Grayson & Liam ~ September Photos

We had a fun month in September.  We went to Hudson's birthday party and Liam was a helper for the magician.  He had so much fun!  Grayson has a spelling test each week and has aced each test.  We are so proud of him.  Liam had fun making sunglasses out of the legos from Hudson's party.  The boys had Gabe over for a sleep over and had the best time.  Grayson has a six-pack and we are so amazed!  He  is so shy about it, but let us snap a picture.  We took pictures of some cool artwork Grayson did from school.  Also, his teacher wrote a really nice note about him.  She was so proud of him and we are ecstatic!  He's really becoming a leader and setting such a great example for his classmates.  We are so incredibly proud of him.   

Christy in Chicago for lunch at the Metropolitan Club

Christy was in town for work and had a little spare time so she met me for lunch at the Metropolitan Club in Willis Tower.  She brought her co-worker, who happened to be the son of Kimmy Schaefer (she's BFFs with Allison's mom who also happened to teach at the school Sef went to high school and her father-in-law built the house in Villa Grove that my grandparents lived in).  We had a nice lunch overlooking the city.  It was so nice seeing her and catching up.  

Our 17th Anniversary

We celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary in Chicago at Ocean Prime.  We had a nice dinner and our sweet neighbor (who just lost her husband) sent us a bottle of champaign.  We shared a lot of amazing food and talked about how we were supposed to go to Italy for our 15th anniversary, but maybe we can make this happen in 2022.  We've had an amazing 17 years!  Craig always says if it was up to him we would have stopped trying years before we actually had kids.  Thank goodness I was persistent and obsessed with having kids together, otherwise it would not have been possible.  We are so lucky to have such an amazing family with our 4 kids.  

Grayson's 8th Birthday Party

Grayson celebrated his 8th birthday at Windy City Ninjas.  He invited his whole class plus 6 boys from the other class.  I was surprised when all but 9 kids said yes.  There were 28 kids (+2 siblings of a kid) and 17 adults so a total of 45 people.  The first hour was spent on the equipment and the kids had a blast.  They spent time trying to climb the wall (they had 3 different sizes) and I was amazed at how athletic these kids were and Daddy even climbed up the biggest wall to all the kids cheering.  They also climbed up the walls, went on the obstacle course, went of the rock wall and went on the zip line wall.  After the  gym time the kids went into the food room for pizza, popcorn, fruit and cake.  It was a little crazy with all the kids in the food room, but we made it work thank goodness to some friends and family.  We handed out goodie bags and pinata candy at the end and the kids seemed to have a great time.   We brought the gifts home and Grayson had fun opening them, although it took him several days to open them because he was a little overwhelmed.  He got some amazing gifts including ninjago legos, mini golf, faux bow shooter, Super Mario shirt, frisbee and some many other cool gifts.  Grayson had such a great birthday with his friends and it was so nice for us to meet the parents after being locked up for 18 months.  

Family Girls Weekend ~ Savannah (13th Year)

We celebrated our 13th annual family girls weekend in Savannah, Georgia.  There were 8 of us total (Maria, Cathy, Mia, Denise, Kim B, Mary, Julia, Kim M) at the house in Savannah (5 of us booked this house in March 2020, but we had to cancel because of the pandemic, but luckily we rebooked for 2021).  Thursday night we went to dinner at Smokehouse BBQ and had delicious food and then went by the water to grab drinks at a cute restaurant with live music.  It was such a beautiful view overlooking the waterway, but made us a little on edge as we didn't think the boats would make it under the bridge.  We had drinks while listening to live music and then picked up wine for chicken foot (dominoes) at the house.  We played a whole round and stayed up until almost 3am.   It was so much fun!  The next day we had brunch at B Matthew's Eatery and had a delicious brunch and then walked around Savannah.   Afterwards we met Kat and Nichole at Sorry Charlie's Oyster Bar  (Julia, Kat and Nichole had oysters) and then met up for dinner at Cha Bella.  We had a great time at dinner, but were a little underwhelmed on the Ghost Tour.  It was nice to see some old houses, but it was definitely a little cheesy.  Afterwards we went back to the house and played chicken foot.  We were a little hungry so we decided to order some groceries from instacart at 11:45pm.  Derrick delivered the goodies around 1:30am and we chanted his name as he was brining the goodies inside.  I think we stayed up until about 2:30/3am both nights.  Saturday we went to brunch at Beldord's and then went on the trolley tour and saw 14 different sites around Savannah.  Afterwards we went to dinner at Local 11ten and shared several different dishes that were amazing.  After dinner we again took the party to the house and played chicken foot until 2am.  This time Kat and Nichole came over for chicken foot so it 10 ladies total.  I made goodie bags for all the ladies with personalized wine cups, gold and silver candy and a personalized note.  The ladies all seemed to love their goodie bags and even made some of them cry (happy tears).  It was really sweet.  We had such a wonderful weekend and I can't wait for the next one.