Happy Anniversary, Nana & Poppy!
Today my parents have been married for 36 years! Whew.
Switching gears a bit, I thought I’d relieve everyone by letting them know that it seems my little snake friend has moved on. Perhaps he’s afraid I’d run him over with the lawn mower? (Sorry, PETA. I would have done [...]

I’m used to taking forever at the store. When you’ve got five children, how could it ever be a quick trip? Honestly, just buckling car seats and then situating everyone in (or around) the cart is exhausting.
So, I was giddy with excitement to do some real grocery shopping all alone today. Don’t get me wrong. [...]

I took Andy and Brady to the library the other day and (finally!) enrolled them in the summer reading program. We found out that Connor can participate, too.
Much to the boys’ delight, we also learned that they get a small prize for every five books that they read (or have read to them.) I wanted to [...]

Connor has recently had a renewed interest in potty training. I’m so busy that we haven’t had a “special potty day” again for him, but we’re instead just riding the wave, so to speak. Heh, heh.  I’m letting him go as often as he wants, offering much bribery encouragement, and praising him with high-fives and [...]

I’ve been putting off writing about this, because it just seemed like such a huge topic… But here goes!
We’ve known for quite some time that Brady had some sort of food allergy. He has had a million symptoms of food allergies basically his whole life, but we didn’t know what it was. Because none of [...]

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about ways to get my children to see the importance of service, specifically Christian service. We’ve been doing tiny things here at home, like actually serving dinner to siblings, etc., but I wanted it to sink in outside the home, too.
There’s a sweet older lady at church who has [...]

For Matt Bateman, Andy’s Coach and all you other White Sox fans:
 
Enough said.

Our house is in an uproar this weekend because the Cubs and Sox are playing the Crosstown Classic. Around here, it’s equivalent to the Civil War.
Though we live southeast of Chicago, we’re die hard north-side fans. We bleed Cubby blue.
We’re currently going through another round of the elimination diet to determine Brady’s food allergy. (We’re [...]

We mid-westerners have been recycling for a very long time… Longer than it’s been en vogue, that’s for sure.
When I was a kid, we sometimes rode our bikes around the neighborhood asking for everyone’s empty “pop” cans just so we could sell them to the local collector. I’m not sure what he did with them, [...]

We finally got around to taking a whole-family photo that includes Ferris. We needed an updated photo for a project I’m working on, so my mom took one some of us in our front yard on Monday and here it is…

My favorite part of this photo is that Brady and Connor (aka: oil and water) are [...]