Five Years

While I was in Arizona spending time with my family, and while Collin was in Chicago working and getting ready for school to start, we had our 5th wedding anniversary. We celebrated as meaningfully as we could being across the country from each other and decided to celebrate once we were both back home in Chicago, which is what we did yesterday. Nolan got to play with friends all day and Collin and I explored the city, did a little shopping, had delicious Indian food for lunch, had a 2 hour nap, and ended up at the top of The Hancock Building for dinner. The food was good, but the view was amazing.

Being married to Collin for 5 years has been the best thing in the world. I'm so glad he's mine.

A Visit From Collin's Parents

Collin's parents came to visit us and were our first over-night guests in Chicago. We had such an incredible time! Some of my favorite activities while they were here were

The Lincoln Park Zoo
Eating at The Bongo Room
Watching (kind of) the St. Patrick's Day parade
Seeing the river dyed green
Sitting around and chatting for hours upon hours
Watching the interaction between Nolan and his grandparents
Cruising Navy Pier
Trying to go to a movie and having Nolan wake up before the previews even started
Leaving the movie-haha


{Eating with Grandma, and Grandpa experiencing the wrestling match that is getting Nolan dressed}

We had such a wonderful time and are so grateful to have spent time with Mamita and Papito (as I call them). They pitched in and helped so much and we were so sad to see them go. Until next time!

Happy Wednesday!

Spoiled GIVEAWAY!

One of the (many) amazing things about living in Chicago and being a wife to a designer, is meeting some seriously talented people. Truthfully, I don't think I've ever run into as many incredibly creative people before in my life and I am loving it!

One of those incredible people is Twisha. Twisha and Collin go to school together and I've had the privilege of working with her on one of her school projects. Not only is she one of the nicest people ever, she's SOOOO stinking talented. One day, after she left our house, we received an e-mail with this little beauty in it:



I about DIED!! It's one of my favorite things EVER and it's about to go on my bedroom wall. LOVE IT!

And like I said before, Twisha is sooo nice, and so she's offering 1 lovely illustration to one of you!! Here's the skinny:

One of your will win an illustration of you, your pet, your family, your bike, whatever you want, by Twisha.

To enter do 1 or all of the following:
*Visit Twisha's site and leave a comment (comment here saying you did so)
*Leave me a comment telling me which of Twisha's illustrations is your favorite
*Leave a comment telling me what you'd like to have Twisha illustrate for you
*Share this giveaway (blog it, tweet it, Facebook it, etc.)
*Follow Spoiled Eggs or tell me if you're already a follower

That's right, you have 3 chances to enter.

Giveaway opens NOW and closes Next Monday, March 12. The Winner will be chosen randomly and announced on March 13th.

Now hurry up and go! Visit her site! Leave her some love! And enter to win some illustrated love of your own!

Happy Tuesday!

For The Ones We Left Behind

This is the face of a full tummied, just bathed, little boy who got 11 hours of sleep last night!

I've arranged the following photos in groups according to who might enjoy them the most:

For grandparents:




For my brothers:



For those who appreciate a good attempt at thumb sucking:




Right before Nol and I finished up our photo shoot he lost his dad.

"Mom, is he up there?"

"Or did he go that way?"

Happy Friday from our little Cub in Chicago!!

And a HUGE thanks to all my guest bloggers!!

Monday Monday

Last week (it actually might have been the week before that, I'm really losing track of time) my husband flew off into the Chicago sunset to find us a place to dwell for at least 2 years. Nol and I missed him a lot, but Collin totally delivered.

(A picture of one of the many he saw, but didn't get ^)
He looked at a ton of places, and finally settled on this one. (below) We love it.

And no, that's not our furniture. That's the staging furniture that was placed there to entice us to sign. And sign we (mostly he) did.

So now we have a place to live when we get to Chicago. In 2 weeks. TWO WEEKS! Did you hear that? Holy cow. We're getting awfully excited. I'm getting awfully emotional. And blogging lately has been awfully neglected. Forgive me as I try to do better!

In the mean time, have a very very happy Monday.

Oh and here's a picture for you to enjoy...

(Concentrate on his smile, not the ultra-blurriness of the phone picture).

Now, pardon me as I go shop for a new phone.
Happy Monday!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

{Photo of my senior recital last weekend, taken by family friends}

Okay, I'm a huge Christmas fan, so Christmas actually is the most wonderful time of the year, but right now, where I'm at in this year, and at in life in general, it feels pretty wonderful. In the next 3 months we will:

move at least twice
travel to Utah
have 2 family reunions
graduate from Arizona State University
sell our car
sell all our furniture
travel to Idaho
have a baby!
start fresh

It's taken me a little longer that I would have liked, to think of these things as wonderful rather than stressful but I'm there! And I'm so excited! Especially about graduating, moving to Chicago and meeting baby boy. So much to look forward to! And I can't wait to share it all with you.

Speaking of sharing wonderful things; last weekend was my senior recital and my family outdid themselves on the beautiful decorations and atmosphere and it was so much fun to sing my heart out!







{Photos taken by my beautiful SIL}

Things I'll Miss

Out to dinner at St. Francis in Phoenix with Coll's siblings and their spouses- - best food ever BTW


We're moving soon. To Chicago. We're really excited. It's going to be a bundle of changes all at once with baby boy, Coll starting grad. school, and moving 1,752 miles happening all within about 5 weeks, but really, we're very excited!

I'm a large proponent of pros and cons lists. So naturally, when we were given the opportunity to move across the country, I weighed it all out.

The Pros:
* in 1994 Illinois passed the "Family Building Act" requiring that all health insurance providers cover infertility treatment/diagnostics
* before there were the Diamondbacks there were the Cubs. I've been a loyal Cubs-fan my whole life, and when you all sing "for it's root, root, root for the home-team" in stead of "root root root for the Cubbies", you're singing it wrong
* Chicagoans dye the river green on St. Patrick's Day
* there is no such thing as 120° in The Windy City
* white Christmases
* great public transportation
* the thrift stores, OHHH the thrift stores
* it's a really cool place to visit (insert hint for family and friend visits here)
* we'll be only a 13 hour drive from family we don't get to see as often as we'd like
* getting to know a brand new city, full of rich history

Cons:
* the first few years of baby boy's life will be spent getting to know his grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles via Skype rather than real life hugs and kisses (thank heaven for Skype though)
* I swear the year we're moving is the year everything cool is happening in AZ
* we're leaving most of our family behind, and that's the very hardest part, in fact when I hang out with my brother these days, I find myself crying on the way home (nobody told me that pregnancy hormones come when you're adopting)

As you can see, the pros outweighed the cons, so come July we're making our way to the home of the best pizza I've ever had, which really, should be reason enough to move.

So, does anybody know anything about Chicago? Safe places to live? Good places to eat? Take a car, no need for a car? Send your Chicago info. my way if you please.

Oh, and Happy Tuesday