Home

There is no place like home and I am so glad to be in my own bed! I have actually been sleeping at night, better than the hotel, and not so creeped out but up to my eyeballs in laundry. =) Even though the hotel had all of our clothes laundered and they were clean when I brough them home I still felt the need to bleach, wash, and have the rest dry cleaned.

Here is a picture of the girls with their new gifts from the hotel manager...

Anthony of course spent the weekend mowing, taking care of ant hills, and weeds that have taken over our yard since we were gone so long. Now things are slowly getting back to normal but just for short amount of time because we are heading to NY soon. Which I am looking forward too but you better believe I will check my hotle room from top to bottom.

More Chicago Pics

The girls watching the Air Show from the Beach.
Lula dancing in the street to a live band playing. What a sweet picture!
Phoebe copying her big sis and dancing too!

....and of course dancing with daddy!

Eating at the Cheesecake Factory...yummy!

Watching Fireworks on the Navy Pier.
Sitting with Daddy anticipating the fireworks show.

Pic of the parents....who are those adults with kids??

Stopping by the Hershey Shop to smell the yummy candy and just look at it of course. =) The kids did get to sample a new Hershey kiss.

We visited the Lincoln Park Zoo and the animals were a little nervous because of the all the Air Show activity that weekend, but very nice zoo and it was free!

We still had the key to our old bug invested room and we were shocked to see what they had done to the room.. we took a picture because it was such a mess. We went back to look for a bag were I had purchased something, no such luck. Oh well.

Here we are eating at a great local place called the Regale Beagle, it is a 70's & 80's type place. Played great music and the girls first time eating Chocolate Fondue.

So we are getting close to packing up and heading home. Tomorrow I am taking the girls to the Navy Pier one last time and to try some of Garrett's Popcorn. Some of the locals tell us it is just as much as a Chicago thing as deep dish. So we will try it out and let you know. Besides the last several days we have a great time here in the Windy City but no place like home.

BTW...Lu is doing great and does not complain about her ear except that it itches occasionally. It is looking and healing wonderfully. We will do a follow up with her pediatrician when we return home.
Also wanted to ask to pray for the renters in Anthony's dads house....they have four children including a set of twins. One of the twins was diagnosed today with Cerebral Palsy at the very young age of about 7 months old and will be in a wheel chair when she gets older. Please pray for this family.

Week 2 in Chicago

Okay can I just say that the last couple of days have been rough. We got off to a smashing start here in the Windy City but the last three days have been.... not sure the right words to sum it up. I guess interesting, stressful, and can you say hibbie jibbies!! First of all Lula tripped and fell into the corner of a marble planter box in the lobby of the hotel and off to the ER we went. Needless to say we returned home 6 hours later exhausted and about 15 stitches in Lu's ear by a plastic surgeon. She is fine but what a whirl wind!! She was so upset and I managed to not cry until she was on the sleepy juice. She is now doing great and expected a full recovery. Yeah and Praise GOD!!!
So we were all still recouping from that ordeal when Anthony noticed just a few bug bites on him the following day. He just thought maybe from being outside...think again! I am a huge fan of Embassy Suites but this one has not lived up to our expectations as well as the others and now there were BED BUGS in our room and eating on us in the middle of the night. Can I just add that no amount of hot water, changing rooms, and having all of our belongs laundered will give me a piece of mind. The hotel staff tells us this is their "first incident" yeah right but they did move us and have been very generous with us to correct the situation. Thankfully the girls and I did not get one bite on us...but poor Anthony suffered pretty bad with well over a hundred bites on his body, even on his eyelid. He is itchy and miserable, poor thing. Not sure why they liked him and no us girls but I still can not stop being itchy and having the hibbie jibbies! On top of it all Anthony lost his cell phone in a cab during all the chaos and had to disconnect the service to the phone. So the last few days have been interesting and the entire hotel staff knows the family really well with Lu getting hurt and then the bed bug incident. I do hope the next few days will be incident free and let me just add that we still feel so blessed and things could always be so much worse. =) It was a weird Birthday for me but tomorrow Anthony is taking the girls and I am going shopping by myself and really looking forward to it because of all the many stores on the Magnificant Mile. Here are a couple of pics of Lu in the hospital.

Lula with Polar Bear with a hurt ear too! It was sweet because they told her that when she goes to sleep they will fix polar bears' ear as well.

Lula playing doctor!

Lula still feeling the effects of the drugs and not sure what Phoebe is doing in the picture, I think she is attempting to smile.

The last few days have not been a total bust because we did go to the Lincoln park Zoo, watched the Air show, fireworks, and live music complete with dancing in the streets. I will post those pictures very soon. Until then.....

First Week in Chicago

I just love this picture of the girls riding the Ferris Wheel on The Navy Pier in Chicago. We are having a blast our first week here but are very tired. I was lucky enough to have Auntie Brittany join us for the week and she has been a fabulous help with the girls. Seriously it was like I had a live in Nanny.....I want one for my Birthday. =) She sadly had to leave but we enjoyed here company and this was her first time to Chicago.

Since we have been here we have explored many wonderful aspects of this great city. The Navy Pier, Deep Dish Pizza, The Field Museum, Wrigely Field, Millenium Park, The beachs, Sears Tower (now called Willis Tower), and so much more. The flight here was pretty good and it was Phoebe's first time on an airplane. We are having a blast and look forward to what the next week will bring.

The video is a little long but cute!

There are so many pictures to choose from but here are some that made the cut. ENJOY!!

This & That

Please excuse the dead grass but wanted to post some pics of the front of the house. My poor bushes that lined my front porch were dying and needed to be removed but the good news is once we removed them you can see all the stone columns that hold up the wrap around porch. After the removal I was very pleased with the out come. I think smaller bushes need to go there eventually unless we sell the house first.

Being silly at the doc appointment yesterday. God is great that baby is healthy and the pregnancy is going wonderfully!!

Here are my news cutrains that I was happy with. =)


This was too cute! We went in to check on the girls before we went to bed and on the night stand we found a little campout with her dollhouse people. Everyone in the family was represented, even the baby in mommy's belly. It was so sweet. I asked her about it the next day and she said we were camping as a family and she pulled the covers off the mommy and daddy to show the baby in the mommys' belly and in another voice she said " cover us up we are cold". I just love the imagination and you never know what will come out of their mouth. It always puts a smile in my heart.

Birthday Pictures

Doctor Visit, Harpers Visit, & Birthday Weekend

I liked these pictures of the girls at the park, it really shows their personalities.

Both girls had their 2 and 4 year appointments last week. Here is Lula sporting the pirate look while getting her eyes and ears tested.

The Harpers came to visit for the weekend and to celebrate Lu's Birthday with us. This was the only picture of all of us together Friday night for dinner. The picture below is of the kids dancing at an outdoor concert.

Saturday morning Kathy and Marley accompanied us to a Laurens' birthday pool party. It was a lot of fun but you can see our children in the background not interested in getting their picture taken.
Here is the sweet and excited Birthday Girl right before the party.

Here is a picture of the kids in their new tie-dyed shirts from the birthday party before they left to go home from a fun filled weekend. Thank Harpers for coming and celebrating with us. A BIG THANK YOU to Kathy, which I could not have done the party without her!!! We had so much fun as always.

I will post the party pics later due to technical difficulties.