Fiona Visits Chicago

Fiona Visits Chicago
Originally uploaded by flowmug

Fiona is the daughter of some good friends of mine from highschool (Jim and Wendy). They were in town this weekend visiting some of Wendy's family. Fiona is just adorable. She has been raised very well so far and is a very good kid. For example, if you click on the picture to the rest of the set on Flickr, there are a bunch of pictures of her drinking a bottle. Jim and Wendy just filled the bottle and set it on our leather chair. She climbed up on the chair and drank her bottle very easily - with no help or prodding from anyone else (even while I was performing a photo shoot on her). It was fun to watch.

They have a blog I have linked to on the right. Jim is a very witty writer and some of his posts are worth checking out. Especially this post.

A really little one

Some of you may be thinking that the most recent bump pics posted look an awful lot like the 33 week belly pics. Very perceptive.

Dan and I have come to call the baby "the little one" for the past few months now. Turns out, until yesterday at my doctor's appointment we didn't realize how appropriate that name was. Seems I am measuring 33cm still (should be at 36) and haven't gained any weight since my last appointment. SO, doctor's orders are that I need to eat more ice cream...I told her she is putting in a tall order, but that I will do my best to follow through-oh, what is a girl to do?! I'll tell ya. This girl is off to Annette's for a key lime pie cone...yum!!

Cooley Family Shoutout

I wanted to get some pictures up of my cousin's kids. My Dad has 1 brother who has 3 girls. The oldest girl Katie is married to Darin and they have a son Zack who is about 1 year old. My other 2 cousins are twins. Molly is married to Josh and they have a little girl Riley. Megan is married to Chris and is expecting her first in December (about the same time as Sharis' sister Marla).

The first shot is of Riley with my Grandma (her Great Grandma) who we call Nonny. (Do you think Nonny will be upset when she finds out her picture is on the internet for the whole world to see? Granted there are only about 20 people who read this blog. But any (and every) stranger could theoretically find this picture.) The second is of Zack and Riley. And the third is Zack doing his best to look like a carpenter - with his shirt off and everything.

We don't get to see these guys enough but when we do, I think our kids will be close enough in age where they can be good buds. Sharis has some first cousins once removed as well on her side of the family. There are kids all over the place.

Speaking of family, I wanted to take this opportunity to mention a very Web 2.0 site I like to use for family trees. It is called geni.com. It is a fantastic way to get your family tree (or genealogy) online whether it be for reference or sharing with the rest of the family. If anyone in Sharis' or my family would like access to our tree, let me know (either in the comments here or through an email) and I will send you an invite. It turns out that Sharis has a bigger tree than me (82 versus 55 members). Unfortunately there is no "family tree" for friends. That might be cool though.

Nintendo Wii Night

Paul Plays Nintendo Wii
Originally uploaded by flowmug

Some of our friends came over Friday night to play Nintendo Wii after we had attended a charity bean bag tournament together. Needless to say, we had a blast. This is Paul getting ready to "fight" me in boxing. After the Rizo's went home early because Augy was tired, Paul and Courtney tested their Wii Age (The Wii Sports game has a fitness test which puts you through a series of tasks for 10 minutes or so and then gives you an estimated ‘Wii Age’). Paul's was 52 (which is pretty bad) and Courtney had a 74. Click on the picture to be taken to Flickr to see the whole set.

Belly Pics

It's been awhile since we've posted pictures of the belly so I figured I'd do some self portraits. I'll have Dan take better quality ones soon, but we'll be pretty busy for the next week and probably won't get to them any sooner. So...
Here is the tum tum at 8 months.

And this is a pic of one of my favorite maternity tops: "Here comes happiness"

1 Month

Only 1 month left! It is a bit bitter-sweet. Obviously we want to meet this new little person that Sharis has been incubating for so many months but Sharis is so adorable as a pregnant woman. I'm not sure I am ready for that to go away yet. It doesn't matter what I want though.

We feel fairly prepared but there is still so much to do. We took a tour of the hospital last Monday so we are now aware of all the nooks and crannies of the place. The hospital is fairly old. A brand new hospital will go online in October which we will obviously not see with this baby. I asked Sharis if she could wait that long. I didn't get much of a response.

We took a CPR class and made out with Ambu Man on Sunday so we are up to speed on that. A lot has changed since I last took those classes. Maybe the grandparents should get a refresher course.

We are also taking Natural Childbirth classes at Sweet Pea Studios. Our first class was last Thursday and we have to go every Thursday for the next 5 weeks. Hopefully we can get them all in before the baby comes.

We also went to a lactation class to get some pointers. And here is a little advice for the fellas out there. For your next bachelor party, there is no need to go to the strip clubs ... you can see many more boobs at lactation class.

Going Stainless

Watch out! We're about to enter the 21st century kitchen design club. We're S L O W L Y converting to stainless. This is the first BOLD step...a trash can. Dan and I were shocked at the price of these bad boys-much too much $$ for trash!!
Actually, this is really yet another one of my "projects". We are now on a recycling program!! Yay!! Hopefully my "green-certified" father-in-law will be pleased if nothing else. This can is for recycling items only and each week I will make a trip to the drop off center. Unfortunately, our building as a whole does not recycle and the condo association doesn't want to pay to have a private service come in to do it. So, for now, our kitchen is moving toward a fashion-forward look as we recycle the old-fashioned way.

Nintendo Wii

I figured out tonight that we can wirelessly connect to the internet with our Wii without having to buy new hardware. I thought we might have to buy a wireless adapter which we weren't willing to do. But we were able to easily connect up to our current wireless network without much hassle.

By doing so we are able to take advantage of some features like a News Channel where we can get our news and a Weather Channel. Of course this isn't too exciting because we can get that from our computers at any time. This is just a novel way to do it on our TV.

However, a very cool feature is that you can go by old games from Nintendo. Sharis really wanted Super Mario Brothers so we were able to go download that off the internet. We played that a little bit tonight which was quite nostalgic.

I was very excited to see they have Mario Kart as well which we spent endless wastefull hours playing in college. That is my favorite video game despite the fact that I am not much of a video game guy. So we might be getting that soon.

They have a ton of other games as well such as Tecmo Bowl which most of my buddies never stop talking about. I didn't play much but they continually talk about the Bears and the 49ers being good as well as how good Bo Jackson was. They also have Ice Hockey which my old roommate Cas spent innumerable hours playing in college.

Oh the memories.

Baby Furniture!

Our furniture was delivered this week and we love it! We still need a mattress, but it's slowly coming together.

We are keeping the guest bed in the baby's room so that all our peeps can still visit and feel most welcome! Visitors, of course, won't have to be subjected to the baby's nightly sleeping schedule...we'll work all of that out.

Finally, I had to include a pic with the diplomas on the wall b/c I was just talking to Missy (a friend of ours who is due a week after us) today and she sent me pics of their furniture (which is beautiful cherry wood) and they also have their diplomas on the wall in the background. She and Cas live in SF and also have a smallish, city-style, 2-bedroom place. Goodbye office, hello baby!

My Projects

Many friends and family have been asking me what I've been doing with myself now that I no longer have to work/go to school/etc. I have a list that I am trying to get through before the baby comes, but here is a sample of one of my random projects: recaulking the shower.

I've got a pic w/ and w/o flash here. I think you can tell better w/o where the new caulk is, but it makes our shower look really dingy and dirty, so I justs had to include the one w/ flash too.

Now, I wish that I would have done a before and after b/c it really does look a lot better now. Unfortunately though, I only did the bottom edge of the tile (where it connects to the tub) so now it makes it look as if the rest requires some work as well. This part truly was the worst though and I don't know if I have it in me to redo the ENTIRE thing. Keep in mind that I've never done this before, so please go lightly on judgments. I will say that getting the old caulk out was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be based on what I had read on the internet. Supposedly, this removal "stuff" I got from home depot should have made my life a lot easier...it didn't. Poor Dan got dragged into this project.

Next on tap: under cabinet lighting!

Dinner Party

Erin Paul Ryan Courtney Kelly Sharis Sean Augy Drew Elizabeth at Murray Dinner Party
Originally uploaded by flowmug

Last night Sean and Elizabeth had a bunch of the Notre Dame crew that are still in Chicago over for dinner. Ryan and Erin Murray were in town from Bloomington, IN which was the reason for the get together (otherwise the Chicago crew hasn't seen each other in a month or so). Ryan is my roommate from college who was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma a couple of months ago. It was great to see everyone and have a couple of laughs. Sean and Elizabeth did a great job hosting as usual. Thanks guys.

Make sure to click on the picture to be taken to the rest of the pictures from last night. Sean was quite irritated by the number of pictures I was taking so Paul had him do a photo shoot (that's why there are so many pictures of Sean).

Pic Crew

As some of you may know, Sharis' sister and brother-in-law are also pregnant. They have decided share their experiences with the whole world through their blog. If you want to check up from time to time on their happenings, make sure to visit their blog which I have linked on the right hand side. I am helping them on the technical side of things such as how to set up, arrange and add content to their blog. In return, they are helping me be a better writer, be more captivating, more humorous, more interesting and more dramatic (Marla took theater when she was in college and has a far better sense of humor).

Some of our other family members have expressed interest in their own blogs. For selfish reasons, we would love it if anyone we are close to would set up their own blog. We are so far away from everyone and it is a very good way to keep up with what is happing in people's lives. Sharis and I check every one of the blogs on the right side of this page every single day. We love it when there is a new update and especially new pictures. It's like going to the mailbox and finding a piece of mail from an old friend (only that piece of mail was addressed to the whole world instead of just us - but who cares, it's still a new piece of information on someone we care about). So go on! Share your life with us. We want to hear about it. It is a lot easier than you think. If you have any questions, you can ask me at any time. Or you can visit the help page here at blogger and they can help you:

http://help.blogger.com/

If you aren't interested in that, we are content with comments left on the blog (thank you to all who have posted comments) or shoot us an email with an update.

Happy Father's Day

I couldn't sleep (thankfully Sharis is sawing logs right now - she hasn't been sleeping very well) so I thought I would do a Father's Day post on Father's Day - otherwise I would have had to do it tomorrow because I forgot. Father's Day is already over in Cleveland but I am just barely getting this post in under the wire in Minnesota.

Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there. I know a lot of guys who are newly minted fathers. Congratulations to you. I can't wait to join the club(actually, technically I believe I have joined the club - I just haven't contributed much yet).

And Happy Father's Day to the 2 most important fathers. I would like to thank both mine and Sharis' father for setting such a wonderful example on how to be good fathers - and for loving our mothers so much. As Fr. Arnold once said (or said many, many times) - "The best thing a father can do for his kids is to love their mother."

34 Weeks

I'm running behind on all my posts, but am only a couple days late with this one. I had a Dr's appt on Tues and she said that since I'll be 34 weeks on Wed (June 13) if I go into labor at this point, they won't do anything to stop it! Crazy!! Apparently babies have a 99% survival rate if they are born after 34 weeks. Pretty cool.

Everyone is getting anxious to meet you little one.

Meet My Cousin

Baby C and Baby Pic got to meet one another (belly to belly) this past weekend. It was a wonderful weekend and I got to spend a lot of time with my mom, dad, sister, and brother in-law (too bad Dan and Kyle couldn't be there).

Here's a blurry one of Marla & I at the beach. She has the teeniest little bump compared to me, but you just have to get a pic like this when you have 2 preggos together!

Here the cousins share an ice cream cone at an overwhelming little place that offered 22 soft serve and 44 hard dip flavors...a pregnant woman's dream! Who knew that babies C and Pic would both love ice cream so much?!
; )

Here are "the girls" out to eat in PA.

Maternity clothes shopping and eating...what a fun day!

Grandma is a great sport!!

Sharing this experience with my sister has been so much fun already. I know it will be extremely special as our children grow together in the years to come.

Chicago Marathon 2008

Here we come!

We finally committed to a stroller a couple of weeks ago and I'm just now getting the pics up. We got a car seat at the same time (though we knew which one of those we've wanted for awhile). I'm very excited about our stroller! Doesn't it look comfy? The car seat is attached in this pic and I am obviously not allowed to run with the baby for about 6 months (during the time when the car seat will be attached basically), but this stroller will handle the lake front path once I can hit it with the babe. He/She is going to just LOVE it (hopefully)!

Oh, for those of you who haven't made stroller shopping your #1 priority for the past couple of months, this is the BOB Revolution w/ 12" wheels. The cool thing is that the front wheel can pivot (so that it's easier to get around during walks on the sidewalk in the city) or lock (so that it's easier to jog with). The locking mechanism utilizes a steel pin (as opposed to a plastic one like many other strollers with this functionality) so hopefully it will last longer. Only downfall is that this was the only color we could order. I wanted red or orange. Dan wanted blue for ND-too early? Probably next year they will have the entire line to select from...oh well.

Sharis 33 Week Belly

Sharis 33 Week Belly
Originally uploaded by flowmug

There is a set of 33 Week Belly pictures posted on Flickr. Click on the picture here to be taken to them. If you don't go you will miss Sharis' belly button which is now half in, half out. I didn't know that was possible.

As for the picture shown, that is an internet cable Sharis is plugging into her stomach. We have to get internet access into the baby. There is no way a child of ours is going to be without internet access for very long - even in the womb.

Busting at the Seams

So Dan and I have been very excited to share some news with all of our readers (total count is 5 now...hehe). In addition to the new names: Mommy and Daddy, we are going to have to get used to Aunt and Uncle!!! Yup, that's right, baby Cooley is going to have a cousin born in December. Marla and Ben have also been blessed with a little one. Mar and I like to keep these big events (our weddings were the same way) spaced about 5 months apart. Type A dad rubs off on his 2 girls, I guess. Now to start planning where these 2 cousins will attend college...
Whatdoya think, Mar? South Bend or PA?

Marla and I are getting together this weekend for the first time since the news. I'm so excited! I was going to wait until then to unveil the news via "bump" pics, but I couldn't stand it. Hopefully it will be a good weekend for Marla, she has been quite sick in her first trimester. Luckily, she's 12.5 weeks and should be getting over that soon.

Preview of things to come...

Dan, myself, and the baby are all awake at 3:30am. None of us can sleep for some reason. Poor Dan is going to be exhausted tomorrow. At least there isn't any crying accompanying this sleepless night...yet. Though the baby DOES have hiccups-poor thing!

Grandparents in Chicago

Grandparents Over Memorial Day Weekend
Originally uploaded by flowmug

As we mentioned earlier, both sets of grandparents were in town last weekend for Memorial Day. It was really nice to have them here to spend some time with them as well as get to talk to them about our plans for the baby. It was good to get everyone on the same page about what is going on. All of our thoughts and plans (including hypnobirthing and the doula) take a lot of explaining.

On Friday night we went to a tapas restaurant called People's Lounge. Sharis loves tapas and we hadn't tried this place yet. It had a hip atmosphere and the food was amazing.

On Saturday morning we went to the Farmer's market. It was raining off and on but we managed to pick up some veggies for dinner as well as some flowers. And Gary found an herb called sorel that just explodes in your mouth which he found by being his friendly self and asking tons of questions to the farmers. Of course my Dad enjoyed looking at all the dogs.

For lunch we went to get our favorite pizza - Bacino's. The grandparent's were able to feel the baby kick for the first time which they loved!

That night Sharis made a delightful meal of lamb chops, asparagus, Cooley bread and salad (if you look at the pictures on Flickr - which you can get to by clicking on the picture in this post - don't worry, Sharis wasn't drinking wine; she just needed something to toast with). We also introduced my parents to Nintendo Wii. Paula and Gary had already played a few weekends earlier at Sharis' brother Kyle's house over Easter. Sharis and I gave it to each other as our Anniversary gift this year. Neither of us play video games and have a child on the way which leaves tons of free time right? Go figure. We laughed hysterically making everyone's Wii characters. Also, it turns out my Mom is pretty good at Wii Sports. She beat my Dad in one of the tests the game has. (Make sure to check out the pictures of Ann and Paula playing Wii.)

On Sunday we took the Seadog Architecture tour up the Chicago River and out on Lake Michigan. It was a good tour except we ended up being in the back of the boat where we could hardly see; we could hardly hear; the fumes from the boat gave my Dad and Sharis headaches; and our seats were soaking wet. My Mom wouldn't sit down (despite the urging of the guide) because her seat made her so wet. We ended up getting out money back because of the experience.

We had a wonderful weekend and feel very blessed that our parents get along so well. The next time we are all together, it is going to be much more hectic and a certain someone is going to be grabbing all of the attention. So it was really nice to spend some quality time with them.

Doula

Dan and I met with our doula for the first time yesterday and we are so excited! She's great and we both feel she will help put us at ease as we move into the birthing activity. Our hippie style includes attempting this birth free from drugs using a method called Hypnobirthing. Hopefully we are able to execute! I've been taking a few Hypnobirthing classes and being my type A self, all of the prep is really helping to put me at ease. We are also scheduled for a baby CPR class, a Nursing class, and a Natural Childbirth Education class. Finally, we've started to meet with some pediatricians to try to find someone whose thinking is in line with ours to some extent. All of this research and discovery has really unveiled a great network of caregivers in this area. It's going to be difficult to start again at ground zero if we end up moving to MN before our second child (God willing) comes along.

Celebrating

Some of my girlfriends took me out to dinner to celebrate a couple of weeks ago. There is a particular weekend in May that is packed full of Sharis "holidays" and will be (poor Dan) for the rest of our lives. However, this year it was increasingly jam-packed because of my graduation.
...Here's the deal: my birthday, mother's day, anniversary, and graduation all fell on the same weekend! So, here we all (or almost all, the photographer is Genevieve-behind the camera is where she prefers to be for pictures) are at Forno (an italian restaurant in Wicker Park/Bucktown) to celebrate! Great night!!