Weekend of Birthday Fun

So I'm 31 now and I'm not sure when that all happened. The good news is that I have made it this far and I hope to have many more birthdays. Most of you know, I LOVE my birthday and the countdown begins on Christmas day. I decided that this year I wanted to go and do something for my birthday. Ryan and I had a date night on Friday. We sent Paige off to my parents and we headed downtown to have dinner and then to see Monty Pythons Spamalot. We had a great time even though our walk from dinner to the show was a bit colder than either of us had anticipated. The next day we had a family bowling night and my parents and siblings were there with their families. We had a great time. After bowling we headed back to my parents to enjoy the birthday cake that Paige and Grandma made for me. It was very yummy! Today is my actual birthday and I have nothing planned. I may even stay in my PJ's all day because I can.

Mandy and Ryan waiting for Spamalot to start

Here we are at Pinstripes. We were excited to learn that their bowling shoes came in toddler sizes and that they had ramps for the little kids to use to help their game. Paige was insistent on carrying her own bowling ball. After many tries of trying to lift the pink ball (10 lbs), she finally gave in and used the 6 lb blue one because she could carry it. The really sad part is that I am so bad at bowling, my 2 year old almost beat me; I beat her by one point. I'm a sad sack bowler.


Throwing her whole body into it.

Paige and Milagro enjoying the hair blower...I mean hand blower. Paige and Lilly really thought it was quite fantastic.

Waiting to see how many pins she knocks down. When the pins fall down, Paige does a dramatic fall to the ground as well.

Uncle Adam showing Paige an alternate use for the ramp. She thought using it as a slide was a much better idea. That Uncle Adam, so creative.

Inauguration Day

Today was a great day for our country and a wonderful step in the right direction. As I was at home working and watching all the festivities, little did I know, Paige would be watching them as well. After everyone was home tonight and we were watching the news, they were showing highlights of the inauguration and Paige says to us "Look Mommy, Barack Obama! He's our President. I saw him at Chita and Pepe's." She can identify President Obama in a line up. We are big into politics here and watched all of the debates so she was exposed to him. It was great to hear that she was watching it at her daycare today. She has learned so much from them, she can understand and speak Spanish, count to 20, sing more songs than I and she is even starting to write her name. I'm very pleased to hear that they found it important enough to have all the kids at daycare watch it as well. So cool.

Go Boilers!

One of the perks of working for the Big Ten Network, occasionally Ryan will get free tickets to different events. This week he happened to get tickets for two different Purdue games, one here in Chicago versus Northwestern and the other at Purdue vs. Iowa. Ryan went to the Northwestern game without Paige and me because it would have interfered way too much with bedtime. When Ryan got home from the game, Paige heard him and started to call for him. He went into her room and she asked him "you all done with basaketball game Daddy?" he nodded his head. Then she replied, "Why you don't take me with you?" So sweet and so sad all at the same time. That was enough for Ryan to know that taking her to the game on Saturday would be a good idea. She was very excited when he told her even though she had no idea what she was getting into.

Ryan was very excited to take Paige to her first Purdue basketball game this past weekend. Since Paige was in the womb, Ryan has been determined that Paige will play basketball for Purdue when she gets to college. Little does Ryan realize that she would much rather dance or be a cheerleader than a basketball player. She was very excited when the girls were dancing and such. Paige did really great throughout the game. She was a bit antsy but so much better than expected. I think Ryan's favorite part was when Paige got to shake hands with Coach Keady. Paige didn't seem to care but it was a proud moment for Ryan.


Cheering on the Boilers. Paige really liked all the clapping and cheering. She was even chanting "Let's Go Boilers!" with the crowd. Daddy was so proud.

Update on Paige's Eye

We went to Paige's follow up appointment a few days ago to see if the cataract in her left eye had grown. Paige was very excited to see Dr. Yoon and she has been talking about it all week. We do our best to get her excited about the visit so she isn't scared. We received mixed news today; mostly positive though. The best news is that her cataract has not grown at all so no need for immediate surgery. He thinks it was probably there at birth. They have asked for us to continue to patch her eye once a day for an hour for the next four months. They are having us do that to force her eye with the cataract in it to work. If it isn't forced to work, her brain can stop using it all together which would not be good. They checked her vision and it is fantastic so no need for glasses at this time. All of that was good. To the not so good part, they told us that she will most likely need to have the lens replaced at some point. Of course we would all love to avoid having to do the surgery and the doctor is with us on that, which is why we are still patching it. We asked how long before we might need to do the surgery, he said it was hard to say. We asked if it was likely in the next five years and he said it was possible but hard to tell. So, we will continue to visit Dr. Yoon every four months to monitor it closely. Paige received a high 5 from her doctor and a little teddy bear who she now calls Dr. Yoon. I am so happy we decided to spend a little more money on our insurance so she can be taken care of at the best possible spot. They are very good to her there.

Photo Albums

Since we are unable to add more than a few photos at a time, we added a link to shutterfly which is where we will have all our photo albums. I'm sure there are way more photos than anyone would want to see, but I am no good at picking just a few. Feel free to sign up to receive an email when we update the site. http://kelleyfamilyphotos1.shutterfly.com/

Christmas in Maine

After we spent Christmas in NH, we headed off to see Ryan's mom and the rest of the family in Wells, ME. Paige was very excited to be going to the beach to visit Grammy. She was having trouble understanding that the beach isn't nearly as much fun in the winter as it is in the summer. She kept insisting that Grammy had her flower bathing suit for her. Paige was excited to find that Santa found her in Maine too and brought her more gifts. She received more wonderful things but I think her mermaid dress up outfit and the 6 pairs of princess dress up shoes would have to be her favorite as you can see from the photo below. We had yummy food, made gingerbread cookies, went sledding and even visited the beach. She still had fun at the beach, even without her bathing suit. We hope to come back out in the summer to be able to enjoy the beach this time.

Our little mermaid with her mermaid Grammy


All dressed up and ready to go to dinner

Paige and Grammy at the beach


Family photo at the beach. Don't let the sun deceive you, it was really cold!


Our little dancing queen. She got a dance camera from Auntie Ree Ree and we tried it out in Maine. She wouldn't dance unless she could wear her Christmas dress. As you can see, she loved it!


Hard at work making gingerbread cookies


Sledding with Daddy

Christmas in New Hampshire

Opening gifts with Grumpa and Grammy Dee

This was our year to spend Christmas out east in New Hampshire and Maine with Ryan's family. Paige was a dream on the plane. She thinks it is a lot of fun and we hope it stays that way. We started off our visit in Hollis on Christmas Eve. We were able to visit with some family and get Paige acquainted to the family again. We were pleased to see that she was very excited about sleeping in the big girl bed that Grammy had made up for her so she went to bed well. We woke up Christmas morning and opened our stockings. Paige was excited to open the gifts but we really enjoyed the fact that she would open a gift and then play with it before opening another. This way we were able to extend Christmas throughout the day. Little does she know that Christmas in Hollis usually lasts a few days! We were sad that Tia and Melanie were not able to make it out this year. Halfway through the day, Paige, Grumpa and Daddy made a snowman. The boys loved that Paige thought it was funny to be hit with snowballs. Such boys. We stayed a few more days and then we were off to Maine.

Carrying on the Eberts' family tradition of reading T'was the Night Before Christmas and with the exact same book Mandy's Dad used to use.

Paige and Daddy

Ryan, Paige and Grumpa with their manly snowman

Paige and Mommy
Helping out Great Grammy Melva

Opening gifts with Uncle Kyle, Auntie Danielle and Grammy Dee