First Day of School 2014

Carter, you are adorable, but you have never been a fan of getting your picture taken in the morning. 

Ethan, you are starting 1st grade and you are so excited! You love school, all of your friends, and you have been telling us that your teachers name is Ms. Tortoise and we've been explaining to you that she is not a turtle...her name is really Ms. Torres. I hope you call her by her real name at school. ;-)

Clara, welcome to America! We hope that you love living with our family as much as we love having you here! We hope you meet lots of friends at the high school and share all of your experiences with your friends and family back home in Germany. 

Mariah, this was your last first day of high school! You were pretty emotional the night before your last first day. You laughed so hard that you cried and cried so hard that you laughed which scared your boyfriend, Ryan, but made me laugh and cry with you. We love you very much and wish you the best last year of high school. Make it a great one peanut. ;-)

Family Day in Chicago

We love living so close to a big city. Actually, two big cities, but we tend to favor Chicago. On Saturday we surprised the kids with a trip down to Chicago. We took the train out of Waukegan. It was the first train ride to Chicago for all three of our kids. They seemed to enjoy it on the way there, but on the way back we were all exhausted and just ready to be at home.

Chicago was a lot of fun.  The weather was perfect.  The city was packed!  But everyone was in great holiday spirits.  Ethan wasn't so sure of the big crowds at first.  He became pretty upset and made it very well known that he wanted to go home.  Thankfully, some delicious food from Rock Bottom Brewery seemed to calm him down and prepare him to head back out on to the congested streets. 

We did some touring around, took lots of pictures, and watched the parade.  Radio Disney was at the parade so we heard some live performances and got to see a couple Disney celebrities.  The kids thought that was pretty cool! 

After the parade there was an amazing display of fireworks. They were LOUD. The noise bounced from building to building. Ethan and Carter watched with pure amazement.  Ethan didn't even care that his hat was falling off of his head...

On the way back to the train station, Mariah and I ran in to one of the many Starbucks and grabbed some warm drinks and a couple snacks for Cory and the boys. I love Starbucks.... What a great way to end a perfect family day.

Ethan slept on the train ride home.  We were hoping that Carter would do the same, but he decided to sing loudly in a horrible crying type of way... I bounced him, rocked him, and did everything I could to keep him quiet so the other passengers wouldn't get upset.  I even resorted to feeding him cookies at 10:30 at night... I was going for anything that would work. 

We got home a little before midnight and put the kids to bed.  We thought for sure they would sleep in, but by 7am the next morning they were all wide awake.  So much for catching up on sleep, but it was worth it! 

I love family adventures! 

Da Bears = Date Night!

Cory and I had a little last minute date night on a Thursday night!  We scored some tickets to our first ever BEARS game at Soldier Field.  I love Chicago and get excited about heading down there any chance I get.  Cory knew the traffic would be bad so we left around 4:30pm since the game started at 7:30pm.  We wanted plenty of time to drive there, explore, and find our seats.  It should have only taken us an hour to get there, but traffic was SO bad that it ended up taking THREE hours!  The nice thing about that horrible three hour drive was that Cory and I had lots of alone time to talk and just take in the scenes around us.  It's not very often that we get a chance to do that. 

It was raining during our drive down to Chicago, but luckily it stopped right before the game started.  I had never experienced thunder in a big city before.  It was so incredibly loud! The noise amplifed off all the tall buildings.  The thunder completely shook the city and startled Cory and I when we heard it for the first time.   

The game was packed!  It was awesome experiencing a football game in real life and not just on TV. 

The BEARS didn't do very well.  It was a preseason game so all the good players were watching from the sidelines.  We stayed until the 3rd quarter and then explored the stadium before leaving to pick up some pizza.  Love Chicago's pizza, the best! 

Soldier Field was really impressive.  The outside looks kind of goofy with the old columns mixed with the new spaceship look, but the inside has a lot of history.  The giant columns were beautiful to walk through. 

There was a memorial wall that listed every player in BEARS history.  Cory really enjoyed browsing through the list and recognizing some of the players names.   

This wall was amazing.  The detail of this picture made the people look very real.  We were so glad we had the opportunity to visit Chicago and explore Soldier Field.  

It was a perfect date night!

Happy Father's Day!

Hope all of you dad's out there had a fabulous Father's Day! 

Our weekend was very nice.  Filled with lots of family time, strawberry picking, jam making, swimming, grilled food, and a creative gift for the main man in our house. 

The kids and I put this picture frame collage together.  We took a piece of construction paper and cut it to fit inside the 10x13 frame.  Then we glued on some pictures, some circle art with the kids names and ages, and added the all about my dad piece to the upper corner, inspired from this pin and this pin.  It turned out better than I had imagined.  Cory (daddy) loved it!  Success! 

Here are the kiddos presenting the frame to dad. 

(sorry for the blur.. moving kids can be hard to capture with my phone)

Randomness

Just a couple fun pictures from last weekend.

I made this wreath.  Took me forever because I kept forgetting about it, but I finally finished it and hung it on my front door.  I pinned it on pinterest and to my surprise I had about 20 likes and re-pins before I could blink.  It was amazing.  I felt famous! Too bad I didn't like a "how to" post to my blog.  Could have increased traffic and maybe gotten more comments.  ;-)

On Saturday we worked outside in the garage.  Yes, it was like 70+ out that day, but the morning was chilly, Carter has a cold, and the garage was damp.  So, I covered his ears. 

The boys played bumper cars in the garage while Cory and I hung up some more drywall.

Cory taught Ethan how to use line chalk.  Cory drew a bunch of dots on a piece of drywall, lined up the letters, and had Ethan pull the string.  It's hard to read in this picture, but the chalk lines spell out ETHAN. 

Doesn't Carter look like one of the farmer toddlers that should be on the posters wearing striped overalls?  Love this little monkey.  He was demonstrating his backwards crawl all around the deck.  Have I mentioned that he's trying to walk?  Still won't crawl forward though.

Cory's 31st Birthday

Cory turned 31 back in February.  We had a much smaller get together this year compared to his surprise birthday party last year.  It was nice to relax and just hang out with family. 

Yes, Ethan was pretending to nibble on Cory's arm.  He loves to be goofy for pictures. 

The picture would have been brighter if we would have put 31 candles on the cake.

Happy Birthday Love Bug!

A Fishin' They Went

Cory has picked up an enjoyment for fishing over the past couple years. To Cory, fishing means relaxation, time with family or friends, and lately... time with the kids.  Ethan has been all about the sport of fishing, which I believe has made Cory love it even more.  This past weekend Bass Pro Shop had an event for kids where they could do a little fishing inside their store in a catch and release pond.  Ethan was so excited for this.  He had no problems waiting in line for about an hour, because he knew it meant that he was going to go fishing and actually catch his first fish!  See, the sponge bob fishing pole that he normally uses while fishing with daddy, doesn't have a real hook (yet).  So catching his own first fish was a huge deal!

A little "boat driving" while waiting to catch his first fish.

Taking a look at some of the fish he won't be catching.

 Finally, Ethan's turn!  Here fishy-fishy... 

Safety goggles and all ;-)

A bite!

and a catch!

My proud little fisherman!

 Way to go Ethan!