Who Loves the Christmas Season?!

This boy does!!!  Is the excitement genetic or have I just trained him???

Zach Turns 4!!

Four years ago today everything changed.  Zach is so big!!  We can hardly believe he is 4 years old.  It seems like just yesterday we were prepping for his arrival however at the same time he is constantly surprising us with his vocabulary and knowledge that it seems 4 isn't old enough.  Zach has grown a lot this year in more ways than one.  He is physically much taller and more confident in his play (bikes, jungle gyms, etc.) and his introduction to preschool along with his general curiosity makes for some great conversations at out house.

Anyway, I'm done bragging.  We think he's great so we will keep him!  Every parent thinks these things about their child, right?  I sure hope so!

Zach's birthday celebration really began a week ago with a trip to see the circus.  His favorite part was apparently the elephants hold each others tails and getting a toy.  Ha!

Next we hopped in the car and headed south.  We are spending the week in NC with Nana and Boppa to celebrate Zach's birthday and luckily see a huge part of our family with a big Thanksgiving dinner at Lynn & Rich's house.  Yay!

Anyway, Zach has been on a boat ride for a boys adventure, to the Lazy 5 Ranch to experience and feed the wildlife (llamas, ostrich, bulls, buffalo, giraffes, etc) and had a fun night of Christmas lights at Tanglewood.  Today we went to the mall to ride the carousel and play, had a corn dog for lunch (per Z's request), played with new toys, and ate his blue soccer ball birthday cake. Gunnar was lucky enough to go along for the ride on most of Zach's birthday adventures so we all had fun.   I don't have all of the pictures downloaded from these activities but I've pulled a few from my phone.  I'll have to post photos another time once I download everything off of mine and Boppa's cameras.

Needless to say, we are thankful for this little boy and our family.  Hope to see many of you tomorrow!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween!!!

Trick or Treat!!!  We hope you all had a great evening of costumes, candy and fun.  Our weather made a turn for the worse so we got to endure some wind, rain and even a little snow this evening.  Gotta love Chicago!  Below are some photos of our fun fall/Halloween festivities over the past couple of weeks.  These boys sure do make the days fun!

 We started the fun at the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago.

Next we went to some Halloween festivities in Franklin Park with friends and then to Trunk or Treat at Zach's school.  All this in one day.....

Pumpkins had to be carved of course.

And finally we celebrated Halloween!!  Zach insisted everyone dressed up so we were all good sports and threw together some costumes.  We were lucky enough to spend the evening with Grandma & Boppa Jim, Nana & Boppa Bill, and Gloria.  Everyone looked great!  I think Zach and Nana should get awards for make-up.

Notice the little ghost in the background....

Happy Halloween everybody!!  And watch out for scary ghosts and mean pirates.

Howdy Partner!

Autumn Sun

We have had excellent weather this weekend and I think it will continue through the week.  With all this good weather we can't help but get the boys outside.  I had to coach for a bit this weekend so Rich snapped these while the boys were playing this morning.  I hope the sun is shining for all of you!

Block Party!

Last weekend we had the annual Seward St. block party and we stepped it up a notch.  In years past we all mingled around, shared food, and the kids randomly played in the street.  We still did all of that but this year we brought in a big bounce house from Rich's company, had a neighbor (also an art teacher) doing face paint, an egg toss, a bike parade for the kids and smores over a firepit to end the night.  It was a long day but it really was a lot of fun.  Oh.....and the police and firemen stopped by!

And here are just a couple of random cute shots I thought I would throw in.

First Day of Preschool

This silly boy is getting too big too fast!  Zach had his first day of preschool today.  He did pretty good.  We had a few tears at drop-off but he seemed pretty happy when I went to pick him up.  Zach is only going to school two mornings a week but his teacher is young and pretty so I'm sure they will hit it off!

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

I know a few of you that get the blog don't do the facebook thing so I'm posting this video here as well.  My friend, Katie Cannon, called me out for the challenge and I couldn't help but to pass this on to a family member.  Can't wait to see my dad's video!!

Weddings, Little Helpers and Super Heroes

Have you ever crashed a wedding??  I have!  I can say it.....I crashed a wedding or technically I spied on a wedding and crashed a reception.  Our next door neighbors got married in their back yard just on the other side of our fence so one of the other moms I'm friends with on the street and I decided to dress up, show up, and drink their wine.  Ha!  It was actually really fun!  And the groom is a firefighter so we grabbed our oldest boys when the fire truck pulled up.

Our little guys like to be little helpers especially for daddy.  Funny, but it seems to take Rich a little longer these days to get the lawn mowed but I'm not complaining!

Sometimes Gunnar takes breaks from hard work to goof off with me.  He is making such a funny face that I don't think it even looks like Gunnar.

And lastly, I'm lucky enough these days to often spend my morning with a couple of super heroes before I go to work.