and maybe along the shore of the lake a bit. Kevin said he didn't really want to walk anywhere, and I said Gus and I would go by ourselves. So we meandered through the park. Half of the zoo was closed for construction and I wasn't overly impressed with what I did see, but hey, it was free. Then I went to the Conservatory which was pretty cool considering I like plants and all. Here is Gus and the conservatory:

This was right inside the main door of the conservatory - very nice!

After Gus and I walked, we went back and checked out of the hotel. Then we drove a few miles north to see my friend Shannon's relatively new condo - very nice place! After that, we went with Shannon to the Goose Island Clyborne Pub, basically the Goose Island equivalent of the Tap Room. Shannon and I both chose to try flights of beers, while Kevin got a 'Hefe-Hawks-win' - the name of their hefeweizen which was named in a contest. The beer was good, the food was good, everything was good.
Here is my flight. Yum!
After Goose Island, we decided to get the hell out of dodge. It was nearly 2 and we thought we'd beat the traffic. WRONG! It took us about an hour and a half to drive the 20 miles to Downers Grove where Katrina and Brad live. CRAZY!!!!
Unfortunately not all of my pictures have uploaded from my camera to my computer yet (we have this wireless photo card but for some reason only some uploaded and I'm too lazy to manually do it right now) but here is a picture of Gus playing with the truck Erikka gave him for his first birthday - it's his first birthday present ever!
But after we got to Katrina's Friday, we waited for Anna and Erikka to arrive and then we ordered pizza and sat around. Saturday we went to the Downer's Grove farmers market, and then it was Katrina's shower. It was by far the fanciest shower I've ever been to - at a restaurant with a 3 course meal! Hopefully one of the other girls will send me the picture of us all dressed up at the shower..... Kevin and Brad went to a microbrewery and drank for the 4 hours we were at the shower, and then that evening we grilled brats for dinner and sat around some more. Sunday we headed home after we got everything together in the morning - Kevin wanted to get some work done at home. But the chicken coop is finally almost done - it better be done in time for the chickens to be released at the coop warming party saturday!
So all in all, it was a good trip. I don't believe I'm ever going back to Chicago with Kevin again, so if anyone else wants to go, let me know ;) Gus was soooo good, and so flexible to having a modified schedule every day based on what we were doing. I'm so lucky to have such a good little boy!