future opera singer?

here's cadence pretending to be an opera singer just like her auntie lielle!

oh, and yes...that IS a cheerio in the back of her mouth...

not sure if auntie lielle chomps on cheerios while performing...

thank god for craigslist

...we have been uber busy yet again this past week...the condo passed the inspection with flying colors for the most part...a couple minor things, and the only major thing is that the furnace and A/C are old...they work fine, though, so we'll leave them for now...if we have to replace them down the line, we'll do them at the same time and get a combo deal...it was nice to get another good look at the place...it was even better than we had originally thought!

...now we are busy looking at interior design books and perusing the furniture section of craigslist...we've seen some really great deals, and even picked up a large wooden storage bench in perfect condition for $50 a couple days ago! we plan on furnishing our entire place via craigslist, and i think we'll get some really cool stuff along the way...

...autumn weather hit chicago full force this week...cadence and i have been dealing with colds this past week and a half, and the snot-o-meter is pretty high around here...we were supposed to go applepicking with jenn and john and ada grey tomorrow, but due to the forecasted wet and cold, we'll be staying home trying to keep our noses clean...

...speaking of jenn and john and ada grey, our condo will be a mere 4 or 5 blocks from them, so cadence will get to play with ada more often! i think i still want to bring her to the fun-damentals playgroup in lincoln square every other week or so...it'll be a nice excuse to come down to what will soon be our 'old' neighborhood...

big week

...well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks here…just to catch up, we had lunch with my mom and bro last last sunday for jim’s birthday…i won’t tell you how old he is cuz quite frankly, i’ve lost count…it was a nice day for some red lobster (which was what my brother wanted)…afterwards, ted and i went to look at a couple condos in rogers park, and that’s how the craziness started…

…the craziness being our decision to buy a condo now rather than later…we’d been looking for a few months but we weren’t planning on getting serious until the end of the year, closer to when our lease is up in march…but things have been getting pretty bad in our apartment…the café in our storefront whose wall shares our bedroom wall isn’t getting any quieter, and it doesn’t help with the peaceful enjoyment of our apartment which we as chicago tenants supposedly are entitled to…ted actually talked to the café owner to try to find out what all the ruckus has been lately, and the owner was a beeyatch…he got all defensive and he’s like, ‘i pay my taxes and i can do whatever i want.’ he is so lucky that cadence and i were waiting outside when ted had this conversation with him because i probably would’ve chewed his head off for being an asshole in general and ESPECIALLY for being rude to my dear husband who was just trying to protect the interests of his family…it would be one thing if they actually had decent musical acts there and if the coffee and food were any good, but they just suck all around…

...so anyhoo, here’s how things flowed:
sunday 10/09—viewed open houses…saw HUGE condo for pretty cheap…
monday 10/10—decide to get serious NOW…call mortgage person and make appointment for that thursday night the 13th
tuesday 10/11—email real estate agent and declare our intent to buy now
thursday 10/13—find a very promising listing that hit the market just two days prior and email it to agent; get preapproved that evening
friday 10/14—agent schedules showing of the the promising property and we see it that evening; WE LOVE WHAT WE SEE!!!
saturday 10/15—we make an offer; seller counteroffers
sunday 10/16—we accept the counteroffer and celebrate all day long!!! we find out that evening for sure that it’s a done deal!

as you can see, it all happened so quickly! but we really got a great place…it’s in rogers park, 4 blocks from the metra station, there’s plenty of street parking PLUS we get our own parking spot, it’s in a 6 unit building, almost 1500 sq feet, it’s got a 10’ mantle and built in bookshelves, a walk-in pantry, there’s an enclosed porch, a wood deck, a storage ROOM (not locker) in the basement, a shared tool room, a huge space in the basement for doing any projects like wood work or art or whatever, in unit washer/dryer (woohoo! no more running to the laundymat or down to a creepy basement to do laundry!), and it was built the year jack kerouac was born! we got it for a really great price, so there’s still room for appreciation, which is important because so much of what’s in the city is really overpriced…most importantly, it’s got soul and character, which all the gut rehabs with their marble bathrooms and granite countertops were missing…c’mon…could you see me and ted in one of those cookie cutter places?

...everything is happening so fast…today’s the inspection…hopefully everything will be okay, and we can go forward with the contract…the only iffy thing is that we have to coordinate getting a subletter with when we close…i’m not too worried though…the way everything has come together so smoothly, it really seems like there’s somebody up there orchestrating everything…i sure hope so, because i’ve never had to sublet before…i just hope there’s someone out there who won’t mind living in a building with a café…we’ll just advise them to make one of the other bedrooms their actual sleeping room…or if they don’t go to bed at 9pm like we do, they probably won’t mind…

on saturday night we went to a family celebration for cathy and john’s marriage…cathy is ted’s godmother and his mom’s cousin…it was really nice to see everyone again, and cadence had a blast crawling around the whole house…it was so hard not to say anything about the condo because we didn’t want to tell the family until after we had an accepted offer…ted’s dad asked me a lot of questions during dinner about what we were looking at, and it was really hard to give general answers without blurting out that we already had a place picked out…we survived the night without giving away the secret, but it wasn’t easy…

whew! that’s it for now…let’s hope today’s inspection turns out okay!

big day

...so today was kind of a big day...it started with a trip to the doctor for cadence's 12 month visit...i have to say that i absolutely love our doctor, dr. fothergill...she makes our baby laugh and laugh and she is also very encouraging of our efforts at natural parenting (nursing, cosleeping, etc...) cadence is doing great for her age...unfortunately, she had to get two shots today, and one of them was rather painful...she cried a lot after that one...

...today was also the first really chilly day of autumn...as you can see, we really had to bundle up our little cadence, esp. on our long walk to the fun-damentals playgroup that meets at a church on wilson and campbell just west of lincoln square...this is the playgroup cadence and i went to on saturday and had a blast at...today we got to go as a family since i'd taken a vacation day for cadence's doctor's appointment...

...our friend denise and her son zachary were at the playgroup too...denise is the one who told me about the playgroup in the first place...zach is so adorable with his big eyes and loads of curly hair!

...as you can see, cadence loves her playgroup! and it was extra fun with zach there to play with as well!

...it was raining when we got out of the playgroup so we had to hurry home...of course, we didn't have an umbrella with us, but teddy and i had our hoodies and luckily we just happened to have our rainshield for the stroller with us...

...after the playgroup, we went home for a bit and then trekked on down to wicker park to use a gift card for potbelly's that i'd gotten for christmas last year from ted's brother jay...then we went to psycho baby which is a baby boutique store right across the street from the WP potbelly's...it was just ridiculously expensive there, even though they have a lot of hopelessly hip(ster) baby clothes there...we've decided that we really need to invest in a sewing machine (and sewing lessons) so that we can make our own cool clothes for cadence without having to dip into her college fund...

anywho, so we're back home now, and it was just about an hour ago when cadence took two small steps from holding onto daddy's leg towards daddy's bass drum...she's definitely headed in the right direction!

we still have to eat dinner and go to see wallace and grommit at the AMC where jay is working, so today is definitely a BIG day for us!

walk the line part deux!!!

HOLY COW! STOP THE PRESSES! CADENCE IS WALKING!!!!! YES, THAT'S RIGHT...SHE TOOK TWO WHOLE STEPS TODAY!!!!

two small steps for our little cadence...one giant leap for our family!