Chicago!

Our Chicago trip in August was such a highlight of our summer.  My friend Emily joined us on an Ultimate Air flight to the Windy City!  The kids were sooooooo excited.  We went straight from the airport to the train downtown.  Emily and the kids were impressed by all of the transportation options and the HUGEness of the city!  We took one of those tour buses around town for two days and had a blast exploring!  We are blessed to have family outside of the city and had so much fun with the Zeitlers each evening.  On the third day we went to Legoland Chicago which was so cool!  The last day we got a surprise visit with our cousins Tom, Anne, Brittany and Ethan and an extra trip downtown.  The kids were soooooo good and literally spent the entire trip over the moon excited!  I wasn't 100% sure how a 4 and 7 year old would do in a big city and let me tell you, they impressed me at every turn!

Here is my Chicago photo dump...

The kids were given foam airplanes before we took off!

Hand in hand at American Girl.  This shop was the highlight of the trip for Lilah.

Lilah's first Shirley Temple at John Hancock Lounge!

Dancing onstage at Hard Rock Cafe!

Mandatory mangrove pic for Whitney!

On the train!

A cool park we found with little help from Siri!

Birthday Parties

This summer the kids turned 7 and 4!  Brian told everyone who would listen that his party was much later than his actual birthday.  Tough being AT THE BEACH on your birthday.  Poor little guy!  Their parties were in July right before Lilah's real birthday.  They had a ball as always!  Lauren made gorgeous cakes as always!  The hit of the night was the gigantic balloons Nana bought.  We had two princesses, R2D2 and a storm trooper that resided in my laundry room until recently and scared the living crap out of me every.single.time I did laundry.  The kids loved them though!!

Not sure when we started throwing up gang signs in pictures?

Or grabbing ourselves....

How to start again?

I haven't blogged since July.  First it was just plain being busy that kept me from it.  I attended the funeral of a classmate last year and one of the things I took away was something he had written before he died about LIVING life instead of writing about it.  It struck a chord and I've tried to embrace that.  However, this blog is a great tool for keeping my memories alive and will someday be a great place for my kids to read about their lives while they were growing up.  And I really want to continue that for them. 

Then, and I've talked about this before on the blog, the guilt settles in.  I get SO far behind that I feel guilty starting in the present.  I don't want to miss blogging about the kids' birthday parties, or our awesome trip to Chicago, or our celebration of my cousin Chris' graduation, or our lazy days at the pool, or our trips to the banks and the Reds games, or Brian's first day of CATHOLIC school, or Lilah's first day of preschool...

Or my Dad.

My Dad died in August very suddenly.  It's still completely incomprehensible to me that it happened.  And I feel like if I go back and time and write about all the fun stuff it's somehow wrong because I'm just not ready to blog about loosing my Dad, but it seems dishonorable not to put that first and foremost. 

And there has been fun stuff and important stuff since he died.  The RenFest, Lilah's first soccer game, tons of updates about Brian and his new school and new friends, our last Reds game as season ticket holders, the unveiling of a Memorial in Dad's honor....and even some great cousin and family pics that were taken when we were all together for the funeral. 

So what's a girl to do?  Sit here and write this post about all the things I want to blog about I guess?  And then start picking through the massive file of folders little by little.  And eventually, because eventually, I do intend to get there....eventually, I'll write about Dad.

Lilah Turns Four

True confession.  I have had trouble sitting down to write this post.  We've had some pretty major potty issues with Lilah since April and I was basically at my boiling point right around the time she turned four.  (We're talking we may as well have been living with a feral cat.)  We have finally gotten in with a urologist and after months of blaming myself, blaming Shawn, Shawn blaming me, trying rewards, trying punishment and throwing our hands up in the air, Lilah has been put on medication for bladder spasms.  We're not 100% back to our potty trained big girl yet BUT I finally feel like we are heading there which means I finally feel like I can just ENJOY my girl again.  Finally.

Dear Lilah,

You are FOUR!  What?!!  You are still my baby so how is that so?  I realize you DO NOT like to be called my baby, but realistically, you will always be our baby.  Ha! 

You will begin your LAST year at mommy's preschool in the fall!  You already know all of your letters and many of your sounds, so preschool should be a breeze for you.  We even started on your learning to read lessons this past week. I feel certain you'll be reading well before the end of the year!  You're a smart cookie.  The urologist even said how "bright" you were last week!

Lilah girl, you kill me with how quickly you can turn a sweet and tender moment into one where I am laughing so hard I think I might pee my pants or one where I am quite certain I should put you in time out, but don't have the heart.  You are so, so funny.  You can be so, so sweet...when you want to be.  You can be so, SO stubborn.  You are just so fun!

You love to play pretend.  EVERYTHING has a storyline and there is almost always a mommy and a sweetie or sweetheart involved.  Most of your story lines revolve around our day to day activities.  I know full well when I'm working too much when I hear the mommy you are playing with tell the sweetie that they can't go to the park (or insert whatever place you come up with) because the mommy has a meeting!  When I play with you, you are always the mommy and I always have to be the sweetie.  I also love how you will show me two dolls (or stuffed animals, or whatever) and said, "Mommy you can pick whichever one you want to be," only to rescind the offer when I pick the one you want ;)  You are something little one.

You absolutely ADORE your big brother and lucky for you he loves you just as much right back.  I keep waiting for your AMAZING relationship to change, but so far we've been lucky and blessed and I hope that continues forever.

At four you are still an awesome eater.  You love veggies and fruits and will try most anything.  You are on a jelly sandwich kick at the moment, but as long as you pair it with cucumbers, grapes, yogurt, etc., I think that's okay.

You love playing with your friends, especially Amelia.  We can't go two days without you asking about her.  I love how close you girls are!  You don't really have a choice...haha...so I'm glad you've become the best of friends.  You also love playing with your cousins and ask me if they can come over regularly.  It's great to have family who are also your friends and I love that you have that.  I can't wait to see your relationship with your new cousin, Patrick, blossom as he gets older and is more able to interact with you.  You already say you miss him almost every day that we don't see him!

You are still very brave, little girl, which sometimes scares Mommy.  I say all the time that you have the confidence as a little girl that I have as an adult.  The world had better WATCH OUT, seriously, when you grow up!

You my sweet girl are a little beauty.  It's not often that we go out and you don't get noticed.  Your smile lights up a room.  Your bright blue eyes, perfect red curls and adorable dimples are hard to miss!  I want you to know that you are beautiful, always, but I want to to also know that you are SO MUCH MORE than beautiful on the outside.  I hope you know that, and I hope you always do.

Happy 4th Birthday, sweet girl!  Mommy loves you!

Dauphin Island 2015: The People (and the dog)

The beach is awesome and our year would not be complete with out it, but we are lucky because there is something there that makes every bit of the long car ride worth it...Whitney.  We absolutely adore Whitney.  First of all, how amazing is it to spend a week at the beach with a marine biologist?!  Secondly, she an awesome person.  My kids adore her.  We look forward to our Whitney time every year. 

This year we were even luckier because Whitney's super awesome boyfriend Steve was in town and we got to spend time getting to know him better.  He and Shawn are buds.  Lilah may be in love with him and he was super loving and kind with her.  He's funny and fun and pays attention to Brian's video games, so it goes without saying that Brian enjoys him too.  And BONUS...he's also a marine biologist!

Finally, this trip we were especially blessed to stay at Meg's house.  Although we were super sad not to meet Amelia, we were super appreciative for the amazing (and free!) accommodations.  And yet another BONUS...we got to dog sit for Scout.  The kids were in HEAVEN!  He's a super sweet dog who may be a little bit afraid of...well...everything, but he was very tolerant of my noisy kids and of Lilah following him around. 

Whitney, Steve and Scout...we love you and miss you!  Thank you for making our vacation so great!

Dauphin Island 2015: The Bird Sanctuary

We made a quick trip to the bird sanctuary on the island to "hike" around and see if we could find the alligator.  No luck with the alligator, but we did see lots of turtles, a few birds and two lizards.  It was super hot and the kids were tired, so they weren't super into it, but I did get a few sweet pictures!

Dauphin Island 2015: Ghost Crabbing

Since the kids are a bit older, we got to do a few more things than normal on vacation this year.  One night we headed to the beach to search for ghost crabs.  Whitney, Steve and Scout joined us for the outing and I think Scout might have had the most fun of everyone!  The kids loved it too though!  Brian especially enjoyed it and was pretty good at finding the crabs.