February Happenings

Before March gets away from me, I better get to our activities of February!

We did lots of our normal weekly stuff:

Library time

Play-doh time

Also, don't be jealous, but my son gave me a whole bowl-full of diamonds (found in the gutter)! We're rich!!

Of course the MAIN EVENT in February for us is Jeremiah's birthday!! It's basically a month-long party over here!

 

Somehow, on February 18, this baby turned 7 years old!!

Waaaah!!! His little baby face!

The celebration began on the 16th, when J got to bring his birthday treat to school (J's birthday usually falls around President's Day, so this year that got him a 4-day weekend! So treats went to school on Thursday.)

Class of 11 children = very nice for baking treats.

We had to arrange our birthday celebrating around Adam's work schedule and our surprise trip to Chicago. So Friday morning before work, J and Daddy went out for a special birthday breakfast at McDonald's.

Then when they got home, it was present time!

I put this note in J's card to reveal our surprise about going to Shedd Aquarium- he was pretty excited!! (I tried to get a video of him reading the note, but it's too hard to hear him over Hope crying because she wanted presents, too. So, nope.)

 

Then we even did cupcakes for a mid-morning snack before Daddy left for work.

 

Watching someone else open presents = bad. Eating cupcakes = GOOD!!

We lucked out with awesome spring weather over J's birthday. It was amazing!!

I just had to document this for our family out in CA, because this NEVER happens!

We had to play a few rounds of Mousetrap, too. FYI, it's MUCH easier now to build and play than the Moustrap of my youth.

Saturday (J's actual birthday!) we ran some errands and did FaceTime with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Matt, Aunt Cheryl, Josie, Evan, and Uncle Ben out in CA. They even sang to him! 

When Adam got home from work, we jumped in the car for our trip to Chicago! We stopped in Naperville for a birthday dinner at Texas Roadhouse- J was sung to and got to sit on the saddle!

We went back and forth about where to stay (downtown vs suburbs) and ultimately decided the downtown experience would be fun for J and would save time with not having to drive into the city for the day on Sunday. And thanks to Priceline (Hyatt Regency Chicago right on Wacker for $79 a night!) and SpotHero (for parking) I think we did pretty well staying downtown without breaking the bank. Yes, we did a bit more walking than J would have liked, AND saw some interesting sights down underneath the city when finding our parking garages (FYI if you thought Lower Wacker was as low as you could go, you'd be wrong. There are streets way under there. And homeless people. Also, GPS is useless down there.) But that's what made it an adventure! :)

The kids thought our hotel and the view were SO cool! One whole wall was windows, and we were on the 18th floor! I'm not gonna lie, I might be turning into my mother- it made me really nervous when the kids would go right up to the windows! So ridiculous. But after I snapped the picture and they looked around a bit, I closed the curtains.

Sunday was a gorgeous day!! And definitely made it easier to walk around the city when we weren't freezing our bottoms off.

I love this city so much!!

We spent all of Sunday morning at Shedd Aquarium and got there soon after it opened (good thing, too, because the line was like 3x as long when we left!). I had pre-purchased our tickets, so it didn't take us long to get in.

Jeremiah is really interested in ocean animals, specifically sharks, so he was in heaven!

He wanted me to take pictures of every animal we saw, but I had to put a limit on that. Here are a few of his favorites:

And J touched a sturgeon!

 

Watching dolphins jump and swim.

Hope found Dory! And later Nemo, too.
 

Of course we had to get a pic of J by the sharks!!

We covered the whole place by about noon, then on our walk back to our parking spot (SpotHero!) we stopped for lunch at Aurelio's pizza. YUM.

Then we headed up to Logan Square to see Auntie Abby and Uncle Neil. From their place we walked to a park to let the kids play and have ice cream (thanks to Uncle Neil). WHEN can you do that in Chicago in February?!?!?!

Then it was back downtown to find our next parking garage, and then we walked up Michigan Ave and found a Potbelly for dinner (I just love that place!!).

The sculpture called "Return Visit." J listened in as Abe and "contemporary man" discuss the Gettysburg Address.

It was quite a long, tiring day for all of us (especially for Hope, who skipped her nap), so we called it a day and walked back to our hotel for early bedtime!

We were up bright and early on Monday to head back to Iowa so Adam could get to work. 

And the beautiful weather continued! 

But we weren't done celebrating! The next weekend we had all the Middendorps over to celebrate with cake and ice cream.

No, I did not make this cake. I totally could have, I'm sure, but we just couldn't pass it up when we saw an ocean cake at Hy-vee's bakery!

That was officially the end of the birthday celebrating. Whew! Good thing, too, because the next day J proceeded to get sick with some crazy virus that kept him home from school for the whole week. :( Just when we'd think he was fever-free and on the mend, the fever would come back and he'd be sick in bed again. Strangest virus ever. Poor guy! I'm so glad that somehow the rest of us avoided it!

Our beautiful weather did come to an end, although 50s still aren't too bad. Along with the warm weather, comes thunderstorms, though. And so far we've already had 2 different times with tornado sirens going off. 

Watching the rain, wind, hail, etc!

It could be an interesting spring! The weather is supposed to get back in the 30s for the next while,  which is a bummer. But we know spring will be here soon because barges are going up and down the Mississippi again (always exciting for J to see!), and our poor little confused tulips are already popping out of the ground!