The Mouse Family Blog

Given Lauren's new found fascination with "Up," I thought it would be nice to spend some time on the roof after dinner since Liz had a girls' night out.

She had a fun time watching the airplanes in the sky as they lined-up to land at O'Hare and pushing the chairs around on the deck. She also enjoyed peering out at the skyline.

For those of your not familiar with the skyline, there are some changes coming. You can see the new Trump tower rising in the middle.

Mommy was preparing for a girls' night out, and it looks like Lauren is gearing up to go, too.

Having long-since mastered handbags, necklaces, and eyeware, Lauren is now moving on to shoes. She looked around the house and found a pair of Mommy's that will suit her taste. Daddy helped her get into the shoes, but the walking is all Lauren. :)

Labels: Movies

Lauren has begun honing the fine art of sweet-talking and tugging on Daddy's heart strings. I thought it was quite sweet when she first came up to me and said "Hi...." and smiled. But just a few seconds later, she added her request...."Up!" I complied. :)

She's now taken to using that request with great frequency, though she learned it's equally effective just to dispense with the small-talk and jump straight to handing out orders. "Up." "Up." "Up!"

Welcome to the blog world Lindsay! Another one of Lauren's little play buddies has joined us online. We're excited that Lauren even made the cut for pictures on Wednesday. Check it out.
And Charlie is there too. Next up, we want some Anna action - Anna Banana where are you!?!? Get online girlie, that's where the fun is.

We had a great time during our week in Chattanooga. One of the highlights was celebrating all the May birthdays: Cori, Lauren, Sophie, Zoe and Papa! The little girls all donned birthday items (a hat for Zoe, bib for Lauren and t-shirt for Sophie) and we had cake! We let Cori and Papa wear whatever they wanted ;) Lauren wore her very pretty birthday dress that was a gift from Colleen, Ben and Anna. We had a vanilla cake with everyone's names on it, but we also had a chocolate cake...for those of us who just have to have a chocolate cake. Mmmm - can't wait for next May.

This past week we went on a family vacation in Chattanooga, TN. The Gieseke side of the family - Liz's parents, brothers Andy with wife Mara and little girls Sophie and Zoe, and Mike with girlfriend Cori - all descended on a rental house in "North Chatt". We enjoyed being able to stroller to shopping, parks, restaurants and museums as well as the world-class aquarium.

Here is a slide show of some pics from our times at the Aquarium, Discovery Museum, Rock City and Cheeburger Cheeburger where Andy ate the 1 pounder and got his picture taken to hang on the wall. We'll work on posting more pictures/movies soon.

I (Liz) have a new mini-passion. I've been entering free giveaways online. There is an entire community of blogs - I mostly hit up the mom/kid related ones - that give away prizes from time to time. I see the benefit: the blog gets more traffic and the company offering up the prize gets more people looking at (and maybe even buying) their products. It's a win-win-win situation! I've won two things from Mom4Life's blog already (be warned - the owner of Mom4Life just lost a baby and has been talking about it on the blog, so it's sad reading right now). This past week I won something in a more interesting way than just posting a comment on a blog or sending an email with an answer to a trivia question about the sponsor's product (those are the most common things you have to do to enter). This contest requested creative suggestions to get your kids to eat. Here is the link to the winning entries (mine is #9 - scroll down): Chronicle Books Blog. To get into giveaways yourself visit Prizey!

Here's the update of her height and weight added to Lauren's 12 months old posting.
Height: 30 1/4 inches. Weight: 22.4 pounds. Both are the 75% percentile. Now that she is one, Lauren is loving facing forward in her car seat and drinking milk. She also loves having her own chair with her name on it (thanks Grandma Ann and Grandpa Clark)!

After seeing lovely Lauren in her birthday video, I'm sure most of you were expecting the talent agents to start calling.

Well, it turns out that Lauren did get a casting! Just not *that* kind of casting....

It turns out that our poor little girl broke her arm! Believe it or not, she actually broke it on Sunday, before the party. She was playing at her toy box while we were getting the house ready for the party. While reaching for a toy, she lost her grip and slipped into her toy box. It's happened before, but this time it created a small partial fracture in the radius bone of her right arm.

Amazingly, we didn't recognize the break right away. We noticed that Lauren was reluctant to put weight on her arm, but we and the doctors thought it was just sprained since she was otherwise using her hand just fine. But after four days, the doctor decided she needed an x-ray. She now has a half-cast, which she'll have to leave on for a week or so to let the fracture heal.

So the big day finally arrived - Lauren's first birthday party. She had a marvelous time celebrating with friends here in Chicago. She did miss her out of town family, but thanks them for their gifts and well wishes and can't wait to see them soon.

Here's a description of the events. Lauren kicked off her party by being asleep when the first guests began to arrive. Finally Liz woke her up and she donned her lovely first birthday dress (thanks Trinity for the loan) and was a bit surprised by all the mayhem (we were surprised she had slept with 30+ people walking around on her ceiling). The weather was nice, so Lauren and some of the other kids enjoyed the new swing that Jace installed for Lauren on the porch. The mostly Cinco de Mouse-o theme was injected here and there with some mariposa touches, notably the butterfly shaped cake that Liz and Jace made. Eventually everyone got down to business with Happy Birthday singing (Lauren beamed up from her highchair while everyone sang!) and then she daintily nibbled on her cake.

Here's the three-minute video of the event:

There is also a: High Resolution Version available.

We think a good time was had by all. And Lauren even went to bed on time and slept until 6am (that's sleeping in for Lauren)...waking up with some babble and finally called "Dada" to come get her.

Oh, and yes Liz got her haircut...really cut!

This is just a quick video shot on our camera. We will be posting the official video with singing soon. Warning - this video is loud (it was a party!):

Labels: Movies

Wow! Lauren is an entire year old! We don't have stats from the doctor yet, but we have a strong suspicion that our little peanut is not wanting in the healthy weight-gain department.
Stats added as of 5/7/07: weight 22.4 lbs. Height 30 1/4 in. Both 75th%.

These days are a ton of fun. Every day brings a new set of discoveries, and usually a new word or two as well. Lauren's interest in reading has subsided a bit in favor of exploring new things and learning the complex aspects of of her toys. She's also learning to play more independently, which is a blessing.

In the past week, Lauren has really taken to walking. She still prefer to crawl most of the time, but is equally content to walk when the situation calls for it -- like when her hands are too full of toys to crawl.

Here is a special Cinco de Mayo version of our monthly photos. Party plans are in full swing here at the Mouse House. Lauren is going to have a "but-tye" (butterfly) cake. Kids are going to have a nacho station and adults are going to have fajitas.

Labels: Monthly Photos

...so what books is your child reading these days?

It would appear that we've underestimated Lauren's reading ability, and her interest in spiritual matters. She seemed to *love* the "Baby Faces" book, and we thought we might want to graduate up to "The Pokey Little Puppy" in a month or two....

But it would appear that Lauren has adopted a far more aggressive reading plan. Won't all the people at church be impressed!

I should also point out that this is the “Graduate Edition” of Oswald Chambers’ book, which means that our little one year old is technically reading at the graduate level.

The library here in Wicker Park was having a book sale, and this is one of the books we picked-up. Back home, Lauren took to carrying it around the house. I'd say she carried it for a solid half hour, managing to crawl from place to place with it. We were set to congratulate ourselves for what fine parents we are....until she sauntered over the broiler, opened it, and prompted placed poor Oswald inside. Oh well...

Here's Lauren talking on her phone. It's amazing what kids can learn just be watching adults! Lauren definitely understands that this is her phone, and what it is she's supposed to do with it. She calls Grandma, of course!

Lauren got this phone shortly after Christmas, after playing with cousin Sophie's out in Tucson. It's one of her favorite toys. Pushing the buttons says things like "Please come to the party at the castle." and "Don't you just love being a princess?"

Someone ought to make one of these that allows the grand parents to actually record their voice!

Labels: Movies

Lauren's house was already practically overflowing with toys, but we guess it wouldn't be a proper birthday without a few more.

When she awoke on Friday, she was greeted with a shiny butterfly balloon. In the video, you can hear Lauren share her version of "butterfly," whose pronunciation is still rough. We were pretty surprised when she started saying it about 10 days ago. Since her room and bathroom are all decked-out in butterflies, I guess she's had plenty of opportunity to be exposed to them.





Lauren also got a set of beads like Liz and Jace had when they were kids. She immediately put them to use as a necklace. Then, as with most babies, found the majority of her interest in the box they came in. :)















The grand prize was a set of picnic dishes that Liz found. Lauren had played with a set in Florida and really enjoyed them. So when Liz happened to see a set in a store here in Chicago, she couldn't resist. Lauren is inexplicably drawn to these dishes! They're really meant for older kids who know how to play pretend, but that doensn't stop her. Lauren will spend 15 minutes at a time just putting the lid on the tea pot and taking it off again. She loves them!

There's more to come! Lauren still hasn't seen her uber-present from the Gieseke's in Tucson. They got her an awesome piano that she's going to love. She also hasn't gotten her new toddler-sized chair from Grandma and Grandpa Gieseke, yet.

Labels: Movies

Lauren is all dressed up and ready to hit the town on her birthday.

She's sporting a new purse and sun glasses from her Grandma and Grandpa Mouse. She's very excited to now have a pair of glasses that fit on her own head. She's been trying to wear mommy's sun glasses for a while now, but they always fall off.


If Lauren has decided what she'll do with her birthday money from the Mouses, she's not yet saying. She's probably just holding-out until she can learn to pronounce the names of those fancy Italian purse designers!


For her birthday, Lauren celebrated by having lunch with her baby buddy Charlie and mommy's friends Amanda and Heather at Feast. Then the girls headed next door to PsychoBaby for some toy testing.