Thankful

Wanted to share some photos from this weekend.

I was SO thankful to be able to spend a nice long weekend relaxing with my family.

We had a DELICIOUS dinner....we ate all weekend actually!

Nick and Dad sat at the "kiddie" table.

Greta and Nate enjoyed their time with Finnegan.

We took Finn to his FIRST PARADE!

Twinkle Parade people! It's what's happening!

Cows, Queens, and Candy Galore! Greta was ruthless.

We also got milk and cheese. You can't get much more WI than that.

AND there was loads of snuggle and hang out time.

Naps with Grandpa, and general merriment.

I am SO thankful for my family. I love you guys.

Six Months

We've got a SIX month old!

Is that possible?

The time has just flown.

This weekend Finnegan celebrated his half year birthday.

We celebrated by having lunch with Erin and Moe and then took him to the Mall for his FIRST portrait session. He was such a good boy. Smiled and the whole nine yards.

This morning was a trip to the doctor for more shots. He weighs 18 lbs. 2 oz and the doctor was shocked to hear that he eats 8 tablespoons of cereal, mixed with 4 oz of formula AND a whole jar of baby food, in one sitting. This kid has his Dads appetite for sure.

Future Me, Future You

This is a super cool website people.

http://www.futureme.org/index.php

Don't let it's stark genericness scare you.

This web site essentially allows you to become a pen pal with yourself. Writing yourself letters to send to yourself in the future.

I LOVE this idea. I'm going to do it. But I am almost overwhelmed with the excitement of it.
When should I write myself a letter first?! To receive a week from now, 50 years from now? Will I even HAVE the same email address 50 years from now? Will there even BE email 50 years from now? (you can see why I am having some problems getting started)
The opportunities and topics are endless.

Make sure to check out the Public Entries. Some cool letters to read.
ENJOY!

No Rest for the Wicked

Is that what they say?

Well I am wicked then I guess :-)

Work has been SUPER busy these past few weeks!

Here are the highlights:

I went to Washington DC for the ProLiteracy Worldwide Convention last week.

I attended some great workshops, listened to some amazing speakers and attended a fine banquet, and had the chance to meet Nora Roberts! Queen of romance novels. This woman is the most prolific writer of all time. She has written close to 250 novels. And I think something like 23 Nora Roberts novels are sold every minute in the world. She was a real classy lady, her speech was great and it was fun to meet her.

Tuesday night I had the honor of meeting some of our young supporters!

I had a meeting with Girl Scout Troop 006 who is working to earn their Bronze Award.

They are going to do a book drive for us. They were super cute.

That SAME night, around 20 people came from all over Chicago to sit in, hang out in our space, drink coffee and work on writing novels as part of NANOWRIMO, http://www.nanowrimo.org/.

13 of them were high school students from Corliss High, and with their teacher Kelli, have set out to attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. They were really cool kids and it was very fun to here about what topics they were writing about.

And then yesterday we had another 15 people or so come for a volunteer lunch/meeting!

It was SO great to have people in the office all week...fired up and ready to help us.

Hard to imagine that a year ago we were in Stacy's basement.......

New! New!

Here are some new things around our house:

Exersaucer!

On loan to us from the gracious Dahringer household, Finn is totally digging this item.

Apples!
Finnegan has also been embarking on new tastes, cereal and oatmeal. He tried green beans for the first time last week. He made a hysterical face and then gagged. I will try and get a photo of his next reaction. He loves sucking and gumming apples.

Warm Fuzzy Outdoor Suit!

It's kind of warm here today actually, but in the past week or so we have had the chance to put Finnegan in this ADORABLE blue snuggly for his outdoor adventures.

Love Birds!

The honeymooners are back!
Click on this link below to check out some AMAZING pics from my sisters honeymoon in Hawaii!
G &N -
You guys look so happy.........
The photos are amazing.

www.mariahmilan.com

then go to view my images and then click on Greta and Nate!

Halloween!

Our first Halloween as a family was a great one.

I had a Haunted Open House at work, and Nick and Finn stopped by.

We got a chance to meet a lot of new people in our building, meet up with some other awesome literacy organizations and of course, eat candy.

I was a Dead Librarian, it was a fun costume, I always like dressing up.

After work Nick and I took Finn out to his Nana and Papa's, where we visited with Moe and Jim, had pizza and wine and then took Finn over to see the neighbors. It was so fun to see all the other little kids running around. We saw this adorable dinosaur that was about the age Finn will be next year, and I think his candy pail was almost as big as he was!

It was a very busy day and Finn pooped out on the way home.

A tired little pumpkin.....