My brother's girlfriend gave birth to their little girl this month. Jocelyn Marie Brewer was born on June 7th. She is beautiful, and such a quiet, laid back baby. I got the opportunity to baby sit for her the other day, and the newborn experience with her was much different than it was with Finn who has always been loud, emotive, and high needs in comparison. I laughed and told my brother that I was thinking it would be a good practice as to what it would be like to care for a toddler and newborn, but if the next baby we are trying to conceive is anything like Finn, it wasn't really practice at all.

The day after Jocelyn was born, we had a cookout to celebrate my mother's 50th birthday. Colin put our new grill together, and I cooked hotdogs, hamburgers, brats, and marinated pork steak. Vila and her mom came, and my brother with his kids, step and foster and birth 8 in all. It was a lot of fun, and my husband came up with the idea when my brother and I were having a fight with my son's ball pit balls to throw them up into the fan. All the boys and the kids could have played that game for the rest of their lives I think, without getting bored.

Colin and I went to Chicago this weekend for the wedding of a college friend of Colin. It was a jewish ceremony, which neither of us had been to, and it was a lot of fun. We had to leave early because we left our napping baby at the hotel alone with William, but we both really enjoyed the couple hour "date," that we don't frequently get as two adults with no child in tow. We took Finn and William to the Shedd Aquarium, but we didn't do as much as we planned on doing, and came back a day earlier because the drive back and forth from the 'burbs where we were staying and downtown chicago was too horrendous. Next time we go back we will stay longer, but directly in the city so we can just walk around everywhere and we don't have to worry about the drive to and from the city multiple times a day.  

Colin and I in the hotel on the way to the wedding.

Finnigan saying hi to the fishies.

Family picture in front of the Shedd aquarium.

Mommy got a much needed haircut in preparation for this weekend. 

After we got back into Des Moines on Sunday night, Monday morning we took Finnigan to the Science center. We were able to sit through 90 percent of imax movie Born to be Wild with Finn before he finally lost interest and we had to leave, and he loved to run around and play with all the different toys he has there. I had no idea it was so kid oriented. Now I have another option besides the mall playgrounds, which is where I usually take him on a rainy day! 

   

Jordan Creek playground.

Finally, to cap off the weekend, my mom watched Finn while Colin and I had a date night at the Cheesecake factory, my favorite restaurant, where we shared an order of lettuce wraps and a white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake, and I scarfed down and only shared one small bite of tuna tartare. We then went saw a movie, did some scripture study and fell dead asleep in our own beds.