We Built A Fort

Playing with my fun Daddy!

We were bored the other day and wanted to do something fun and out of the ordinary, so we built a fort. The architecture was very simplistic - four dinning room chairs and a big old blanket! Grant thought it was the coolest thing ever. When he decided to come and play with some toys his face was priceless. It was something new and different and he liked it. Some days go by and I feel like we are always just playing and sitting in the front room. It gets old after some time. So, we spiced it up and did something different! Glad we did because it sure was fun!

Playing in my fort!

A Worst Nightmare

Just over two years ago my sister Jana was in a terrible, horrible, very scary car accident. There is no need for details. All that matters is that she is here with us today. We are VERY lucky for that. Since then I have been very paranoid of Lance's travels. Lance drives a lot for work, leaving early in the mornings and driving home late at night. I am always nervous of him getting in an accident and that scares me very much. No matter if he is driving across 3 states or driving just 3 miles down the road to the grocery store, when he is leaving I always say "I Love You. Drive Safe". I know just how dangerous driving can be. Two weeks ago, my worst nightmare came true.
Grant and I were in the car driving to the pool to meet a friend. Lance calls me and says "Do not freak out, I was just in a bad car accident but I am fine." My heart sank and a million things raced through my head. Sure he was telling me he was fine, but what does that mean? He only has 3 broken bones, fine? Or he only sees a little bit of blood, fine? There could be a million kinds of fine. I could hear a woman in the background say, "Oh my gosh, are you alright?" At some point I asked what happened and he told me that someone hit him from behind on the freeway. The conversation was very brief. Lance told me he needed to make sure someone was calling the police and he promised to call me right back.
Side note----- Lance was on his way home from an appointment and I remember him telling me it was about two hours away. I just didn't know how far he was on his drive.
If you know me well, you will know that I am very anxious about getting all the details about any situation. Even when Lance is on the phone with someone else, I am always putting in my opinion if it involves me, or interrupting in some way. I know that is a terrible habit and I even get mad at myself for it. That is all to say that I was desperately wanting more details of his health and wellness and of the accident, but also knowing that he probably needs to take care of some things like insurance, police, and all of that stuff.
Eventually I get more of the story and start making my way to where Lance is located. He was about an hour away. I was so thankful to give him a hug when I saw him. Then I saw the car. Wow. That is when I was overwhelmingly thankful to hold his hand and stand next to him.
So what happened? Lance was driving with the flow of traffic which was about 45 MPH because it was a construction zone. He was on the freeway in the left lane. A Ford F150 comes flying through, going between 70 and 85 MPH and hits one car, then hits Lance, and the hits a Semi. Lance gets hit from behind, does circles all the way across the freeway to the right lane, then all the way back to the left lane and smashes into the cement wall head on. Yes, we are thankful he is alright!
Of course there are more details, but none of them really matter. The very scary thing is that sometimes it doesn't matter how good, safe, or reliable you are as a driver. There are people out there who can cause very serious and scary accidents. The bottom line for us is that we are so very thankful that Lance only walked away with some burns and back and neck stiffness/pain. It turns out the pain is gone and the stiffness has faded. The burns from the air bags have since disappeared.
There is only one real reason that I even decided to write a post about this. I really just want everyone to remember how dangerous it can be on the road. Please be safe. Don't speed. Whatever it is that you are in a hurry for, it can wait. It is much better to be safe and late, then injured, or have caused an injury, and early.

Dodger The Cat

We have two cats. Our boy kitty is named Dodger. He is crazy. Every morning he sits at the front door and just meows until I let him go play outside. I leave the front door cracked open and the cats go in and out as they please. They come in when the dogs are out playing and then go back out to be adventurous. The really great thing about them is they will come inside when I call them, just like dogs. Dodger, especially is really funny with this. He almost gets excited when I call him in and he sprints inside so fast, as if it were a game. Anyhow, the other day he did not come when I called him. Now, this has happened before. Sometimes he is lounging under a tree and just doesn't want to come in. So I go down to the field and get closer to him and then the game starts; He sprints home! So I walked down to the field and didn't see him. I know he is very adventurous so I just went back in the house and figured he would come home shortly. Like I said, this has happened before where he takes his sweet time coming home.Well, our girl kitty, Missy, starting acting nervous, like she knew he was missing or something. So I went back out a little bit later and still couldn't find him. So Lance went out there to check, and this went on all day. I thought either he went too far and couldn't find his way back home, or possibly maybe something jumped out of the field and ate him. I don't know what, maybe a snake or a fox - do they even have foxes in IL? Anyhow, I go out there yet again at about 5:00. I was in the middle of making dinner so I asked Lance take over while I went outside. I took the cat treats with me, because I know that whenever the cats hear me shake the cat treats they make a be-line for me. I am out there walking the edge of the field and looking around and all of a sudden I hear a faint meow that is clearly Dodger. He is in the field approximately 30 feet or so deep. OHMYGOD! I sprint home as fast as I could and tell Lance I need his help. We turn off the stove, grab Grant, and Lance puts on his steel toe work boots. We go down to the field and try to get hm out. This field was a corn field last year and now is a soy bean field that has corn patches in some places. The soy beans are about 2-3 feet tall and there is no way that you can see anything in there! The plants are very close together and the cat cannot see basically anything either. So Lance tries to find him but the cat keeps going another direction. So I am a little on edge and I take over. I put on Lance's big old boots and have at it. I am stomping down all of these soy beans in a panic to try and find that cat. (Part of me felt bad for destroying some soy beans, but then I realized that my cat will surely die if I don't get him out....what can you do.) There are millions of bugs all over the places. Bugs I have never even seen before. There are also thousands of frogs jumping all over the place. It really felt like I was on the show "Dirty Jobs". Well finally I find him and I pick him up. I put him down on the grass for just a minute and he falls over. The poor cat is so dehydrated and tired that he can't even stand up. He also is a filthy mess. He was so muddy and yucky - so I had to give him a bath. So we take him in and fill the sink with water and give him a bath with my tick and flea killing shampoo (Thank God I bought that for no reason last year because it came in handy!) So here is a picture of Dodger, all nice and clean and wet, trying to lick himself dry!

-----There is a side note. We forgot to close our garage that night. So our neighbor texts Lance at about 10:30 to let us know it is still open. So Lance runs out to close the garage and when he comes back in he tells me that there are tons of frogs in our garage. So the next morning I go to take a look and sure enough there were about 15 frogs in our garage - and some of them were big and were also dead. EWWW. They were disgusting. So I had to chase them all out of the garage with a broom and then get the dead ones out as well. ------

Thank goodness that fiasco is over! Damn cat!

Quiet at the Concert!

Here's a good one!!! So we went to Ravinia, an outdoor concert venue with our friends the Stefanksi's and the Larson's. We left Grant with our friends Brian and Jamie, which is a great story in itself and will post about that next! Anyhow, the concert was some symphony orchestra. We were more interested in playing games and enjoying a good meal with one another than we were of just sitting and listening to music. You can bring food and drinks, including alcohol into this venue so we all brought some piece of the meal and some drinks. Lance and I arrived right as the concert started and everyone went very quiet. So we just thought that people were going to listen to the beginning or that maybe someone was going to give a speech or something. Well, everyone stayed fairly quiet the whole time! And I mean, pretty darn quiet. So we enjoyed our delicious dinner without really talking to each other, other than loud whispers here and there. When dinner was done we were just chatting and hanging out, in voices just above a whisper. Now, I know I am loud person, but I have toned it down over the years. I was not being loud and had only had 1/2 glass of wine, so was not feeling silly either. A woman walks over comes right up to me and says, "I can hear you all the way over where I am sitting. There is not talking during the performance. Thanks" and she walks away. WHAT? First of all, I was truthfully not talking in a normal voice, I was talking in a loud whisper. Secondly, there are no rules about no talking during the performance. and yes, we did read the handout and the tickets to be sure! It was so strange. So yes, I Jamie Hunter, got Shh'd at an outdoor concert. WEIRD ! Even though we could barely hear each other the whole night, it was a great night of fun and we had a wonderful time making fun of the fact that we had to be quiet!

Grant's First Haircut

On Grant's 9 month birthday we decided it was time for a haircut. The good news is he has a ton of hair like his Mom and Dad! We went to Kid Snips where they specialize in childrens haircuts. We got to pick out a DVD for him to watch while he sat in his cool car. We chose Winnie the Pooh. He did not care about watching the movie at all. HE just wanted to play in his car. He was such a good boy. We even got to take home a certificate with his picture on it and a snip of his hair! Hope you enjoy the photos!


Look at my cool car!
Look at me!
Playing with the race car!
I see you !
Family Picture!

Will Crawl For Beer

This is one of the first videos of Grant crawling.Around 6.5 months Grant would scoot and roll all over the house, but just was not interested in crawling. Then he started pulling himself up on the couch and walking along the couch, and still no crawling. Then we made some progress and started crawling backwards! Now, around the 8 month mark, Grant is a crawling machine! Lance gave him a bit of an incentive.....some Beer! Be sure to watch him spit out the beer after he drinks it! This is especially funny because Grant would drink beer instead of milk if I would allow him to. Why do all babies love the taste of beer? Anyhow, please enjoy!

Mother's Day

We had such a special Mother's Day. My boys took me to downtown Naperville for a very yummy brunch. The food was delicious! We ate outside and enjoyed the beautiful morning. I tried something while at brunch that I have never had. Believe it or not, I had my very first Bloody Mary. DISGUSTING ! I would have rather had whiskey for breakfast! I will never have that again. I am not a picky eater, or drinker for that matter, but that was just horrific. Me no likey! My boys then walked me over to this really cute purse shop and had me pick out a bag. That was a wonderful surprise! Then we spent the rest of the morning walking the riverwalk and enjoying the day. We watched the ducks and the river and Grant really enjoyed it. He just loves to be outside, so he was in Heaven! Lance and Grant also gave me the sweetest, most heart felt card I have ever received. It made me cry, but more importantly made me realized how lucky I am to have such a wonderful husband and a sweet baby boy. I feel so blessed. I love my family!

More Food Pictures!

Green Beans and Sweet Potatoes that did not make it into the mouth!

Grant and his food

We introduced Grant to baby food a while ago. We started off with oatmeal. The oatmeal did not go over well at all. Not only was he trying to learn how to use his tongue and learn how to swallow a different texture, he also just was not really liking it. We tried it for about a week and then we moved on. Next we tried rice cereal. We had a bit more luck with this....or should I say Lance had a bit more luck. Grant wasn't really eating good for me, but he would eat it from Lance. There were even two instances in which Lance had to make a second helping because Grant was going to town! We then introduced green beans. That did not go over well. I have learned that my sweetheart Grant is a stubborn little guy. He literally closed his lips and would not open them. So then we moved on to sweet potatoes. No luck. Applesauce. No luck. Is he going to eat anything?

Well, we have had luck with some interesting adult food. Sometimes we give Grant our food to suck on and he just loves it. We have given him apples, oranges, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, french fries, pickles, and even a jumbo shrimp. Grant loved every single one of them! So I know he likes the flavors and I know he is ready for more, I just can't get him to eat the baby food. So I am going to go to the store and see what toddler food I can find for him to hold and suck on. Wish me luck!

Destroyed!

Please Excuse our lack of posts lately....My computer crashed! The good news is that I can most likely recover all of our documents, pictures, and videos. The bad news is I had to buy a new computer.

We will get back to blogging shortly!

Grant got into something...

We had our first uh oh !!(I'm sure of many to come!) Grant really likes to play with the bag of wipes when we are changing him, probably because of the noise it makes. The other night we were all just hanging out and he was just eyeing the bag that was sitting somewhat near him. We decided to just let him play with it. Well, about 1 minute of not paying attention lead to this! Grant managed to open the wipes and pull out about 15 of them. Of course he thought is was such fun - and I thought it was such a waste! However, it was very cute! (Poor quality picture because I could not find the camera so I had to use my phone!)

Food !

Well, we decided our sweet chub-chub needs to get some more meat on his bones, so we introduced him to real food! Grant started eating solid food on Lance's birthday. He is eating banana oatmeal at dinner time. It is a slow transition while he learns how to use his tongue to help him swallow, but he seems to be doing great. We have let him suck on green apples and oranges prior to this and he sucked all of the juices out of them both. That was our sign, he is surely ready! Here are some pictures of Grant's first real meal!

It's bathing suit time! (In CA at least)

We did not make it out to the Beach when we were in CA (we'll do that a different time), but we did put Grant in his bathing suit and let him play in his pool/bath tub. It was such a beautiful day out and so we all hung out in the backyard and watched Grantman play in his pool with some toys while giggling at himself! He just loved the water and played for quite a long time. We cannot wait for Chicago to warm up ! Soon we'll be at the real pool. Enjoy the pictures!

Grant's first Dodger game!

When we were back at home in California we went to Petco Park in San Diego to watch Manny and the Dodger's play! We had such a good time, minus the fact the Manny did not hit a home run! We had a great lunch at Soleil K at the Marriott with Lance's parents, sister and brother. We all then went to the game and sat between left field and third base, about 20 rows up - Awesome seats! Grant really enjoyed himself and really loved being outside for such a long period of time. He even got in a 30 minute power nap in the 6th inning!

It was such a fun family day at the ball park and we look forward to many more!

Yes, that is Lance and Grant with the General Manager of the Dodger's, Ned Colleti !

There's Manny !!

All Clean!

Here are pictures from Grant's first bath in the big boy bath tub! We have finally stopped bathing him in our sink. While the sink was perfect because of how bog and deep it was, Grant was just too big. He was ready for a bigger area where he could play! We got him this really cute Ducky bath that can go directly in the bath tub. It is perfect for him because he can sit up and play with his toys, and lay down to get his hair washed! He just loves it! It is so fun to watch him play and splash all over. He also really likes his new bath toys. He would stay in there all night long if we let him! Now we have a happy, clean baby who has a bigger bath tub to play in !