House Update

After two long days of looking at houses last Friday and Sunday in Glen Ellyn and Elmhurst, we put an offer in on Monday for a 4 bed/3 bath house in Glen Ellyn. Unfortunately, the owners are flaking out and as of tonight, they do not know if they want to sell. So, we will wait. We didn't find anything else we fell in love with after looking at around 20 houses, so this house is it for now.

Hopefully they will get their heads out of their gutter and sell us the fricking house. We'll let you know as soon as we hear something.

Ethan Update

E-man is crawling. Mostly military under the barbed wire type stuff, but he can definitely scoot around the house. He will get up on his knees every now and then, but on his belly is faster, so he prefers going all arms.

I will try to get a video posted this weekend.

The Diego

Two weekends ago, Ali and I flew out to San Diego for my buddy Kevin Harper's wedding. Ali and I flew out on Thursday to take a look around the Diego. We stayed at the Hotel Salomar in the gaslamp district which was a great time. We really enjoyed the Diego and want to come back soon. Apologies to a few of our friends that live around there - we were so consumed with wedding activities that we didn't have time to hang out. The next trip definitely.

I have posted some pictures HERE - mostly of the wedding and reception. It was a great time hanging with a bunch of our friends that we don't get to see often.

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who help make our first March of Dimes, March for Babies a success. I can't begin to thank each and every one of you enough for your generous donations.

Unfortunately our walk was cut short by the torrential down pours that occurred off and on throughout the morning on Sunday. After about 2 miles in off and on sprinkles, the down pours started and we had to duck for cover in the nearest Corner Bakery. We sent the boys off in a cab to get the cars and then headed home.

I do have to commend the Chicago Chapter of March of Dimes for an impressive walk route. If the weather would not have been so bad, it would have made for a great stroll past many of Chicago's great landmarks and along the lake front. Here we are in front of Buckingham Fountain, just after the start.

We are already looking forward to next year's walk. It is truly such a great cause and so close to our hearts! The crazy thing is next year Ethan and Jack will not be stroller bound and will be able to get out and walk with us!

MANY THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR GENEROUS AND NEVER ENDING SUPPORT!

March for Babies!

As many of you know, last June we welcomed our sweet little boy, Ethan, into this world just shy of eight weeks early. His birth was completely unexpected and quite a shock, but we do feel thankful and blessed that he is thriving, despite his early arrival. At almost ten months, Ethan is the sweetest baby; always happy and smiling.

We consider ourselves so lucky that Ethan was cared for in a brand new, state-of-the art NICU. Also, we were fortunate to have wonderful doctors, nurses and health insurance coverage. We know all babies and all families are not as fortunate. And, there’s still a lot of work to be done in the medial community to help understand preterm labor and ensure the healthy delivery of all babies.

That’s why we’re teaming up with thousands of other families to help raise money for March of Dimes. Their mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. Matt, Ethan and I, along with our dear friends Katie, Dana, and Jack Rice, will be showing our support this Sunday by walking 6 miles in downtown Chicago in the “March for Babies”.

To help support our team, I’m hoping I can count on each one of our loyal blog readers for a $10 donation. It’s tax-deductible, and could be doubled if your company has a Matching Gift program. See our team page here or my personal page here.

SOLD!

I figured that would have a few posts between the for sale post and a sold post, but I was wrong. We received an offer on our place on Monday morning and by Monday around 9pm, we were officially future suburbanites.

Six days on the listing, the first person through the open house on Saturday, an offer and a sale. That's how easy it is I guess. I know that we were really lucky, so we will just say all the cards fell the right way at the right time.

One of our stipulations of sale was a fairly quick close. The buyer really wanted to close at the end of May, but during the negotiation, we got it pushed back to June 19th. So, come late June, we will not be living in the city. It is bittersweet as we have loved our 8-9 years living in Chicago. We will be sad to leave all that it offers behind, but we know we will be a short drive or train ride away.

Because we are both accountants, we understood the financial aspects of the sale enough to tell the buyer that if all things fall into place, we will actually close on May 29 if he still wants to. We did this because we were not sure we would find a place of our own to close on before June 19th - therefore, when the time comes, we can make that decision and tell our buyer that we will close on May 29 and save the 19 days of mortgage payment in June. (Just trust me - it all works in our favor - and we got him to think we were making a concession for him so that he would give us more of what we wanted - $$$.)

So, we could be gone as early as Memorial Day.

The search now begins to find a house - and a suburb. We are looking for a nice burb that has a true downtown area. We will want to live near this downtown area - which we think will make the transition easier as it will be somewhat like what we are used to. This will include a walkable distance to the downtown area and train station. We will obviously love to be very near a park, but one walkable will suffice. We are torn on the distance from the city as it will determine Ali's work status. She likes what she is doing so she would like to work, so we have moved our search to burbs closer to downtown. The type of house is negotiable, it can be 3 or 4 beds with varying bathrooms, new or old, whatever. Right now the locations are Geneva, Glen Ellyn, maybe Deerfield, possibly Naperville. Who knows. It just depends on what we find. I just hope we can find a good agent (ha ha.) Ali's mom will be acting as our agent. We will start our search on Friday.


On another note, we will post a story and pictures from Harper's wedding in San Diego shortly. Obviously other things have taken up our time the last few nights.

CONDO FOR SALE! CONDO FOR SALE!

After many long discussions and a quick sale by the Gibson's, we decided to list our condo; 908 N. Wolcott #2 officially went on the market yesterday. We have spent the last couple of weeks, hard at work, getting our home ready to ensure it is in pristine condition for showings. After some much needed professional advice from our realtor and my mom, we moved several pieces of furniture to storage, painted our bedroom, removed lots of knick-knacks from counters and shelves, and did a deep clean. I believe all our hard work really paid off and our house looks great! You can see some pictures from the virtual tour here.

Moving out of our condo is really bittersweet for us. This was the first home that Matt and I bought together right before our wedding and have since had so many wonderful times. This was also the first place Ethan called home after being born. We will truly miss our wonderful neighbors, all the great places in the 'hood, and just being in the city. We knew this time would eventually come and we will be sad the day the moving truck pulls away, but we are excited to have a real house with a real yard and start this next chapter of our lives. We are not 100% positive which suburb we will call home (there are a few contenders), but we will cross that bridge when we get there. For now, keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer for a quick sale.

Whatcha Got In There?

"Hey Ma! Can I Have $20.00?"

Happy Easter!

Hope the Easter bunny finds his way to your house this year!

Happy Easter everyone!

Ethan Hawk(e)

A little fun at bathtime the other night!

Lincoln Park Zoo

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to take advantage of some more nice weather and have a family outing at the Lincoln Park Zoo (minus two key family members.....Matt, who was in Pennsylvania for work and my sister, who was at yoga). This was Ethan's first time to the zoo and I am pretty sure he had a better time people watching than animal watching, but the trip was fun nonetheless. I think we would all agree that the best part of the trip was the huge silver back gorilla that rounded up several other apes that were outside playing. Many of the other animals were inside because it was quite cool, but we were also able to see the lions, monkeys, polar bears, and even a hyena. I can't wait to take advantage of this great zoo once the weather is nicer and as Ethan gets older! A must see if you are ever in Chicago.

9 Months

On Saturday, Ethan celebrated his 9 month birthday...whoa, where did the last 3/4 of a year go? I feel like we were just doing our daily hospital routine; wondering when we were ever going to be able to bring our little boy home.

Ethan continues to be the light of our lives, making us laugh out loud on a daily basis, and just reminding us of how innocent life can be. He is such a happy boy with the sweetest disposition, but has definitely developed a little, sometimes devilish, personality the past couple of months. He loves to be a part of every conversation and still thinks he is a lot bigger than he really is!

Speaking of size, we had our 9 month check up today with Dr. Lynch and Ethan's stats are as follows, 16 lbs. 11 oz. and just under 27 inches long. For a nine month old that puts him in the 5th percentile for both so he is still really small, but doing great developmentally. He has been sitting up on his own for about a month now and had just recently figured out how to get from a sitting position to his belly. While he is not crawling yet, he is definitely mobile and has figured out how to scoot all over on his belly and is just starting to get up on his knees.

He loves the jumparoo and his Fuzzy Hugbug from Auntie Kristi and Uncle Ben. He thinks Elmo is pretty great and can't sleep without his 2 lovies (thanks, Anne and Gina) or his pac, which he insists on putting in his mouth himself. Singing and music bring a great big smile to his face and he has recently discovered "So Big" and waving, although we are pretty sure he has no idea he is doing either.

We are having a few issues with Ethan taking a bottle so Dr. Lynch recommended switching formula to a premade liquid instead of powder. Hopefully this will help us get more than a couple ounces down at a time. I am not quite convinced it is the formula because he seems very uninterested in the bottle after about 2 minutes, but has not quite mastered a sippy cup. Other than the formula, Ethan loves to eat and continues to enjoy trying new foods. While he mostly eats only baby food we have tried avocado, Cheerios, grapes, Goldfish, bananas, cantaloupe, mashed potatoes, black beans, graham crackers, and pasta and Dr. Lynch gave us the go ahead today to try "table" food on a daily basis.

We are so excited about what the next couple of months hold for Ethan, including crawling, walking and celebrating his first birthday. We absolutely love him to death and feel so blessed to have such a sweet little boy!

P.S. I have a few catch up posts to do so be on the look out for those over the next couple of days. I promise not to let another week go by before another posts is published!