Christmas 2018

We love Christmas! It has been so fun over the last few years to establish some of our own family traditions and we all look forward to many activities to celebrate the coming of Christmas all year long. Right after Thanksgiving, we begin by putting up our tree and decorations. We spend most weekends finding fun Christmas activities to enjoy together. This year we went to zoo lights, Rudolph play, watched Polar Express and other Christmas movies, and went on a Santa train ride. The boys also had school activities and a church pageant this year. We celebrated Christmas  with Jazzie's family In Wisconsin the weekend before Christmas then stayed at home to await Santa's arrival on Christmas Eve. We were joined Christmas day by Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Maggie. We then headed to Iowa for the following weekend. The boys were very lucky and spoiled by everyone including Santa this year.

zoo lights

after school concert

Christmas eve

Christmas Eve

our Elf came to visit and caused a lot of trouble

Our Iowa trip also included an ER trip for a busted lip (luckily no stitches!)

Gingerbread houses at school

Presents!

Leaving cookies and beer for Santa

Santa train

Botanical Gardens train

Zander goes to kindergarten!

Zander is now in kindergarten! This is such as big milestone for him and one that really made me very emotional. It is a really big step and makes me realize our "baby Z" is all grown up.  Kindergarten is only 1/2 day so he is attending the after program at the pre-school he was at last year and the same school as Zaiden for the other 1/2 of the day.The change is also an end of an era with our "mommy days: which we had all looked forward to not totally come to an end (as we still have an afternoon) together, but changed. Zaiden is excited to have some 1:1 mommy time on Friday mornings and we still look forward to going out and having our adventures on Friday afternoons, but yet another change as the boys continue to grow up.   It has been great to have a chance to get settled in our new house and be able to start school in the district that will be our home for many years. Zander was excited for the transition to the big school. He was very excited that he already had some friends that are in his same class including our neighbor friend and one of his friends from T-ball. This made the transition easier as the boys were all ready to go to school together. He is such as smart, funny, creative guy and we know that he is going to do great not only this year, but throughout his school years. We celebrate this milestone as we embrace the changes and continue to look forward to all his bright future holds!

Family Vacation

We decided to have a close family vacation this year as we had been so busy with the new house. We decided to spend 6 days in Michigan and had so much fun! We began our trip in Grand Rapids, traveled to Holland, then spent some time in Saugatuk and South Haven for a beach day. We then traveled to Kalamazoo and ended our trip at a waterpark before heading back home. Mom and dad enjoyed checking out many of the breweries on the trip and the boys had fun at the beach and really enjoyed the theme parks with rides and the waterpark. We are looking forward to our future planned travels!

Summer 2018

As always, this spring and summer were filled with a lot of fun. It has been a very fun year now that both boys are bigger, more active, independent and have a lot of fun playing with each other. We had a lot of fun "mommy day" Friday's (trying to enjoy some of the last of our days knowing Zander starts kindergarten in the fall) as well as a lot of fun filled weekends. Our spring began with Easter at Grandma and Grandpa's with Easter egg hunts and spending time with family and friends. We had a fun trip to St. Louis to visit friends. We then spent a lot of our spring at T-ball with Zander who had a ton of fun with his friends. It was fun for him as well as Zaiden with plenty of little siblings to play with during practice and was a nice opportunity to enjoy the spring/summer nights outside. The highlight was going to a Sox game with friends.  Our summer was then often spent with weekends at the pool and the boys loved the community pool in our new hometown. Zander really made a lot of progress with swimming and turned into a fish. Zaiden loved to follow his lead and had a blast as well. We also went to 2 waterparks and loved going down the slides together. We spent the 4th of July with grandma and grandpa and cousins where the boys turned into thrill seekers and loved the rides which followed up later in the summer with a trip to Santa's Village. We also had many trips to parks, zoos, museums, baseball games as well as enjoyed having visitors. Here are some of the pictures to highlight our summer fun (unfortunately, many photos were lost  on my phone so not able to show all).

Rainy family Cubs game (we had fun anyway!)

"mommy" zoo day

A sick day turned into hiking day

Feeding goats in St. Louis 

Aquarium with friends 

Our last full mommy day at the Arboretum 

Beach day

Zaiden at his first Cubs game 

T-ballin

Cubs family day

Farm with Papa

Legoland with friends (and of course loving the rides)

Pirate's Cove theme park

T-ball day at Sox park with his BFF

Pre-school graduation

We celebrated another milestone this Spring as Zander graduated from pre-school. He has done really well at both of his schools and has really thrived over the last 9 months since our move to Park Ridge. He is a very smart boy and math and reading concepts seem to come really naturally for him. He loves to learn. He enjoys working on his writing and working in his workbooks. He also loves the social aspect of school. He is always surrounded by friends at school and now has a best buddy, Matthew. It has been so fun to watch him develop as a little boy. He is so excited about beginning kindergarten next year and we are looking forward to watching him continue on his learning journey.

Zaiden turns 3!

Zaiden is a fun, active three year old! He no longer seems like a baby and is such as big boy. He has changed so much over the last year. He loves school and has made a lot of really good friends. He has a big personality for sure. He knows how to push limits, but then follows up with a winning smile or his deep belly laugh and puts the charm on. He can also be very sweet and kind.  He talks a lot and comes up with some pretty good sentences and can be really funny at times. He knows his numbers and letters. He loves puzzles and puts together 24 piece puzzles by himself. He continues to love to play with cars and trains. He also loves music and enjoys playing games as a family. Zaiden's birthday was a busy one this year. One of his presents (and Zander's for a joint birthday present) was a swing set for the back yard. We had the whole family here to help build then celebrated the completion of the project with his birthday (it was so busy I did not take as many pictures as I should have). He had a lot of fun anyway and they have been enjoying their time on the swing set. He also took a trip to his first Cubs game for a dad day at Wrigley Field. He loved the game and music and was a very good boy. As always, we can't wait to see what the next year will bring for our baby.

At the Cubs game with daddy

proudly showing off the new swing sset 

They always have so much fun together 

Celebrating his 3th birthday.....oops! cake mix up!

He is a firecracker!