Category: News

Happy birthday, Maeve! Our little baby is now really a kid. She has a new level of confidence and capability, seemingly overnight! Maeve was so excited about this birthday and really seemed to enjoy and appreciate the attention today. She normally doesn’t like attention, as you know, but was so polite in thanking people who wished her a happy birthday. This week, by coincidence, Maeve is the star student at school. She got to talk about our family and show pictures to her class today. She kept saying “this one is awesome!” each time – so proud!

Maeve had a great first Irish dance class today too and really seemed to enjoy it. She learned how to put her feet in first position and do a knee-kick! She followed that up by climbing the rock wall at the park. So multi-talented! Her bowling party is coming up this weekend and she is excited to have her grandparents visit. She got a new scooter today that is really fast, so she’ll be anxious to show that off, as well as her new markers and Hello Kitty slippers.

After she showed off her skills this afternoon I said, “Being 5 is pretty cool so far, right?” and Maeve said, “Yep, really cool. I think maybe I even talk different.” She’s growing up so fast!!!

I’m not sure where the summer went. I could summarize it, but there are many photos and a couple of videos that might do it better justice…

We traveled more than we expected, but had some wonderful highlights – at the boat, in Spring Lake, in Eganville, and at home in Chicago… We celebrated our nephew’s 1st birthday and had lots of opportunities to enjoy summer with our family and friends. We are so thankful!

The video that includes Maeve swimming by herself from the bottom of a very large water slide in 3’6″ water where she can’t touch is the most recent thing for which we are most proud. She also has rocked her recent doctors appointments in preparation for school – including her first eye drops.

Maeve will begin 2.5 hr/5 day/week preschool on Sept. 6. She will be joined by her neighbor and buddy Abby, and we hope it will be a really good year for her. She also will keep doing soccer and art, and will try Irish dance and swimming classes to build on her progress in the pool this summer!

As her 5th birthday approaches, it’s hard for us to find the words to express how amazed we are by Maeve. She is such a terrific, smart, playful girl and we love her more and more every day!!!

Camp CBG (Chicago Botanic Garden) was a huge success! Maeve loved her Salad Science camp and they had terrific weather all week. She made a new friend, learned how to harvest and clean fruits and vegetables, made salads and strawberry jam, and brought home 4 new plants for our garden!

This week she is doing art camp at the Paintbrush art studio. They learn about a different artist and style each day. I published a portfolio of her work at week’s end (June 24)…

We celebrated our anniversary and father’s day this weekend. Lots of work and play outdoors, and great meals! Some photos have been added to Picasa.

P.S. If you’d like to see some of Maeve and her soccer pals’ moves from Lil Kickers this season, be sure to check out the new movie in the MobileMe Gallery.

I haven’t posted in awhile so here are some random newsy updates:

Maeve is counting orange cars. Every time she sees one, she says, “I found another orange car. That’s (insert number).” She’s on 28 as of yesterday and plans to go to 100! Why orange cars, we don’t know…

Between more rain storms we have finally gotten back to riding the train around Chicago. Maeve LOVES to take the train, talks about the letters at each stop, and gets really excited about the different color trains. The other day we took the blue line to the pink line, then the brown line to the bus (another favorite option). Yesterday we went downtown on the blue line to the Printer’s Row Lit Fest and saw a Justin Roberts concert!

After a quick trip to visit Grandma, Uncle Matt, Auntie Beth and Nathan, we made it to the beach on the hottest day of the year so far (Memorial Day). This week is shaping up to be a warm one too, so let’s hope we don’t kill our new sod. Check out the photo gallery for pictures of our new and improved back yard!

Maeve is proud to have her very own library card now and we have started her first series of chapter books, The Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne. She loves the imaginative stories about a brother and sister who travel into books and learn about different places and times. This week we are reading the first in the Judy Moody series, since we don’t have the next Magic Tree House book.

Last week we said goodbye to our beloved art teacher, Ms. Cheryl. She is retiring this year from the Park District, so Maeve was in her last class. I plan to put together a portfolio of Maeve’s work and have a few pieces to frame as well. I will get photos of them up online too. Maeve has a week of art camp to look forward to, but it’s going to be hard to top Ms. Cheryl’s classes.

This is Maeve’s last week of preschool at the YMCA. She has loved her teachers and made a good friend, Amia. Next year, she is excited to be going to Belding with our neighbor Abby. We went to see the classroom last week where she met her teacher and got a tour from a sweet 5-year-old. She left saying “I love it here!”

I wish April had not flown by so fast! We had a very special trip to the Bahamas and Maeve was, as usual, a great traveler. We didn’t have our luggage upon arrival – we rolled with it and I got to borrow a cute dress from Aunt Nancy, but we will definitely consider packing our swimsuits in our carry-ons next time! Soaking up the sun at the pools and beach was wonderful, we had many delicious meals, and Maeve and Gigi colored some beautiful pictures together. Also, Maeve started swimming with her face in the water during our trip and met two adorable girls from Ireland that I hope might be her pen pals someday! There is a huge grouping of photos (some of ours, my parents’, Aunt Peggy’s, and Aunt Nancy’s) here, and hopefully I will get all of ours up on Picasa too.

We came home to MORE dreary, rainy days, and Chris has been traveling way too much, but Maeve was ready to be back in her routine and having fun with her friends. Chris and I were honored to become god parents to our nephew, Nathan, on Easter weekend and Maeve loved playing with her crawling cousin! We welcomed the sun back this last weekend and Maeve is getting really good at riding her new bike. We also got to see butterflies released into the haven at the Nature Museum today. Now that we have some flowers planted we are truly hoping the weather warms up and stays nice and sunny for the breast cancer walk this Mother’s Day!

We’ve had some fun times with friends in the past couple of weeks. Maeve painted her face with pals Olivia and Lily, went to the art studio with her buddy Evan, and had a play room party with some of my McCormick-colleagues’ kids. This week Maeve had a babysitter playdate at Mia’s while the parents dined out, we had our neighbor Aoife over to play, went on an egg hunt practice run at a local park with Anna who we met in science class, and had a lunch date with Lucy!

It’s been rainy, dreary and cold here, but we brightened our spirits with a new car and new bike for Maeve this past weekend. She was happy we picked a blue car (although she wants red next) and is excited to practice on her bike – the best parts are the red pedals and that it has no seatbelt!

A big accomplishment in Maeve’s world is pulling her shirts over her head all by herself. She is back in her art class with Ms. Cheryl for the spring, and still doing soccer and science classes when she’s not at school or attending playdates around town. We are off to visit Gigi and Aunt Nancy, and can’t wait to see them and soak up the sun after this long winter.

Happy birthday and vacation to me!!!

My dad put together a wonderful video of the party that was Chief O’Neill’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration a few weeks ago and I wanted to share it here! Hope you enjoy the painted faces and Maeve’s dance moves…

I’ve been saying that Maeve is four and a half for awhile now, but today she actually is! We aren’t big on half-birthdays or anything, but we are looking at getting her a bike for the summer so I’ll use any excuse. She rode her tricycle to the park this week and her long legs made me realize that she is ready for an upgrade!

Happy belated birthday to Chris! He got to enjoy a fun St. Patrick’s Day party for his special day, and now we are gearing up for more work travel. Maeve has had some fun playdates in recent weeks and we lined up an additional week of summer camp for her – this one a Salad Science class at the Botanic Garden!

Maeve has started DJ-ing on her iPhone (a hand-me-down from me) and now knows how to take pictures with it. She continues to become tech-savvy and we love watching her discover new gadgets. She’s also been more interested in jewelry, wearing tights and tutus, and having her nails painted – all recently acquired tastes and super cute!

I’m sure I should be happy because the last I wrote we were buried in snow and since then it’s been feeling a bit like Spring. But I blinked and now it’s the end of February and it’s snowing again tonight. At least the grandparents all made it here for visits and we’ve had lots of fun this month. I also was buried in work for a bit of this month, but somehow that’s already done too!

The big news in Maeve’s world is that she has 2 confirmed weeks of Summer camp lined up. Yes, I realize it’s February, but we live in Chicago and apparently people plan even farther in advance here than me! In fact, we didn’t even get into the week of the Zoo camp we wanted despite members having early access. I am excited about what we did choose though. Maeve will be doing a week of art camp at the Paintbrush and a week of Spanish camp at Multilingual Chicago.

We attended a story time at Multilingual Chicago this morning and it was great to see Maeve picking up more Spanish words – the class is all immersion with a story, songs and playtime. She does really well with her colors and numbers, but we are going to need some help if she is to actually begin to learn another language. I guess I thought we would have started this by now…there’s just so many wonderful activities to do! I’m glad we are exposing her to a language now and we think the week of Summer camp will be fun.

Maeve has her first sleepover scheduled for this weekend. Her friend Gwen is coming over and we’re hoping the girls have a great time! Maeve had her first away-from-home sleepover at Rachel and Fiona’s when she was 2.5, but has yet to have a friend stay at her house. I think she’ll be a wonderful host and friend!

We are in the middle of the Blizzard of 2011 – tomorrow we are supposed to wake up to 2 feet of snow! *GROUNDHOG DAY UPDATE: we did get almost 2 feet of snow and it’s still snowing on and off today! Check out our pictures…

This was expected and all we have seen/heard/spoke about in recent days has to do with the weather. Maeve’s teacher called Monday night to tell us school would be cancelled on Wednesday, and we even got emails from soccer class and pediatrician’s office saying they are closed too! The snow started blowing this afternoon and we’ll have to see what tomorrow brings, but we are prepared with potato eyes, carrot nose and other accessories for the snowman we hope to build…

Maeve and I laid pretty low last week successfully fighting off winter colds, but she has been enjoying school and her classes. Some recent highlights include a terrific outing to a fun place called Make-a-Messterpiece where she did some really neat art projects with fly swatters and bubbles, and a wonderful annual trip to a waterpark in the Wisconsin Dells with our friends. Also, she is officially in a big girl bed as we finally put her bed up on a frame and attached the back of her crib as a headboard! This weekend Maeve and Daddy have a special day scheduled with outings to a Garden Buddies class and a Valentine’s Day dance. Maeve is especially looking forward to visits from her grandparents too…that is, if any of the roads are passable by next week.