memorial day weekend

thursday, may 24th was our last day of school. it was a very bittersweet day for me. this class has been a pure joy to teach. i have loved every single day of my year coming to work and teaching my third graders. it has been a breath of fresh air and something that was hard to say goodbye to. this class will remain close to my heart and will be dearly missed! we had planned a long weekend of friends and fun to celebrate our last day of school and the start to our summer. we drove lilian up to st. joe on thursday after school to meet grandma, grandpa (and surprise mystery guest, cousin lauren who was hiding in the backseat!) they took lilian back to iowa to spend the long weekend with them. lilian adores going to iowa and was looking forward to it for the past month. we are lucky to have an amazing family to love and care for her while we enjoyed some couple time and friend time. that night we met up with our jwe friends at rumor's to celebrate the school year and welcome summer.

the following day, friday, brian and i enjoyed doing all the small things that become much harder with a two year old. we slept in a little later, took longer getting ready, and then headed to a nice lunch at granite city. we then went shopping at the legends and looked around nebraska furniture mart. we called this our anniversary day (our 4th wedding anniversary was on may 17th). later, we went out to town center and walked around, shopped, and had our favorite for dinner, mexican. it was a great day! we haven't spent a day like since before we were parents, i kind of forgot what that felt like! saturday morning we woke up early and met jill and mike and wes and emily at jowler creek winery just outside of weston. we had planned a little couples get away and started our day off here. the wine was delicious! i highly recommend this winery. it was a couple's home who started their own winery on their property and made it a success!

jill, mike, wes, me, me, brian before starting the winery tour

enjoying the wine!

we loved several of the selections and bought a few bottles to enjoy.

after the winery tour and tastings, we drove further into weston. we decided to have lunch at a little hole in the wall bar called the bunkhouse. brian loves these types of places so he was definitely in his element. they had a jukebox and we played all our favorite (mostly country) tunes during lunch. the food was all fried and amazing! ha!

after the bunkhouse we headed into weston and checked in our rooms. then we walked around the downtown area and went into the little shops. they have such a cute, quaint downtown area. then we all got ready for dinner and had dinner at one of their nicer restaurants, called the avalon. afterwards, we went for drinks at their famous irish pub and ended our night at rj's! with all of us having kids now it was a needed little getaway to catch up and enjoy each other's company. i loved every minute of it! so thankful for wonderful friends!

toasting with our irish coffees!

ending our night at rj's

cheers to a great night!

meanwhile, back in iowa lilian was having a ball at grandma/grandpa camp! the twins of course entertained her for most of her visit too. the first night lauren slept over and the girls took a bath together and grandpa let them borrow his shaving cream! i wish i could have seen this in person!

i can only imagine the giggles going on in this picture! love these two together!

pj time!

lilian had another first while in iowa on her visit, riding (well sitting on) grandpa's horse, kate. she sat with grandpa and seemed to like it they said until kate moved and then lilian's response was, "i too little" and wanted off, ha! here is a cute picture of the kids walking to ride kate and visit grandpa while he was working on the farm.



fotz members and royals

introducing the newest friends of the kc zoo members...us! :) the kansas city zoo had a great special going on for jackson county residents and we could not pass it up. lilian takes after her daddy and loves the zoo! i think brian will work there when he retires, he loves going as much as lilian, it is adorable. she is obsessed with the carousel! good thing our membership includes unlimited train, tram, and carousel rides. we will be getting our use out of it this summer! just something small that will make us happy! so, saturday we spent a beautiful day at the zoo as a family.

we started our day at the sea lion show

her favorite thing at the zoo, riding the pretend animals! ha!

we were excited to get so close to the elephants today!

waiting to get on the train, she was a little scared of the tunnel at first!

checking out all the kangaroos with daddy

notice her appropriate attire!

2nd ride of the day!

saturday night we went to greg and jenny's house for a bbq. greg has been our principal at jwe for the past six years and as most good things do, his time with us has come to an end. he has been asked to move schools next year and will no longer be with us. it was definitely a tearful goodbye at school as he has been one amazing person to work with! he was so sweet and opened up his home for the whole staff to come over with their kids and enjoy a fun, laid back bbq. he will be greatly missed at jwe!

best buddies, amelia and lilian, in deep convo at the bbq

sunday we continued our fun weekend by going to our first royals game of the season with the ackersons. my grandparents had originally asked us to go but decided it would be too much walking in the heat so were generous enough to give us the four tickets. we were excited that colleen and drew were able to join us. we are blessed to have such a fun couple to hang out with all the time! we love them. we had a wonderful time soaking up the sun and enjoying the day. we even got a royals win!

we ended our weekend with our sunday dinner at my parents house. the weather has been amazing so we grilled out! i had to include this cute picture of curtis and sis!



mother's day weekend

we had an eventful mother's day weekend! friday night we went to st. mary's to visit the michalak's new addition, baby girl taelyn! she joins her older sister, kyla (who was in my class this year), her older brothers brayden and westyn (who is 7 weeks older than lilian). their family of 4 is now complete! taelyn weighed the exact same as lilian when she was born. i always say that i cannot remember when lilian was that small, and i truly cannot! i just loved holding her in my arms and starring at her sweet, perfect face. lilian, as usual, was obsessed with the new baby...well, for the first few minutes. after about five minutes of me holding taelyn she started in with the "my mommy" talk! i am glad that our babysitter is going to have another baby at her house next year so lilian can learn to share the attention! congrats, michalaks!

on saturday nannie and ross invited us to attend the pop tab pandemonium for the ronald mcdonald house. my grandparents are big volunteers for the charity. i got james walker, our school, on board by having all the kids collect pop tabs throughout the year. several schools and organizations around the area do the same and then in the spring they bring all the tons of tabs together for a celebration while they total the collection. the tabs raise money for the ronald mcdonald houses on cherry street in kansas city where sick children stay with their families. we were lucky enough to get a tour of the main home, it was incredible! afterwards, we enjoyed a cook out, face painting, a juggler, and lilian got to sit in a big fire truck which she thought was pretty cool! it was a fun morning for us!

she was a little scared of the real "ronald" so she posed next to this one on the bench!

big stuff riding in the fire truck!

small world, one of the firefighters ended up being someone brian knew that lived around his home town!

posing with nannie, the artwork behind them was amazing!

she got brave and gave the real ronald a high five! he gave her a signed picture of himself too! 

first time ever getting her face painting...three balloons...she sat so still! 

thanks, nannie and ross!

how cool is this HUGE rocking chair inside the ronald mcdonald house!

getting her hand painted with ross

mother's day has taken on a whole new meaning since becoming a mommy. i cherish my own mother and grandmother more and more as i understand the patience and love of motherhood. since i was a little girl i have dreamed of what it would be like to be a mother, it has by far exceeded every expectation! it is who i am and makes me feel like the luckiest person on earth each and every day. i was spoiled by my wonderful family today! after waking up brian had lilian deliver her present to me...a new mouse pad for school with her picture on it (the picture was her coloring on my easel at school so it was perfect!). i loved it! afterwards i went to the laundry room to check on the clothes and could hear lilian telling brian "more presents." he was hoping to span out the gift giving over the day, however, lilian had a different plan! she wanted me to open them all right then and there so that is what we did! :) brian got me perfume, a new pair of sandals, two dresses, and a cute summery top. i felt very loved! the best part, as always, was the heartfelt card. that is always the best part! we had my entire family over that afternoon to celebrate mother's day. brian grilled out and everyone brought a side dish. we had chocolate chip cookies and ice cream cones for dessert. it was a wonderful afternoon with my family.

mom, alison, me, lilian, nannie

grammy and lilian

alison and curtis with lilian and me

we couldn't leave the boys out...bryan, curtis, dad, brian and ross 

happy mother's day to both of our moms...we love you so much and are so thankful for the wonderful example you both gave us growing up.

Best Buddies

wednesday night we had amelia for the night while drew and colleen went to an award dinner for drew (he was nominated for teacher of the year for his district, way to go, drew!) i picked up lilian and amelia from michele's after school. from the moment i had them both in the car it was a riot. first it was just funny for me to look back at TWO little girls behind me! :) they went back and forth saying hi to each other a hundred times. then we made animal noises and sang nursery rhymes the whole way home. it was adorable and melted my heart! we came back to our house and played for awhile. brian put up the slide and amelia had a ball. she couldn't get up and down it fast enough. she was so excited. we took them up to culver's for a fundraiser for one of our students. they loved the ice cream the best of course. there were tears on our departure  i had to take ameila back to her house for bed and both girls were not happy about leaving one another (even though they would see each other the next morning at michele's!) amelia was perfect and went right to bed. since she was a baby she has been such a low maintence, easy going girl! we had a fun night with two girls whom we adore! lilian is lucky to grow up with such a sweetheart! the best part about this play date was the next day at the sitter's when i came to pick up lilian, amelia ran to me and wanted to go home with me! i loved it!

For Hire

lilian's new favorite activity is helping daddy mow the lawn! she gets out her pink mower and follows him around the entire yard. she gets pretty serious about it! these pictures don't do it justice but it sure is funny to watch! love this girl so much.