Playing Catch Up!

It's crazy to think that I haven't blogged in almost a year! WoW, where did the time go?! A lot fun stuff has happened over the past year, I'm not sure where to even begin. This past winter was ridiculously crazy, with large accumulations of snow with many very cold and blustery days. The great thing about all the snow was the Mount Everest Chad built with the Bobcat in the yard. When we could, we spent much of time sliding down the "mountain".
**Disclaimer: this post is loaded with pictures!**

Lillian loved riding on the sled!

This was our Mount Everest 

 Lillian like to scoop up the snow while riding to eat! What a tasty treat!

 My angel!

 Snow angel!

 Silly girls

 Even Chad and I rode on the sleds!  

 Apparently the tractor doesn't stop if you fall off!

This was what the kids and I built and played with one weekend, it was a very productive weekend!

 Lindsey was a French Hen, she does speak a wee bit of French!

 Singing Silent Night

 Jacob wanted his front teeth for Christmas!

 Lillian wasn't to sure about that Santa Dude

 Of course Kyle isn't to old for Santa, if there is candy involved! 

 Seriously wish taking pictures of four kids were easier!

 Lillian wanted to see herself on the camera!

 Oh the faces the little girl makes are hilarious!

 Finally I got a good one!

Jacob started Kindergarten! He and Lillian both look thrilled!

 He obviously wasn't too excited!

 He sure was missed by Lillian!

We went to the Indianapolis Zoo, Kyle, Jacob, Lillian, and I pet the little sharks they have. 

Chad and Lindsey didn't! I don't remember why! 

Obviously no picture of that, didn't want to feed the shark a hand or a camera! 

Kyle and Lillian wanted to run with the cheetah, but the cheetah was too tired!  

 So, we hung out with the birds!

 They were so pretty to look at! I wish I had these birds hanging around my house!

Lindsey feeding a bird

 I let the boys play with the snake! (Jacob has a huge fear of the slithering things, just like I do!)

 Yikes, that snake in the picture is giving me the creeps! (No, the snake is not real, its fiberglass!)

 Jacob and I celebrated our birthdays together, as we have ever since he was born! 

Lillian has a bad habit of overshadowing some peoples birthday candle blowing!

I think thats enough posting for one year, I mean day! Those were just some of the things we did last year and earlier this year! Since life has slowed down a little for me, I do hope to be able to blog more! We have so many more memories to make!!!! Blessings, Lisa

Class of 2019!

Exactly one week ago on May 23rd, Kyle graduated from 6th grade! What, how did that happen, how can he be old enough to go to middle school already?! His school makes a big production about ending sixth grade by having a small graduation breakfast for the students and their family members. A certificate of completion is handed out with a tee shirt and awards are announced. Kyle was the first one to be called so I didn't have enough time to run up front to take better pictures! He told me he was glad his class went first and that he was the first one so he could get it done and over with!

 Kyle with his teacher Mrs. J

 He mentioned that he was glad he could sit and watch all his classmates!

I made him take a picture with me! (he was thrilled!)

 Kyle had the option of staying at school if he wanted for his last day, but he was done with school and wanted to go home. I can't say that I blame him, this school was Rough for him. Unfortunately a few of the kids in his class were not very nice towards him this year. The things said to him were very callous and should have never been said. His classmate should have known better than to stab him with a pencil too. He had asked me so many times to home school him and I was so close to pulling him out. Kyle is such a different person when he is at school than he is at home. He is very shy and quite at school, but at home he is neither of the two! One thing that Kyle was excited about this school year was a project he did all himself and ROCKED at it! He has such a creative ability to engineer things out of Lego's and make them work! He made a video on how to build it and posted on my private YouTube account. He presented the video and his Lego model for the class to see and they were impressed with it! Kyle is our engineer in training, he loves to build things out of junk and take things apart and tries to make them work better. I know he has a bright future ahead of him, because he is such an amazing little man (Love You Kyle!)!!!! Blessings, Lisa

Schools Out!!!!

Finally school is out for the kids! (And I have been for a few weeks!) This past semester seemed to drag by rather slowly for me. Although the highlight of my semester was going to China Town for a field trip! Since I had a class about China our awesome teacher decided to take her classes up to China Town. I did a presentation the week of our trip teaching the class Chinese! Yes, I can speak a little! Let me just say, I rocked that presentation and my teacher and class really enjoyed it! (everyone else did boring power point presentation, so I wanted to be really different from everyone else and use the board. I sure accomplished that!) I had the whole class speaking and writing Chinese during the presentation, it was rather entertaining.

Was was really entertaining was when we went to China Town. I was excited three ladies that I had really became close with over the semesters went on the trip too, which made it even more enjoyable. China Town may only be a couple of blocks long, but wow is it different! The grossest thing for me was walking into the supermarket. As soon as I walked in I had to walk back out! The smell and things I saw hit my stomach and I knew I couldn't handle it. So a friend and I stood outside talking while the others shopped. Later on we had lunch which was good, we ended up ordering a variety of different things to try.

I love looking at the Chicago skyline! See the Willis Tower!

This is the building we stood looking while the others were in the super market! 

Can you see the squid in the window! (its orange and gross!)

 After leaving China Town we decided to head over to Little Italy for some canolli's and Starbucks! That was the highlight of the trip for me! The two areas are very different from each other and I prefer Little Italy! Also, the sun came out when we arrived there, and the people friendlier in that area. It was a great experience and I'm glad I went. Although it doesn't take much to convince me to go to Chicago, I like how different and fast paced the city is from what I'm used to on a daily basis. I like to visit the city, I don't think I could ever live in a big city like that, I like a slower pace of life.

Lindsey went on a field trip a few weeks ago that I had the opportunity to chaperon with. We learned about the canel near by and how life was during that time period on the canel. We also went to the bottom of a gravel pit. (I was rather nervous about it, I have fear gravel pits and how deep they are.) Thankfully we made it down and back up safely, in fact I really couldn't tell that we were 200 feet down in the earth!

The ledge in this picture doesn't look very high up, but it is!

 The dump truck at the top dumping the limestone off to a crushing machine. 

As usual, I enjoyed Lindsey's field trip too! I have thing for field trips, I love to chaperon and I enjoy watching the kids interact with each other along with how they react to seeing something that they only talked about in class.

Not necessarily a field trip, but I helped with Kyle's class for field day last week. I have always enjoyed helping out and watching the kids during field day. This was Kyle's last field day experience at the Intermediate school I felt I needed to be there to watch him one last time along with having fun myself!!!! Blessings, Lisa

A Trip to Chicago!

So, over summer vacation we took a trip up to downtown Chicago with four kids in tow! Yes, I am fully aware of the fact summer seems like ages ago. For our own memories I wanted to blog about this so that we can look back and remember what we did and didn't do! Here goes:
It was a beautiful Saturday morning in June as we loaded up to make the drive to Chicago with four kids in tow, running shoes and a rather large jogging stroller. The trip up there wasn't too bad considering it could have been worse, it was Lillian that I was worried about. She was not a car rider, although currently she has somewhat grown out of that stage in life. I was overly excited, I love a big city and especially one along Lake Michigan. The kids were giddy too, I could tell once we got in the city they were mesmerised by all the tall buildings, and possibly the fact they knew where we were going!

We arrived at Navy Pier and ate lunch, I felt a little overwhelmed with all the people. I could not believe the amount of people crowed in that building. We went outside and started walking to the places we had planned on going too. I had google mapped the route and thought I did a good job by staying away from the main highway. I somehow missed the fact they had an overpass that you were to walk up the stairs. Something that was not convenient with a stroller. So we turned down a side road and walked past some really cute shops and restaurants. We finally made it to Michigan Ave. and I could not believe the amount of people on the sidewalks there. Thankfully the kids knew to stay with us and not try to walk ahead. We past at least two street beggars, one of which looked like a younger man in his lower twenties maybe. The streets were also filled with people trying to sell things and you learned quickly to not look at them or just say no thank you.

Once we arrived at the American Girl doll store, it was hard for me to contain my excitement. Lindsey was just as excited as I was! We were greeted at the door and looked around at all the neat things they had displayed. We soon found ourselves in the Bitty Baby section in which we were on the hunt for the red haired, blue eyed baby for Lillian. Our sweet little girl was in love with all the babies along with all the extra stuff they had displayed too. She really liked the stroller they had and pushed that around with her baby in it. Yes, she was a little selfish when other little girls came close and wanted to push the stroller too. (And I actually let her be selfish, I felt that was her moment to have fun.) Lindsey soon choose and outfit for her doll she had at home and we were ready to leave and venture to the Lego store. Unfortunately, someone cute and little wasn't ready to leave. She threw a wonderful fit that Chad dealt with while I stood back and watched her frustration and flailing little body, oh yeah and took picture of her too! (I probably would have thrown a fit, but I wasn't up for people starring at me too!)

 We made our way up the Lego store and I could not believe the things they had made with Lego's. The boys had a certain amount of money they could spend and I think they may have been overwhelmed with so many choices. (or at least Kyle was, Jacob knew what he wanted!) The kids enjoyed playing with the Lego's they had set up at different areas throughout the store.

This picture below is made completely of Lego's! How amazing is that!!!!

 Once we finally managed to get out of the Lego store and we headed to the much anticipated John Hancock building right across the street! The kids were so excited to go all the way up to the top! Before our trip we had watched You Tube videos and found many interesting facts about the building. Unfortunately for me I didn't want to take the elevator and go up to the 95th floor once I got there! WHATS WRONG WITH ME! I was so excited about going up to the top but once I saw the building right there in front of it I felt sick to my stomach. I have a HUGE fear of elevators and heights, I know how fun! So Chad ended up taking Kyle, Lindsey and Jacob up to the top for 5 dollar pops! Lillian and I stayed down at the bottom and watched the people go by. We seen two brides and their party getting ready to go up the observatory while we waited and waited and waited for Chad and the kids to come back down!  

The kids loved sitting by the window at the top of the building and I wish they would have pushed me onto that elevator. I would have loved to hear and seen their reactions to the view. We than made our way back to Navy Pier and walked down to the Haggen Daz ice cream shop to spend a little over $30 bucks on ice cream! Way to much money to spend on ice cream, but on a very hot day it was money well spent. I do have note the picture of Lindsey swinging on the tree is one of my favorites because if I was her age that is something I would have done! After eating our ice cream we sat in the grass across the street from Navy Pier and watched the cars go by and play in the grass. That was the best way to end the day. What we did learn about the city of Chicago is that when driving just honk your horn, no seriously just drive, honk your horn and wave! We do plan on going back next summer and possibly spend the night so we can see and do more things in the big city. The kids and Chad loved it and I still remember some of those little details that made the day so special for all of us!!!! Blessings, Lisa