32 week Ultrasound

Here's the latest ultrasound from a couple of weeks ago I forgot to post before. Getting some cute chubby cheeks going on.

holiday greetings from our house to yours

Merry Xmas!

that's George!

A few weeks ago, while the weather was still nice and not so wintery out yet, Alicia and I headed up to the Kohl Children's Museum to check out the new Curious George exhibit they have. It is a traveling exhibit, and it is only there until early February, so if you want to check it out, make sure you go before it leaves! http://www.kohlchildrensmuseum.org/exhibits/curious-george The day we planned to go up, George was to be making a special appearance after the special story hour. That was indeed the highlight of our afternoon at the museum.

Of course, Alicia had to hit the grocery store area of the museum. I think this was our first stop in the museum, even before she got to the George exhibit.










Uhmm.. mom.. I don't think this is the "real" Curious George... (note, Alicia insisted on getting her picture taken with this George, too. It was cute.)
















Besides the normal music area and the grocery store, the construction area seemed to be a big hit for Alicia his time too. Although, she's a busy body and I don't think she stayed in one are for more than a few minutes anyways, this crane seemed to keep her attention span a bit more than some other areas.














Yeah!! It's Curious George finally!! Alicia was very brave this time and gave George a hug and stood all by herself next to George for a picture.

baby #2 progress

Here you go... for those that don't see me in person that often, here's a little visual progress timeline so far of the new baby...
we are moving along nicely. We are at about week 31, and have entered into the every other week doctor appointments now. They are watching me closely this time around for the pre-eclampsia condition that I had while pregnant with Alicia. We go back in next week for another size/weight check for baby. The last appointment a few weeks ago, the ultrasound showed baby was measuring exactly in the 50th percentile for weight and length which was awesome!! We've never really been there with Alicia, even from the beginning, she was behind the chart, so this was a great milestone for us with this new guy. We'll keep you updated on our progress, and here's to a smooth last trimester!

tool time

Alicia helped pitched in the other night while we were putting together our new bedroom dressers. She did a great job finding the pieces we needed and even tried to assemble part of dresser! Too bad Pat (the blue Handy Manny hammer) and Felipe (the yellow Handy Manny Phillips head screwdriver) didn't work the greatest or else Alicia might have been able to finish parts of the dresser herself! ;-) great helping hands, Alicia.

Goebberts Pumpkin Farm

We managed to sneak in our fall pumpkin farm visit to Goebberts this year while the weather was still really nice out. In previous years, it had either been really hot or really cold, but this year, it was just about right. We went with the Haney family and enjoyed our afternoon trip to the pumpkin farm. The kids really enjoyed running around checking out all the different characters and asking "take our picture" and "this is cute" by all the "cool" characters they liked the most. Of course, they had to pick out a few pumpkins to take home for souvenirs, too!

Sam and Alicia posing with all their favorite cutouts! Even Everette joined the fun with the girls and got in for a some fun pictures too.

Look how they've grown!
Alicia and Samantha - 2008

Alicia and Samantha - 2010

birthday wrap-up

This fall we had a bunch of our "big kid" 4 year old birthday parties! We celebrated Lucas, Carl, and Kaylee's 4th birthdays! Such a flurry of activity in just a few weeks kept us on our toes! Thanks everyone for such a nice time at all the parties and being such good hosts and hostesses.

I would have to say this picture below is one of my favorites from the recent parties... Alicia just has this look of cute and innocence, while her buddies Carl and Ben are rolling around being goofy boys. haha... boys will be boys and girls will be girls.



While going through the party pics, I was showing Alicia a few pictures for this blog and she said this one was her "favorite" of her and Carl, so I'm posting Alicia's pick too :)

Outdoor Birthday Bash 4 Lucas!!

Jumpin' Fun 4 Carl's Birthday

Fall Fun 4 Kaylee's Party

final vacation recap

Finally the last vacation post, haha! We just had so much fun and took loads of photos in California we had to keep sharing some with everyone. The last day or so, we spent them mostly by ourselves at Disneyland. This was nice to be able to have some time for the 3 of us together, as we have a feeling this will be one of our last real family vacations for a few years until baby 2 is old enough for traveling, unless we have additional vacation helpers, haha. :-)

Disneyland is definitely different than Disney World, as you can see quite a few attractions in just a few days. It is much more centrally located, so you aren't spend half your time traveling between parks. So that was nice for us since we only had a few days left to spend there, plus in the heat, I was all about enjoying mini breaks we could sneak in and relax back at our hotel. I think we only didn't get to one or two sections of the parks that we would have liked to be able to see, but I think we hit our must-haves and favorites over and over to make it a very successful trip!

Alicia obviously loved meeting the princesses and being able to have breakfast with them all was a real treat for her. I just loved watching the look on her face each time a new princess would stop by our table to say hi, as it made it all worth the wait and money. Other highlights that Alicia seemed to really like besides meeting her favorite characters, were the Its a Small World ride, Dumbo, the tea cups, and the carrousel. One of the other cool rides was the Nemo submarine ride, where you got to ride in sub-like boats, which showed clips from Nemo, while talking about marine life. It was interesting, as you each got your own little portal hole to view the underwater adventure.

In the evening, Alicia was surely not a fan of the fireworks yet, so that was an experience by itself... however, we did make it through most of the World of Color show there that featured lots of cool lights, music, fire, and a water show over the Pier area at the California Park at Disney. We were able to get tickets for two night shows for the World of Color, since our hotel on site was privileged to get early passes, we took full advantage of that. The one night at the World of Color show, mommy and daddy managed to get to watch the entire show, as Alicia fell fast asleep in her stroller for almost the entire show. I guess we wore her out that day running around ;) You can see some pretty cool World of Color pictures in this album here.

Like I mentioned before, we had a great time and it was really nice to be able to get away from the crazy and busy schedules at home to have some nice mommy/daddy and Alicia only time before the next big chapter of our family begins.

Another Alicia Disneyland Favorite

A Special Princess Moment at Disneyland

California vacation - part 1

Not sure where our fall has gone, but wowsers, this blog entry is WAY overdue. In late September, we went on a family vacation to California! We went out to visit some of mommy's family that lives in the area for the first few days and then we made a stop at Disneyland for a few more days before heading home.The first leg of the trip we stopped out at our cousin Marci's house in Lancaster, CA. Marci & Todd graciously opened their house to us for a few nights; during the day we ventured off to visit a few local spots and went sightseeing in the mountain and desert areas. We hit Apollo Park, the Musical Road, Devil's Punchbowl Park, and took some road trips through the Los Angeles National Forest Desert area. One of the evenings, my other cousin Rob and his wife, Debbie, and family stopped in to visit us all as well. Alicia really enjoyed visiting with her cousins and had a lot of fun playing with them all. It was nice to see her jump right in with them and watch how much fun she had with them all, despite some of them being several years older :) thanks guys for welcoming us into town!

The second portion of our family stay trip was down south, near Arcadia, CA, at my cousin Kelly's. While visiting Kelly and Jeff's, Aunt Ronna came down from Oregon for a visit too since we were in town. It was great seeing them all, as the last time I think we all were together was about 10+ years ago at Kelly and Jeff's wedding out there. The first day visiting, we took time to just relax at the house and the kids were having fun playing in the backyard and chilling in the pool. While visiting the Arcadia area, we hit Huntington Beach the other day, and started part of our Disney adventures, too. At Huntington Beach, Kelly and Jeff's kids really liked to use their wake boards in the ocean, while Alicia was cool with just chilling on the beach with mommy and Kelly while the big kids went out to play in the water with the dads.

We had great fall weather the first few days there, but then it got HOT. The last few days when we spent it at Disney, were outrageous. We were out there for one of California's hottest fall days on record. yippe.. yeah, not really.. luckily we stayed onsite at Disney at the Grand Californian Hotel where we could easily sneak back and forth from there to the park to get some needed rest and relaxation in the air conditioning and pool time. Best ever decision for the trip to stay onsite, note to others, if pregnant and visiting Disney, do yourself a favor and spend the extra money for the close proximity and convenience of being able to rest and relax when you can sneak it in the few moments of free time.

Disneyland was less than a hour from Kelly and Jeff's place, so the one evening we met up with my girlfriend from high school, Kristina, and her family at Downtown Disney. By the way, Kristina, thanks again for the Jazz Kitchen suggestion to meet up, as I really enjoyed the beignets there in Downtown Disney.. yummo.. gotta love great deep fried powdery goodness.

Well that brings us up to about the first 3-4 days of our family trip to California. To avoid complete overload in one blog post, I will post the last half in the next entry.

To occupy your time, please enjoy our pictures from the vacation, here, here, here, and here :-) enjoy!

happy halloween!!

A few pictures from this weekend's Halloween activities...


Alicia dressed as Cinderella for trick-o-treating today.

Alicia, mommy & daddy at neighbor's house

Cinderella visiting Carl's house on Saturday.

Alicia as Princess Sleeping Beauty for preschool class party this week.

apple picking with friends

In September ,we went to a local Chicagoland apple orchard with our friends and kids to find some tasty treats! Alicia, Carl, Lucas, Megan, and even Hannah joined in the apple picking fun. Despite the selection of apples at the kid-picking level, they still had a great time, while the mommys and daddys took turns using the apple picker stick (or in a few instances, that was lifting kids into the trees to pick higher apples) to get some apples off the tree. It was a nice afternoon in the orchard on a newly fall crisp day to enjoy some crispy crunchy apples!

Annual Apple River Canyon State Park

It is that time of year again when we headed off to the Apple River Canyon State Park near Stockton.
As you all know, we visit here every October. Mommy and daddy started going there when they were in college, when they first started dating. It has changed over the years little by little there, that is for sure. Some of the trails are not in the best shape, as some of the wooden steps are rotting away, but one thing always seems to stay the same, is the natural beauty. So here's to many more years of enjoying mother nature's backyard of color. http://picasaweb.google.com/heather.kluesner/AppleCanyon2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCJiS06DBoNaypAE#

happy 8th wedding anniversary mommy & daddy

Happy anniversary to the best mommy and daddy I could ever ask for!
It's been 8 years since mommy and daddy got married on their special day.
Love you lots!

day trip to Michigan

Last month we took a quick day trip to Michigan. Neither of us had ever been to Michigan, so Drew and I thought it would be a fun day to get away with Alicia and enjoy the fall weather and the trip to somewhere new! Being so close to Chicagoland, we thought why not, and headed out earlier in the morning and set off to find an orchard for apple picking. We found a nice small orchard near Coloma, Michigan here http://www.jollayorchards.com/ It had such a great apple selection when we went there, plus it was a pick-u-own apple orchard which Alicia loved. We even tried to pick our own raspberries there too, but it became too much of a task, so we ended up buying a pre-picked pint from the farm stand near the orchard instead. :) oh well, it was still fun. At the orchard, you ride via a tractor/wagon hay ride into the fields and are dropped off at select locations and start grooming the trees for your perfect apples. I think we ate our fair share while we were picking our apples to take home as well, which was a nice tasty treat. For some reason, the apples you get to pick right from the tree are so much more enjoyable, not to mention tastier than the ones you get at the store. yummo. While we were in Michigan, on the way home from the orchards, we decided to find Lake Michigan and head to the lakeshore for a few minutes before we headed back home for the day. It was a bit chilly out there, but was still very pretty. Alicia called the water "cold and chilly" and did not want to put her toes anywhere near the water after the first quick dip. Plus near the lake, we found a great spot with a kids playground on the beach that Alicia thought was pretty cool. Check out the link below here that has a few more fun photos from our day trip. There was just way too many cute ones to post in one collage. Enjoy. http://picasaweb.google.com/heather.kluesner/MichiganDayTrip?authkey=Gv1sRgCKL1zcfU9Mf9tgE#

Alicia has a cousin!

Alicia met her first cousin this morning, as Cali Ann Arnold came into this world yesterday.

Cali's parents are Drew's sister Ann (Fred) and Todd Arnold.

She was born on 10/09/2010 at 8:31pm.

She tipped the scales at 8lbs 1 oz and 20.5 inches long.

Mommy, Daddy, and Cali are doing great.

We were in the area (kinda... future apple canyon post coming soon), when we received a text from Fred saying her water broke. We thought it'd be a great learning opportunity for Alicia to visit a hospital for happy occasions, and so she could get a better understanding of the baby delivery process, so we re-arranged our plans and headed to Dubuque.

It appears though, that Cali was trying real hard to have Uncle Drew win the baby pool with a 10/10/10 10am baby. (it should be noted though that she was born on 10/10/10 if located in more than 1/2 of the world, and 10am in Korea). Thanks for Trying Cali.

Enough of my verbage. On to the pictures.

You can read more about Cali and her families adventures here: http://arnoldfamilysite.blogspot.com/

WTTW fun walk & Lincoln Park Zoo

Here's some pictures from this summer's WTTW fun walk and our impromptu trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Alicia had a great time meeting the characters and walking through the park. Along the way, we met Elmo, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Duck from WordWorld, and of course, our favorite, Curious George!! We even saw a few other familiar characters riding golf carts throughout the park too, like Sid the Science Kid and WordGirl. We met up with the Fosco family at the WTTW walk too, but Zoey was still a little afraid of the characters and didn't enjoy it as much as Alicia did. However, Zoey really seemed to like the music and the stroller ride through the park!

Later that morning, we went on a quick trip through the Lincoln Park Zoo since we were right next to it, and we had never been there before. What a nice free zoo to visit!

mommy's kitchen help

feeding ducks and geese at Lord's Park

A few weeks ago, Uncle Billy, Aunt Mary Ann, and Grandma Kloss came into visit us. While they were visiting us, I took them to a fun spot I like to go to, Lord's Park. There we got to feed bread to the ducks and geese there at the pond. It was really fun. I even got to see some deer, bison, and elk, too. They have a nice big playground where I like to run around and play on, too. Thanks having fun with me at the Park!