4th of July

We spent 4th of July weekend @ my Mom's house this year! It was so much fun just hanging out & relaxing with my family. Olivia mastered swimming all by herself & we spent a lot of time at the park next door to Nana's house. On 4th of July we celebrated with a family BBQ and fireworks :-) We ate delicious hot dogs with every topping you could imagine! We also celebrated my brother's 13th Birthday with the extended family (since his Birthday is July 10th). It was a great weekend and the girls and I were so excited that it was the last weekend with Daddy gone @ OCS.

Olivia showing off her patriotism

Little Miss Independent

Mommy & the girls

Aunt Kate & Olivia

We thank God everyday for the freedoms we so easily take for granted living in America. And we are so proud of Brian serving our country as a United States Marine. We missed you Daddy & hope to spend the next 4th of July with you!!!!

Mall of America

Over Father's day weekend the girls & I went on a little road trip with my family. Our destination: Mall of America :-) We drove the 6 1/2 hours (7 1/2 with stopping) to Minnesota to the famous gigantic mall! The girls did so well in the car for such a long period of time; they really surprised me. The mall is absolutely enormous! It is 4 floors of shopping, restaurants, and activities all centered around an indoor amusement park. We had so much fun!! We went to as many stores as we could fit into the three days we were there. I made sure the girls had fun by taking them to the Lego store, The American Girl store, & Brooklyn even had her first trip to

Build-a-bear.

Here are some pictures from our trip....

The girls & I shopping.

Olivia was thrilled to meet "the real Dora the Explorer"

& her best friend Boots!!

The girls love the Wonder Pets, but Brooklyn preferred them at a distance.

Aunt Kate bought them the Wonder Pet capes @ the Mall of America

& they dress-up as these two characters (Olivia is Linny the "ginny pig" as she calls him & Brooklyn is Ming-Ming the duck) all the time!! It's adorable!!

Olivia really enjoyed the amusement park.

Brooklyn & Nana watching Livie on the rides.

Brooklyn with the dog she made @ Build-a-bear with Aunt Kate & I while Olivia went to the amusement park with Aunt Taylor & Uncle Denton.

The whole group @ Mall of America.

(We missed you Brian)

Mommy & the girls.

Thanks Mom for planning such a great family vacation!! We can't wait for the next one!!

Olivia's Recital

Olivia had her first ballet recital a couple weekends ago!! She looked absolutely adorable in her costume and ballerina bun :-) The recital was two days & she was in a total of 4 dances including the finales. I am so proud of her for getting up there and being so brave at such a young age. Her class is made up of girls ranging in ages from 3-5, but she is one of the youngest girls. Our families came to the Saturday performance & a little celebration party afterwards that we had at our house. On Sunday, my sister Katie & I went with Brooklyn to Olivia's recital. Unfortunately, Brian is away training and missed the recital (which completely devastated him when he found out that he was going to miss it), but I ordered the professional taping of the show so he can watch it when he gets home.

Olivia loved the whole recital experience from getting to wear makeup (so their little faces didn't get washed out by the stage lights) to being handed flowers from everyone afterwards. For those of you who don't already know, Olivia has quite the vocabulary (sometimes Brian and I are speechless with her unique choice of words). Before heading to the recital she requested that after she performed on stage I would shout "Bravo Olivia" (her exact words lol). So, we were all yelling "Bravo Olivia" at her request & I decided to get her a big cookie cake with "Bravo Olivia" written in frosting on it for dessert.

These are pictures I took before Saturday's recital of our little ballerina....

Olivia meeting up with her class before the recital.

Saturday's recital:

(Olivia is all the way at the end to the left)

And Saturday's finale....

After the show on Saturday....

The celebration continued back at our house....

These are pictures before Sunday's recital....

Kate, Brookie, & I waiting for the show to start.

Sunday's Recital:

(Olivia is at the end on the left)

Only 4 girls from her class performed on Sunday & Olivia was the only 3

year old (the other girls are all 5).

And Sunday's finale....

The notorious "AY-YA"

I have been meaning to post this for months now....

Brooklyn is growing up so fast & talking nonstop (which seems to be a dominate gene in our family lol). She started saying Olivia's name a few months ago & it is absolutely adorable how she calls for her sister all the time- it's the first thing she says in the morning & anytime Olivia is out of her sight. The girls are two peas in a pod & I love it more everyday :-) The funny thing is that Brooklyn refers to Olivia as "AY-YA." It is hilarious! And the funniest part is that when Olivia first learned how to say her own name (when she was around Brooklyn's age) she also referred to herself as "AY-YA"!! I guess to them "AY-YA" & Olivia are one in the same;)

Celebrating Father's Day

Since Brian was going to be away at Officer Candidate School (OCS) over Father's day, we decided to celebrate it the weekend before he left. We went to a big outdoor mall by our house that we have been wanting to visit. We walked around and shopped a little bit before having a nice lunch together as a family. When we got home we gave Brian his Father's day present, which seems to be this year's themed gift....TOMS!!

Summer is here

Boy have we have been busy this summer!! Finally, the Chicago heat kicked in & we have been outside as much as possible. There is nothing like a Chicago summer with the backyard BBQ's & the summer thunderstorms at night to cool off a hot humid day. We have been enjoying the summer by doing everything from going to the zoo to swimming in Nana's pool.

We celebrated my sister Taylor's 19th Birthday by having a scary movie marathon! She loves horror films so we decided to each pick our favorite scary movie & spend a whole day watching them along with some popcorn & candy. It was a lot of fun!! Then, we gave her Birthday presents, which of course Katie & I had to welcome her to the TOMS family!

My Mom, Katie, & I went on a girl's weekend trip to Vegas to celebrate Katie's very belated 21st Birthday (she will be turning 23 this year). We couldn't go away for her real 21st Birthday because I was pregnant with Brooklyn in my 3rd trimester. So, this year we made it happen & enjoyed a nice relaxing weekend shopping & sitting by the pool.

Getting ready to go to Nana's house....

A day at Brookfield Zoo with our friends Cassie & Addisyn....

Swimming in Nana's pool....

The girls swimming @ Nana's....

Our Anniversary

On our anniversary this year Brian planned a fun day of museum hopping in downtown Chicago for the two of us. It was so much fun to go to the museums, because we hadn't been there since we were kids. First, we went to the Museum of Science & Industry where we visited exhibits about everything from weather to trains to genetic engineering. They even had an actual submarine in the museum!

Next, we went to Loyola University's (where Brian attends school) Museum of Art (LUMA). Brian had gone their before as a mandatory visit for one of his Theology classes & couldn't wait to take me there to see the amazing art. We took a tour of the museum, which consisted of learning all about the art that was created during the Medieval, Renaissance, & Baroque time periods all revolving around Christianity. The art was absolutely incredible!! I really enjoyed LUMA. Then, we went to lunch at Ditka's Restaurant, a sports bar/restaurant that is in Chicago. Neither of us had ever been there before so we were excited to go there, because it is owned by the Chicago Bears former coach Mike Ditka. The restaurant was decorated in Chicago sports memorabilia & the food was awesome.

We ended the day by going to the Adler Planetarium. After walking around & viewing all of the exhibits we went to one of the shows called "Journey to the Stars" that was really cool, because the screen was on the ceiling and had images taken directly from space telescopes.

It was a great day celebrating 6 years together & getting to spend time together doing something out of the ordinary.

Inside the Museum of Science & Industry by a train exhibit.

Outside our second stop- LUMA.

The Adler Planetarium where we didn't get to take our picture outside,

because it started to rain.