The Last Days of School

Last week was VBS at our church so today is the first normal day of summer for the kids.

Asher actually finished preschool a couple of weeks ago now (June 4th).  This was from his last day.  I love his ensemble that day.

That's Asher's friend, Marcus.

And this is Mr. John. Asher has always felt more comfortable with men, so Mr. John helped him break out of his shell a bit when he came mid-year.

This is Miss Ally.  Asher liked her quite a bit too.

Good bye Peterson Park.  We'll miss you!

 Addilyn's last day was the 13th.  Look at those missing teeth.  So cute!

The standard pose.

Addilyn and a couple of her friends, Sanne and Maizy, on her last day at Peterson Elementary.  We have loved Peterson and are so sad to say goodbye to all her friends and the awesome community there!

The happy-last-day-of-school cake.  It's vegan, so as to be Asher-friendly, but was actually surprisingly good.  So if anyone needs a really good vegan chocolate cake recipe, let me know.

To celebrate the last day of school, we biked along the lake and stayed to watch the moon rise.  It was a full moon, on Friday the 13th.  It seemed appropriate.

I don't know what this face means so please submit any caption ideas.

Cheese!

We also had picnic dessert.

Mmm...chocolate cake.

And a chocolate shake to share.

As was to be expected, we spilled it.  Oops!

Please submit caption ideas for this one too.

Picnic with the skyline.

Peek!

Smile!

It was a little chilly so we had to snuggle.

Our Chicago Bucket List

We have one more summer in Chicago so we made a bucket list of all the things we'd like to do here while we have the chance. Obviously, biking as much as we are able is at the top.  It's our most favorite thing to do here! As you can tell from this picture, Asher was pretty excited about it.

Albert was too!

On Memorial Day, we decided to cross a thing or two off our list.  We biked down the lake shore trail to Navy Pier and had a picnic at the end.

Hey look, a half naked baby eating a peanut butter sandwich. 

Our three Supermans.  Two of those shirts were Tyler's when he was little.

Supermans, looking fierce.

The non-supers, looking smiley.

Tyler and me.

Addilyn, climbing.  The boys aren't the only ones who like to climb things.

Then we did something completely new.  We rode the ferris wheel at Navy Pier.  

Everyone thought it was pretty fun and special.  

Albert was sleepy (and Addilyn is the sweetest big sister ever).
So that was the first of a series of things we have crossed and will cross off our Chicago list.  Here's to a summer full of Chicago fun!!

Biking!

As you may have noticed from the video we posted at the end of last month, Asher has learned to ride a bike.  He's been riding his balance bike whenever the weather permits for the last couple of months and has really go the hang of it.  One day (May 27th if anyone's keeping track), Tyler decided he was ready to try the real thing.  And he just kind of took off.

We took him to campus and let him practice a bit on the sidewalks there.  He really got things down.  He was quickly doing laps around the buildings.

Not to be outdone, Addilyn decided it was time to give it a try again.  Sure enough, once she saw that Asher could do it, she figured it out pretty quickly as well.

Look at her go!

That meant the balance bike was freed up for Elias.  He was pretty excited to get some more time with it.

And he certainly enjoyed working on his balance on a little hill. Whoosh!

Blorch!

Remember when our blog posts had meaning and maybe even a topic?  Me neither.  Ready for another picture explosion?

Here's a few stragglers I missed from our trip to Kansas over Spring Break.  We tried to recreate last year's sequential age picture.  This was the best one I (or actually Tyler) got.

Most of them looked more like this: hardly anyone is looking and I think Addilyn's getting ready to sneeze.  There were a bunch of us taking pictures so I hope one of the others captured something more flattering.

Now disperse!

Maybe there were making a cake?  They look like they were having fun, whatever they were doing.

Elias was helping by mowing the Smiths' yard (or patio) and singing on the top of his lungs.

Back at home.

Another rendition of super baby.

This time being super wore him out.

Someone may have lost another tooth.

He likes milkshakes.

So does he.

This was while we were prepping for our first family bike ride of the year.  His head's huge so he can share helmets with the other boys.

All set up and ready to go!

Happy baby with a rib.

Looking pretty (I love the combination of the headdress and the Darth Vader shirt).

A family of birds has set up shop underneath our AC unit.  We get to listen to them chirping happily every morning.

More milkshake.

Look, they like milkshakes too!  This one was significant because Asher has started drinking regular cow's milk and can have the same milkshakes as the rest of the family.  Huzzah!