She's 14!

14 years ago today I was in the hospital.  With a brand new baby. My first.

It was snowing, but NOTHING like it has been here the last few days.

I had a perfect baby girl, my first, who cried the entire night because she wouldn't eat.

Crazy stubborn back then too!  :-)

It's been a wild ride these last 14 years.

She's kept us on our toes.

She's tried every sport under the sun, literally.  Basketball, Volleyball, Softball, Track, and Cheerleading.

I'm glad she's settled on Cheerleading.

She's very good at it.

I'm so proud of her.  She's smart and maintains great grades, she's beautiful, inside and out, and she is a loyal friend. 

She can drive me INSANE with her stubbornness, but in the same breath make me laugh uncontrollably.
She has the quirkiest sense of humor, but she is SO FUNNY when she wants to be.

I lucked out getting a daughter like her. 

Happy Birthday Gracie.  We LOVE you!

What we did on a snow day

I can't remember EVER having this much snow or cold since the kids were little, or since I was little for that matter.

We had another day off school today.  Because of frigid temperatures.

Really stinks since this is the year they only built in one snow day instead of three like usual.
All the schools around closed, thinking of the kids that have to walk to school and be exposed to negative temps.

I do enjoy it, but my paycheck does not.

I was up by 7:25, and I wasn't very happy about it.  Brent had left for work, and I couldn't go back to sleep.

It's not that I couldn't leave the house for snow reasons, but I really didn't want to.

I did get some baking done, because the kids requested something sweet.

Took a trip to the post office to mail some etsy items, and encountered a very beautiful, but VERY FRIGID morning.

Even the snow drifts on the ditch looked cold.

I shoveled out the drive with Evan, and put Rudy in the garage on a pile of blankets because it's cold, and he deserves some warmth.

Hung out with Oreo

and had a mini Friends marathon.
I forgot how FUNNY that show used to be.

I even got our tax stuff for the farm, my etsy shop, and our general tax stuff organized and ready for our tax lady.  (God knew I needed some extra time for this!)

It was a relaxing day, and I'm wondering what will happen tomorrow. 
I really can't handle going to school through the first week of June.  We're already up to the 3rd. 

Yuck.

Warm air, wherever you are, can you send some our way?

Some Adult Time

This past weekend, we sent the kids to church snow camp, and we headed up on the train to Chicago to meet our cousins from Illinois.

We did this for the first time last year when the kids went to snow camp.

It was supposed to be to celebrate our anniversary, which is in Sept.

Last year we had such a good time, we decided to do it again.

So, we packed up the kids and us, had Grandparents shuttle them to and from the church, and we drove ourselves to the airport to catch the train.

Unfortunately the kids didn't get to go tubing in the snow (remember, we had just had a blizzard, and there was a TON of snow) because while we were gone, it started to warm up, and rain came, and then turned to ice, and made it too dangerous.  Bummer for them.

In the meantime, we arrived in Chicago and proceeded to have a great time with our cousins, Brad and Sally.

We went to restaurants that would be too expensive to take the kids to with us, and we went shopping at places that wouldn't interest them...save for the LEGO store where we happened upon this...

Since Ev is such a HUGE Iron Man fan, he was a little jealous.

Our hotel was located right in the heart of downtown...3 blocks from Michigan Ave...and about 3-4 blocks from everything else important.

Bloomingdales was our neighbor...

and so was every quaint little restaurant, grocery store, or 3 story brownstone.  (Made me rekindle memories of when I desperately wanted to live in one of those quaint little brownstones...still kinda do...)

They even had one particular restaurant for the bacon lover...

We didn't go though.  Instead we hit up Webers Grill, P.F. Changs, and a hole in the wall mexican place called Su Casa.

Oh, and we frequented Starbucks quite often.

Our weekend went both fast and slow, and I was a little happy to have my head hit my own pillow when we got home.

We had great weather (in the 40's...a heatwave from the negative temps just earlier in the week), and great company.

Makes me ready to take the kids back for our annual summer foray into the city for a White Sox game.

Hope your weekend was tops too.