Fireflies Art

polar bears.

Polar bears have always been one of my favorite animals.

They are gorgeous and strong and magical to watch.

I was thrilled to get to watch this beauty at the Lincoln Park Zoo last week.

I have always found them to be incredible animals, but lately I have been even more enamored with them as I follow Kal Barteski's blog and Instagram feed. She is one of my favorite artists and her paintings of polar bears evoke so much emotion.

Polar bears are my favorite.

And here is a quick video I took...

Chicago.

The kids are on spring break right now, so we took them on a quick trip to Chicago!

We spent all day yesterday at the Lincoln Park Zoo and it was a gorgeous day!

It was about 45 degrees and sunny. Perfect spring weather.

While the zoo doesn't officially open until 10, the gates were open at 8:30 when we got there (we were super early because we had planned for bad traffic!) so we started exploring early. We got to watch this zoo keeper doing a little training with this gray seal.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the day.

The gorillas were mesmerizing to watch. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the babies...but no such luck.

Sloths are adorable!

This bird was crazy! It flew right up next to Sage and accidentally slapped her with it's wing. Then Emerson decided to get too close and it pecked his hand! E thought it was hilarious. He learned his lesson though.

This is one animal that even Sage hadn't heard of before we planned this trip to the zoo. These are Sichuan Takins.

We also got to go to supper last night with my friend Marsha and her husband Tom at Red Robin. Today we finished up our trip with a visit to Trader Joe's and Ikea!

The polar bear is going to get it's own post tomorrow. :)

we have the best friends in the world!

                                                          

This is one of my favorite pictures from the weekend. Seriously. The bunny ear and sunglasses combo is perfect. Sage said it best this afternoon when we finally got settled back in at home, "We have the best friends in the world!!" We are grateful for everyone that included us in their festivities this weekend. Jim was hard at work all weekend.

Here is a long glace at our weekend...

Friday morning we colored hard boiled eggs at Lisa's. We used shaving cream and food coloring and they turned out pretty cool! After that we checked out the cows and then went to a park and got a walk in. It's so nice that spring is finally here!

Saturday morning we started our day off with an Easter egg hunt in Grant! We met up with my nephew Dallas, his wife Colleen and my great niece Allie. Then we headed to Jennie's house! It was so fun to meet my great niece Oliva. The kids had fun playing together and it was great to catch up with everyone!

After that we headed to the Lademan's for some more egg decorating!

This morning we went to the Lademan's for Easter brunch. The kids got spoiled more and were thrilled with the egg hunt and treats!

This afternoon we headed to Tim and Lisa's for more Easter fun!

We had a great meal, the kids had another egg hunt, we checked out the newest calf and Lisa and the kids went on a little adenture through the ravene! And of course there was hula hooping!

 

Sage + Saige

At the beginning of the year my friend Debi brought over an American Girl Doll catalog to show Sage that the girl of the year for 2013 is Saige. Saige loves animals and art...and so does Sage! I told her if she could earn half of the money we would pay for the other half of the doll. Well she did and earlier this week her doll arrived.

She is in love with the doll. I asked Mindy if she could possibly make Sage and Saige matching headbands...and she whipped these out the same day!

Sage's friend Kennedy came over today and they played with their dolls and some of the fun American Girl toys that Kennedy has. They had SO much fun! Here are a couple of pictures...I am going to post more on my FB page.

Happy Valentine's Day!

get outside.

It's so hard to make myself get outside sometimes when it's so dang cold, but I am always glad I did. This is quite possibly the cutest picture of Barley ever. (No Jake, you can't have him!) The kids spent a good two hours playing outside after school and I joined them for a bit so I could get some pictures.You can see the dogs were loving the snow too.

snowy beach.

We have all been going a little stir crazy lately with all of this crazy snow we've been getting! Yesterday we decided to head to the beach. I had never been when it was snowy and icy...and it did not disappoint! After a little while there, we called up my nephew Kenton and asked if he and his wife Wendy would like to join us for dinner at Red Robin! It was just what we needed. I think we're all feeling a little more cheerful after an impromptu family outing.

sage.

sage + her chucks.

The Johnsons

We started this new year off right! We headed up to the Johnson's yesterday morning and came home this evening. It was so good to all be together. We laughed so hard. The kids loved playing together! Thanks so much for having us! We love you guys!