Evan and Jaelle's Birthday Party

Happy Birthday to Jaelle and Evan!! We celebrated their birthdays together this year at Chad and Deb's house in Michigan. Deb and Sarah did a great job and the party was very cute. I think the cousins all love to get together and play! It was a milestone family gathering in that Ryan did not puke at all! Whoo-hoo! Go Ryan! Here's a cute video of Evan enjoying his new Yo Gabba Gabba Guitar from Chad, Deb, and Jaelle...

We also enjoyed mom and dad's pool as much as we could during our visit. We were lucky with the weather as today was beautiful! Ryan and Josh both float around freely in their floaties now along with big sis. It still amazes me! Here's Hannah and Jaelle trying to stay warm after getting out of the pool...

Lopp's Visit

This week Heather (Luttrell) Lopp, her husband Bryan, and their kids came to visit on their way through the Midwest. They live in Tennessee now, so we hadn't seen each other in almost 10 years! YIKES! Anyway, we got to meet each other's kids, hangout, and have a sleepover. We ate some classic Chicago pizza from Lou Malnati's and caught each other up on what's been going on the last 10 years. All the kids had fun playing together!

Heather and Aimee circa 1993!

Starbucks Girls

Jaelle and Hannah enjoyed some Starbucks between Brian and Jamie's wedding and reception yesterday. Hannah is a new convert enjoying part of Great Grandma Lampert's Chai Tea Frappaccino! The girls had lots of fun together! Thanks for the photo, Deb!

Boys' Day with the Helicopters

While Hannah and I were enjoying our girls' weekend in Michigan, Pat and the boys spent quality time together without us. They went to Marine Week's static display of 5 or 6 helicopters plus some huge rescue vehicle at the DuPage Airport not too far from our house. As you can see Josh and Ryan got to sit in the 'copters and had a great time hangin' with Daddy.

Zoo Time!

We went to Brookfield Zoo with our neighbor Brenda and her kids Jenna and Joey, along with new friend Caroline and her kids Aiden and Tyler today. It was crowded again, but we still had fun. We got to see the big brown bear get his feeding of lettuce, fish, and rat-ewwww! We had a picnic and just generally had a good time.

A Potty Success!!

That's right! You read correctly...I'm talkin' potty. Ryan was the first of the twins to successfully go potty on the potty chair. He did it tonight for the very first time! It was quite a surprise to all and we made a big deal of it. He was very proud of himself!! :) Go Ryan!! You'll get those Thomas & Friends "underwears" yet!

Last Storytime Craft

Look at these faces...hmmm...anyway, the kiddies are holding their giraffes that they made from Storytime this morning. The theme was "On the Wild Side" for the summer reading program (or something close to that that I can't really remember). This was their last class and the craft was basically ripping some paper to glue onto the giraffe as spots. Oh well, there were other cute crafts before this one - LOL! At least Ryan didn't shove it away instantly, he liked the glue stick. Overall the Storytime experience was fun and we didn't have any big problems...success!!