Our New Place

 We moved to a new place almost 3 months ago so I figure it's time to post some pics. Above is our street; I love all the trees!

 Moving day went well. All the furniture and boxes were lovingly schlepped down 3 flights of stairs then up 3 more flights in 100 degree plus heat. Phew, we have some great family and friends! We loved our old place for many reasons: it was a fun spot, walking distance to tons of great stuff plus there was a man across the courtyard who played beautiful piano music and it wafted in through the windows all day. It was fitting that as I packed up the last of our things, Lucia took a nap to the music of the 'piano man' one last time.

There are a lot of positives about the new apartment...we have more space, Lucia gets her own room and we have a dishwasher, finally! We love living in Evanston. It's neighborhoody with a city feel. There are lots of parks, it's close to the lake plus on the walk to the grocery store you pass 2 antique shops, perfect!  Taking a walk the other day, I realized that this is my most favorite place we have lived so far. And that is saying something since we have lived 6 different places in the 6 years we've been married. 

If you know me well, then you know I like to arrange things in a particular way and I keep rearranging until I get them just right. This means that some things in our place have moved around even since I took these pictures. There are more projects planned but I'm getting there :) Here's a peak...

 Our street with our building on the left. What's that I see? Ooh, parking spots right in front! Definitely an improvement on the last parking situation.

 Our building

 Welcome to 3W

 It was obviously meant to be...check out our front door key :)

(Unless you read it as "Panic, Johnsons"

And now a little tour...here's the entry way

 Into the kitchen (and the backdoor)

Kitchen

 Table from my grandma and grandpa's house

 Dining room

Looking back into the kitchen from the dining room

Looking from the dining room into the living room. These two rooms are basically the same layout in our new place as in our old....just a little more spacious.

Living room

 

Our little office area. (Does the desk look familiar, Julie?)

Lucia's room

 

Our room looking down the hall into Lucia's room. Plus the bathroom is in that hall but it's kind of boring right now. I've got some ideas for it though...

Our room

One of my favorite things about our room are the windows and all the light that floods in. I'm pretty sure I gasped when I first saw it.

Love waking up to this!

Our building

This is the playground/park just one block away

And the lake path is about a 15 minute walk

There are a ton of beautiful, old churches all around Evanston. This one is down the block from us. And in it's backyard of this church is another beautiful church. I noticed that the parish houses for the two churches neighbor each other.

And two blocks away is this lovely rose garden/park.

And here is Lucia waking up in her own room for the first time. Apparently it was tough on her since she seems to have bags under eyes (didn't know that was possible for a baby). And to bring it full circle, Lucia now falls asleep to the sounds of a flautist practicing across the courtyard instead of piano.

So there it is...come visit us! Seeing all these pictures makes me think the walls look bare, time to get to work on some those projects...

Lucia Lately (6 months)

Lucia is now 6 months old as of this week, crazy! It is so fun to watch her grow and learn new things and I love to see her personality emerge. She has developed so much in the last month. It seems like once she masters one new skill she quickly starts practicing the next one. Some new things include: sitting on her own, eating solid foods, sleeping longer and scooting/early stages of crawling. She loves to smile, laugh and make new noises and those new noises really make us laugh. Here are some pics from the last month or so...

 She is still pretty good at taking naps all sorts of places. This surely won't last long though.

 With her cousin, Gwen

 Naomi and Lucia

 And some more cousin time

 With me at my grandma and grandpa's 85th birthday party

 Before she was sitting on her own, she liked to sit like this

 Her first time eating rice cereal...pretty neutral

 And her first time eating fruit...the quintessential funny face pictures

 Lucia is a great eater. She loves it so much that she usually whines with desperation for each bite til it's gone. She is also the messiest eater, ever. I suppose it's because she eats like in the above picture...both hands involved in each bite. It ends with food smeared across her face, dripping off her fingers and elbows and spilling on the floor. And if you think that you would be the one to be able to feed her without the mess, good luck, because many have tried and all have failed.

 Hanging at Lake Michigan

 And she's out

Speaking of cute sleeping pictures...

 In mor mor and grandpa's backyard

 Sitting up on her own!

 Sleepover with all of her cousins!

 Taking in all the new things at the zoo

And lastly, a few smiley pictures of her in her crib today