Shane Rocks!

I have so much to blog about, but I have to start by saying that my child rocks! He is the most incredible little person ever born and I am so incredibly blessed to be his mommy! I have to pinch myself a million times a day to make myself believe that he is real and mine! He is so wonderful and so fun and such a joy to spend my days with! I never knew that I could love anyone the way I love him. I actually should say the way we love him, because Dan and I are equal, card carrying members of the Shane Fan Club! Once we put Shane to bed at night, we look at his pictures from the day and discuss how awesome our child is!
With Thanksgiving tomorrow, Shane is our greatest blessing and what we are most thankful for. Of course, we are thankful for many things. I am thankful for Dan, for his health, and we are both thankful for each other and for our wonderful family and friends, but Shane... well he is just amazing! Being his mom is such an honor!
OK, now on to what we have been up to since I last blogged! We started out November by voting. Shane can now say "vote" probably because I made such a big deal about it. I made it a point of telling Shane how lucky we are to live in a country where we have the right to vote. I also am a big believer that you have no right to complain about politics if you do not exercise your voting privilege. We waited until Dan got home so we could vote as a family. The elections did not go exactly how I had hoped (a shocking democratic sweep would have been nice!) but at least we do not have to live in a state run by Bill Brady! I do not love Gov. Quinn, but at least he is not Bill Brady! We are raising Shane to understand the value of education, the rights of women and homosexuals, and to value animals - all of which Bill Brady rebukes. OK, I am off my soap box! Here are pictures of us voting with Shane. I think the other voters thought we were nuts for taking pictures, but like I said, we are teaching Shane how important voting is!


Shane falls more in love with animals, particularly Thunder, everyday! In fact, Shane now requests dog clothing when I am picking out his outfit for the morning. Thankfully, I love dog clothes so he has some, but not enough to wear daily! As soon as he sees me approach his dresser in the morning, he says, "Woof, woof!" If I can find puppy clothes, he is a happy boy! He also kisses and hugs Thunder way more than he kisses and hugs Dan or I! On the morning I took these pictures, we came downstairs for breakfast and found Thunder on the couch. We don't let him on the leather couches, but before I could say anything, Shane was hugging and kissing Thunder so I grabbed the camera and let Thunder be!




Shane and I took advantage of the beautiful weather last week and made some more visits to the park! He has so much fun on the slide and in the swing! he is just a happy kid! I climb up the slide with him in case he should fall and then slide down after him, which is why you will see my shoes in one of the slide pictures!





On Veteran's Day we were supposed to have a photographer come over to take our pictures for our holiday cards, but he forgot... More on that later. Anyway, in preparation for his arrival we finished decking the house out for Hanukkah and Christmas! Shane helped Dan put up the tree!

When the photographer did not show up, we had lunch, put Shane down for a nap, and headed to the park to celebrate more perfect weather! We have not been back to the park since, but I sure hope we get some more nice weather & we don't have to wait until spring to go back!






Shane, in another doggy shirt here, loves to sing and dance! His favorite song is currently "Itsy Bitsy Spider" here we are singing it!


OK, more pictures of Shane in doggy outfits & more of him and his best buddy Thunder!



Itsy Bitsy is a favorite song to sing, but in the car we listen exclusively to Shane's Elmo CD. I think I am starting to lose my mind from it! We cannot get into the car without playing the CD or he has a fit. He likes to listen to it over and over again the whole time we are in the car - no matter how long that is! We went shopping with Cathy and Alex the other day and left the outlet mall at 1 - Shane's nap time. I was sure he'd fall asleep in the car on the way home, but no, he stayed awake to listen to Elmo. Every time it got quiet and I thought he was asleep, I heard a loud "LA LA, LA LA!" (what Shane calls Elmo) from the back seat and had to put Elmo back on. We just bought Shane tickets to see Elmo Live on January 14th and I think I am more excited to see his face when he sees Elmo than I am to see Bon Jovi in concert!
OK, now on to the photo shoot in our house. Over the summer I purchased a 'YouSwoop' (like Groupon) for $40.00 for a photographer to come to our house, shoot pictures for an hour, give us the CD, and make us 50 prints. I was so excited because 1) it was cheap & 2) I thought having pictures snapped in our house would make Shane and Thunder happier. I was wrong. Not only did the photographer forget to show up on the first day we scheduled, but he was awful. I mean bad! Out of 119 pictures, we had none that we could use on our holiday card. Yes, I said NONE! At least none with Thunder. That meant we had to book the Picture People because they are the only studio besides JC Penney that takes dogs (and JC Penney only takes them the last Sunday of the month - too late for Hanukkah cards this year) and we really wanted Thunder in our picture! The photographer, who has 3 kids under the age of 5, did nothing to make Shane smile. He was just silently taking pictures. That left Dan and I to entertain Shane while we were in the picture - not a good idea. Dan looks like a duck in a few and my mouth is wide open - it was bad! Dan kept begging him to help us out. He was not capable. Besides the fact that he did nothing to make my happy child smile, his lighting was awful and the pictures are dark. I am going to post a sampling of the best ones.







Oh well, we did go to the Picture People and they are expensive, but good. Here are a few of the pictures from that session. These are not my favorites, those are on the holiday cards you will all be receiving soon!





As I think I mentioned before, Shane loves Elmo. When Dan is home on the weekends, they watch episodes of Sesame Street that I TIVO during the week. It is really sweet. Here they are in bed on a Saturday morning.

Dan just finished celebrating his big birthday week & Shane is still coming down from his sugar high from all of the cake! We made Dan his favorite Gum Drop bars the day before his birthday and went out for dinner that night. Dan's birthday fell on report card pick up this year so he got to go into work a little later and sleep in, but he got home at 7:30 that night. Shane (in his PJs) and I waited for him with German Chocolate cake & presents. Here are the pictures from Dan's actual birthday.




Shane is so lucky to have a dad like Dan who loves him so much and looks forward to spending time with him! I definitely married well! I love Dan so much and watching him as a dad has made me love him even more!
Dan's birthday celebration continued into the weekend when we met Kristine and Connor to celebrate and then on Saturday we had my parents and Dan's parents over for lunch and cake.

Shane is lucky to have two sets of grandparents who adore him! Shane now calls all of his grandparents Papa which is too funny. Yes, he even calls both of his grandmas Papa. They both find it hysterical and so do we! Here are some pictures of Shane and his four papas.


In between all of the birthday celebrations for Dan, Shane had his friend Augie over for a play date. They had a blast!

OK, I now truly understand the magic of the Holiday season. When we took Shane to The Picture People we brought my grandmother's menorah to use in some pictures and watching Shane put the candles in the menorah was so fun! (Note, that picture is on our holiday card so do not look for it in this blog.) At home, Dan has placed the reindeer on the lawn and the train around the tree. Shane is so excited. The reindeer are so funny because Shane thinks they are horses. Normally we would correct him, but we don't know how. You see Shane looks at them and says, "NEIGH, NEIGH, NEIGH" and we don't know what sound reindeer make to correct him. When Shane thought horses were dogs & he called them "woof woofs", we would say, "No, this is a horse, neigh, neigh." We have no idea what, if any, sounds a reindeer make so we are going with horses. Does that make us bad parents? I can only imagine the look on our neighbors faces when we ate dinner outside with the horses. Especially if they heard us calling them horses... Shane loves the "horses" so much that he wants to be near them and hug them all of the time. He gets hysterical when we make him come in from outside or when we close the front door. That is why he ate dinner with them the other night. It is so cute! here are some pictures and video. The first picture is blurry but it really captures his excitement and you can see his mouth open and almost hear him yelling, "NEIGH!"



As I mentioned earlier, Shane also loves the "choo choo" under the tree. It was so fun to watch his wonder as the train went around the tree. Dan and I had tears in our eyes watching him. It was so cool to see. Here are a few pictures. The second is my absolute favorite!


Before I end this post, I just wanted to tell you all how thankful I am that you are a part of Shane's life. He is lucky to have so many wonderful people who follow his progress! Happy Thanksgiving to all!!!!

Happy Halloween!

I keep meaning to be a better blogger, but I just can't seem to get it together!
Shane has been loving fall. Our neighbor Hannah continues to come over several times a week to play with Shane and he loves her! She has started bringing her friend Melissa with her on occasion and Shane does not complain! He loves both girls! Hannah often wants to take Shane places, but since she is only 8 we obviously do not let her. We did agree to let her pull Shane around her yard in her wagon and we took some pictures!



Shane has been spending the Fall in a park district class that he loves! The class begins with songs and dancing and then the children can choose to play in the gross motor skills (basketball, a jumpee, tunnels) or the fine motor skills (art projects, puzzles, small blocks) room. I finally remembered to bring my camera and snapped a few pictures. Shane moves so fast that it is hard to follow him and take pictures.


We kicked off the Halloween season with a trip to the pumpkin patch! I guess I can now say our annual trip since we have done it two years in a row now! In many ways it was way more fun this year since Shane really had a great time. However, posing him for pictures is a much greater challenge now that he can get up and move. Oh well, you can't win them all! The pumpkin patch we go to is adorable! They have a really nice play area when you walk in with little houses for the kids to play in, a wooden truck they can 'drive', and a pirate ship play area and slide. It was 80 degrees out the day we went so we were expecting huge crowds - that was really not the case at all!




After the play area, it was time to try to get some pictures of Shane. We tried to get one that would measure Shane's height so that every year we can go back and note how much taller he is. We did not see that area at all last year, but thought we would start the tradition this year. Shane thought otherwise. Next we tried to get his picture as he sat in a huge pile of hay. You will see what Shane thought of that idea when you see the picture I took. Finally, we settled on a picture of Shane walking/running away from the hay!



Next, it was time for the petting zoo! As you can probably guess, that is the part of the day Shane liked the most! Shane went crazy when we let him in with the goats! He was hugging them and yelling "BAHHHHH!" We were thrilled that he now had them confused with sheep, an improvement from this summer when he thought they were all dogs! In the last picture you can see him yelling "BAHHH!" Everyone was laughing at him! Check out the video of him after all of the pictures! The first one was supposed to be a picture, but I had it on video. It is a sweet picture anyway so I included it. The second captures Shane's enthusiasm for his goat pals!








After the goats we decided to try and get some more pictures of Shane doing some of the things he did last year. It did not work quite as well this year! Last year we plopped him down in front of the mums and he stayed there.

Not this year!

Next, we went to visit the rest of the farm animals. Look at Shane trying to kiss the pig! He truly is his mommy's little boy - I was exactly the same way! I love how much he loves animals! After the pig, Shane moved on to the sheep. The pictures are in order and you can see just how comfortable Shane got with the sheep. Yes, he is kissing it on the lips in the last shot!







After the farm animals, it was time for yet another photo opportunity! Here is Shane at the Dollinger sign last year - he was a sheep!

This year he liked being the horse - his buddy Alex was the sheep this year!

The pumpkin patch has a large Teepee and Shane went inside it and did not want to come out! It was so funny - it was like he knew what it was because he started chanting and dancing when he got inside. It was crazy! In fact, Shane became the star of the place. His chanting echoed and everyone was laughing and talking about him. Dan had run to the car to grab something so he did not know where we were, but he said he could hear Shane as he headed back toward us. He said he heard everyone talking about this little boy and he instantly knew it was our little ham! Check out the video and you will see what I mean!



After the TeePee adventure, we headed into the barn to check out the tractors!


Next, it was off to take a train ride around the pumpkin patch. Here Dan and Shane are waiting to board and then there is a shot of the 3 of us on the train.


Next it was time for lunch (no pictures) and some pictures of Shane by the corn stalks! Again, he did not cooperate like he did last year!
Here he was last year.

And this year - we tried to get some cute shots of him and ALex, but it was not happening. We finally got a decent one of Shane by himself, but it took a lot of work.


Finally it was time to head to the pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin and get some great shots of our little pumpkin! I had insisted that we try and get some pictures of Shane in his pumpkin hat. This would have been a great hat had the weather been close to what it was last year, but the temperatures were climbing into the 80's and it was hot. Shane turns bright red when he gets warm so he truly looked like a pumpkin in some of these shots!








Shane was a monkey for Halloween this year and he was the cutest ever monkey! We took him for some professional pictures in his costume and they came out great! Here are a few of my favorites!





Since we are on the topic of Halloween, here are the decorations that we (ha, ha - Dan) made for the front lawn. Didn't they come out great?

We celebrated Dan's mom's birthday the weekend before her actual birthday. Shane had a blast playing with his cousin Liam & I had a blast holding Shane's new cousin Julia! Look how adorable she is! She is also pictured with her Grandma Geri!



When it was time to open the presents, Shane was there to help his grandma!

Look at what a great job Grandma Carolyn did blowing out the candles!

Here is Shane snuggling with his grandma before we left for the night!

Shane has continued to lavish Thunder with lots of hugs and kisses as he recuperates from his ear surgery! All of Thunder's stitches are out and he has lost 4 pounds on the "No Shane Food Diet" that I have put him on! YAY!!!!


Shane loves to play on his Winnie The Pooh airplane (Thanks Andrea) and rides it really nicely on his own.

And then there is the way he rides it with his Daddy.

Oh, one of Shane's newest things to do is to dance - crazy dance! He loves his "Shane" cds (CDs where his name is in the songs - he has 2) and demands they all on all of the time! He tells us he wants them by going to the cd player and dancing until we turn them on. Here is some video!

We tried getting a picture of Shane in a pile of leaves for the fall, but he did not want to sit in them. We are noticing a pattern - no sand, hay, or leaves - he does not like to feel dirty. So this picture of him running in the leaves is the best we could do!

These are just some cute pictures of my little man, Shane!



Last Friday we headed to the Oak Lawn children's Museum with Dan's mom! Shane had a blast! He especially loved the slide, the veterinary clinic with the stuffed dogs he thought were real, and the door on the play house that he opened and closed for about an hour - no joke!








On Saturday night we carved Shane's pumpkin! Here are the pictures!



Sunday was Halloween and we were so excited to try trick or treating with Shane! We got him up from his afternoon nap and put his costume on. He was less than thrilled with wearing it. We took him outside and he wanted to have NOTHING to do with trick or treating - he was begging to go back home. We were having none of that and we gently encouraged Shane to give it a try. We have some video on our camcorder, not the camera, that shows just how miserable our little monkey was in his costume. We really wanted him to give it a try & we noticed that he seemed excited - finally - and then we realized he thought we were going to the park and that was why he willingly headed to our neighbors house. Oh well. He did eventually stop fighting it and we took him to 5 neighbors and called it a day. he did LOVE having the kids coming over to our house and even kept his monkey suit on to hand out candy! Oh, and candy - he does not like it! We made sure we had Shane safe candy - 3 musketeers and plain hershey bars - and could not wait to let him try a piece. We tried a 3 musketeers on Halloween and he spit it out. Last night we tried a Hershey bar and we would not even taste it. I am sure this will not last long and that I will soon be wishing for the days when he did not want any candy!
Here is Shane wondering why we won't let him go in the house.

Here he is trick or treating with Daddy!






And here is some video!


Here Shane is ready to trick or treat with mommy!


And some video!

Here is Shane resting on the swing with his loot and his pumpkin - he sure is cute!

Here is his Jack-O-Lantern all lit up to greet trick or treaters!

OK, we are done here! Shane just wants to remind everyone that today is election day - please vote democratic! Our family will be heading out to vote together when Dan gets home!