Happy Halloween!

Today was Will's first Halloween (first holiday really!) and he enjoyed being a monkey today. We took him on a walk around our neighborhood tonight and there were tons of kids out trick-or-treating...it was fun to see all the costumes! Unfortunately Will slept through the whole thing, but we think we will have a pretty good time with him next year once he is walking!




And thank you Jessica for the monkey costume...he sure was a happy little monkey today:)

A message from Will

Fun weekend with friends

Jacob and Becca came to visit this weekend and we had such a good time with them! Jacob and Matt were fraternity brothers in college and he and Becca are good friends of ours.

Jacob got to go to a class and to TG with Matt on Friday, and then we had a great meal at one of our new favorite spots: Dave's Italian Kitchen (they have the best lasagna ever).

We have a Farmer's Market here every Saturday through October, so we took advantage of one of our last chances to get a few things Saturday morning. Matt made us a fantastic brunch of hash (with fingerling potatoes, sweet potatoes, and leeks), scrambled eggs with goat cheese, and fresh bread with pumpkin butter. We cheered on the Jackets while we cooked and ate!


The sun finally came out Saturday afternoon, so we drove around to show Jacob and Becca parts of Evanston. We went back to the park we'd been to a few days ago, and the leaves had already fallen off the trees! It was so quick!



The Bahai'a Temple for all of North America is right here in Wilmette, and Matt had really been wanting to go inside, so we went there. The gardens were laid out symetrically around the temple with flower beds and fountains interspersed...I bet it is really pretty in the spring. The inside was dramatic in it's scale and was decorated with some of their scriptures on the wall. The Bahai'a faith believes that God has revealed himself through several people along the way, including Abraham, Buddha, Krishna, Muhammad, and Jesus, and that all faiths point to the same God - basically a formalized view of what it seems like more and more people believe. (I believe that the Bible is clear that "there is salvation in no one else" but Jesus - Acts 4:12.)



On Sunday we enjoyed taking Jacob and Becca to our church and to a couples Bible study that Matt leads with KCF (Kellogg Christian Fellowship). They also got to explore some in downtown Chicago during the afternoon.

We had such a good time with them and hope they come back soon!

Pretty leaves

Yesterday was GORGEOUS...unseasonably warm and the foliage is at the peak of it's beauty. Fortunately, Matt had the afternoon free so we went to Wilmette, the idyllic village a mile or so north of Evanston. They have a great beach and park on the lake and the leaves were just amazing.

Here are a few pictures. My nicer camera is not digital and I haven't gotten the film developed yet, so these are just a preview - I'll post more soon!

Watching the Jackets

We watched Tech play Virginia Tech in their homecoming game Saturday night. Matt dressed the little guy up for the game, and I got a few pictures.

It was intense...

And then more intense...

No time for pictures...

About this time I noticed he'd put both of Will's legs through one side of his shorts...

Yea! They won!

"And if I had a son sir, I tell you what he'd do - he would yell TO HELL WITH GEORGIA like his daddy used to do"

Three months!

Will is 3 months old!

To my sweet 3 month old:

• You get a great big grin on your face when you see your momma or daddy!

• You are fascinated by fans. You stare at them and they are a great form of entertainment for you.

• We've taken the sling out of your bathtub and you are doing great without it!

• You are babbling and cooing a lot. You have the most interesting conversations with us!

• You are almost totally in 3 month clothes right now.

• You are such a good sleeper and you sleep 8-9 hours most nights.

• You are doing better and better at holding your head up on your own...it won't be long!

Our fierce lion!

Last night Will got to wear his first costume! Kellogg has "TG" every Friday at 5 - short for "thank goodness it's Friday", TG is a happy hour where the whole school gets together to kick off the weekend. Last night Kellogg Kids did a costume parade at TG and we took Will dressed as a lion!

There were so many adorable kids - here are two Winnie the Pooh's and a dragon!

As they called each child's name the parents led them up the stairs so everyone could see their costume in the atrium below - I tried hard to get a picture from where I was standing, but this is the best I could get!

Thank you McLeods for the the very cute lion costume! Stay tuned...there may be more costume pics to come over the next couple of weeks :)

New book coming out

I found out today that Francine Rivers is coming out with a new book! If you haven't read anything by her before, she is just about the greatest author EVER!! She mainly writes christian fiction - a lot of historical christian fiction to be exact. The first book I read by her, Redeeming Love, is still my all-time favorite book, and her Mark of the Lion series would probably come close behind! Lately she has been writing shorter books based off characters in the Bible. While good, I can't seem to get into them like some of her older work. So I am ecstatic about this new (450 page!) book coming out March 16, 2010!

Here is what the publisher has to say:

Her Mother’s Hope is the first of two historical novels in the Marta’s Legacy series, a saga inspired by strong women from Francine Rivers’s own family ancestry. The oft-unspoken, sacrificial love of a mother for her daughter is a crucial component to this story of four generations of women. Francine Rivers drew her inspiration from the biblical Parable of the Sower and the Seed for this series, while exploring how feeling loved and actually being loved can be perceived very differently. Breaking hurtful generational cycles is a foundational theme in the series.

You can read more here.

Monogram set

I ordered this monogram set for Will's nursery back in July before he was born and it came in today! I am so excited with the way it turned out - the pictures really can't do it justice.

I would tell you the name of the artist and her website, but I had a bad customer service experience. She was months late in getting it done, she never contacted me and was unresponsive to my emails, and in the end when she finally sent it she was rude. Needless to say, I won't be using her again or recommending her to others, which is unfortunate because she is very talented!

A surprise trip!

Friday was my birthday and Matt surprised me with a trip to The American Club in Kohler, Wisconsin! He told me to be ready by 6:30am Friday, and I had no idea where we were going. Kohler is a cute village in Wisconsin named after the appliance inventor. The American Club has a lodge feel to it but it is very nice - the only 5 diamond resort in the midwest, and they are hosting the PGA championship next year, and are right on Lake Michigan (and it is rumored that Mr. Kohler is looking into buying the Cloister!)

We got there around 10am Friday morning and Matt and I spent the morning at the spa relaxing! We ate lunch at a pub at the hotel (and even tried a Wisconsin favorite - cheese curds!) and then checked out the Kohler Design Center - a 3-story building with the most amazing kitchen and bathroom showrooms that you can imagine. Friday night we ate dinner at a lodge overlooking one of their golf courses. Saturday we had an amazing breakfast at the hotel (I had creme brulee french toast...aaahh!) and then went to check out the harvest festival going on - they had a corn maze, pony rides, a petting zoo, a pumpkin patch, and a hay fort. The leaves were changing and were just gorgeous so we drove around and looked at those in the afternoon, and we also checked out Sheboygan Falls, which is only about 10 minutes from Kohler.

We had such a great time - I am so impressed with Matt for planning this all by himself! I have SUCH an amazing and thoughtful husband! And the little guy did so well on his first night away from home - I don't even think he noticed he was in a different place!

Here are a few pictures from our trip...I already want to go back :) By the way, Matt got me a new lens for my camera for my birthday. It makes the person in focus and everything behind them blurry. A few of these were with my new lens, and a few were with our point-and-shoot.