It has been almost an entire month since I last posted on here! Not for lack of things to post, simply for the sake of being busy.
Let's see, let me back up to the end of July...I could write many paragraphs.
We ended swimming lessons and plan to do it again next year. The girls learned A LOT, and enjoyed practicing what they learned in the remaining 2 weeks the pool was open. We spent a lot of time at the pool the last week it was open, however the tans are already fading.
We began our weeks of birthday celebration! We celebrated Josh's birthday first with a day at the pool, some garage sales, and then dinner with our parents at Johnny's. It was lovely. Josh is like a fine wine...gets better with age so they all say.
Noe turned 11 months the day after and celebrated by trying to run or half-run. She's nothing short of a go-go girl! She is pretty skilled and pretty grown up acting. Where did that little tiny baby go? Still...no teeth, but oh well.
We celebrated Aliyah's birthday in true Aliyah-style by doing her favorite things. She had quite an agenda. We arrived in Chicago on Thursday night the 11th and headed from our hotel straight to the American Girl store. They looked around as always and enjoyed themselves. Josh and I relished that the store was very un-busy! Noe came alive in the Bitty Baby section. She got SOOOO excited as she loves baby dolls and stuffed animals. We went to a late dinner at PF Changs which was really Josh's birthday choice, but we don't have one closer to us than that. Ali met us for dinner.
After dinner, we walked back to our hotel. Aliyah loves the city and the architecture and the sights. She wanted to go on the River Walk, but we were more than tired after a day of work and then the drive up so we just enjoyed the scenery on the way back to our hotel. We had a nice view of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. I could lie there for hours and look at the lights and buildings because there is always something interesting to see.
Back to that tired thing...we fell asleep after the littlest monkey finally decided she was tired at midnight. Not much sleep though because apparently Noelliah wanted us to see the sun rise on Aliyah's birthday. Oh, a beautiful sight it was although we were exhausted. She woke us at 4 am and stayed up for the next 2+++ hours!! YIKES!! We gave Aliyah a couple of gifts when she woke up, got ready, and started our day in the city. We decided to not go to the beach on this trip as it would have made us so rushed at doing everything on Aliyah's to-do/see list. Our first stop was to take a picture of the statue in the Tribune plaza of Marilyn Monroe. It is a rather controversial piece this year as it is depicting a scene from the movie where she is standing and the wind blows up her dress. What you don't see in my picture is that her undies are showing on the other side. Anyways, we enjoyed the beautiful new fountains, flowerbeds, and arbors that are now in the Tribune plaza. It is a nice quiet place in the middle of a bustling city.
We continued on our journey down Michigan Ave. to Ohio St. where we turned to go to Aliyah's birthday lunch choice--Rainforest Cafe. She loves the downtown Chicago location the best as it has a second floor, and more animals. It was a lovely lunch and her favorite part of the food portion was the Mud Lava pudding with worms. She couldn't eat it all, but we helped her out. We then took the VERY LONG walk all the way from Rainforest Cafe down to Navy Pier. It was a gorgeous day so we enjoyed that as we walked. Aliyah finally is tall enough to ride the swing ride. She and I rode it and it was a fun, fun ride!! She told me she could ride it for hours on end. I agree...it is pretty fun. We went into the buildling there and looked at the palm trees and foliage in the greenhouse. Aliyah of course loved that.
The girls wanted to stop at the little park in front of Navy Pier where most people enjoy the fountains. They didn't even go near the fountains, but just played around on some sculpture things. We decided we would go and then made the mistake of waiting for the trolley that was supposed to come every 15 minutes. It took forever and we later wished we had just walked.
It took over an hour to get out of the city as traffic was backed up forever it seemed. We just crawled along...the girls slept.
It was a packed weekend as we got ready for Aliyah's birthday party with family. She loves parties!! We ran errands on Saturday and then went to the library reading program party at Dragonland for a last hurrah in the pool before it closed for the year.
The party was lovely and Aliyah was happy to celebrate turning 9!! She was really excited to see everyone including the furry ones too.
The week in between then and now was time for school! We are homeschooling again this year, but of course it is different. We have 3 children (we did last year too), however the baby is very very mobile and busy. Keirah does her schooling the kitchen and Aliyah does hers upstairs in our bonus (Ocean room). It is a great place for her as it has the least distraction of any room in the house. The juggling act is getting Aliyah started with school before we go to work and then finishing when we get off. I felt like a zombie the first week. Fourth grade has a lot more to do than even third grade and it takes longer. We are dusting out the cobwebs, and hopefully the new routine is settled in nicely for all of us very soon.
On to everything else...we have a new cat in our house named Sophie. She is sweet and seems to be a bit prissy and choosy. We think she prefers wet cat food. She also has a pillow that she loves to come lay on that is under our bed. On top of the new pet, Aliyah has another neighborhood cat (who does have an owner), that comes each day and evening for food. The poor thing looks like a stray, but does have an owner. She appears to now have fleas as she is constantly trying to scratch or get to something even when she eats. She looks like she is so hungry. Aliyah in her love of animals cannot bear to see any animal suffer and wants to help her and feed her. I do have to remind her that her intentions are great, but we are not the owners of this cat.
We are now planning the next two princesses birthdays and our vacation! Josh and I were talking the other day about why it seems the last year has gone by so quickly. Noe was born then you lack sleep for months, we had sick grandparents in there, we did a major kitchen renovation, work schedules were different particularly for Josh, swim lessons, and just plain running around and keeping up with the day to day things like the yard and whatever else. Needless to say, we don't really have any projects planned (nothing major). Josh is tying up a few loose ends in the kitchen.
Well, I am now thinking of all of the pictures that need uploaded. I'm behind on Shutterfly again as so many events have taken place since my last photo book in June. YIKES!! Glad to catch up--sort of on here!
Let's see, let me back up to the end of July...I could write many paragraphs.
We ended swimming lessons and plan to do it again next year. The girls learned A LOT, and enjoyed practicing what they learned in the remaining 2 weeks the pool was open. We spent a lot of time at the pool the last week it was open, however the tans are already fading.
We began our weeks of birthday celebration! We celebrated Josh's birthday first with a day at the pool, some garage sales, and then dinner with our parents at Johnny's. It was lovely. Josh is like a fine wine...gets better with age so they all say.
Noe turned 11 months the day after and celebrated by trying to run or half-run. She's nothing short of a go-go girl! She is pretty skilled and pretty grown up acting. Where did that little tiny baby go? Still...no teeth, but oh well.
We celebrated Aliyah's birthday in true Aliyah-style by doing her favorite things. She had quite an agenda. We arrived in Chicago on Thursday night the 11th and headed from our hotel straight to the American Girl store. They looked around as always and enjoyed themselves. Josh and I relished that the store was very un-busy! Noe came alive in the Bitty Baby section. She got SOOOO excited as she loves baby dolls and stuffed animals. We went to a late dinner at PF Changs which was really Josh's birthday choice, but we don't have one closer to us than that. Ali met us for dinner.
After dinner, we walked back to our hotel. Aliyah loves the city and the architecture and the sights. She wanted to go on the River Walk, but we were more than tired after a day of work and then the drive up so we just enjoyed the scenery on the way back to our hotel. We had a nice view of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. I could lie there for hours and look at the lights and buildings because there is always something interesting to see.
Back to that tired thing...we fell asleep after the littlest monkey finally decided she was tired at midnight. Not much sleep though because apparently Noelliah wanted us to see the sun rise on Aliyah's birthday. Oh, a beautiful sight it was although we were exhausted. She woke us at 4 am and stayed up for the next 2+++ hours!! YIKES!! We gave Aliyah a couple of gifts when she woke up, got ready, and started our day in the city. We decided to not go to the beach on this trip as it would have made us so rushed at doing everything on Aliyah's to-do/see list. Our first stop was to take a picture of the statue in the Tribune plaza of Marilyn Monroe. It is a rather controversial piece this year as it is depicting a scene from the movie where she is standing and the wind blows up her dress. What you don't see in my picture is that her undies are showing on the other side. Anyways, we enjoyed the beautiful new fountains, flowerbeds, and arbors that are now in the Tribune plaza. It is a nice quiet place in the middle of a bustling city.
We continued on our journey down Michigan Ave. to Ohio St. where we turned to go to Aliyah's birthday lunch choice--Rainforest Cafe. She loves the downtown Chicago location the best as it has a second floor, and more animals. It was a lovely lunch and her favorite part of the food portion was the Mud Lava pudding with worms. She couldn't eat it all, but we helped her out. We then took the VERY LONG walk all the way from Rainforest Cafe down to Navy Pier. It was a gorgeous day so we enjoyed that as we walked. Aliyah finally is tall enough to ride the swing ride. She and I rode it and it was a fun, fun ride!! She told me she could ride it for hours on end. I agree...it is pretty fun. We went into the buildling there and looked at the palm trees and foliage in the greenhouse. Aliyah of course loved that.
The girls wanted to stop at the little park in front of Navy Pier where most people enjoy the fountains. They didn't even go near the fountains, but just played around on some sculpture things. We decided we would go and then made the mistake of waiting for the trolley that was supposed to come every 15 minutes. It took forever and we later wished we had just walked.
It took over an hour to get out of the city as traffic was backed up forever it seemed. We just crawled along...the girls slept.
It was a packed weekend as we got ready for Aliyah's birthday party with family. She loves parties!! We ran errands on Saturday and then went to the library reading program party at Dragonland for a last hurrah in the pool before it closed for the year.
The party was lovely and Aliyah was happy to celebrate turning 9!! She was really excited to see everyone including the furry ones too.
The week in between then and now was time for school! We are homeschooling again this year, but of course it is different. We have 3 children (we did last year too), however the baby is very very mobile and busy. Keirah does her schooling the kitchen and Aliyah does hers upstairs in our bonus (Ocean room). It is a great place for her as it has the least distraction of any room in the house. The juggling act is getting Aliyah started with school before we go to work and then finishing when we get off. I felt like a zombie the first week. Fourth grade has a lot more to do than even third grade and it takes longer. We are dusting out the cobwebs, and hopefully the new routine is settled in nicely for all of us very soon.
On to everything else...we have a new cat in our house named Sophie. She is sweet and seems to be a bit prissy and choosy. We think she prefers wet cat food. She also has a pillow that she loves to come lay on that is under our bed. On top of the new pet, Aliyah has another neighborhood cat (who does have an owner), that comes each day and evening for food. The poor thing looks like a stray, but does have an owner. She appears to now have fleas as she is constantly trying to scratch or get to something even when she eats. She looks like she is so hungry. Aliyah in her love of animals cannot bear to see any animal suffer and wants to help her and feed her. I do have to remind her that her intentions are great, but we are not the owners of this cat.
We are now planning the next two princesses birthdays and our vacation! Josh and I were talking the other day about why it seems the last year has gone by so quickly. Noe was born then you lack sleep for months, we had sick grandparents in there, we did a major kitchen renovation, work schedules were different particularly for Josh, swim lessons, and just plain running around and keeping up with the day to day things like the yard and whatever else. Needless to say, we don't really have any projects planned (nothing major). Josh is tying up a few loose ends in the kitchen.
Well, I am now thinking of all of the pictures that need uploaded. I'm behind on Shutterfly again as so many events have taken place since my last photo book in June. YIKES!! Glad to catch up--sort of on here!
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