Eleven Months!

Tennyson is eleven months old today! I have no clue where my little baby went.

Things he’s been up to:
-He is sprouting even more teeth (he’s up to six)
-He has been drinking real milk out of a sippy with a straw
-He can crawl up stairs
-He is constantly destroying everything in his path
-He learned how to shake his head “no”
-He loves to throw balls to mommy and daddy
-He no longer uses any binkies (yay!)
-He is getting better at balancing and barely needs the furniture for support when he stands

He loves the park (especially swings), playgroup, grocery shopping (or any other kind of shopping), playing on the pews at church, doing things he shouldn’t be (the word “no” is hilarious to him), banging toys together, opening and closing doors, bath time, the shows Wonder Pets and Sesame Street, anything resembling food, books (those with flaps and things to touch are his favorite), and his monkey.

He hates being forced to go to bed or take naps, any time spent in a stroller, sitting still, and getting his diaper and clothes changed.

On a semi-related note, these monthly photo shoots are getting harder and harder for me and more and more fun for Tennyson. He thinks it is a game we play.

 

He is such a ham. I couldn’t possibly love him more.

A Saturday without Mike

Today Mike spent most the day at school working on a big brief he has due this upcoming week, so Tennyson and I were left to fend for ourselves.

It was a good day.

Tennyson was up to his usual destructive self.

He doesn’t actually play with anything, he just throws them on the floor and moves on.

Once I got tired of chasing him around, telling him no, and picking things up off the floor, I decided we needed a trip to Hobby Lobby because I’m being crafty lately. I’ve actually always been crafty, but I have major trouble finishing projects. I am excellent at starting them, but I lack on the follow through. So I promised myself that I can not start any new crafts until I finish some of the old ones. So stay tuned to our blog because you might just see some finished crafts soon.

But today, I threw that all out the window and started a new one (I told you I’m excellent at that part). I actually finished this one, too.

Ta-da!

 

I decided to spruce up the Huggies box that has been holding Tennyson’s toys for the past little while. I must say it is a wonderful improvement. Makes us look a little less trashy.

And that was our Saturday.

Oh, wait. More cute pictures:

 

(This next one was super cute but his face ended up all blurry. I hate when that happens!! But I’m going to post it anyway.)

Finally.

We are the owners of a (please read this next part in the voice of Bob Barker) A BRAND NEWWW… CAR!!!! That’s right. We are finally a two car family! It’s a 2005 Honda CRV and we really like it. Especially all the room in the back for when we make our (sometimes too often) trips to Chicago. Or for when we want to go camping. Or really anywhere else for that matter.

Tennyson is also thrilled.

Okay, he has no idea. But he’s still the cutest.

 

Investigative Reporting: Bedtime Edition

Tonight Mike did some investigative reporting.

Every night before he goes to sleep, Tennyson pulls the monkey off his mobile. It has become his comfort toy. We have since taken the monkey off the mobile and replaced it with another animal because we didn’t want Tennyson breaking anything. But tonight Mike put back on the monkey and set up a hidden camera so that the world could see what Tennyson does every night as he goes to sleep.

He is such a silly kid!

We Went to Chicago Again

That’s right. It was spring break for Mike this past week so we drove down to Chicago for a much needed vacation. Prepare for a lot of pictures.

The first thing we really wanted to do was visit the Field Museum because we haven’t actually been there since before we were married. So we went there for a day with my mom.

The museum was crazy empty that day. The first picture is Tennyson crawling around one of the main hallways in the place. And those ropes you can see behind me are usually full of people waiting to buy tickets. See? Empty. But I love empty… it made for a much more enjoyable visit.



The first exhibit we saw was the new Horse exhibit they have going on.

 

Then we got hungry. The McDonald’s in the museum had super retro high chairs for the kids. It flashed me back to when I was a kid.



After we had eaten, we headed to the children’s museum part of the Field. Usually this place is packed, but Tennyson was one of the only kids in there and so he really got free range of the place.
We played dress up.


(side note: the button with the red bird was his favorite because he would push it and the bird call would come on. Then he would mimic it with his high pitch screams. Then he would push the button and do it all over again)




We harvested corn.



We made music.




And we went back in time to visit the dinosaurs.



Then we went on to the rest of the museum. The museum was so empty that it really felt like the rest of the museum was a children’s museum as well. Tennyson could play with all the hands-on exhibits that are usually packed and we could take as many pictures as we wanted.

One of our favorite exhibits is the dirt exhibit. You go through a super high-tech shrinker machine and then you can walk through dirt and discover what it looks like and learn what is really going on.
Tennyson wasn’t so sure about being shrunken.



Until he learned he could play in the exoskeletons. Then being small was a lot of fun.



But when all was said and done, he was happy to be full-sized again.

 

He also learned how to stoke a fire.



And he spent some time working as a cassette delivery boy in Africa.



It is hard work having that much fun.

     

We know the visit to the museum got Tennyson’s stamp of approval because he claps whenever he likes something. And he did a lot of clapping that day.

     
 
Phew! I told you to prepare for a lot of pictures. We aren’t done yet.

Mike and I went with my dad to a Bull’s Game!



We had great seats.



But they weren’t the greatest. No. The greatest seats were exactly one row in front of us where they won free Chipotle for a year. We were SO CLOSE!!
But as a consolation prize, we did get cards for buy one/get one free Chipotle. And when they showed the people in front of us on the jumbo-tron, Mike managed to get his face on screen. So, all things considered, we still had great seats.



Plus, the Bulls won! It was such a great night.
And just because I haven’t included enough pictures in this post yet….

We had dinner at Biaggi’s:



I helped my sister get ready for prom:



And Tennyson is just so darned cute!! I can’t stand it!

Packzis and other things

When Mike got home from class this morning we hit the town.

We went to Chipotle for lunch because we had coupons for buy one/get one free. It was tasty. Even Tennyson thought so.

Then we went to TJMaxx. We bought a cast iron skillet and a casserole dish.

On the way to drop Mike back at class we stopped by Comcast to get our new DVR enabled box. We did this because we realized that Tivo is actually horrible and has been ruining our cable. Now we actually do have HD cable. It is nice.

After I dropped Mike off I drove to Rosa’s Bakery in downtown Lansing to pick up some of these beauties:

These are Paczkis (pronounced “pooonch-keys”). They are a delicious custard (or other fruit flavors) filled, deep fried Polish pastry. Covered in powdered sugar. They are only sold for about 2 weeks around Fat Tuesday so I had to go pick some up before it was too late. They taste as fattening and delicious as they sound.

I need to work out a lot because I bought a dress today and I would like to still fit into it tomorrow…

 

I’m in love. It has pockets. I need pockets to both look cool and stash a binky at the same time. If anyone knows of a great place to get a shrug or cardigan that I can wear over this… please help me out!