Almost 15 months!!!

Shane has been keeping us very busy! Now that the little man is walking (well, he walks 50% of the time - he still crawls faster, but he is becoming a great little walker) he has found ways to get into even more trouble! He also gets cuter by the second! This morning he tried to unplug my cell phone (the outlet is on our breakfast bar and does not have a safety plug in it because we use it all of the time.) Shane knows he is not supposed to touch it... so as he reached for my phone, he said, "No, no, no." He also says, "no, no, no" before splashing in Thunder's dog bowl or trying to remove our carbon monoxide detector. It is hard not to laugh because he says it in a serious tone, not his happy voice. He knows he shouldn't do it, but tries anyway. He usually stops as soon as I say no. He is becoming such a little ham!
OK, so what has Shane been up to? Well, he went to his first book signing. Laura Numeroff, the famed children's book author who wrote "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie", was in Naperville. Shane had 4 of her books and we purchased another one at the store. We assumed there would not be many people, we assumed wrong! We also did not know that I could have called on the phone and purchased a book earlier in the week in order to secure my place in line. That would have saved us a ton of time. You see, we were number 66, but it appears that there were several people with the same numbers so who knows how many were really in front of us. We met another person with our number and a couple of 53's and 58's... We also forgot the stroller - oops! We switched off holding the not so little man, but it was a long 2.5 hours.
Shane watching Laura Numeroff read one of her books!


Shane's books all being signed and personalized!

After the big signing, we celebrated by having lunch at "Choo Choo Johnny's" and we remembered the camera. I am not sure who enjoys it more - Dan or Shane. Shane liked looking at the model trains and he liked it when the food came out on the train. He ate most of his cheeseburger and shared an ice cream with Dan! Here are pictures of my little engineer!







We also enlisted Shane's help when planting our garden this year. Here he is helping Dan plant some basil!

After the basil, Shane was bored and we brought out the water table! What an AWESOME gift! Thanks, Kristine! He had a blast getting wet and playing in the water!




Shane and I headed out to the Museum of Science and Industry to celebrate Jorie's birthday and join her on a field trip. Shane was terrific as usual and Jorie's students recognized him before we even saw Jorie. They were cute and the trip was fun. They stayed in the space section of the museum and I had a great time teaching them the history of US space flight while Jorie had a great time bonding with Shane. Here is the cute little man before we left for the museum.

And here are some pictures from the museum. It is really dark in there so they are hard to see.





Shane has been so busy with so many other things - I have just been terrible about remembering my camera. I forgot it for my sister's birthday celebration, for countless trips to the park, when my parents and Dan's parents have been here, when Debbie was here Saturday... Oh well, I'll be better - I promise. Anyway, Shane did get an awesome new pool from Bertha & Ken that I can't wait to try out this weekend so pictures will be coming soon! Shane also got a great package from Jason's mom in Texas - full of a San Antonio Spurs cap, a golfing cap & a lizard puppet! So thoughtful!!!!
Finally, one of Shane's best new skills is kissing. He has fallen madly in love with his blue lamb and a singing dog I gave Dan for Valentine's Day while we were dating. Shane loves them and loves to kiss them - big, giant, open mouth smooches! He also loves most stuffed animals, but these are his favorites. It is so cute! He also wants Dan and I to kiss them all of the time. He also gives kisses to people - mostly closed mouth kisses, but occasionally you will get lucky and get a big open mouth one. They are so sweet! We took Shane for pictures and the girl was using a teddy bear to make him smile and he grabbed it and tried to open mouth kiss it! I had to stop that one fast - can you imagine the germs on that thing? EWWWWW! Aunt Joan gave Shane a stuffed Patrick (from Sponge Bob) and he has become Shane's car kissing companion. We get in the car and I say, :Where is Patrick?" and before I know it, Shane has him in a lip lock. It makes strapping him in the car seat so much easier! Here are some pictures and video of my sweet, sweet boy and his kissing pals!
Here he is puckering up for a kiss!

And going in for the big kiss!

When you really love a little lamb, you kiss its entire head!

Now it is my turn to give him a big kiss!

And here is some video! My little guy got a little shy when he saw the camera - sooo cute!

Shane wants to say congratulations to his cousin Bob who graduated from Notre Dame and his cousin Joe who is graduating from high school! We love you and are sooo proud of you!! Shane also wants to wish Aunt Joan a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY (June 14th)