The Rays of Sunshine

We knew it was a long time coming, and the day is finally here. Derek started Kindergarten on August 13th. I have been a whole ball of emotions for about a week now. I did my best to arrange where I would be able to pick him up and have mommy/ Derek time, and when that fell through, I feel apart.  Not only do I have to send him to Kindergarten, but I also have to entrust other people to transport my son to daycare via school bus. This stirred us so many emotions, and I worked my way through them all up until 5:00pm on August 13th. It was much harder on me then it was him, as I wanted him to know how AWESOME he was and how he was going to do so great. Here we are buying school supplies. This was the lunch box he wanted.  The weekend before Kindergarten, we wanted to take Derek to his favorite spot- Kids Station.  He loves this place and played so hard for a solid 2 hours.  Sunday we did Kindergarten prep, ta...

In honor of Derek turning 6, we wanted to do something very special for his birthday. We decided to take a family trip to Dallas and do all the things a 6-year-old would love. We headed out Friday afternoon to begin our fun-filled weekend in Dallas, TX. We were all so excited, but 3 hours in a car is a very long time. We finally made it to the Rainforest Cafe. We were so happy to be out of the car.  The boys loved the atmosphere of the jungle.  They were not sure if the animals were real or not, but they warmed up to them quickly.  After dinner, we headed to our hotel, which Derek was really excited about.  The hotel was very underwhelming, but we made the most of it.  Saturday Morning we woke up to Derek and a stomach ache and I could tell this was not going to be the day we had planned.  We decided to skip the free breakfast, and headed to Denny's next door.  Derek was not feeling very well, ...

Look out terrible 2's here we come. We have not reached the 2-year-old mark, but the terrible 2 tantrums have set in. Dylan has to be held 90% of the time. If he is held, he is happy. You set him down, and he will throw a fit, I mean, in the floor, laying on his back, arms in the air, CRYING! He is gaining his very own personality, and if he does not like something he will tell you. On the other hand, he is a very happy baby. When he loves something, he is all in. Barney is the best example. This kid is always on the move. He will watch parts of TV, but we rarely see him settle in for a whole show. On occasion, Barney is the exception, but he pops in for his favorite parts. Dylan loves to wave bye-bye and play in the water puddles. We still read a story every night, and he knows the sounds of a cow, cat, dog, and we are working on a pig. He can't stay away from books, even at Target. Then last week I filled up their mini pool with water, and the ...

Sunday  Although Sunday was a good day, I think we were both ready to come home. We still had quite a few things left to do on Sunday, but the homesickness was setting in, at least for me. Derek has been sick the whole time we have been gone and only starting feeling better yesterday, so that was weighing on my mind, but I pushed that aside and we begin our last official day in Chicago.  Our plan was to go to Wildberries for breakfast but once we got there, it was an hour wait. So we begin to scramble to find another place to eat and discovered that a lot of eating places are closed on Sundays downtown. Out of no other options, we wind up eating in a hotel lobby, where we shared one of the most underwhelming breakfasts of the whole trip.  The breakfast potatoes were good, but hey, it fed us.  Today we had planned to visit the Shed Aquarium, the Science and Industry Museum, eat at Portillo's, and take in more of Chicago before we left.  We headed t...

If you don't already know, Derek is Best Friends with Ben Richie, and we had plans to meet up on Sunday evening at the park, but due to a huge thunderstorm, we had to reschedule for Wednesday night. We meet up with Ben and his mom, Amanda, and they had the best time. We went to a small park, which isn't very popular, so the boys had it all to themselves most of the evening. Ben brought them both snacks, and not 10 minutes into playing, he goes up to Amanda and says " you know,  I'm getting really hungry, can I have a snack?"  Please note, that we had eaten supper 20 minutes ago, but he saw the cookies and wanted them, clever Derek. He ate his snack and played with Ben.  A little later, Ben sat down for a break, and Dylan, who was on me all evening, gets down and goes to sit down by Ben. It was the most precious thing. I take out my camera to capture this special moment, and then the fun really started.  Derek wanted to see the picture, and then be...

Friday Friday Morning we headed back to Wildberries to get breakfast, but they were so busy we decided to walk around to see what else we could find. We didn't have much  luck so we stopped at McDonald's and had breakfast before we headed to:: My very first baseball game. We got to the park early because we wanted to explore this side of Chicago and mingle with ALL THE FANS, so we stopped at a restaurant/ bar, and had a drink before the game.  The seats were good, as we were in the shade the whole time. ( In a sea of blue and white, I think I was the only person in a pink shirt.) We were so excited to experience this together.  Let's play ball. The game was a lot of fun to attend. There were times where a lot was not happening, but it would change and become really fun. I loved watching all the other fans and their reactions. We enjoyed baseball field hot dog, with grilled onions and canned jalapenos, and it was really good. ...