Of friends and Luminaries

 Look who came to visit his favorite Aunt Julie???

 Jon and Mel are in town for Christmas.

How I love it when they are home.

Jonas needed a special hug from Daddy. ;)

I think Jonas was a little apprehensive of all these crazy people at first.

 

Little Madelyn.

 

What a cutie!!

 

Look at those eyes!

 

The girls are paying a little more attention to each other now.

And the Mommy's have decided that all they need for Christmas are bags and boxes. No toys.

Hear that Grandma?? ;)

 We tried to get a group picture.....but well our photographer wasn't quite cooperating with us.

Thanks Maddie.

I love my babies.

 Maddie was having fun with the sled tonight.

Tonight was our first luminary night in the neighborhood. It's something I have wanted to do for years. I am glad we took the time to do it this year. I am even more thankful for good neighbors to do it with.

Maybe next year we can get the rest of the neighbors into it. It's such a great opportunity to meet the neighbors.

 

 

 

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas Season.

It seems a little less hectic this year then past years. I am so thankful for that.

 

A trip to Chicago

Yesterday we were able to sneak away with my family to Chicago. We were blessed with nice weather. We walked Michigan avenue and State Street and just had a wonderful day.

We ate lunch at this little chic restaurant across from the art gallery called Cosi. It was delicious. They had a new fangled pop machine which was a little box where all you did was push a button and your pop came out. ( I was going to take a picture and then I forgot! )

1 thing I will remember of the day is Jonathan dancing on the sidewalk for money....which he got....from Hunny.....who then asked for his money back.... ;)



Don't ask..... :)






My parents were engaged on the top floor of the Prudential building in the 60's. At that time, the Prudential building was the tallest building in Chicago with about 40 floors. They wanted to visit it again yesterday, but it is no longer open to tourists. When we went to the lobby, the security guard said we were about the 5th group that day who came in wanting to visit the building.













We went to Maggiano's for dinner. We had a lovely time together. It is so good to sit around a table and just laugh with each other.




This picture of Joanna STILL makes me laugh. She started busting up at something she and Jessica were talking about and didn't realize she had a giant wad of lettuce stuck in her teeth. The whole table just roared in laughter. Good times....


We also celebrated my Birthday. What a better way to celebrate then with those you love so dearly.


The piece of cake they brought out was MASSIVE and fed our entire table. It was so rich and chocolaty and YUMMY!!!!

Of Birthdays, tickle tortures and coffee dates

Today is my Brother Jonathan's bday. I so wish him a very happy bday!

I wish today above all else we could celebrate with him. But I am looking forward to Christmas this year since they will be coming to visit!!! ( I think we should start a count down!!)




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Dear Jeff. I just want you to know that that you are not the only one that Jeremy has tormented. And here is proof. I have always heard of the infamous....he pinned me down and tickled me till I stuttered........and Sat night while I was in the kitchen, I heard Jeremy taking to Brother. I walked into the living room and this is what I saw. And I heard him telling Brother about how he used to do this very thing to Jeff. And how Jeff doesn't stutter now. :) It made me laugh. I thought you might get a kick out of it.



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I love to read Blogs. You can learn about so many different people and actually learn some things from reading about other people's lives.

I can't tell you when I found Liz's blog. But I was instantly drawn to her. She was quickly on my list of blogs I check routinely.

One day she posted about a trip to an apple orchard that she went on with her kids. The orchard looked awful familiar! I messaged her and through the course of our conversation we found out that we live so very close to each other and we both frequent the orchard often!!

As we continued to talk, she realized that she KINDA knew who I was because she was already friends with my sister Joanna!

AND

her sister and brother in law go to my Dad's church, and Joanna and I went to school with her Brother in law!

What a crazy small world!

We of course made plans to actually meet and last night I was able to meet Liz.

Joanna, Liz and I met at our local Starbucks, which we all L.O.V.E!!

We talked and talked and talked. Conversation flowed easily and we were shocked at the time when they "kicked" us out b/c the coffee shop was closing!

I think I could have stayed and talked with her another couple hours.

It's so very cool how God brings people together and I hope that a lasting friendship was formed last night!



Another highlight of my night was being able to sneak and meet Hunny on his dinner break. :)

Guess what?!?!?!

I'm going to be an aunt.

I am so very very excited.



Now if there was just some way to tie them up and ship them here forever, it would be perfect.

I mean what could be better but 5 built in babysitters??? And by the time the baby is older the cousins will be old enough to babysit.

Jonathan and Melanie. I am so very happy for you.

They could have date nights whenever they wanted!!!!

Jonathan

Jonathan and Melanie married a year ago May. This past June, Melanie kissed her husband and sent him off to Iraq.

He will be there for anywhere from a year -14 months.

Although, I miss him like crazy, I am so VERY proud of him. He is sacrificing so much for his country, for me and for you.

Please pray for him. Pray that God keeps him safe, and that God gives him added strength and grace to get through these long months.

I stole these pictures from my Brothers Facebook page. :)