Toes in the sand

Our day at the beach...

Adler Planetarium

Here are some pictures from when we went to the planetarium a few weeks ago with friends.  This is the first time we'd been and it was fun!  Most of the museum is way over the kids' heads (and mine), but they did have a fun children's section with tunnels to climb in and a space shuttle to explore.  But the best part is the view outside!

Kids minus Emmett.  Sadly this is the best picture we got of all of them!

On the street where we live

Want to go on a walk with us?  We had the most glorious weekend, which spilled over to a perfect Monday (can Mondays be perfect?).  The weather warmed up for us for a few days and we were able to spend lots of time outdoors.  I haven't really taken any pictures of our city, so I snapped some on our walk today.  It's really weird taking pictures of other people's houses, I hope no one saw me.  These first few house pictures are of homes on our street as we walk towards the lake.

This is our house, isn't the backyard amazing?  Just kidding.  This one is about one block east of us. Sam and I always wish we lived here because it has a huge yard and the house is cute to boot!

 

But I L-O-V-E this one!  It's a historical building in Evanston and was built in 1928.  I adore it and want to move in.

Sorry about the tree, you can only see half of it.  This is the Dawes House.  It's now home to the Evanston History Center and is open for tours.   Come visit us and I'll take you there.

I think this yellow house is cute, but I didn't get a good picture of the front because the homeowners were outside talking to the landscapers.  But here's the view from the street.

And this is the end our street!  Sam and I laugh that this is probably the closest we'll ever live to the beach (4 blocks!).   Too bad, but we're going to take full advantage of it while we're here.  

This is the entrance to our little beach.  It always surprises me how beautiful the water in Lake Michigan is.

Once we reached the lake we headed north up to campus.  There is a fabulous running/biking trail that runs all the way up to the school along the lake.  Here is a view of Chicago once you reach Northwestern (looking South).

Students enjoying the sunshine.  Reminds me of the quad on BYU only more awesome.

This is the alumni building at Northwestern.  Beautiful.

After we met Sam at school we headed downtown to get some frozen yogurt.

Parker enjoying his chocolate yogurt.  He wouldn't share; only let me eat the strawberries out of his bowl.

Surprise!

Last weekend my friend Lori and I threw a surprise party for our husbands who both turned, and are turning 30 this year!  We picked a date that was in between their birthdays (after Paul's, before Sam's) so it would be a surprise to both of them.  We decided to have a Minute to Win It theme.  Every time I watched the show I thought how fun it would be to  have a party; thankfully Lori had the same thought so we teamed up and threw a joint party!

We invited all our Kellogg friends from the ward (it's so great there are so many of us) and had a great time!  It was really fun, but also very stressful to pull off.  There were so many times I wanted to talk to Sam about what was going on.  Plus getting him to go along with the plans for that day without asking too many questions was tough!  All of the sudden he wanted to be very involved in what was going on, or maybe I just noticed it more when I wanted him to stay out of it!  So no more surprise parties for him; hope he enjoyed it. :)

Game set up.  We had a Team Sam & a Team Paul.  All the supplies needed for each team's games were in the boxes.

Food

Table set up

This was Lori's genius idea.  She made stickers with the guys' pictures on them for each team.  I think it was my favorite part!

A collage of some of the games we played.  They were a blast!

*Lori took all these pictures too.  What am I going to do when she leaves?

Spring at Temple Square

*First off, how did I not know about the new post editor in blogger?  So great.  My pictures aren't blurry anymore!

Recently I took a quick trip out to Utah for a friend's wedding. Did I take pictures of the wedding? No. But I did take lots of pictures of flowers! We've been having really crummy weather here in Chicago (still!) and it was so lovely to enjoy some beautiful spring weather, even just for a day. Before the wedding Saturday evening I took a walk around Temple Square. It was absolutely gorgeous with the flowers blooming! I can't decide if I love the twinkle lights at Christmas time or the tulips better.

This picture was taken Sunday morning after we went to Music & the Spoken Word.  It was on Mother's Day so they had a special program and it was fantastic.  Listening to the choir and orchestra in the tabernacle is an amazing experience.  Do it.  Then Dad treated us to Mother's Day Brunch at a seafood place in SLC.  Dad and I had lobster eggs benedict and Mom had a crab omlette.  It was unreal.

My parents & me

Beware of Dog Party

I'm blogging while watching American Idol (I like Lauren, but hate those ridiculous flower earrings she wore in her first number) and doing the dishes during commercials (no DVR).  My kitchen is a disaster.  We had a birthday party for Parker today, plus I made the mistake of not emptying the dishwasher in the morning.  So of course I'm just now emptying it and the sink and counters are stacked with dirty dishes.

We had a dog party for Parker and some of his friends.  We had it here in our little apartment which fills up fast, so it was a little chaotic, but fun.

When the kids came in they each picked a dog name for themselves and we put name tags on them with their new names.  Some of them were pretty funny.  Parker picked Spiderman (it was between that and Dragon).  We also had a Rocky, Nuke, Copper, Sadie, Nightmare, Fish (love!), and Puppy.  

Parker basking in the excitement of his big day

Then we played some games.  First up was fetch.  I threw a ball and when I called out their doggy name they ran to get the ball. 

"Fish" fetching

Then we played "obedience school".  I would call out commands like speak, sit, roll over and when the kids obeyed they got a treat.  Behind Parker you can see "Nuke" eating an m&m out of my hand.  Ha!

Then the kids had lunch: hot dogs, grapes, and Scooby snacks. 

 The last activity was taking a trip to the puppy adoption center.  Each of the kids got to pick a dog and then I filled out adoption certificates with their dog's name saying they would take good care of their animals.

three cute boys with their new dogs


Then we cut the cake.  I got this idea from someone else's blog, but I love it.  Looks like dog food, no?

the kids ate their cake from their own dog bowls

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARKER!

*Big thanks to my friend Lori for taking all these pictures for me!


Things Parker loves:
-playing basketball & baseball with Dad
-doing puzzles
-reading books
-friends
-helping Mom clean (especially sweeping)
-swimming lessons

Parker is such a sweet boy.  He is always nice to his friends and is great about sharing his toys.  He loves Lincoln and is an amazing big brother.  I love hearing them play and laugh together.  Today they were sitting on the bathroom counter brushing teeth while I was doing my hair and Parker said "is Lincoln my baby?" and gave him such a sweet hug.  He's pretty much completely potty trained (yay!).  He loves to sing, and often sings the ABCs to Lincoln to make him "feel better".  We love our little man!