Littles Craziness

Not to be forgotten or overshadowed are my littles.  They go to Mother's Day Out two days a week, which they have loved, but they are also home with me some too.  Here's just a smattering of pictures highlighting some of the things we do while biggest brother is in class.

Celebrating my great grandmother's 99th birthday with her!

No cation necessary

Family snocone (or Ice cone as HK calls it) date

They love to help me "make"

Reid Kindergarten Graduation and Field Day

I honestly am having a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that I have a kid who is done with kindergarten.  For YEARS we have been living in the preschool years of life, so to know we have not only crossed over into school territory but finished the first leg of it is crazy.  Not only are we done with kindergarten, we survived doing it with part time homeschool! We have loved him going to LCS and are excited for the years to come.  Here are some pictures from his graduation one evening.  

Reid and his sweet friend Jay

Each student was called up on stage by their teacher for their Character Award.  The teacher would then spend just a few minutes telling everyone what made that particular child special and why they got the Character Trait they did.  Reid was assigned Tender Heartedness and I could not agree more.

Reid and another sweet friend, Zane.

These next pictures chronicle the last day of school which was also field day.  The kids had a blast spending their morning playing games outside!

The whole elementary

And oh my word, be still my heart.  These are first and last day pictures placed side by side.  Reid was so so so excited to start real school this year, and that excitement never faded.  He was always ready to go on school days, but also enjoyed the slow start of homeschool mornings too I think.  It was the perfect blend for our family this year for sure.  He has grown so much this year, especially in his learning.  He can now read, tell time, add, subtract, sequence, skip count, and so many other things.  I cannot wait to see how he continues to blossom over the next few years!

Chicago Trip 2017

 For Valentine's Day Mark surprised me majorly! He made a scavenger hunt for me and the kids to go on when he got home from work that led to the best surprise of my life!  This event is a post in and of itself, so I wont go into anymore detail, but the prize at the end of the hunt was a trip to Chicago to see the Broadway musical Hamilton.  So at the end of April we set off for a weekend trip to the windy city, just the two of us (well plus baby Karis still cooking in my belly).  

We left at 6:30 Friday morning and arrived in Chicago around 9:45.  It was an easy flight and so nice to get there and still have most of the day to do what we wanted.  We only packed a carry on, which is totally the way to go if you can, because being able to immediately walk out of the airport was glorious. We bought a 3 day subway pass and headed into the heart of the city.

We stayed at "The Palmer House" by Hilton, which is literally right in the middle of downtown and you could see the Private Bank Theater from the front door.  The picture below is a view of the ceiling in the lobby area.  The same person who restored the Sistine Chapel ceilings also restored these if that tells you anything.  It was breath taking!

Mark has a patient who's daughter LIVES in Chicago so before we left he asked them to email us a few good places that locals like to go.  One recommendation was an Italian restaurant/ grocery store all in one called The Eataly.  It was amazing and had so many different choices and stations of things to eat it was hard to pick just one.  Also it didn't help that the menus were all in italian so we really had no idea what we were reading.  We did however understand "panini" and "coffee" so that is what we got (along with cannolis and gelato).  It was delicious! Their story and idea behind the restaurant and grocery store combo is that you will come and fall in love with the food you eat there and then go pick up the ingredients and learn how to make it yourself at home.  Pretty Cool!

We walked around the city a little bit more that afternoon before going back to the hotel to take a nap (well I took one, he went and worked out like a weirdo) because we were heading to the theater at 7:30.  I told him before we left Texas that my goal was to come back from this trip more rested than when I left and so that is the why for the nap.  Plus we had already gone to Chicago once a few years back and done the major sightseeing things so we didn't feel like we were missing much.  After that it was time to get up, dressed, and eat before heading off to the reason for the trip!

When in Rome you must take all the pictures am I right? We were just a teensy bit excited and were actually the first ones there and first ones in the theater.  You might be wondering why we were in Chicago instead of just waiting on it to go on tour in Texas.  We looked into it, but it wont be here until NEXT summer and the tickets cost sssoooo much that it was just the same amount basically for us to fly, stay, and see the show! 

Hamilton was everything I dreamed it would be and more.  It was so well done in every single way, literally one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, and I am not exaggerating.  Seeing life come to the songs I had been listening to for so long was amazing.  Totally worth my "happy everything until Christmas" present!  You only turn 30 once and this was a heck of a way to do it!

The next day we just went out exploring the city.  It was FREEZING and started raining that afternoon, but we still had a blast.  We accidentally found "the bean" so we had to have an obligatory picture!  Also we saw the quarterback for the Bengals in the place we stopped at for lunch to get deep dish pizza.  He was super nice, but should definitely wear a hat to be less noticeable! Poor guy!

 All in all it was an AMAZING trip, one that I wont soon forget that is for sure.