Start of Summer

We started summer with a trip to Chicago, but we're already having some other summer fun!

Having fun at the new swim club.

We had dinner with the Smith family at Crafty Hog and then ice cream afterwards.  Eliza is such a sweetheart, and I'm so glad our girls are friends (the Smith boys are pretty awesome too, but they didn't want to be in the picture!).

So Amazon recently delivered a few things to our home; Lily made good use of the boxes by creating a board game called "Fairy's First Flight."

Mia turned a big delivery box into her own rocket ship!

Both girls love to be creative by cooking.  Lily made elephant ears for us one which turned out really good.  Mia created a smoothie in Chicago with Grandma Jan that she has dubbed "The Mia."  All sorts of goodies in there...peaches, bananas, blueberries, oranges, cucumber, lemon juice and ice.

It's going to be a great summer!

Chicago Trip

We were all excited to start summer off with a trip to Chicago!  We woke up on Saturday morning and headed on down to the airport.  I took lots of pictures on this trip, but just have condensed them down mostly into collages for here.

Here's a few pictures from our first day.  Mia broke out her summer workbook while we were still at the airport; this girl loves to do "homework!"  Both girls absolutely love Taz the dog, and they played with her constantly.  Judging by the smile on her face, I think she enjoyed it too!  We were all glad to see Nick and Brock again; the girls couldn't get enough of them.  We headed over to the Maggie Daly playground where Mia had a blast rock climbing; she loves this course!

On Sunday morning, we made a beeline to the American Girl store after breakfast.  Lily had worked hard to earn and save up her money to buy the "Lea Clark" doll of the year.  She was so proud!

On Sunday afternoon we visited the Lincoln Park Zoo which is always a treat.  It was amazingly beautiful weather too, so this was a great activity.

On Sunday evening, Ryan and I enjoyed a date night out at Bavette's while David and Jan kept the girls.  Yum!

On Monday morning we all took it easy, but then Jan, Brock, the girls and I spend several hours at the Nature Museum.  We had never been before, and it was fabulous!  We all really loved the butterfly conservatory.  Mia had one land on her finger and stay there for almost 10 minutes which she made her so happy.  There were lots of fascinating exhibits; what a fun afternoon!

We were sad to leave, but alas, we had to on Tuesday morning.  Mia was pretty excited to play co-pilot as we got on the plane.  How cool is it that Delta let her sit up in the seat?!

It was another wonderful trip to Chicago.  We love this city and we really love the people there!

End of School Year Art Work

The girls brought home a ton of artwork that they've created throughout the year.  I took their picture with a few of our favorites.  I love how creative they can be!

End of School Year

The last few weeks of school brought lots of fun.  3rd grade and 1st grade took a joint field trip to the zoo, and I was so glad to chaperone this one.  It was such a fun day!

Mia and Danielle were excited to have a playdate together.  We started at the park, but about 15 minutes into our time there, Mia fell in a huge mud hole so we moved the party to our house.

Lily worked diligently on creating a new charm bracelet.

Ryan and I had a great date night at Local 3 and then at The Fox where we saw Paul Simon in concert.  He's still a great performer!

We celebrated "Last Day of School Eve" with some ice cream after dinner; it was such a beautiful evening.

Mia wrote this sweet birthday card for Mrs. Barbulescu.  She's been a great teacher!

The girls took different approaches to earning some extra money as they are saving up for something special.  Lily cleaned 40 windows in our house and cleaned out/swept out our very dirty garage; she earned $50 for her hard work.  Mia decided to set up a roadside stand "selling nature" with things like rocks, honeysuckle and pine cones from the yard.  She only made $2 as Granna happened to pass by!  She tried really hard to make a sale to one of our neighbors, but it ended up just being some playtime instead.

Decker wasn't quite as thrilled with the last couple of weeks as he had to wear the cone of shame after being neutered.

The girls had a blast on field day!  Big, huge thank you to my friend, Elizabeth Smith, who shared these fabulous pictures with me.

Lily and Nate competing in the 3-legged race.

Cambridge House working hard at tug of war!

Celebrating their hard-earned victory!

For the second year in a row, Cambridge took home the House Cup at the end of year awards ceremony!

After the awards ceremony, we changed clothes and headed out for bowling.  What a fun way to kick off summer!

The girls were exited to see a few of the fun things on this summer's agenda!

It's been another wonderful school year, but we're all happy to say "School's out for summer!"

Happy Mother's Day!

I'm so thankful to be the mom of these two precious girls; what a privilege.  We had a perfectly lovely Mother's Day celebration.  After church, we headed to The Georgian Club for their lunch which we always love.  After lunch, we stopped by my parents' house so I could wish my mom a happy Mother's Day; I love her to pieces!  From there, we all went over to visit Meme which I'm always thankful for.  What a wonderful day!  

Mia's sweet note to me.

Lily's class wrote poems for their moms; she nailed it!