Liam's 8th Birthday

We celebrated Liam's 8th Birthday with a small party with our family (Mom, Dad, Grayson, Liam, Julia, Ethan and Oma), our au pair Fatima and three of Liam's friends, Josh, Ryan and Ronan.  We decorated the kitchen, put a ton of balloons in his room with a soccer balloon bouquet and had a cake, cookies and cupcakes from Sweet Mandy B's.  We had a birthday sign out in the front of the house with a birthday message and picture of Liam.  Craig made ribs and we sat outside on the rooftop for dinner.  Liam is having a soccer themed birthday party with his friends on September 10th at Lakeshore Athletic Club.  He's very excited to celebrate with all the boys from 2nd grade.  This year we are doing an all boys' party with the boys from both classes.  

It's been a fun year for Liam!  He plays soccer for Chicago City Soccer and made the pre-academy team.  He also plays flag football for JFL with all his friends from school (they have two teams for his grade).  He got a new bike for his birthday and loves riding it to the park and Scooters for ice cream.  He also got roller blades this summer and loves going around the neighborhood.  He's very athletic and coordinated so luckily these things come easy to him.  He got a hover board for this birthday and got the hang of it the first day.  He loves playing Roblox on his ipad, snow skiing, tubing on the lake, watching youtube videos, drawing, playing games on playstation, trading pokemon cards, playing with his cars (he recently told me to get rid of his dinosaurs because he's too old for that), doing imaginative play, cuddling, reading books, making butter for popcorn, hanging out with friends and family movie time.  Liam is such a sweet, caring boy who is always concerned for other's feelings.  He is a friend to everyone and has the best imagination.  We love you so much, Liam and can't wait to see how much you grow over the next year.             

Casati's Anniversary Party

I had fun celebrating Melanie's restaurant - Casati's Modern Italian.  It was their 5 year anniversary.  There was a fun St Clement crew at the event.

Lake House in Wisconsin

We went on a last minute trip to Elkhorn, WI to Brian's lake house with the Goldbergs.  We originally made plans to go to Six Flags and Brian last minute offered his lake house.  We got up there on Friday and had dinner at The Landing at Lauderdale Lakes.  Saturday we had breakfast in town and then went on the pontoon boat and let the kids go tubing.  They had a blast and the kids took turns going on the tube.  That night we went to dinner at Holi Canolli.  The kids had fun trying to win prizes in the arcade game.  We then roasted marshmallows and made s'mores.  The kids loved doing this.  The next morning Brian took us on the speed boat.  The kids tried water skiing, but were unsuccessful.  Later we took the pontoon boat back out and let the kids go tubing again.  We then had  lunch with  Aunt JoAnn and  Uncle Dominic at the Landing.   We always love seeing them! Something happened to the oil tank and we started leaking and had to get pulled in by the police.  We sadly had to end our day short, but it had just started raining so it was the perfect time to happen.  Overall we had a blast at the lake house (even though Ariel and Liam fight like brother and sister).  Both boys are so great with Alexis and love to play with her.  She's only 3, but they love acting like her big brother.    

Vegas Trip

We went to Las Vegas to visit Craig's parents.  It was so nice to see Mimi and Papa.  We had dinner at a Mexican place the first night.  The next day we swam at the pool while Daddy spent the day gambling with Papa.  That night we had dinner to celebrate Papa's 85th birthday at an Italian restaurant.   I've never been to a restaurant with more birthdays celebrated in one night.  There must have been over 10 birthdays with singing included.  The next day we did a little more swimming and then had dinner at Casa Playa in the Wynn.  We had tickets to see America's Got Talent winner from 2014 - Mat Franco.  He was AMAZING!!  We were stunned and couldn't figure out how he did the magic tricks.  We loved his show.  We had such a fun trip to Vegas!    

Michigan Trip

We spent a weekend visiting the Ross Family in Michigan.  The first night we ordered pizza and hung out.  Saturday the boys swam in their pool and the the 4 adults went to dinner on Saturday night in Detroit.  We then came back to the house and played yahtzee until 2am.  We had tons of fun and always love spending time with Phil, Kat and Paxton.