Our Engagement Weekend

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton under the guise of a 30th birthday present Thursday through Sunday and Mike popped the question on Friday night at the top of the Loews in an enormous room with windows lining the room, with views of the city facing west, north and east.

We had the entire room (and floor really) to ourselves. We had a waiter dedicated solely to us who brought out about a thousand course dinner. We watched the sunset and the sky turn dark with all the lights of the city around us. Amazingly, there were fireworks going on - really good ones - and that's when he proposed. Of course I said yes!

My ma watched Evan back at the hotel... She actually had a room next to ours on Friday night with a shared living room. The ENTIRE thing was a complete surprise. It was the most amazing and romantic night of my life. Be ready because I will be telling everyone about it for the next 50 years. Here are some pics...

Evan eating cereal at the Ritz!





Evan relaxing in the lounge at the top floor. We were up here constantly for the complimentary h'ors doeurves and cocktails. The whole hotel knew Evan by name!













Mike and I at the Ritz before we left for dinner (we had views like this from every window in our hotel room):



Mommy and me. My mom actually scoped out the spot of the proposal before she arrived at the hotel. She snuck up there earlier in the day without Mike even knowing and took pictures. Feisty little grandmom...



Here are some pics of the views from the Loews where I said yes YES YEEEEEESSSS!




Our table for two:






Mike and I... Check out that sunset behind the roses:




ooooh, it's getting darker




And the food!



When we got back to the hotel there was a bath set up with chocolates, bubbles and champagne.





And roses from Evan too:



The next day we walked around the city with grandmom to shop and get the ring resized. Here's Evan in 'Born Yesterday':



6 Month-old child prodigy in the store playing the piano. We MUST get one for him...



Me with the co-conspirators:



Grandmom looking for poops at one of the cocktail hours:



No poops, I guess!



Sunday... the day we left. Evan seriously got used to the good life.





No, we aren't holding Evan over a balcony! See below;



Drooool



See! It's just a window



This looks fake, but none of these photos have been touched up:



The boys catch up on the reading:



Evan REALLY didn't want to leave:



Thank you, Mike (and Evan too!) for the most amazing weekend of my life. I love you both so much and I promise to be the best wife and mother to my boys.

Note from the future Mrs. Cronin

This is just because everyone was asking what the ring looked like. I'm going to a better update tomorrow with all the details and pictures. I LOOOOOOVVVVVEEEE my Mike. The man is amazing... Check in tomorrow!!

Evan's 6 Month Birthday

I didn't think he could beat his 5 month photo, but he did.



Oh no... the cutest doesn't stop there. Here's an outake, with big, sad eyes. His eyes are saying 'O Momma, please stop with the photos. please? Lemme take my nap.'

Gift from Mima and PopPop

The grandparents came up from VA and brought up an exersaucer that used to be Jack's. Evan loves it! We'll post some video of it tomorrow. Only daddy knows how to add video...

Toothies, Solid Foods, Sleep and more...

TEETH:

I don't have a photo for this one, but Evan has been pushing out not one, but two teeth! His first one started a couple of weeks ago and the second one snuck up on us. He chews on EVERYTHING... momma's shoulder, momma's knee, momma's nose...


EATING:
We've been feeding him rice cereal every morning for a week now and he's been only half-heartedly eating it. Only about half a serving, then he wants the booboo milk. Well, we'll keep working on it. Also, he's been drinking out of a sippy cup, but mostly water. Plus most of the time he just chews on the spout and gets everything down the front of him. He drank a half cup of water with Aunt Ella, but that's an exception not a rule. He also takes some milk from a straw from daddy. Again, not much. The bottle is still totally out of the picture.

SLEEPING (or lack thereof):
Little stinker still isn't sleeping through the night... could it be the teeth? We dunno, but kiddo is way big enough to make it thru the night. Last night he was up at 4:30 am for a snack - and that's a good night for us.

ROLLING OVER:
He now rolls on his belly often, but has only rolled to his back a few times. Most of the time he rolls on his belly and gets stuck, but looks so damn cute doing it.

SIZE:
The guy is loooong. Nobody can believe he's only 6 months old. He could totally pass as 6.5 mos. Seriously, he's in the top 98 percentile for height for his age.

CONCLUSION:
Eating and sleeping are definitely not Ev's strong points, but he is the most beautiful and expressive 6 month old I've EVER seen (along with my beautiful little cousins, Evan's cousin Jack and Evan's buddies Jacey, John, Jude, Jake, Elizabeth, Collin, Avery, Gavin, Giordana, Zoe, Ashley and Maeve). Call me biased, but I know... everyone tells us so :0)

Learning To Crawl...

Evan really wants to crawl, but just doesn't have it down yet. Check out his trickery towards the end, when he tires to pull the sheet in order to get where he wants to go!

Chillin with Grandmom

Evan out on his Saturday afternoon stroll to Main Street in Manayunk with his Grandmom. He couldn't be happier!

SIR ROD

As if the day was not exciting enough with a visit to Turtlepalooza (see below), Saturday night we met Dan, Melanie and Elizabeth at the Lighthouse Point in Wildwood for the Sir Rod concert. Sir Rod is South Jersey's second most famous Rod Stewart impersonator. Evan loved it, and we even danced on stage with Dan and Elizabeth, too.

Hey, this is Steph now. I had NO idea that Evan was dancing onstage. I was sitting with Mel, eating my salad, wondering where my baby boy was at 9:30 pm when he's usually asleep by 7:30. Daddy had him with crazy Sir Rod. Funny thing was, Evan came back to the table with wide eyes and smiles (and he's usually VERY cranky when he's tired). Mike, Ev and I walked back to the car and I fed him as we looked out at the beautiful bay with the lights on the water. It really was a magical day with the turtles and Sir Rod.

Evan and I even walked out on the private docks earlier in the night (we pretended that we lived in the condos next to Lighthouse Point). On the way out of the bar, Evan and I had our hands stamped. It looked so badass next to Ev's Sponge Bob tattoo. Evan LOVES Sponge Bob, just like his second cousin Sarah. The SpongeBob music makes him laugh. Not laugh like when he sees chickens, but still is so funny to see. Anyway, people were barbequeing on the docks next to their boats and the sun was setting on the bay. It was so beautiful and Evan stared out at the water and sky as I explained to him that his mommy spent many days on that very water on his PopPop's boat. I think my first boat ride was when I was a month old or something. Between his daddy 's and my love of the beach and bay, Ev will definitely be a shore boy.

Evan's like 'What the..???' I think he's confused here because he and Sir Rod have the same hairdo. This was taken when we first got there.



Here's Elizabeth and Evan hanging at the bar. Can you tell that we were all dancing around, trying to get them to both smile at the camera at the same time? It never happened.


Daddy and Evan jammin to Sir Rod:



Ev dancing onstage:

TURTLEPALOOZA!!

Saturday we went to Leaming's Run Gardens for their Turtlepalooza festival. Leaming's Run comprises the largest annual gardens in the United States, and they hired a woman named the Turtlesinger (and her husband, the Turtletoter) to create a day of turtle discovery as we wanderd the winding paths of the gardens.

The first turtle we met was Rocky. As we were walking along the path looking at a garden, the Turtlesinger hid behind a bush, put Rocky down and encouraged him to walk out in front of us on the path. Steph didn't see the Turtlesinger at first and was amazed, literally saying "Hey look, it's a Turtle! What are the chances??!!" Evan really enjoyed meeting Rocky, and tried to pet him. Sadly, this would be the last turtle he would meet before he passed out.

Leaming's Run also has a chicken coop, and you should have seen young Evan's reaction to these chickens. Steph bent down so Evan was at eye-level with the chickens, and Evan couldn't stop cracking up. He loves chickens - for him this was Chickenpalooza! In fact, chickens have now replaced Tori Spelling atop his "Likes" list. Unfortunately, the grandparents will now be busy with their respective summer projects - building chicken coops to entertain Evan when he visits!

Next, we came across a peacock. He flashed his beautiful blue feathers, so Evan decided to flash his baby blues and the peacock, who knew he had been beaten in this contest, retreated inside his house.

Shortly after shutting down the peacock, Evan crashed for the afternoon. We were not even halfway around the gardens, and still had at least three more turtles to meet!

TURTLEPALOOZA CONTINUED...

We came across a pond with turtles and fish living in it. Steph found a turtle and was pointing him out to Evan, but he was still asleep...

Here are the second and third turtles Evan met, Gracie and Spike. The Turtle Toter held up Gracie to have her picture taken with Evan, still asleep. To quote the Turtlesinger's song about her, Gracie is... "A travancore tortoise with soft, dark eyes: She must use them to hypnotize my boy turtles! 'Cause Bart loves her and Rocky, he loves her too!)"

And Steph tried unsuccessfully to feed Gracie a blueberry on a stick. You can see Spike in the front of this shot. I don't think the Turtlesinger has any songs about Spike. Spike got burned!

Then Evan met Big Black Bart. Bart is a 24 pound redfoot tortoise, and Steph got to feed him too. He loved the blueberries, and actually tried to push Evan's stroller at one point! Evan didn't wake up for any of this.


Although I was taking most of the day's photographs, I managed to get in one. Here I am at the entrance to the seven levels of the bamboo forest, which is across the swirling gumdrop sea...