Dave and Liz: Part II

As is the story of my life, I am once again WAY behind on my blogging-blah!  Anyhow, as I mentioned in my last post, Dave and Liz came in for Dave's sister's wedding and we really enjoyed seeing them.  However, we couldn't hog them all to ourselves, so on Sunday, we invited the gang over to meet Braiden.  Here is what that looked like in our living room...

Wow!  That is a lot of kids, and that isn't even everyone!  My favorite part of that first picture is Cole.  I'm not quite sure what he is doing, but it makes me laugh. :)  Here are a couple of other shots...

Cole LOVING his juicebox

(after everyone else finished, he also proceeded to eat any leftover food and drink any leftover juiceboxes-ha, ha!)

Miss Mia-french braids courtesy of Liz

Braiden hanging with the big kids

And here are a couple of cute ones I stole off of Dave and Liz's blog

I love this pic of the 3 of them.  I cannot believe how big Mia and Cole look!

  Mia chatting with Braiden

 2 boys causing trouble :)  And yes, those are Halloween PJs

Meeting Braiden!

So I am excited to say that I have finally had the opportunity to meet Braiden!!  I was very jealous when Cort got to go down to Jacksonville to meet him, but I knew they would also be visiting here soon.  Dave, Liz and Braiden are staying with us and came in last night.  I was super-bummed to have Open House, but happy when I realized I only got home about a half an hour before they got here.  Braiden is super-cute and super-chubby, and totally reminds me of Mia as a baby.  I have to say after holding Braiden, I am pretty sure he outweighs Cole!  :)

Dave and Liz were super-gracious and watched the kids while I worked this morning (went in the a.m. instead for an institute day) and it sounds like all the kids did great together.  We are so enjoying having them here and looking to seeing everyone on Sunday when all the families and kids come over.  Here are a couple of quick pics from today, I know Dave and Liz have more, but I tried to snap a couple.

Dave, Braiden and Mia (Braiden and Mia are clearly not interested in paying attention to me!)

Braiden checking out the deck

A sad attempt at a picture of all 3 kids (this was the best of about 10 pictures if you can believe that!)

Braiden is such a sweet cherub!

On the move-he is quick!

Spring Break Days 4 & 5--Arboretum

Look at me go!  I'm on a blogging roll and making up for lost time! :)

Thursday we took it easy, hung around the house, picked up a bit and were generally a bit lazy. Friday the forecast was calling for a great day so we decided to go to the Arboretum and Chama Gaucha for lunch.  We had already had lunch plans with my mom and sister, but were excited when my mom agreed to join us at the Arboretum as well.  After hanging out in the Children's Garden and checking out one of the new Steelroots sculptures, we headed over to Chama Guacha and had an AWESOME lunch.  It is one of those Brazilian restaurants where they have an amazing salad bar and tons of good meat-right up my alley!  :)  This has truly been an awesome Spring Break and makes me very excited for the summer! 

Cole and Cort taking a quick break

Pretty Flower

I really need to get one of these for my house

Mia

One of the sculptures

Cort and Cole-he LOVED sliding down

(this was before we all saw the sign that said no climbing on the sculptures)

LOVE this one of Mia and Grammy

Grammy and Cole

Spring Break Day 3--Brookfield Zoo

Wednesday we decided to visit the Brookfield Zoo since it was going to be such a beautiful day.  We got there right when it opened and while we got in to park right away, we still had to wait at the gates about 10 minutes to get in. I have never seen it so crazy there.  The good news is that the zoo is big so once we were in it didn't seem too bad.  The great thing about the zoo is that you can go over and over and it always seems like there are new things to see. 

Here are some pics...

These camels made me laugh for some reason

A terribly overexposed picture of Cort, Cole and the Tiger

Not sure who was having a better time, Mia or the goat....

Cole, Mia and a swarm of kids brushing the goats

Cole

Petting a chick

Ava petting the chick

Whenever Cole sees something soft, he immediately starts sucking his thumb.  We made sure to get hand sanitizer after this! :)

Cole sat in his stroller forever just chewing on this apple.

Cousins + More

This past weekend my sister's father-in-law celebrated his 70th birthday. We were invited to the party and had a good time celebrating, especially the kids. :) I walked in the room where all the kids were playing and they were all actually sitting on the sofa together and Cort was getting ready to take a picture. I think that may be about the 2nd time Cort has ever picked up my camera without me asking, ha, ha! He quickly handed it over once he saw me and I managed to snap a pic. They may not be looking, but they at least all look happy! The two boys at the end are cousins-in-law if there is such a thing. They are Noah and Claire's cousins (Mike's sister Maira's kids), Stefan and Lukas. Interestingly enough, Mike and Maira grew up literally around the corner from Cort and Ian. It is a small world and interesting how things work out!

Mia, Claire, Noah, Cole, Stefan and Lukas

Cort just cozied up to the boys, I think he was happy to have some male bonding :)

Claire and Cole

Mia and Noah-can I have some cheese please?

Spring Break-Day 2--Shedd Aquarium

Today was Day 2 of Spring Break and I am loving it!! We decided to go down to the Shedd Aquarium as did all of the Chicagoland area, ha, ha! We love going to the Shedd since we can get in for free with our teacher IDs and both the kids used to get in for free. Now that Mia is 3, we have to pay for her, but the lady working the counter today let her in for free even though I said she was 3-Yeah for nice people who save us $18!!!

We now have our strategy down pat, which is making sure to get to the Shedd right when they open. That way we can park at a meter instead of a garage (way cheaper) and beat some of the crowds. The Shedd got INSANE today with the amount of people that were there and we were able to avoid *some* of the craziness. People were telling us they waited an hour to get in and when we left the lines were super-long.


Anyhow, enough of that! As always the kids had a blast! We had a bit of a rough start though. As we were unloading the car, Mia was standing on the sidewalk waiting for us. Next thing we know, she was facedown on the concrete. I think she was spinning and fell (if you know Mia, this is not surprising!). When I peeled her off the concrete there was a disgusting amount of blood coming out of her mouth and she was obviously very upset. After cleaning her up and making sure there were no loose teeth, she recovered quickly and we were on our way. The kids had a great time looking at all the fish, especially the dolphins. The Shedd also has a new kids area called the Polar Play Zone that they enjoyed with some hands-on activities. I look forward to going back since we didn't even check all of it out due to it being so crowded.

Here are the pics...

Our Family

Eye to eye with the fish Mia loved the rays!

Raising her hand to answer a question at the tortoise presentation

The tortoise

Cole checking on the rays below him The view from our table at lunch-so beautiful!

Cole LOVING watching the dolphins. He was shrieking and laughing. :)

Mia thought they were pretty cool too

Mia posing with a penguin (notice her scraped up face)

Cole tobogganing like a penguin (yes, his overalls are coming unsnapped!)

He was loving this!!!

Mia dressed like a penguin in the Polar Play Zone

Even though these are blurry (couldn't use a flash) I still like how colorful they are