St. Patrick's Day in Chicago

One of the things on our Chicago bucket lists to do before we move was to see the river dyed green. Well this year it was amazingly warm (80 degree!) weather for St. Patrick's Day, so we took the train downtown. This was Paige and mine's first time riding the train to the city and it was a fun little adventure.

There were so many people dressed in green, it was so fun to see. We quickly made our way over to the river, just in time to see them start putting the dye in.

Then we met up with Bryce and Camille and the kids, made a quick stop for food, and then headed to the parade. It was gorgeous weather, so hot that Ben and Paige had to wear sunscreen...in March!

Waiting for the parade to start

Paige enjoying her view above the crowd...the perks of a tall daddy

We stayed for a few minutes of the parade and then started making our way back to the train. We made a few stops for some photo opps.

Willis Tower...aka Sears Tower

Last picture with our camera...the lady taking it dropped our camera (it took this picture and then stopped working). We grabbed it before it fell in the river, but the lens part is broken. Luckily Ben got us a frozen lemonade to fight back my tears. We still had a great time, and are glad we got to check that off our list of Chicago adventures.

Paige 7 & 8 months

Paige's funny personality is coming through more and more and she has been learning more tricks.

7 months:
-started doing a funny thing where she scrunches her nose at you. I don't know where she got this, but she does it all the time and it's hilarious

-learned to shake her head back and forth really fast. Again, don't know where she got this (have I told her "no" too much ??)

-went swimming for the first time (in Cabo) and loved it!

8 months:
-learned to wave! She stops nursing to wave bye to Ben every morning, and loves to wave at people during sacrament meeting

Cute dress from Aunt Lynne

-learned to clap! Just say "Yay" and Paige will usually give a round of applause

Cute shoes from Tina

-is eating a lot more finger foods. She has become a big fan of Ego waffles and Multi-grain Cheerios (a girl of her mother's heart :) and will eat really just about anything we're eating. She still doesn't have any teeth, but she is getting very good at gumming things. Peach cobbler is still a baby food favorite and she still nurses 3 times a day. The girl loves her food!
-wore pigtails for the first time

-still is an awesome sleeper and usually takes 2 naps a day

-loves smiling and waving to people as we shop, but occasionally gets a little "stranger danger" and burst into tears
-she has started crawling! She more moves her legs, then throws herself forward, but she's moving! And has figured out she can scoot backwards on the hardwood floors very fast!

Sweater Aunt Pam made her

-met Mitt Romney! (post to come)
-played at the park, doing the slide and monkey bars for the first time

First slide....we love 80 degree weather in March!

Cabo!

In February we headed to Cabo San Lucas for the Warning family "adult" (plus nursing Paige) vacation. We had a blast playing/relaxing/chatting in the perfect sunny weather!
As we drove up to our resort we were followed by a convoy of black suburbans and were greeted by army men with machine guns....then we realized the G20 meeting was at our resort, meaning Hillary Clinton, the president of Mexico, and other world leaders were where we were staying! We had to have our car checked for bombs, had our car stopped on the freeway by a cop with a machine gun, army men walked by the pools with guns, and there was a naval ship right off our beach. It definitely added to our vacation experience.

 Our room was lovely and nice and big for all 4 couples, and with room to play "Rage"each night. There was a number of different pools to enjoy, and one was more of the "activity" pool. We enjoyed water aerobics, basketball, volleyball, and some pool side bingo to win free drinks. The worker who ran bingo had some great sayings in his Spanish accent, "jummy jummy", "don't be jealous", "oh my goodness".

Paige loved the water and especially loved her floaty. She made friends with everyone at the pool floating by in this.

If she got worn out from that she would either....have a snack under an umbrella...

 Take a rest in her stroller (she went on many "sleepy rides")...

 Nap on the lounge chairs and with daddy by the pool...

 Or take a soothing hot tub (not too hot) dip with Grandpa back on the deck.

And of course we loved getting to try out her summer clothes as we went out to town and dinner each night.

My mom thought Paige needed this cute black tankini to match mine :)

One night we went to eat a the same restaurant Ben and I went on our honeymoon, and then again when we went back and I was just 3 months along with Paige.
Flashback to honeymoon....

 Pregnant with Paige....

 And now! We love that restaurant!

That night we also grabbed some family pics at the resort

My cute parents

One morning the boys all went out deep sea fishing. Luckily Ben quickly caught two fish before he got nauseous and puked the rest of the time. He was still glad he went, especially since they had a seal (named Oscar) come up on the back of their boat to get food!

 Then we took the fish they caught and had it cooked at a restaurant in the marina that night.

We spent many more hours soaking up the sun by the pool and beach

We could see whales right from out pool

The last night we headed back out to the marina for dinner at Ruth's Chris.

It was so fun being with my family for a week, becoming closer as siblings, and soaking in the sun. Thanks mom and dad for an amazing vacation! And here's one last picture that just captures our week...