Trip to Quincy

After seven months, we finally made it down to Quincy for my Grandma Schmitt to meet Evelyn! My dad and I took the train down for a quick visit at the beginning of August. Fortunately, many of my cousins were around as well, so we had a great time!

Four Generations

My smiley girl...

We stayed with my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Bill (my dad's sister), and Madeline had a blast on the "roller coaster" she set up.

Here, Madeline is playing cards with some of the "big boys". My cousin Tricia was visiting with her three boys from Indiana.

Evie with Graceann and Andy- before they headed back to U of I.

... out playing games with all the big boys

We also got to do some farm stuff during our visit. Here we are at my Uncle John's farm watching them feed the cattle...

...riding the tractor (that can drive itself with cool new GPS!)...

...and riding on the 4-wheeler.

We hope to go down again this fall to celebrate my grandma's 91st birthday!

Happy 35th Birthday Dan!

For the "Big 35" I asked Dan if he'd like a big party to celebrate. Nope. He just wanted a quiet evening with family and an evening out with me. So on Friday night we put the kids to bed, then had my parents come over while we enjoyed Downtown Naperville for a few hours. We went to Le Chocolate, our favorite place for a good chocolate fix, then walked around downtown where we promptly realized that we were either too old or too young, and were definitely covering too much skin.

On Sunday evening his parents and Marie joined us for a spaghetti dinner and some birthday cake. (Notice that Madeline has now become opposed to smiling on demand in pictures).

Been Awhile!

My intention is to add new posts to this blog regularly, but it's been hard to keep up with life lately. And I guess that's a good thing! Things move fast at the Hay house, and down-time is a precious and seemingly scarce commodity. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, and sleep have all taken priority over posting pictures lately.

The girls are both growing fast, and schedules and expectations are always changing. Madeline is experimenting with dropping her nap, so even though she still has "rest time" in her room every day, she'll only fall asleep half the time. If she doesn't sleep, it means an earlier bedtime, which has been okay. Evelyn is a pretty light sleeper, and even when she's exhausted, a 5-10 minute nap in the car or rocking chair followed by some loud noise or disturbance will wake her up and reset her nap clock for another 2 hours. This can make it difficult to go out or plan activities, since I don't know exactly when she'll be sleeping. And of course, the day is rare when both girls are asleep at the same time and I have a few minutes to catch up on whatever needs to be done around the house.

But we're all thriving! It's exciting to watch the girls enjoy each other. Evie lights up when she sees Madeline enter the room, and Madeline can't get enough of her little sister. ("Give Evie some space" has become a frequent phrase at our house. I bet I say it 100 times a day.) And Dan and I are trying to soak up these moments!

Stay tuned for a month's worth of pictures and videos coming soon!