Thumb

Did you know that Evie has two thumbs? She just found out herself, so it is big news! She of course has found her thumb a few times in the past, but recently she has been able to pretty reliably place it in her mouth when she wants something to soothe herself. Pretty awesome accomplishment and we don't mind if she is a 'sucker'.

We had a busy week and weekend. Evie went on her first outing without either of us when Nana took her to Magic Mountain with her cousins and family from North Carolina. Then she went to COSI with everyone which she thought was really exciting since they are running the Star Wars exhibit.

Here is Evie learning the force from Yoda. She was very interested.Evie appreciated that R2-D2 is her size...especially when compared to the Wampawho was a little scary--can't you tell?She was also afraid of Darth, but it wasn't too bad since Grandpa was there.

OK, so you probably noticed that Evie managed to sleep through the entire exhibit, several hours worth of cool stuff she didn't even know she was missing!

Sunday, Evie had a bad day. She was doing some raspy breathing so mommy gave her some nose drops to try and help her out, which seemed to work. Then later, she started scream crying like she was in really bad pain and it took us a very long time to get her calmed down. Today, I called the doctor and they said we should bring her in just in case so we went in this afternoon. She was in good health but may have had a bad bout with acid reflux. Since it was the first and only time she has been like this, we are going to wait before doing anything else. We did find out though that she weighs 12 lb 14 oz now--in about 2 weeks she has put on 12.5 ounces which is crazy. She is literally getting so big, so fast! This may be my newest favorite Evie pick:

Back At Work

So I started back at work last Wednesday doing 1/2 days for the week and am back full-time this week. So far so good. The worst was the day I dropped her off in the afternoon because we had so much fun that morning. Since I am getting in at 7:30 a.m. (and getting up at 5:30 a.m. which is a huge change for me) neither one of us is awake enough for any fun before I come in for a full day's worth of work:) which isn't quite as hard.

It is kind of nice having what I like to call 'adult time' in my days. I really enjoyed being at home with Evie but it is hard work being totally responsible for a baby and not having any real intellectual stimulus (I did become addicted to MTV's show 'Next' which was definitely not stimulating) all day long. I am used to running around like a crazy person and caring for a baby is a little slower paced. But I do miss her and all the time and fun we had together. My favorite things I miss are:

• sleeping in.
• morning, afternoon, and evening naps. I love naps and she is super cuddly and warm.
• secret smiles from Evie throughout the day. She has a fussy time, which of course is when we get home so not always terribly smiley!
• feeding her (pumping is faster but no fun and looks really weird if you have ever seen someone do it plus requires clean-up; breastfeeding doesn't).
• running shopping errands where I almost always spent money on something, so good for the wallet that I am not shopping nearly every day anymore.
• hanging with the pups for large chunks of every day and evening.
• little things like seeing almost everything she did all day long, and knowing I will miss even more little things and even some of her firsts now that I am not her 24/7 caretaker.

It's kind of cruel that our society makes you go back to work right when your baby starts doing really cool things and responding to you. Maybe we should all move to Canada where they get an entire year off!

First Father's Day

I must say I had a great first Father's Day weekend. Thanks to Amy, Evie, and our parents, I definitely got a number of wonderful things and had a really, really great time.

Saturday Amy, Evie & I headed out to Easton and did lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, The Ocean Club. This was kind of a "farewell" trip there, as at the end of this month they're closing for four weeks (all of July) opening in early August as "Mitchell's Ocean Club", with a more 50's piano-bar/rat-pack feel. This was my own selfish (pre-)Father's Day meal, and I greatly enjoyed the Ginger Crusted Salmon, which is one of my favorite dishes to be had anywhere dining out in Columbus. Supposedly there will be something "very similar" on the new menu, but given that I think it's pretty much perfect as-is, I'm worried that any change can only hurt it. But anyway -- for the time being, it's fabulous, and it was just what I wanted.

Sunday Grandma watched Evie while Amy & I headed to church and ran a couple last minute errands, then we picked them up and went to Wendell's Pub for lunch. We were planning on going to Walt's 50's Diner, but apparently they're no longer in business... I was really craving a fried bologna sandwich, and Wendell's was happy to provide. Once again, it was just what I wanted. I'm so lucky to have such an awesome wife and family who can indulge my odd culinary cravings.

After lunch, Nana & Grandpa came over and we did the whole Father's Day thing for me AND Grandpa. As Amy mentioned below, I got the obligatory tie (which I asked for -- after all, you're supposed to get a tie on Father's Day, right?), a nice new dress shirt, a couple nice new polos from my parents, and an AWESOME father's day album, assembled and captioned DOUBLE AWESOMELY by Amy, and printed, bound & sent from Shutterfly. It's really, really cool - you need to check it out. Ask me & I'll be more than happy to show it off. Plus, (and yes I know this is a repeat, but it's worth it), it has this picture in it:


How can you NOT love that picture? She's so fun! Amy also conspired with Nana and the album includes several cool pictures with me as a lil tyke and my Dad and Grandfathers in it as well, like this great old family shot:


and check out these two young guys:


Madness I say. Dad also got an album of his own too, featuring plenty of him and Evie hanging out, as well as more of me as a baby, etc. It also turned out very cool, and Amy did a great job on both. I can't imagine a cooler father's day present.

After the presents & just hanging out & visiting for awhile, we hit up House of Japan steakhouse off Polaris for some excellent Japanese steakhouse-style grub. A funny coincidence there -- our reservations were for a party of four (plus baby) for 4:30 under Amy. There was another group there who ALSO had reservations for a party of four (plus baby) at 4:30, and the baby's mom was named Amy! They had their reservations under their last name, but still - how odd! We had a great time, and while it's still not quite as good as Fujiyama, they put on a good show and serve up some seriously good food. All-in-all, one very excellent Father's Day, and it really made me feel like the luckiest guy in the world:

(PS: Yes, that's me in my new tie!)

Father's Day

Evie and mommy conspired to give daddy an awesome first father's day!
Look at how cute she is!

Daddy got the 'obligatory tie' he asked for, a dress shirt, stepping stone with Evie's foot in it and a photo scrapbook from shutterfly (as a note this links to the site not the book, which you can see if you visit us:) ). He also got funds for whatever he wants to use them for and some nice polo shirts from our parents.

We also got Grandpa his own scrapbook:Hopefully daddy will post and tell everyone about his first father's day soon!

At Evie's 2 mo. appointment she got 4 yucky shots which she was ok with (somewhat fussy but mostly sleepy), and has gotten soooo big. She weighed 12 lb 1.5 oz, 24 inches long. This puts her in the 80%tile for weight and 92% for height!

Evie's Travels Part 2: Dayton

On Sunday we went to Dayton for Alaina Imboden's first birthday party. While a bit of a trip, this was nowhere near as chaotic for Evie as Saturday was!

Both Alaina and Evie have the same 'crib potato' shirt so we had conspired to get a picture of them together wearing their shirts. Evie pooped on hers right away, so we washed it while we went to church and dried it before putting it on her again to go to Dayton. We made it all the way there and then she pooped on it again so I gave up. She also threw up all over me and herself so it was lucky I had brought multiple outfit changes for her, and one for me too!

After that we just had lots of fun, and ate lots of great food, while Alaina got lots of presents:
Alaina and Evie had fun together too...
...until Evie stole her princess chair! There can only be one princess and it was the birthday girl!

Max has been making total fun of me, but there was another new, exciting being to meet--and that was Pirate the puppy pug. I took one more picture of him than I did of Evie, but he is so tiny and adorable:

I mean how can you resist? He is the same # of weeks as Evie!

Evie's Travels Part 1: Cincinnati

This past weekend was a kind of busy one for us, and included two day trips. On Saturday Amy, Evie & I hit the road for Cincinnati to visit the Voellmecke clan, including the Chicago contingent.

We got on the road in the late morning, and of course made the required stop at Sonic for some Cherry Limeade (well, a full lunch really, but without the Cherry Limeades, who cares? It'd be just another fast food joint). Evie & I hung out while Amy had to visit the powder room in the nearby LaRosas. Now, LaRosas happens to be Amy's favorite pizza, so while she was there, the cravings and guilt of uncustomerly powder room use combined to get her to buy a 60 gallon drum of pizza sauce. I think we're set on pizza sauce until Evie goes to college. Good thing I'm such a fan of eating pizza, eh?

After the grub-fix, we met some of Amy's family on her Mom's side (that is, non-Voellmeckes) at a Red Lobster, including Traci, Jodi, Shari, and Jodi's two cute girls Hanna and Bria. (warning: some of those name spellings may be incorrect.) Everyone had fun hanging out with and holding Evie - Jodi even got to feed her a bottle! The two girls especially had a great time:

After a little while there, we packed back up and headed up the street to Skyline to meet up with the Voellmecke clan. It was a pretty good showing, and we took up pretty much all of the little "private" big group area there. Evie got to meet her Great Grandma Voellmecke, quite a few of her great uncles and aunts and a whole passel of first cousins (once removed). Yes, I had to look that one up. Here's Evie hanging out with Becky and Angie:

I know it's the nature of the food they serve, but the speed the food came at Skyline was incredible. Here's something like 25 people ordering (most ordering multiple items) and the food was out in like 5 minutes! Madness. Clearly they're big fans of Henry Ford. Well, Henry Ford and Mr. Whipple. Obviously Mr. Whipple.

After Skyline we headed back to Grandma V's house and were joined by even MORE of the Voellmecke clan, bringing us up to an estimated 95% of the Cincinatti, Kentucky, and Chicago-based V's. Utter madness, though it did fall short of the unmitigated insanity that is Voellmecke Family Christmas. I tried to take some shots to provide a feel for the chaos. They don't really do it justice, but here's my attempts:


and a bit more "organized":


Everyone had a lot of fun meeting and holding and playing with Evie, who's the reigning "new hotness" of the Voellmecke clan. We tried really hard, and I'm pretty sure that everyone who WANTED to got to hold her, from Great Grandma V (of course!) all the way down to Ethan. Here's Evie hanging out with Aunt Clare -- can't you tell she's having fun meeting all these new people?


Just kidding - she actually did really great! With all those folks in a small room, she did get a little hot at times, but we just stepped outside into the cool for awhile and she was fine. While visiting and playing with everyone, we also got a great preview of two years from now, courtesy of the adorable Anna:


All in all, we had a great time visiting with everyone, and everyone seemed to have a great time with Evie. A big group left for the Reds-Cubs game (good for the Chicago contingent), and we visited for awhile more in the slightly less chaotic smaller crowd, then headed home for the night.

On the way home we decided to stop at a place I've heard a lot about -- Jungle Jim's International Market. Wow is that place insane. It's HUGE, has a full-size American grocery as well as tons and tons of natural foods and international foods, from all over the world. We bought lots of fun stuff including:

• Jolt Cola
• Virgin Cola
• HP Sauce for Gary
  
• Gulab Jamun
• Palak Paneer
• Brown Bread in a can
• some Vegemite!
  
• Two kinds of etouffe mix
• various candies
• and some other stuff I'm not recalling at the moment...

I could've spent HOURS in there. As-is it was about 1.5 hours. Evie wasn't doing so hot when we first got there, so she and Amy recharged in their movie theater (showing a "history of" film) while I checked out the first big international section. Kevin tells me his record for time spent there is 4 hours, and I can see how that could happen - though I think Amy would kill me before the halfway point...

All-in-all a really fun trip. I hope we make it back very soon, as it's always fun hanging out with everyone (yes, even in the chaotic huge crowds), and on top of that, there's lots of places there we'd like to check out restaurant-wise, shopping-wise, and of course, there's always Shadowbox South...

There's lots more pictures of the trip too - check em out.

That's all for now - I'll be back with Part 2 soon (though maybe not tonight)...

Baby Parade

Evie had another playdate with Allison...

...And Alex

And Audry...and Samantha too!Pictured L-R: Samantha, Evie, Alex, Allison, and Audry

and one of these is not like the others--there's a boy among all these ladies!
Alex is a king with his harem!
Notice Evie eating Samantha's arm and the only one who is not facing up...

Hi says Alex--he is too cute! He gave Evie lots of nice kisses.
Alex is 15 months, Samantha is 9 months (so little 8 week Evie is between the big kids) and Audrey and Allison are both 15 weeks this week. Quite a wide range but lots of little babies! And Alex gets a new little brother soon in September, so more babies to come!

Alex and Samantha both have achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism. Patty, Alex's mom, also watches Sam so they can play and learn together while Sam's mom is at work. Alex has grown up so much since I first met him about one year ago--he was doing the splits and crawled all the way around the Fish's house and gave the best kisses. He is also a master at high five and we had lots of fun. This was the first time I met Samantha and she was so laid back and cute--she was completely happy to play with her feet and everyone else's while we were there:)

Audry and Allison are now at the stage where they can grab and hold on to things with their hands which is so cool--Evie will be doing stuff like this soon too! This was also the first time I met Audry and she has the most amazing red hair!

We did tummy time at the Fish's and Evie held her head up for at least 2 minutes straight! This evening Evie is a little bit in melt-down mode for poor daddy but she is trying to have fun. She just has some super bad gas again--poor thing!

Babies is awesome!

Dream Dinners and PQ

Evie stayed with Grandma for a few hours today while we went to Dream Dinners. It was pretty cool. We made 12 dishes in 2 hours that we just freeze, then thaw, heat and eat when ready. Basically they have everything there so you can assemble the meals to taste so you have 14 choices for meals to make but they can be customized to whatever you like.

Each dish serves 4-6 and we were able to split most meals into 2 so we now have 19 main dishes and 2 dessert all ready to go. We ate one of the meals today, BBQ Pork Wraps, and they were really good. This was a meal we split, and we both had a full lunch plus there is enough left over for one more meal for one of us. Plus we have the same amount frozen for another 1.5 meals for the two of us. If everything is as tasy as the wraps were it will all be good! We had a great time so we signed up for next month (so 12 more new menu meals in July plus one free 13th meal for signing up today) and if we go June, July and August we get 6 meals free to use any time.

We weren't sure the pricing would make it worth it or be 'good' but if we can get two meals for the two of us out of most dinners it will be a good deal, and if we get two dinners for two and two lunches for one out of each meal it is a great deal! Some meals come with sides which makes them a better bargain but you do have to provide your own sides with other meals. Meals with chicken breasts, pork chops or steaks came with 6 of each--usually decent to good sized pieces of meat. Anyway, this has been a great use of our new chest freezer and yummy to boot! It will also save us $ and waste on buying parts of a meal that we never end up making, and then throwing out the expired veggies or meat or whatever it is we didn't use in time. Max will probably blog more about it too--he had a great time as well!

Pasquale's surgery went well and he does not have cancer. We are very happy he is well and hope his big ol' surgery spot (shaved and sutured) heals well. Poor ol' operated on puppy (as grandpa would say!)

Here is PQ with Evie just hours after he had surgery--he finally sat still long enough from still being semi-sedated for me to get a good shot. And see Evie's smile--she loves her brother!

as a small note we do not dress PQ up as a general rule but he has to wear a shirt so he can't mess with his incision.

The Trifecta of Cute Faces

The Pirate:

Pouting 'Eyebrow Action':

And another beautiful smile...

...work it girlfriend!