Happy Halloween

Since we are in Chicago this weekend and not at home to trick-or-treat, we took the opportunity to spend the evening with my cousin Becky and her family. The girls had a great time trick-or-treating with their cousin Kaitlyn. Kinda scary how quickly they became pros at scamming people out of candy with their cuteness.

Lincoln Park Zoo

We decided to take the girls to the Lincoln Park Zoo today. All the times we have been to Chicago, we have never been. Upon hearing zoo entrance is free, I didn't have high expectations. THE ZOO WAS AWESOME! If you are ever in chicago, don't miss this hidden treasure.
Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures from the day since we forgot the camera. Our good friends, Duke and Sarah got engaged there three years ago, during Zoo lights. I hope to take the girls to this attraction at the zoo in the near future.

Jason...a hip hop dancer?

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DeDe's Day Out

My mom took Delanie to the Children's Museum today so Emme and I could get our hair cut. As the pictures show, she had a blast!

Lyle Lovett

Ok, I can acknowledge that Delanie's hair is getting out of control. I continue to stand firm on my "no bang" rule, even though my mom (and others) have nicknamed Delanie, Lyle Lovett.

Ella and Carly

We are blessed with good neighbors, and as some of you know, we haven't always had the best of luck (think chickens and other various farm animals). There are several families within a block of us with young children, most of whom also attend our church and also plan to send their children to our parish's school. So, I get excited to think that Emme and Delanie are making friends now that they will have for a long time. The family that lives behind us also happen to have two girls, Ella is almost 5 and Carly is 1 month younger than Delanie. The girls are great friends and playmates for Emme and D. Every night at dinner they look out at the back yard and call "Ella", hoping that Ella will be outside so they can play. Delanie is even learning to scale the fence to play with her bestest friends...I guess she should have been spiderwomen for Halloween!

Two Good Reads

My friend Jasmine gave me two great books for my bday. I read Ron Hall's, "The Same Kind of Different as Me" first. For someone who normally sticks to Danielle Steele's lastest hit for the easy read, I was a little skeptical as to how much this book would catch my attention. Well, it did and I read it in one weekend (a pretty fantastic feat considering I live in a house with two high-maintainence toddlers).

I started the second book today, Wm. Paul Young's, "The Shack". It too is proving to be a "can't put it down until you're done " type of read. I am a solo parent this weekend so am shocked to get a little reading in at all, so I will hopefully be able to finish this one over my fall break later this week.

I am not at all qualified to give you a literary review, all I can say is, they are must reads.

My Best Friend

Happy Birthday to my Best Friend Sarah...she turned the BIG 30 today! Welcome to the club, sister! I feel like "best friend" is such a juvenile term, but I always use it when I talk about her, because it's true.

This is a picture from us at IU, just a snapshot of all the good times we had. Here's to at least 30 more years of friendship and memories.

Our "Triplets"

Today when we were pushing two strollers with three kids under 2 1/2,

someone asked us if they were triplets!

Our "triplets"-can you imagine?
I think we did our job as babysitters, we handed Elijah over to his mom in a deep sleep!

ZOO Fix

Emme and the sunning Sea Lions
Delanie doing her favorite thing-going down the slide
Petting the goat
On the Zoo Train

After our walk this morning and breakfast at Cafe Patachou, we went to the zoo for a few hours. The girls and I were going through withdraw since we haven't been there in two months. This summer we were there weekly. Emme had been asking to see her favorite elephant, Kubwa.


The girls loved having their cousin with us today. Emme declared herself as his "babysitter" and mothered him all morning.

STOP DIABETES

My sister, Julie, was diagnosed with Type I diabetes at 14 y/o, she is now 28 y/o. My mom has been very involved with the Amercian Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation for many years. Today, Jason and I, the girls and our nephew Elijah joined my mom in "Stepping Out to fight diabetes". It was a beautiful day for an early morning walk/run. My mom, Jason and the kiddos walked and I ran the 5K. Emme loves to chant, "Stop Diabetes". Let's all pray for a cure in our lifetime.

I made the shirts Emme, Delanie and Elijah wore...the darn iron-on letters kept coming off, so by the end of the day, Delanie's said STOP Diabets...that's what I get for trying to be crafty.