If it makes him happy...

Ali's discovered that sometime it's easier to just humor Jake than to make him go away.

Happy Birthday Eli

Eli is 7! We are sure lucky to have this fun, smart, happy, silly, kind boy in our family! He got to take some friends to play lazer tag for his birthday party. He requested a cake with stick figures shooting lazer guns at each other:)

Mason (neighbor), Keegan (church friend), Anvith (school friend), and Marshall (not pictured, church friend) helped to celebrate.

Then on Sunday we celebrated with Amy, Steve and Paige. The legos, pokemon cards, and race track were all a huge hit (I think his family knows him!).

Happy Birthday Eli!

Mustache

Misters Mustache

Jake Days

I decided that at least once a week I should take Jake somewhere fun during the day. He spends most of his days running errands with me, going to my presidency meetings, religion classes, or whatever, so he deserves to do something fun every once in awhile. Here are some of our recent outings:

He earned a free pass to the Children's Museum in Naperville. We used to have a pass years ago, but he's never been there and he loved it. I was glad it was just me and him because he ran all over the place! He did love the air parts and stayed put there for quite awhile.

Cantigny had hay rides one day, and this boy LOVES hay rides, so we went there and did a few back to back rides.

The Brookfield Zoo has free days sometimes, so we took advantage of one of the last 70 degree fall days and spent the morning running around looking at the animals.

On a funny side note, I've never taken a selfies until recently. Jake will not stand still and smile for a picture (plus somehow it's a little sad to have only one little friend in the shot), but if I take a selfie (so he can see himself on the camera) he stands still and grins. So you may see more pictures of me in the future:)

Shedd Aquarium

Grandma and Grandpa visited in September both on their way to and from my brother's house in Virginia, but never on a weekend day. Because of that the older kids weren't going to get to spend much time with them, which I decided was unacceptable. So one weekday we pulled them out of school and went downtown to the Shedd Aquarium. I wondered if they would like it because they have never been a fan of zoos, but they loved it!

When we got there we went right to the dolphin show. Jake was sitting on my lap, and he looked up at me and said, unprompted and unquestioned, "Like it!" So cute.

This cute manatee kept coming up close to us, turning to look at us, and talking to us! Cool!

Petting the sting rays was a highlight.

And so was the shark viewing area.

Great day!

Group Shots

Here are the group shots I loved.

I sure do love this family of mine!

Kids Photos

In the end, these are the ones I loved of my kids. I used the first of each for my wall.