Spring Break '16!

In the basement of the Sears (Willis) Tower

Exploring the "Bean"

Family Bean Time

Navy Pier

Gardens inside Navy Pier

Mel is proud of her first lollipop, Joey is proud of his new puppy

I'm sure Jeff's having more fun than it looks

Legoland!

In the jungle at Legoland

I love the look on Joey's face

All kinds of Legoland fun!

Intense game-playing with Becky

We made a whirlwind trip to Chicago over the second weekend of Spring Break.  The break itself was cobbled together with school Access Days, a sleepover at Gigi & Poppy's, having a neighbor sit for a few hours one day, and with my cousin Erica another day.

We left on Friday afternoon and spent two nights in Schaumburg.  The hotel pool, as always, was a big draw; we visited it at least 5 times.  We had a few good meals, spent all day Saturday downtown Chicago, showing them our old apartments, and then visiting Sears Tower (I still can't call it Willis - but Joey calls it Serious Tower, which is way better), Millenium Park, and Navy Pier.  Sunday we visited Legoland and then met Becky & Jeff for lunch at Portillo's.  All in all, many Chicago highlights were covered in well under 48 hours!

Easter

Birthday present from Grandma

An attempt to get a pic with the pretty church flowers

Happy Easter from 801!

While Mom's inside getting food ready.....

We spent Easter in Frankfort at Gigi & Poppy's with Julie & Brant this year.  As is evidenced by the pictures, Joey continues his love for getting cleaned up for church and special occasions....

Birthday Party

To celebrate Melanie's birthday (of course the celebration deserves its own post!), we booked a room at the Staybridge Suites in Carmel.  I chose this hotel because it not only has a pool (and hot tub), but also has a movie room.  Melanie invited her two cousins, and two friends from school, to stay the night.  What I thought was a great deal for 20 hours of entertainment turned even better when we got our room for free because of a booking error.  We ended up with a king-sized bed and a pull-out couch (instead of 2 queens plus the pull out).  The girls had a great time, and there were a LOT of laughs and shenanigans.  There were five trips to the pool -we closed it on Saturday night and opened it on Sunday morning!  We watched Hotel Transylvania 2; after some equipment errors about an hour in at the screening room, we finished the movie in the room.  I ended up with the king-sized bed to myself - although of course I didn't sleep much due to checking on my charges all night!  It was a perfectly-chosen group of girls who got along great and had a lot of fun!

The boys joined for some swimming

Movie room.  There were 7 chairs, but this is how they piled in

This may or may not have been at 11pm.

Dear everyone here, just so you know, you are the coolest people ever.
Your BFF, Melanie

All but one of them actually slept on this foldout bed

Breakfast Sunday morning

Joey - Tutoring

The first candy he earned at tutoring - week one!

Joey & Ms. Judy

Joey asked Ms. Judy to take & send this the week of 3/14/16

To kick off the second semester of kindergarten, we decided to have Joey meet with a tutor.  I contacted Union's reading specialist, who put us in touch with Ms. Judy, who I emailed and spoke with on the phone.  We agreed to a once a week, hourly session on Monday afternoons when Joey would typically be in "Bridge."  At their first session, I received a text with a picture of Joey enjoying himself, and have received a couple since then, so I wanted to highlight them here.  The one-on-one attention has really helped Joey blossom in his interest for reading and writing; the best investment I've made!  He also spent a few weeks going to a special reading group with the reading specialist during class, and quickly "graduated" from that extra attention.

As a side story, when Ms. Judy sent her first report, I forwarded it to my mom to also assess that we were making progress, and my mom put the pieces together that Ms. Judy is a friend of hers who used to live and work in Frankfort.  Small world indeed! (Ms. Judy and I both have different last names now, so we didn't put this together ourselves)

Happy 8th Birthday!

Melanie Grace turned EIGHT!  At eight, Mel loves baby dolls, her little brother, movies, playing outdoors, riding her bike, she finished the full season of Fuller House the day it was released, is in her school's choir, is taking swim lessons at Carmel High School, is in gymnastics, loves to FaceTime with her grandparents, and wears her heart on her sleeve.  We can't wait to see what the next eight years hold!

Posing by the official school announcement

Birthday Money!

Birthday lunch at school

The birthday girl chose Stone Creek for her birthday dinner

Joey was excited for the dinner mints

Birthday present came to dinner with us too

S'more cake!

February 2016

Random lunch at school pic

Friends at the Dads' Club Breakfast (not sure who is on the far right)

Sleepy kids after a great birthday party

The kids had friends move in February; the K class made a photo project for Jack as a goodbye present.  I thought this was too cute to not share

Free day away from school

School was randomly canceled one day because of a water main break.  We made the best of it by going to lunch, visiting the Pyramids, and enjoying ice cream.  

At Molly's play, we had a celebrity seatmate - Matt Painter

Molly did a great job in "Stuart Little"

2nd grade Vocabulary Parade - Mel was "Comfortably," dressed in pajamas, a robe, and slippers

Napping in a bean bag on a trampoline