Memorial Day Weekend

We spent Memorial Day weekend with family, just not each other.  Andy took Drew and Kayley to Omaha for our nephew's high school graduation.  The kids didn't bathe for 3 days, stayed up until after midnight each night and ate a a lot of junk food.  I'd say they enjoy time with their Dad!  I don't have any pictures since I wasn't there, but Drew and Kayley had a lot of fun with their cousin, JD and everyone had fun at Brandon's graduation party.

I took Ryan to Iowa for my cousin's memorial service.  Lisa died in April and her wish was to be cremated and buried near our grandparents in Iowa.  It didn't really hit me that she was gone until we had the service at the cemetery.  Lisa loved our family so much and since she was the oldest cousin she had the best stories about our family.  I will never forget her laugh either.  She is and will always be greatly missed.

Almost all of my cousins came back for the weekend.  While the weekend was sad, we also enjoyed reminiscing about Lisa and catching up with each other.

On Saturday morning, we went to the school in Boxholm for the final open house.  Matt and I went to elementary school there and my parents went there for high school.  The building is older than I remember and I remember it being pretty old!  It was fun to see it again, but sad at the same time because they are going to tear the building down.  The town is too small to support a school anymore.

Playing on the playground

He didn't want to leave!

Ryan enjoyed all of the attention he was given throughout the weekend too since he was the only little one around.

Stan and Ryan

Happy boy!

Hanging out with Grandpa before bed

Unfortunately, it wasn't all fun for Ryan.  My cousin came outside at about 10:30 pm on Saturday to let me know that my Mom said Ryan was crying and that he had gotten sick.  I walked into the bedroom and he had puked all over the pack 'n play.  Ugh.  Thank goodness for my Mom!  She helped me clean it up and give Ryan a bath.  I sat with him for a little over an hour in the recliner.  He didn't get sick again, but he clearly didn't feel good because he wasn't falling asleep and was very restless.  Neither of us got much sleep Saturday night, but he was a trooper through it all.

Sick boy

The next day.  He took a really long nap!

I may have taken a picture of the pack 'n play and sent it to Andy (yeah, I wasn't really thinking), but I'll spare you!

Mom took Ryan and I to Des Moines on Monday to meet Andy, Drew and Kayley.  They were excited to see Grandma and tell us all about their weekend.  We had lunch with Mom and then headed back to Illinois.

Mother's Day Weekend

I just realized I did not publish this post.  Oops!

I had a great Mother's Day weekend.  Mom drove back from Phoenix last weekend and drove to see us on Thursday.  Her timing was perfect because I was in Chicago for work on Thursday and Andy had a work dinner Thursday evening so she was able to watch the kids until I got home.  Ryan stayed home with her on Friday and Drew and Kayley got to ride the bus home so they were excited.

We took Mom out for dinner Friday night and told her to pick the place.  She thought Mexican sounded good, but Drew quickly started lobbying for Double A's (pizza).  We ended up at Double A's.  Who was this dinner for again?

Saturday was beautiful so we spent a lot of time outside.  Kayley had a soccer game and Drew had swimming lessons and baseball practice.  Ryan was a trooper throughout our long day.  Drew and Kayley wanted to do something nice for Grandma for Mother's Day so they decided to wash the bugs off of her car Saturday afternoon.  She was very thankful and they had fun soaking themselves once they were done.  

This morning, the kids gave me cards and gifts.  Drew and Kayley each gave me flowers from school.  Ryan gave me a poem, "Walk With Me, Mama" with his little foot prints at the bottom.  Cue the tears!  Then they gave me another huge Mother's Day card, which I always love!  And they also got me a spa package.  :-)  Drew and Kayley also made cards for Grandma.

Andy took us out for brunch after we opened our cards and gifts.  After brunch, Mom, Kayley and I went to Costco for a few household items and came home with a bunch of knockout roses, which Andy and Drew planted in the front of the house this afternoon.  Andy grilled for us tonight, which was a nice ending to a wonderful day.

American Girl and The Sound of Music

After Kayley's soccer game and swim lessons on Saturday, she and I drove up to Barrington to stay with one of my best friends from law school, Mel, her husband, Todd, and their precious baby, Sam.  Sam is 9 months old and I haven't seen him since he was 3 weeks old so it was so much fun to visit with them and see Sam.  He is a doll baby!

On Sunday morning, Mel, Kayley and I drove to downtown Chicago to meet up with Angela and Amelia.  Our first order of business was the American Girl store.  Oh my goodness is that store something.  Kayley and Amelia were in heaven.  The store is two levels and there is every doll, bitty baby and accessory you can imagine.  Kayley chose glasses, a braid headband, colored hair pieces and a dog (yep, a dog) for her doll.  Two of those items were on sale so I got out of there with only spending $54 on merchandise.

We had lunch reservations at 11am.  That is quite the experience too.  Kayley and Amelia's dolls ate with us and sat in highchairs connected to the table.  The food was expensive for kids (especially when your kid eats only 4 bites of macaroni and cheese and a few pieces of celery), but the food was very good.  And we were paying for the experience, right?!

After lunch, we headed to the doll hair salon.  Oh yes, you read that right.  You can pay to have your doll's hair done.  We limited Kayley and Amelia to the cheapest service, which cost $10.  Amelia at least had them pull her doll's hair up.  We only had them comb through Kayley's doll's hair and put the braid headband in.  They sprayed something on the doll's hair to comb through it and I assumed they had a special formula (I've read about using fabric softener with water).  When I asked the lady what it was, she told me it was just water.  So, yes, I paid $10 to have someone spray water on the doll's hair and comb through it (well, and put a headband in).  But, Kayley loved it so it was $10 well spent...

After American Girl, we took a cab to the Lyric Opera of Chicago for The Sound of Music.  It was amazing!  Our seats were fantastic.  Billy Zane was Captain Von Trapp.  I am not sure who played Maria, but she was really good.  Kayley and I love the movie.  She has seen it numerous times so she really enjoyed it because she understood the storyline.

Kayley was clearly exhausted when we got in the car to drive home at about 4:45pm.  She slept almost the entire way home!  It was a great weekend with great friends!

While we were gone, Andy took Drew and Ryan to Bicycle Safety Town.  They had an eventful day as Drew met up with a curb and the curb won.  You can't see it in this picture, but he has a scrape from the middle of his calf all the way up to the middle of his thigh on his left leg.  Poor kid!  But, a popsicle seemed to make things better!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Andy's birthday (36!) was Saturday, but we started the celebration early on Friday.  He chose Aurelio's for dinner.  Then we came back to the house and had cake.  Andy requested the kids sing the first Golf Boys song instead of Happy Birthday.  The kids thought that was a great idea and had fun singing along to all of the Golf Boys videos (we did sing Happy Birthday too).  The cake left a little to be desired.  Actually, it might have been the worst cake we have ever had!  The kids loved it though!  

On Saturday morning, we gave Andy his cards and his present, a new 3 wood.  It was amazing that it was exactly what he wanted.  The kids couldn't believe I picked out something so good.  They don't need to know that I had Andy pick it out and buy it on Friday and then I just wrapped it up!  Andy is really picky when it comes to just about everything so it just works out better for all of us when we do it like this!  

After the gift opening, we headed to Kayley's last soccer game.  She was so sad when it was over.  She didn't get a trophy like she thought she would, but she loved her ribbon!  She thinks she needs something to display it on in her room like the shelf Andy made for Drew's trophies and medals!  

I didn't get any pictures of her that weren't blurry (must be because she runs so fast!), but I did get one of Ryan drinking from Kayley's water bottle.  Only half of it ended up on him.  

March for Babies

Last weekend was the annual March for Babies, a fundraising walk for the March of Dimes.  Team Kayley had more than 20 walkers this year and I very much appreciate all of the additional support we received from friends and family through donations!  It means so much to us to receive the support we do.  The kids had fun during the walk and enjoyed the bounce house, games, balloon person, and face painter.  I didn't realize until almost everyone left that I didn't take any pictures, let alone a team picture.  :-(  I will have to be better about that next year!

Angela, Amelia and Quinn came for the walk and then hung out with us all afternoon.  It was so good to catch up with Ang while the kids played.  They are growing up too fast!!  I did get a picture of the kids together.

Drew, Ryan, Kayley, Amelia and Quinn

We also went to the Peoria Chiefs baseball game last weekend.  Kayley's class had a reading challenge and if they met the reading requirement, they received one free ticket to the game.  It certainly isn't exciting like a MLB game, but the kids thought it was a lot of fun, we had great seats, and it takes about 3 minutes to park and get into the park.

These seats cost us $18 total.  :-)

Drew (yellow) running the bases after the game

Kayley crossing home after the game

This weekend has been busy with soccer, baseball, swimming and birthday parties.  Kayley crashed in the car yesterday afternoon!

Exhausted