First Mother's Day

Zooey- 25 days old.

My first Mother's Day started dramatically with our usually calm, cool and collected baby vomiting up what appeared to us newbie parents as all her feeds over a 12 hour period. So after a sleepless night, we headed to the pediatrician's office at 10 am on Mother's Day. Luckily, Zooey had continued to gain weight since Thursday and had no fever so we were sent back home with a follow up in a few days. Even more luckily, Zooey continues to have spit up now and again but nothing like that terrible 12 hours. Don't know what it was but glad it stopped!

So, needless to say, Adam and I were VERY sleep deprived. We thought about calling off our planned Mother's Day events but in the end decided it might be better to have adults around to give Zooey attention to give us a little bit of a break! Plus, who wants to call off Mother's Day?






Adam's Mom came up for a few hours to hang out with Zooey and later in the day my parents and my Grandma Nelson came into town with dinner and lots of arms to hold Zooey upright given her reflux. It was Great Grandma Nelson's first time meeting Zooey so that was very special. And having 4 generations of Nelsons in one room was pretty cool as well. It was my first Mother's Day, my mom's 35th Mother's Day and my grandma's 60th Mother's Day!

Great Grandma Nelson and Zooey

4 generations of Nelsons: Zooey, Me, Grandma Nelson, Great Grandma Nelson

Adam, despite a new low in the sleep department, snuck out to Michigan Avenue under the guise of "going to the grocery store" and returned with gifts for all the Moms, myself included. Let's just say he set the bar pretty high for Father's Day next month with his gift of Zooey's birthstone in earring and necklace form (i.e. diamonds).

Diamonds, Champagne and Red Velvet Cake for Mother's Day
 (plus homemade shrimp and grits and a great red wine the night before!)

All in all it was a great day and the best part was that Zooey is healthy and still gaining weight. But the diamonds were nice too;)

Happy (belated) Birthday Dad!

Last weekend my Dad had a big birthday. This post was all written and ready for submission last week but since someone else had a big birthday on April 17th (more on that later) I wasn't able to get it posted on time. I'm sure my Dad understands:) Anyway, I suppose it's not polite to say how old (or young) he turned but let's just say it ain't 50 and it ain't 70. Get my drift? In reality, however, I don't know a single person who thinks he looks or acts his age- he is extremely fit, active and goofy- much younger than his chronologic years.

To celebrate, my Mom and I planned a surprise birthday party. Beyond coming up with the surprise idea and creating the invite, I must admit and give full credit to my Mom for putting together most of the details. Adam also had a key role in keeping Dad out of the house while Anna-Lisa, Jason, Mom and I got everything prepped. Turns out tricking my Dad into leaving the house wasn't all that hard. And he definitely had no idea about the party! We told him Adam and I wanted to come out to watch March Madness. When we arrived at 11 am (for a first game that doesn't start until 5) I said I was tired and needed a nap and Adam suggested lunch and a beer at Olympic Tavern. My Dad said sure. Luckily he didn't think anything of the fact that we drove all the way to Cherry Valley just for me to take a nap!

A-L and Jason arrived a few minutes later and the rush to get prepped was on! Decorations, food, we ran around and got everything done no problem. I think 4 people is the right number of people to prep a house in 1.5 hours for a surprise party. Might not have worked out with just two!

The guests started arriving and everyone did a great job of hiding their cars. Adam kept giving me the play-by-play of what they were up to (he had to ad lib a bit- they got a brewery tour to kill some time) and when Dad arrived we were all in our positions, hidden so we could surprise him en masse. It was almost too easy!

Excellent hiding spot!

As you can see from the photo, he was definitely surprised!

Dad totally shocked, Mom thrilled that we pulled it off!

In lieu of gifts, I thought it would be more fun and much more memorable to have a 'Rick Roast' where we tell stories about my Dad, preferably stories that make fun of my Dad. He's quite the jokester and there are no shortage of stories about ways he's tricked others or funny things he's done and he's quite able to laugh at/with himself, a very admirable trait that I like to think I've acquired! I think he enjoyed the gentle ribbing and reminders of good times over the past "x" number of years. He certainly was a good sport about it!

Dad trying to correct his friend Mike's story. Sure, Dad, whatever you say;)

Dad with Mom, sisters and brother

Happy Birthday Dad!! I love you!

Babybison's Running Themed Shower

On Easter, my family threw a shower for babybison, with the most appropriate theme of running. From the invites, to the decorations, to the gifts, the focus was on the active life babybison and her parents are going to have. It was ADORABLE! I was absolutely blown away by the cuteness of it all and the work my family put into making the day special for us parents-to-be. Here are a few highlights from this amazing day:

1. The invite. For a few years, I was the only runner in the family. Then Adam got into it, then my Dad picked running up again, then my Mom, then my cousin Anna-Lisa introduced us to her great boyfriend Jason who is the fastest by far of us all and at this point Anna-Lisa and her sister Karin have become runners in their own rights as well. My sister-in-law, Jill and my niece Gwyn recently did their first race down in the Carolinas. So it's fair to say we are a running family at this point, so the shower theme was absolutely perfect!

2. The decor. When I walked into my Uncle Scott and Aunt Kelly's house I was rendered speechless by all the cute items they had set up. First was the diaper cake that my Aunt Donna made. This thing is too cute! A three tired cake make of diapers with shoes and socks on every level as well as a race medal. It's proudly displayed in our living room so babybison's first visitors can see it as well:) Other neat activities included a bib making station and a family tree where each family member made a green leaf on the tree with their thumbprints.

Diaper cake!

First steps today, marathon tomorrow!

Even the water was themed!

3. The games. A few weeks prior to the shower my Aunt Kelly emailed me to ask how many miles babybison had run this far. I thought it was a really fun question and I almost immediately set about doing the calculations (using my dailymile log) to see how many miles she had run, biked, and swum. The totals at the time of the shower were 521 miles run, 224 miles biked and 24 miles swum. I'll be sure to post her final stats after delivery. The game was to guess these answers, with the additional hint of candy jars with the number of candy pieces equalling the number of miles. So fun!

4. The scavenger hunt. Next, we headed out on an Easter and running themed scavenger hunt. With my cousin, Braden, happily helping me with the clues, I was able to find all of the eggs with adorable and useful baby gifts inside. The clues were carefully crafted- I'm actually not 100% sure I'd have found them all without Braden's not-so-subtle clues (like "this way" or "not that way"). The hunt ended with a run to the finish line where all of the extended Monson side family members, including those who live too far away to make it to the shower, were outlined in chalk drawings.

Me, Braden, Aly and the Boomer-dog

Braden leads the charge. Jason helpfully carried a box to hold the loot!

Much needed bottles!

Egg retrieval is a two person job!

Garrett, Jill, Gwyn and Karin here in spirit!

5. The gifts. The gifts ranged from adorable to running themed to useful to all 3 at once! In the spirit of this being a running blog, I must give special mention to Anna-Lisa and Jason for finding this hilarious book on running called "C is for Chafing". It's an alphabet book but each letter is running themed. For example, "D is for DNF" and shows a picture of a guy in the bushes with the caption "his GI tract is churning". I look forward to having Adam explaining GI tract distress to babybison! "O is for 'oh,no'" with a picture of a guy losing his breakfast at the finish line with the caption "this means you ran too hard!" It's hilarious.

The whole shower was absolutely incredible. The time and thought my aunts and cousins put into the theme, the activities, and everyone's thoughtful and cute gifts- it was really touching. My family's excitement about babybison's arrival really reminded me to step back and spend some time being excited- with all the various physical aspects of actually being pregnant (exercise and eating modifications, etc)  and the preparations for babybison's arrival it's easy to forget we're actually going to meet this little person in just a few weeks. Or really, any day! With me being 36 weeks and 2 days, we should be living each day knowing it could be the day! Crazy.

I'm so grateful to have such a great group of people to call my family. Adam, babybison, and I are very lucky indeed.

Christmas 2012

The peach puffy sleeve dress takes the cake- nice job Aunt Kelly!

My favorite family tradition is our themed Christmas Eve dinner. We've done this for as long as I can remember. This year we stepped it up a notch by including costumes in our Anne of Green Gables themed festivities. For those not familiar, Anne of Green Gables is a novel (adapted into movies and mini-series) written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It takes place on Prince Edward Island and chronicles the adventures of Anne Shirley, an red-headed orphan girl who constantly gets into mischief despite very good intentions. It's a great book for kids of many ages.



A-L and Jason enjoying 312

 The novel was published in 1908, so you can imagine the costumes necessary to be true to the time. Turns out my cousin Anna-Lisa has a secret stash of old-timey dresses that we were able to dig into. I think my Aunt Kelly's taffeta dress took the cake! I must admit the dress I wore was actually one I wore to a high school dance. Ugh, what terrible taste I had! The dress was a bit of a tent on me even 4.5 months pregnant, so I can image how ridiculous it was when I was a skinny little thing in high school!

Test batch bison.

One of the traditional meals on Prince Edward Island is pot pies and Adam was put in charge of this task. He did an absolutely amazing job! There were three varieties- traditional chicken pot pie, an amazing seafood pot pie made with Canadian lobster, scallops and shrimp and a bison-bourguignon-turned-pot-pie. Each was even more amazing than the next. I was lucky enough to sample all the test runs in addition to eating a bit of all three on Christmas Eve! Adam spent 14 hours doing prep work the day before and he wouldn't even let me help!

Chicken pot-pie before the oven

Seafood pot pie post oven.

My favorite- the big bison-bourguignon pot pie!!

After dinner, everyone was handed an Anne of Green Gables quote hand chosen for them. Some of my favorites:

"Red hair is my life long sorrow" (read by the only family red head, Anna-Lisa)

"But really, Marilla, one can't stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?"

Anne: "Have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I have never made the same mistake twice."
Marilla: "I don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new ones."

My Grandma and Grandpa Monson had actually been to the Anne of Green Gables house years ago and my Mom still had a post-card they sent us from their visit, which was so cool!

Grandpa and Grandma Monson, me, Grandma Nelson. All in hats!

Babybison got gifts!

Between the 4 days off from work, no one in the family sick, and the big baby announcement, this was one of the best Christmases I remember having as an adult. It was great to see my family, even if our visit was too short!

We're considering themes for next year....Gone with the Wind is on the list as folks had lots of fun with the dresses. Any other thoughts?

In case you haven't noticed.......

.....my blog title changed. That's right, take a look. Those who know me really well have already heard the news and are slowly getting over their surprise and moving on to the excitement phase. Those who know me pretty well but not quite well enough to be in the first wave of announcements may fall out of their chairs. Me? Adam and I? Baby? Yup, that's right. Ten years into a wonderful marriage, we've decided to introduce a third party. Our baby(girl)bison will be joining us this May!! We're thrilled, so excited about babybison, and excited that it's not a secret anymore:)

Well, that's how I told you, my readers. Here's how we told some of the other key players in our life.....

Adam learns the gender

I learned the gender of the baby a few weeks before Adam did. He didn't want to know the gender until we knew all the tests from our amniocentesis were okay. So the day we got our final amnio results, I bought a pair of baby boots and lined them up with the many shoes that litter our front hallway. I really didn't think he'd notice that, so I also bought streamers and a balloon to decorate the apartment. But sure enough, as soon as he walked in the door, he said "So, it's a girl?" I asked how on earth he knew (the boots were black and white so I didn't think they totally gave it away!), and he said he noticed the liner of the boots was pink. Very perceptive, that one! I even got domestic and put up streamers on the windows- see them in the background?



Mom and Dad

Personalized menus at Sepia

Every year, in lieu of birthday gifts, we take my parents out for a fun Chicago day including a nice dinner. This year, we played a bit of golf on an unseasonably warm- but still chilly- day, then headed to Sepia for dinner. Golf was a lot of fun but I must admit I was eagerly awaiting what we had in store for them at dinner! We arrived and were directed to our table. As planned, the maitre d grabbed the "special" menus set aside for us with a quick wink in my direction. We sat down, and the waiter carefully looked us over and handed us each our personalized menus. Of course, only Adam and I knew they were personalized:) My folks starting reading the menu, my Dad in particular, noting some tasty appetizers. My mom was kinda quiet, looking things over. The subtle salutation at the top had not yet caught their attention so I gently nudged "what do you think about the menu" and my Mom quickly read it, looked at us in shock, read it again said "Really?" and got very excited. Those who know us know we've never talked about having kids, quite the opposite in fact. And our change in heart has been quiet- only a few of our closest friends knew we were considering kids and no one else. So my Mom was shocked but also so, so excited! Way more excited that I was expecting. My Dad was quick to follow and soon the waiter was over congratulating us as well. Later the manager came over to well wish. Sepia did a nice job with the celebration, with their enthusiasm, flexibility and extra touches to our dessert plates:)

Brother, Sister-in-law, Niece

Christmas morning run with Karin

We wanted to tell my brother and his family before we told my family at large, so we planted a shirt that my mom had made for me as a gift, pretending it was from Adam to me for me to wear on my run the next day. I made sure everyone was watching and opened the shirt. Garrett and Jill were shocked and confused. A good 10 seconds passed before Jill asked more questioningly than declaratively "you're pregnant??". We had them floored. A few beats later they recovered with the appropriate congratulations but it was a pretty funny 10s as they started blankly at us. What can I say? People are surprised when the couple who loves to travel to exotic locales and race destinations, live in the high rise on the lake in downtown Chicago and avoid all things kid decides to add a kid to the mix! (Don't worry- we'll still travel and race. We are lucky to have had many volunteers to baby sit already!)


Adam's Family

Since we delayed our announcement by a couple weeks to coincide with Christmas, I thought a gift would be a good way to tell Adam's family. So we framed and wrapped one of babybison's ultrasound pictures. Much like almost everyone else in my family, his parents were shocked. So shocked that it took a few minutes of "what is this an ultrasound of? a kidney? why are they giving us a kidney?" before they literally took the picture and compared it to ultrasounds of a previous grandchild on the fridge, before they realized what was going on. Fun times. His Mom laughed and clapped, his Dad cried. We then called his sisters. For his younger sister Nora, who was unfortunately home sick with the flu we enlisted the help of our niece to inform her mom. She was excited and got out of bed for that news. For his older sister Maggie who was taking care of our two sick nephews we just outright told her. Much like her Dad, she cried.



The Rest of My Family

We enlisted my niece and only current great-grand child in the family, Gwyn, to help spread the good news amongst my family. She had the wonderful idea of making a shirt that said "Jingle bells, jingle bells, cousin bison on the way" and wearing it to the Xmas Eve gathering. Now our Xmas celebration deserves and will recieve its own post, so suffice it to say here that every year we have a different themed meal and this year was Anne of Green Gables, which is why some of us are intermittently "in costume" in the pictures that follow. No, I don't usually wear lace dresses and hats.

"Say cheese!"

The first to arrive were my Uncle Scott, Aunt Kelly with two of my little cousins and my adult cousin Anna-Lisa and her boyfriend Jason. Immediately upon their arrival, I gathered them together to take a picture by the tree under the guise that I wanted a picture of all the costumes. In reality I thought we better make the announcement quick before either Kelly or A-L noticed my small but present baby bump! So we all assembled and Adam said "Say cheese!" He then made a nice show of checking out the photo to make sure everyone looked good. During this time, Gwyn covertly uncovered her T-shirt. Then Adam said we needed to re-do it and "say cheese" ensured one more time.  He again said the photo was sub-par and but time instead of "say cheese" he said "everyone say Val's pregnant!". Only a couple people repeated him and then a confused silence filled the room. The epitome of a pregnant pause (ha, ha, I'm too funny). We then had Gwyn turn around and reveal the shirt. I believe my Aunt Kelly was the first to catch on but soon everyone knew and there were hugs all around. I even- much to my surprise- got a little teary eyed. It was just so fun and great and the enthusiasm from my initially very confused family was so wonderful.

"Say Val's pregnant!"

We ended up telling pretty much everyone else individually. Next was my Grandma Nelson. Then my cousin, Karin, who had what may have been the funniest response to Gwyn's shirt which was "is someone getting a puppy?"and then her response to me once she realized I was pregnant "I thought you weren't doing the whole kid thing?" which I reminded her was exactly her response to me roughly 10 years ago when I told her I was getting married. I told her the marriage thing- though not entirely thought to be my scene at the time- turned out really well so I expect this next adventure will as well:)

The big surprise of the evening (besides our announcement itself) was how quickly my Grandma and Grandpa Monson figured it out! We showed them Gwyn's shirt and they immediately knew we were pregnant! They weren't even surprised! And out of everyone in my family, the only person who made name suggestions was my 94 year old grandfather! Hilarious!

Right after we told them

I hope our families had as much fun with "the big reveal" as we did. I'm sure every pregnancy announcement is exciting and wonderful, but I did enjoy the additional twist of folks being so shocked. We've been so vocal for so long about not wanting kids.....right up until the past year when we started thinking we did, and then we were really quiet about it right until Christmas:) Telling people about babybison has really been one of the most fun experiences of my life thus far!

My Black Friday was very bright!

A few years ago my family started a wonderful tradition of NOT getting each other Xmas gifts. I know I've mentioned before on this blog how much this one decision has enhanced my enjoyment of the holidays. Fighting through crowds at stores with a long list to purchase in a ridiculously small amount of free time is not my idea of the Christmas spirit! Plus my husband and I work very hard not to acquire unnecessary "stuff" thus getting a bunch of well-intended but hard to store presents is not ideal! So our list of people to buy for this year numbered five- 3 nephews and 2 nieces- and all have been purchased.

One wonderful consequence of this present-free Xmas is we are free to spend Black Friday however we want. This year, my family was kind enough to make the drive into the city to visit. And, yes, we entered retail stores, but without any pressure of "having to buy things". Mom, Anna-Lisa, Jason and I made the short trek to Macy's on State to look at the Great Tree and window decorations. This is the 105th year that Macy's (formerly Marshall Field's which traditional Chicagoans like myself preferred...and it will always be the Sears tower, forget Willis), assembled the 45 foot tree. There are over 1200 ornaments on the tree and 25,000 lights. Just think, at the first lighting of the Great Tree, people arrived in horse drawn carriages and there was probably no line for dinner at The Walnut Room! Back when the tree used to be real (they changed to artificial a few years ago), they had firemen on hand 24/7 just in case!

Mom and I

Jason, A-L, and Mom

It was fun to people watch the folks in the Walnut Room from above. It was an eclectic group of children, elderly folks, families, fairies (employees, we suspect) and people dressed as elves (turns out they were patrons). It was also fun to watch other visitors take photos in front of the tree. Many of them (particularly the pre-teen boys but a surprising amount of adults who one would think made the tree trip under their own free will) were BORED and GRUMPY looking! Maybe they spent the morning fighting over door-buster deals......So we decided to take some grump photos of our own:)

Blurry grumpsters

Slightly less blurry grumpsters

We didn't really shop- did some fragrance smelling and some animal print vest perusing, but nothing serious. I was surprised to find that being in the huge eight floor store actually made me WANT to do a bit of shopping, a task that I usually abhor. Maybe it was all the Xmas decorations? I might even try to convince my husband to wander around the store with me later this week. Without any "must buy" items on the agenda, it might be fun!

We then walked all the way to 900 N Michigan and stopped at Lululemon Athletica and then over to WaterTower Place for stops at 2 quick stores. The area wasn't any busier than a usual Saturday - I think the ridiculous crowds were probably in the suburbs- at least that's the impression I got from Facebook!

After our 4 mile urban hike, we enjoyed a lovely dinner of ravioli casserole (thanks, Mom!) and left over apple pie from T-giving. Adam and I had rushed to get the tree and other decorations up before my family arrived and were successful- my Mom helped by putting up the final ornaments.

Overall, it was a nice, relaxed visit. A little walking, a little eating, a little chatting and a very little shopping. Happy Black Friday to us!

Another cool consequence of this minimal gift giving is that we've been using the SAME roll of Xmas wrapping paper for 10 years! Can you believe it? Yes, it was a big economy sized roll when we first bought it, but it's still impressive to me that's it's lasted 10 years. Back when we did gifts, every single Xmas present Adam and I gave each other was wrapped in this paper as well as the majority of gifts we gave family and friends. Well I used the last of the roll yesterday on my niece, Maya's, gift. I guess both my husband and I have a bit of a romantic streak in us because we both felt like it was a pretty monumental occasion and we mutually agreed that we better keep a sliver of the paper in our "scrapbook" since it's had such a role in our joint life. Seriously, we've had this paper since we lived in Roger's Park before we were even married! Dorks that we are we'll probably have to make an announcement about this at Christmas, likely with another picture, before eager Maya opens her gift!

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!