CHI-Town

My friend and I drove to meet up with another friend in chicago for the weekend. I loved seeing this city so much! It's literally on lake michigan, and the views are just spectacular. They were not lying about it being the windy city either. The skyscrapers created a wind vortex between the buildings it was unreal! It was such a cool neighborhood city! The houses were so unique, 4 story homes with detached garages in the backyard, it definitely was a different feel. I also may or may not have eaten my way through the city :) chi-town is yummy :)
This place was one of my favorites, called mindy's hot chocolate, their post meal hot chocolate was to die for and their brussel leaf salad and meatballs were to die for!!! plus the ambiance was awesome! You could see the cooks through the open kitchen and the wall to the outside was a roll up one, so it was open and you could hear all the traffic, it was fantastic all around :)

We also ate at Giordanos pizza, which was chicago style deepdish, (cheese inside and sauce outside) It was also super yummy! Brunch is really a thing there, so we did brunch twice! The bongo room had awesome carmel pancakes and the 

had amazing organic blackberry lemonade and a Belgium berry waffle that I will dream about in my sleep for the next year...

We also had to do the classid chi-dog at weiners circle and molly's cupcakes too! Lets just say I had to take a much needed break from food when I got home...

We met a new friend Mo and she owned this sweet lil house actually large house, that we stayed in. It's 4 levels with a cute little backyard and garage behind the backyard and 2 sets of stairs on the inside! It was really like nothing I've seen before! She was the best!!!

 We were out enjoying the city and I snapped this photo... if you can look closely and zoom in there are little ballerina dancers in the 3rd story of the building in the middle :) It just made my heart happy to see those tiny little people doing bar in the middle of that big city just looking out over the hustle and bustle :)

 We went to a hilarious comedy club second city, where comedians train before they go to SNL. The whole premise of the show was fake id's on okcupid (a dating website) they made the Id's completely ridiculous and yet people were still interested! Their responses were the greatest! It was a great night of comedy and improv!

 The bean or (cloud gate) was an awesome sculpture! It had amazing views of the city skyline and Megan was just in love :)

this is our new friend's pic that we stayed with... She took this in the winter when no one was around,

it's from the side... super cool

 Meg took a few of these super cool shots while we rode the Ferris wheel on navy pier at night! It was beautiful and also sooooo windy!

 we even met some new friends along the way :)

 before we left we had a last minute urge to stick our feet in the beautiful white sandy beach at navy pier in lake Michigan. The water was so blue green and the sand was so white! It was freezing, but fantastic :)

 Good times for sure :)

March Madness

Here's a few random things we did in march! Our last snowfall for a while was a hit, the kids really will miss all the sledding and building snowmen. They have really loved the winters! Pheonix will be an adjustment for sure! We have loved going to the mizzou games here. We love all the gymnastics meets and will really miss that. We also hit up our first baseball game! The kids really loved it! As our time is coming to a close here I really am going to miss so many things. I love our grassy green yard with so much space to run and play, our swingset in the back and our cul-de-sac and wonderful neighbors. I will miss so much seeing Gram so often and being closer to Bre. It is just going to be very sad to leave here. I'm excited for change, but also just really sad :( Wherever we are we will be together so, that's whats really the most important. So life is good.

 meili being silly, she loves to be a clown

st paddy's was a hit!

I love her slobbery open mouthed kisses, they are just the best!!!

those days where you unconsciously color coordinate with your kids...

Lil Darc is 18 mo now and sometimes it's just going too fast that I just want to cry. I think about T going to school in a year and a half and it just being me and Darci and it makes me sad :( too big too fast...

some minutes are great! and some are like this... 

 I guess it happens to all of us right?!?

 had to snap a few precious photos :) Here's a few fun things about Darc: she loves to twirl when we put dresses on. She's super female with lots of pouty faces and folds her arms with her head down in a scrunchy face when she pouts! She hits things when she's  mad with lots of flailing of arms and throwing herself back on the ground :) She says, yes, hi, uhhoh, stuck, mommom, thank you with the sign, signs more please, nods yes and no and everything in between :) she gives lots of open mouth kisses that are sooo juicy, we do patty cake, piggys going to the market, she loves the sunbeam song, and the actions to bom stories! we also talk about and point to all of her features! She still loves shoes and used to crawl with them on herr hands, but now she just wears everyone elses and walks in them! She is just too precious and fun :)

 Meili was just tooo excited to do a gymnastics competition! She loved picking out a hair do and spraying sparkles in it! She did a great job on all 4 events and even got 4 little ribbons for participating. She was just too cute :)

 Big T is just too handsome. He is my buddy and I love it :) He turned 4 and we celebrated at Grams. Here's a few things about him :! His favorite color is green, he loves bowser, pokemon specifically megacharsard (medatardard)... he loves nerf gun wars and legos. He still like being a tiger and recently read our 'wheel of fortune' to us when we were out eating chinese! haha He's such a good big brother and I wish I could keep him with me forever, he's just such a happy joy to be around :) He loves to be silly, but is still so sensitive :) and he loves pinch rubs! He also still sleeps with his hands under his chin and pinkies on his top lip and I love it! :) I also kind of love it when he sneaks into bed with us overnight :) don't get any bigger buddy.

 We spent another weekend with gram and we just had the best time enjoying lifes simple pleasures :) Meili did some kite flying, they played and explored on the baseball field, they had tea parties, blew up balloons, we played cards and played in sand, gram told me stories on the deck of her early life, Jerry and Becky and Jen came in, Kai shot his first bunny rabbit with Uncle Jer, and T shot his first chocolate bunny with a pellet gun, we went out with everyone for a dinner, and even celebrated T's bday :) It was just a great time. Gram taught the kids how to play solitaire and they loved it! We really will miss precious time spent with her and we are so grateful to have been placed in an area where we could be so close to her :)

 these two!!! They just get each other on a different level...

This little buddy wanted a deer camo cake, but he wanted a buck that was black with a 4 on it! He LOVED it :)

 Gram's a special soul and it's always tough to say goodbye! Glad we get to see her a couple more times before we leave!

T actually turned 4 when we got home and I spent the day taking him to do his favorite things! We went to the dollar store and I let him pick out 4 things and some hellium balloons, he picked spiderman and a captian america one, (which was actually just an american flag balloon hahaha)  Then we went to the park and found 2 turtles in the lake and just watched them swim, we saw fish and ducks and he didn't want to leave. Finally after an hour I convinced him that we would see them again and we should go slide. Then after playing for a bit I took him to panera, he loves their broccoli cheddar soup! Then I took him to get his own cupcake from the cupcake place downtown, he picked tripple chocolate with a darth vader sticker on it :) He is THE BEST :)

 Later in the week we had dinner out and went to going bonkers to play. He had a great birthday week!