Bad Outfits, Breakfast Egg Hunts, and Birthday Parties

I was just scrolling through my phone and realized I have SO MANY photos to update! This will will be the week of blogging!

These pictures are so random but I wasn't to document them so we can remember later! Thursday mornings are my time to workout.  I take a 6:30 am class and Bryan takes the kids to school.  He is great at this but he struggles with doing Charley's hair and sometimes her outfits.  This was one of those days.  She was wearing a dress and yoga pants!  With tennis shoes!  She doesn't care though.  She loves school.

We had a blast with our Small Group friends at a wine tasting on Friday night.  We have had someone from Wines For Humanity come to a couple tastings and it's always a good time.  As long as they start with the white wines, I don't mind the driest reads as much at the end. The kids had a blast playing with their friends.

The very next morning (way back in March) was an egg hunt I organized for some friends.  The egg hints in Naperville are completely crazy.  The parents pick up their kids and carry them to the biggest eggs!  No thank you!  We loved our low key egg hunt at the park with donuts.  It was the start of a new tradition.

Right after the egg hunt we headed to a birthday party for our "Chick-Fil-A Friends."  We met them in the play place in Chick-Fil-A and hit it off!  Their daughter Emmy is so adorable. Those glasses and curls!  Emmy turned 4 and her younger brother Jackson is 2.

This was the weekend before Speing Break and my parents were in town.  We dropped the kids off at My Gym on Saturday night and headed out for a nice dinner.  Sunday morning we headed to Kalahari which will be the next post! Soon!

Catching Up!

I started this post two weeks ago.  I'm not sure where the time went.  I'm just going to finish this one and post a new update later in the week.

I was feeling so motivated and productive yesterday until our washing machine broke.  While taking the clothes to the laundromat was a pain, it was nice to do all the laundry in two hours.  

Jackson still has the biggest sweet tooth ever but he becomes more enjoyable alll the time as he continues to age and better understands how the world works.

He loves this chalkboard and especially loves it when I make a calendar for him for the month.

Charley had a follow up with her pulmonologist who we absolutely love.  He is the kindest, gentlest man.  She is such a good girl at the doctor and is way too familiar with the pulse oximeter and stethoscopes.

We had a big milestone moment in the family.  JJ made it through a Chicago Fire game.  He hates them because he doesn't like the loud stadium and he's terrified of fireworks when they score. He was so brave that night and he even ended with smiles!

Charley loved the whole thing.  She's always up for fun!

She has changed so much lAtely but she still is attached to her lovey. I'm in no rush for her to get rid of it because Jackson just became less and less attached to his and hasn't asked about it in months.  I'm sure Charley will do the same when she's ready.

Any chance I get I sneak over to Meredith's house to snuggle baby Lucy.  Shes simply the best!

Charley was going to the store with me and as I was getting ready to leave, she gathered her things to take to the store.  I talked her into leaving the giant Tonka truck at home.

I am still loving my Project Life app for Scrapbooking on my phone.  It is so hard to keep up with Scrapbooking and the blog with the everyday life demands so I look for the easist way possible.  I was able to create the spread below on our way home from the game.

I promise not to let two months go by again! Another update will be posted soon!

Happy Birthday to Smow Boots

It's a good time to capture what life is like for Charley at two and a half.  She has so much spunk and it's finally coming out in her speech! She is starting to string together 4-6 word sentences and loves telling Jackson what to do.  

The very best thing she says is "Smow!" It comes out when she wants to wear "Smow boots", if it's "smowing outside", or if she wants to "smuggle wif mama."  I love it!  She also loves singing happy birthday to things she likes.  We sing happy birthday about 20 times every day while making our way through a list of people, places, and things that she loves.

We just got back from an awesome trip to Ohio and were gearing up for another weekend in St. Louis when she got hit with a respiratory virus.  She's pretty sick on day 5 of this thing and we're just hoping that it starts getting better soon!

Last night was the roughest yet.  She just couldn't get comfortable at all.  We tried just about every sleeping position until it was morning.  The worst part about the sickies is that it keeps her from getting the rest she needs to kick this thing.

Jackson is so excited not to go to St. Louis.  He loves his "stay at home days." He would be happy to stay in the same clothes for three days and organize all his toys and put on theater performances for us!

Hopefully this weekend brings us all much health!

Life is Good!

My babies are getting so big and I feel time slipping away!  Both of them are closer to their next age now and it's freaking me out!  Three and five???  Whaaat??  We have all been relatively healthy and we are SO thankful!  Life has been good and there's not much more we could ask for.

This little mama loves her babies.  She carries them around, pushes them in strollers, and rocks them.  It's the sweetest and so interesting to see it come so naturally to her.  Ah, science!

Jackson loves all thinks school, play doh, and My Gym.  My friend Lisa owns My Gym and it has been fantastic for the kids.  We joined when Charley was not willing to participate in physical therapy.  She just cried the while time and the hour was pointless.  She loves My Gym and gets great practice there.  Jackson loves it too and enjoys the physical challenge.

It's getting easier and easier to take the kids around. Charley is not potty trained but I don't even carry a diaper bag.  It's so freeing to throw them in the car (and spend 5 minutes buckling car seats) and go!  They love going to Costco for pizza and ice cream.

This Winter has been really mild.  The temps have been manageable and there was very little snow.  Until last weekend when we got 19 inches in 24 hours.  Yikes!  We had planned on about 8 couples coming over for the Super Bowl but ended up with just one family making it and we invited our neighbors across the street.  It was still a great time and good to get to know our neighbors more.

Charley proves to be much happier in snow gear than Jackson.  She loves going out in the snow....with her babies of course.

Bryan is in Arizona this weekend so it's just me and the kids.  We've had a great couple days together and are chilling at home this morning after French toast and bacon.  

Life is good and hopefully I'll not let another month go by with no update!

Happy 2015!

We had such a great holiday season this year!  Everyone was in good health.  No migraines.  No coughing. Just fun!

We spent Christmas in Kansas City and we were so excited to have Mimi join us. The kids loved all of the family time and of course the presents too.  We were able to see both sides of my family which is rare so it was a fun treat. 

We were at to stay almost a full week which left some play time too.  After several days in the house the kids were ready to burn some energy.  We found a great bounce place one day and we visited Legoland the next day.

Since we've been back we are adjusting to our 30 day trial period of a gluten free diet.  We are hoping it helps Charley's asthma and allergy symptoms.  The kids are enjoying being back in school.  

I had school two days but Wednesday and Thursday were cancelled due to the cold.  Hopefully we'll all be back tomorrow.  

We had grilled nuggets (the kids were not excited) sat Chick-Fil-a last night and I caught them being so sweet.  

They love each other so much!

Flying!

Wow! What a busy and wonderful time of year.  This is the first year that I feel like the kids are really understanding the Christmas season.  It is so fun to do things for them that builds that Christmas spirit.

And this little guy is kind of enjoyable sometimes now.  Three was rough for all of us but being four years old has brought some much needed maturity. Thank goodness.  This day we had a Jackson and Mommy date for ice cream.

Our Thanksgiving was spent in Texas. We flew Wednesday after work and it was great! The kids loved it and it seemed so easy compared to our other experiences flying with them.  Such a relief!

We all had a blast in Texas.  It was so warm and wonderful to be with family! 

The only thing that didn't go as well was sleeping.  But the didn't make that Go the F to Sleep book for no reason.  Sometimes they don't sleep at our house either.  It made for some tired kids on the way back but again, it was totally manageable!  Jackson fell asleep in the stroller and Charley was so confused.  "Buddy sleeping?" she asked. 

This week we are all trying to get back on a schedule. The kids were happy to go to our Wednesday night dinner of Civi's Pizza.  We go every Wednesday.  The kids love it but I am so done.

Hopefully they'll find a new favorite soon.

The best part of the week has been having fun with Andy, our Elf.  I put the kids to bed tonight and then "Andy" made pancakes and put out decorations for the kids to put on their pancakes in the morning. It's just two short school weeks until Christmas!!!!

Fall

***This post was written in several stages across a week.  I wrote the part about Charley being sick the day before she was admitted to the hospital.  I'll share that story soon.***

This fall has been SO busy!  I guess they're all going to be that way though.  These are some photos from a couple different places we like to visit.  We did them a long time ago but I'm just now finding the time to update!

Charley is really sick so we're huddled in the bathroom letting the steam break up the gunk in her chest.  She can't go 10 minutes without coughing.  Poor baby.

Anyway, Charley loved running up and down the ramps to these ships.

Jackson was having such a good time playing peekaboo with daddy and pretending.

We love visiting the animals at Kellers. They are so loud and Charley was a little unsure.  She loved climbing the ladder though.

The kids were done by this point but we had to stop and get a family photo.

A couple weekends later we went to Sonny Acres. It was a little underwhelming this year as the weather was crummy and Jackson wasn't interested in riding the rides.  We stayed for a bit, took our annual photos and then went on our way.

This smile was short lived.  The petting zoo animals were quite aggressive and even scared me!

Fall is the favorite season of the Clark house. It's so fun to have these traditions!