Our Social Butterfly & Her Many Friends

 They truly are best buds.

 Enjoying some snuggles with Paw Paw.

 Elyse loves to sing to her stuffed animal friends!

She doesn't use any words, but instead just sings Aaaaaaaaaa in different pitches.
We think she sounds amazing and we love all the squeaks her little voice makes.

Dinner with Good Friends

  Hunter and Blue. Best Buds!

 Elyse 7 months and Ryland 5 months

We have such good friends here in town and we love getting together for dinner. Tonight was one of those nights. We enjoyed a Tagliatelle Pasta with meat marinara, garlic knots, steamed green beans, and fresh salad. We all loved the pairing of Josh vineyards Cabernet and Samuel Adams Winter Lager to go along with our meal. To finish it off, we had warm cinnamon raisin chocolate bread pudding drizzled with chocolate rum ganache and maple syrup, served with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream. The best part of the dinner is that we had babies and puppies to keep us entertained. Thank you Katie, Adam, and 5 month old hansome Ryland for all the great conversation. Blue also enjoyed playing with his twin Hunter. We will definitely do this again sometime soon!

Finding Happiness in Tough Times

This past weekend was fun and happy in the midst of a difficult time. We had a family weekend by going to Chicago to take Elyse to the Shedd Aquarium. It was fun for us to see her watch the fish, monkeys, and all the people.

 Our trip served a dual purpose. We went up on Sunday night went to Shedd Aquarium and ate at Tuscany in Little Italy where we finished our meal with an sweet cannoli. The next day we had to take Elyse to University of Chicago, Comer's Children Hospital where she had to have a DMSA scan done on her kidneys. It was a fun weekend but also scary. 

Elyse did very well with the IV they put in her foot and all the wires they had on her. The hardest part is when they gave her the sedation drug and she went to sleep and no longer was responsive to our voices or kisses. Then they took her from us which was also another difficult step, but through it all spouse and I tried to keep everything in  perspective. There were other children there for their one of many cancer treatments they had been undergoing. We are so grateful in knowing that Elyse's condition can be fixed, but spending time with the other children who were there made us realize and thank God for His grace that He continues to show us in the everyday trials we face.

Snow Days!

In the last week we have received about 2-3 inches of snow. We are suppose to get more snow 

tomorrow so we wanted to get out in the fluffy white stuff on this beautiful sunshiny day. This was Elyse's first time playing in snow. From the pictures I am not sure if she had much fun because she was so relaxed, but this momma sure did have a great time! We love these little moments with our snow bunny.