Pentagon Tour and Dress Like a Cow

We were invited by our neighbor in the Air Force to join her and her family on a tour of the Pentagon!

Friends from the neighborhood

This was such a fun opportunity!  We walked all through the Pentagon, and we got to see and hear about all branches of the armed forces.  Our tour guides were great and shared such interesting facts about the Pentagon, what goes on inside of it, and how 9/11 changed it.  Jackson really seemed to enjoy the tour, and Graham hung in there.  

Jackson noticed that the tour guides wore white gloves, and he found his Spiderman gloves in the dress-up area and proceeded to wear them for several days!

Today was also Dress Like a Cow Day at Chick-fil-a!  I couldn't have asked for a better decorating partner for our costumes than Jackson :)

The little cows!

Super cows!

Mommy and Daddy Super Cows!  We got lots of compliments on our costumes, and I am so glad I thought of a way to make our cow costumes just a bit unique!  It was really fun to see how other people made their costumes, and to watch the boys turn back into little boys as one spot at a time was found in various areas of the car and house...

Thanksgiving 2014!

 Just relaxing on Turkey Day :)

 Ready to get cooking!

 A break for a little wrestling...

Jackson put together all of these place card turkeys and wrote all of our names.

Using my grandma's china :)

Turkey, corn pudding, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, homemade biscuits, stuffing, peanut butter celery, green beans and cinnamon jell-o.  There was pumpkin pie and chocolate chip bourbon pecan pie for dessert.  Josh did most of the cooking, and he did an awesome job!

 We were SOOO happy to have Mimi and Bampa at our house to celebrate Thanksgiving!!!

 Mimi and the boys :)

 I am so thankful for my perfect, little family!

 Storytime before little guys' bedtime.  After the boys when to bed, we grown-ups had dessert and played a game before settling in on the couch with some football :) 

Mom agreed to go Black Friday shopping with me!  I went for the first time a couple years ago, and I had such a good time.  I was so glad she wanted to go too!  This picture is from the end of our time, but we had the most fun and luck at the big outlet mall near our house.

Pre-Vacation in Evanston

I didn't take any pictures with Mimi and Bampa or of any of the things we did!!!  I can still write about it, though :)  We got to their house on Sunday afternoon, and the weather was beautiful, so we headed over to Hackneys to eat on the patio.  This was the perfect dinner out to finish off an afternoon in the car.  Hackneys has a playhouse outside, and we got a table right by it!  The boys were super happy to go play while the grown-ups chatted.  We hit the ground right away with a day-long playdate with Brandi, Kaitlyn and Liam!!!  Jackson was SO excited for his Super Duper Sleepover coming up, and playing with KK and Liam was the perfect way to get even more excited :)  We played at Mimi and Bampa's house for the morning, then went over to Herm's for lunch, and then we laid the little guys down for a nap (Brandi babysits a little girl during the day) before taking K, L and J to the playground.  They played all around the playground, and we actually got a chance to start our catching up!  After Brandi loaded up the kids and went home, Mimi and I took the boys to visit Nan before meeting Daddy and Bampa for dinner.  

Tuesday morning, the boys and I headed out to see the Buerstattes' NEW HOUSE in ILLINOIS!!!  We could not be happier that they get to put down roots in their hometown and always be in town when we visit :)  The kids had a GREAT time checking out the toys, while I had loved taking the tour of their new beautiful home.  After heading home for naps and some relaxing, we met Bampa and Daddy at Lou's for dinner!  Bampa and Daddy got THREE days of golf in!!!  Mom and I went to see a movie that night :)

Mimi wasn't working on Wednesday, so we went to see Nan one more time, had some lunch and ran a ton of errands getting ready for the boys to go to the Buerstattes' and for us to leave on our trip.  The boys were troopers, and we got a TON accomplished!  Mimi and Bampa were nice enough to keep the boys while Josh and I drove out to meet Brandi and Scott for a double date!  We left Scott to give Josh a tour, including samples from his brewery, while I took Brandi for a pedicure as a belated birthday present.  We had SUCH a good time relaxing and chatting!  We went back to pick up the guys, and we headed out for delicious Mexican food and then some yummy Dairy Dream for dessert :)

Josh went off to do some geocaching yesterday morning (the second oldest in the country is in Elgin!), while the boys and I went to have breakfast with Bampa.  After breakfast the boys and I headed to Old Orchard to walk around and play outside at their really fun outdoor play area.  It was a beautiful day, and Bampa ended up joining us before we went to lunch.  I got the boys' things all packed during nap time, so after they were up, we drove out to the Buerstattes' and picked up pizza on the way :)  We all had dinner together and played before we laid the boys down (and nonchalantly said goodbye).  I was SO thankful Brandi was willing to have them spend the night on Thursday night too because it saved us a lot of tears with Graham!  

So, it was a whirlwind few days, but we got tons of time in with the Buerstattes and Mimi and Bampa :)

Super Bowl XLVIII

For the third year in a row, we had a wonderful Super Bowl party!  The Yanceys and the Bashores came over to eat, watch, laugh, and play!  When we started there were only five kids, and now there are eight!!!

 Josh and Joe built an awesome box fort, and our plan played out perfectly as the kids wanted to play down there the whole time!  

 There were all sorts of windows and doors!

I wish I had taken a picture of all of the delicious food we had!  Rachel and Jake made spinach dip, cheesy jalapeno poppers and Reese's cookie dough dip.  They were all YUMMY!  We made Crack Pretzels, Ham and Cheese Biscuit Roll-Ups, Bacon Cheese Crackers, Fat Dip (2 rolls of sausage, 2 cans of Rotel, 2 blocks of cream cheese and 2 blocks of chive and onion cream cheese all combined in the Crock Pot) and Nutella Brownies.

Obviously, the game was not awesome, and we were a little disappointed in the commercials, although there were some good laughs.  We all had a great time, though!

 Jackson was thrilled to score a Seahawks cookie at Wegmans today!

Graham enjoyed his Snickerdoodle (most importantly frosting-less) cookie!

Good Friends, New and Old!

We are some lucky people since we just took off for Evanston AGAIN! It hasn't been much more than a month since we left!  We are in town for my dad's retirement party, but we snuck in some visits with friends too!  The boys did SO WELL in the car!  We picked Jackson up from school on Wednesday and headed out.  We stopped for dinner and the boys slept most of the time after that.  We got into Evanston after driving for just under twelve hours--not too bad!

 Our first stop once we got to Mimi and Bampa's was meeting up with Kim and Baby Mia!  Jackson was super excited to meet Mia since he was too little to visit her in the hospital a month ago.  He wanted to hold her as much as possible :)  Graham didn't think too much of her, but he did enjoy the train table!  He was so cute standing there "playing" with the trains.

 Kim was amazing and helped keep an eye on Graham so I could snuggle HER baby! Such a good friend :)

 We headed back home to meet Josh and Larry at Herms for lunch--the first time Josh had had it since New Year's--it was a long time coming!  I escaped during naptime to get a manicure and pedicure--it was a lovely treat--and then we got to get ready for our date!  

We went out with Mom and Dad and Larry to celebrate Larry's and my birthdays--it was a really fun night and delicious food!

 On Friday we met up with the Buerstattes at Chick-fil-a!!!  We were SOOO excited to see them, play and catch up!  Kaitlyn, Jackson and Liam got to eat at a table all by themselves!

We got three out of the four in the picture...  

On the way home, we stopped at Barnes and Noble to spend a rainy afternoon playing at the train table, reading books, and drinking tea--Mimi was able to meet us there after work.  That night we FINALLY got some delicious Lou's pizza in our bellies :)

Date Knight at Chick-fil-a!

My handsome date for Mother-Son Date Knight at Chick-fil-a!!!  He was SOOO excited!  I made our reservations a couple of weeks in advance, but I went ahead and told him because I was so excited!  He kept checking the calendar to see if it was "6" yet :)

I didn't get a super great picture, but you can sort of see the cow on the right side--dressed as a knight of course!  The whole section in the back was reserved for this event, and it was all decorated to look like a huge castle!  It was amazing!

A view of the inside of our dining area

 Jackson and the knight

 Our reserved table :)  Complete with red tablecloth, special napkins and silverware, a shield for Jackson to decorate, special placemats, treats, and our name!

 Close-up of table decorations

  After dinner, everyone was brought ice cream!  We were thrilled!  There was even a special area with toppings galore!

  Jackson said, "Yes, please!" to everything except Skittles and worms

 Back home reunited with our junior knight :)  Yes, that is a tiara on my head and a flower corsage on my shirt!  Each mom received one of each upon checking in!  Jackson LOVED that I was a princess and he was a knight!  He received a goody bag on the way out filled with a Chick-fil-a cup, a bouncy ball, a pencil, a stuffed cow, a medieval horse figuring, and a plastic sword!!!  I received a flyer with date night ideas and coupons!

 Date Knight Still Life

We also received this framed print of the two of us minutes after the photographer took it!

Thanks, Josh, for hanging out with Graham so Jackson and I could have our special date!!!

My Kind of Eating Day

Yesterday we started with a Panera breakfast date with Mimi's friend, Terrie.  Again, it was so fun to share my boys with someone we have known for so long :)

After that we drove out to meet Jane, Alex, Alyssa, and Ashley for lunch at Woodfield at Red Robin--YUM!  We knew we were slightly crazy to attempt lunch there on a Saturday, but it was really the only day that ended up working.  They might have been able to seat all eight of us, but instead we sat at two separate booths and Ashley, Alyssa and Jackson sat together!  The girls were so good keeping an eye on him!

He loved getting some turns on the iPad :)

Eventually they were all on one side of the booth together!  Super cute!

Alex and Graham

Alyssa and Graham

I didn't even think of taking a picture, but my dad and I went out for strawberry shortcake at The Cheesecake Factory after we ate dinner together at home.  Their shortcake is SO good, and this has become a tradition with us.  It's always nice to just go out with my dad :)

Exploring The Exploritorium!

We were so excited to get to visit with one of my mom's very good friends, Ellen!  We met her at yet another Barnes and Noble in Chicago, and it was so nice to catch up!  I love sharing my boys with people that have been in our lives for a long time :)

 After lunch we headed to Skokie to check out The Exploritorium!  I have always heard of it, but never thought much about it.  WELL!  That was a big mistake--it is now on our To Do list every time we are in town!  It's only $3 for admission, and Jackson was kept busy for quite a while!  This picture above is my attempt at using the panoramic feature on my camera.  I think it actually worked out ok!  Basically, there is one large room broken up into different areas.  There is a huge water play area, dress-up, cars/trains, magnets, a huge Lite-Brite board, a toddler area, a climbing wall, some balance beams, and a huge area of tunnels, slides, and climbing area.  There is a gate separating the entrance foyer form from the actual play area, so the kids are actually enclosed the whole time.  You can't quite see everywhere from one spot, but it's not bad for keeping track of kids.

Jackson spent the majority of his time at the water play area.  There are little smocks for them to wear and hand dryers for when they are all finished.  There were many little nets and tons of squirty toys to fish out of the water table.  There was even a locks system to open and close.  I immediately bought some squirties when we got home and was thrilled to find little nets in the $1 section of Target!  They are all set in my bucket for pool toys for this summer :)

Fishing

Still fishing :)

Mimi and Graham hanging out!  Graham's shirt says "Grandma's Cozy Cabin."  Jackson had quite a few Grandma and Grandpa outfits that I'm trying to get use out of for Graham too!

Checking out the magnet table

Giant Lite Brite!

He made a "J!"

The dress-up area scenery was pretty neat.  There were several of these large panels, and they rotated on something like the spine of a book so the kids could flip between them.  The selection of actual dress-up clothes was a little disappointing, but I can only imagine how hard of a spot that is to keep fully stocked.  Jackson found a teeny camo jacket to wear :)

The weather finally warmed up a bit, so after another visit to Nan, we stopped at the playground that is shaped like a pirate ship near her house before meeting Bampa for dinner at Ted's Montana Grill.  This has become one of our favorite restaurants to visit when we are home.  The food is yummy, but they also don't cram as many tables as possible into the dining room, so I don't feel like we are bothering anyone with high chairs, two kids, stuff, etc. 

Graham was SO happy eating on this WHOLE trip! 

Jackson was really into the Wikki Sticks Ted's brings kids.  This was the first time they held his attention, and it was a nice change from the coloring pages most restaurants have (although those held his interest for longer this trip too).

Jackson became OBSESSED with the American flag on this trip.  He was ECSTATIC to have a little flag in his dinner when it came to the table! One happy little boy :)