parks, eggs and bird houses

Ever since Spring has decided to grace us with its presence our household has been much happier! We try to take walks almost everyday, and go to the park several times a week. I generally forget my camera, but here are a few shots of the girls one of the first times we made it to the park this year. They both absolutely love it!

I also found that I forgot to post pictures from the Easter egg hunt we took the kids to. It was held at a local church, where they had hundreds of eggs outside for the kids. Molly brought her kids, and my parents joined us as well. Austin and Reagan were great together! Kalli and Kennedy really enjoyed being outside!

Molly told me about the kids workshops at Home Depot, and I decided to take Reagan. They are meant for ages 5 and up, but I called ahead and asked if Reagan was too young. They said as long as an adult was with her, she could participate. I am glad! She got a cute orange apron, and had tons of fun making a bird house. She really likes tools!

My cutie showing off her masterpiece!

spring beauties

A few pictures of my daughters in their Easter dresses.

Trying to get a good shot normally requires numerous takes...

Reagan

Kennedy

Hope you had a Happy Easter!

brings tears to my eyes

Reagan is the best little girl! I mean it! Whenever I take the time to sit and think about all that she has gone through in her 2 1/2 years, it makes me cry. She has dealt with more in her life than I have with mine, and that just doesn't seem right. But the amazing part is how wonderful she is through it all. She is so trusting and understanding. She never gets mad that Kennedy doesn't have to do breathing treatments like she does, or take all the medicines she does, or do all the tests she does. She just does it all happily.

A couple weeks ago she had another Lung Function Test. She had to drink some nasty stuff that knocked her out, and then they hook her up to this.


The test took about an hour and a half, and for part of it she has to be enclosed in the glass box you see at the bottom right side of this picture.

Then after the test they force her to wake up enough to swallow, then she can go home. But the medicine took the whole night to wear off, she had to crawl everywhere when she eventually woke up because she was so tipsy.

So why am I showing you these? To ask you to please donate to the CF Foundation. We have a week left to raise money and have not reached our goal yet. Please donate here, even a few dollars can make a difference. We went to a dinner tonight to learn about the advances in CF care. One speaker told us that it costs approximately $900 million to take a drug through research to mass production. They have a drug in trial phases that could have a huge impact on Reagan's life. I am so proud of my little girl, and I just want her to have the best life she can.

chicago

I hate AT&T. They have the worst service ever! We went over two weeks without internet because they messed up our account and couldn't fix it without disconnecting and reconnecting our service. So, now that our internet is back up and running, I can post the pics from our trip to Chicago.

Rick had training in Chicago for two weeks, so the girls and I drove down for the weekend. It was a super quick trip, and man was I exhausted when it was over. We got there Friday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon. During our 48 hours, we tried to cram as much touristy stuff in as possible.

We started off friday by taking the girls to the Rainforest Cafe. Nice atmosphere, horrible food. The girls both loved the fish, and Rick took this sweet picture of Kennedy.

Reagan didn't really care to look at me, apparently there were more exciting things to look at.

Reagan loved meeting the giant frog, I can't remember his name.

Reagan even gave the frog a hug, sort-of.

Saturday morning we took a long route to the Temple.

We went to Navy Pier and visited the Children's museum. Reagan and Kennedy mainly loved the water exhibit, and were both soaking afterwards.

The raincoats were way too big for Kennedy, so I just rolled up her sleeves and let her soak us both.
They probably could've spent hours in there.

Kennedy in the dinosaur dig.

Reagan and Daddy finding dinosaur bones.

Kennedy loved the little baby area.

And I do mean loved it!

Reagan working hard on her masterpiece in the Crayola art place.

We let each of the girls pick out an animal at the Build-a-Bear workshop. Reagan, of course, chose the only green stuffed animal, a frog. Kennedy chose a soft, pink teddy bear. We let Reagan name both of them. The frog is "Gringo" and the bear is "Toogy."

We also managed to go to the Cheesecake Factory and the Grand Lux restaurant. Both of which had super yummy food, and great service! At the Grand Lux, Reagan really wanted pineapple, so I asked our waiter if there was any chance they had some. He went to the bar and swiped some for us. And the Cheesecake Factory gives complimentary banana slices and bread to the kids. Plus, they have really good cheesecake!

The girls were exhausted when we left, and were asleep shortly. That was a relief. They slept until just before Kalamazoo, where we stopped and had dinner with my cousin Steve and his awesome girlfriend Jill.

The only downside to the trip was the weather, rain and snow - yuck! But I definitely got a workout carrying the girls around Chicago. Oh, and Reagan thought the guy playing the guitar while we waited for the Subway was so fun! She danced and entertained the crowd.