Who Needs Ward Cleaver...

...when you have this great dad! Seriously, words cannot express how much we all LOVE Papa Jack!We left Chicago Sunday morning - Father's Day - and sped home to celebrate with the dads in our lives - with the exception of Uncle Bryan, who was celebrating with Alyssa in Memphis! The boys and I got Dan a bagger for his riding lawn mower - we had just enough time to unpack the car, open Dan's Father's Day gift, and snap this picture before we headed to Nana and Papa's! Look at this great group of BOYS!!! And, not that it is a surprise now, but Aunt Jackie had a little BOY in September - so next year this picture will have one more "future" father in it as Benjamin John will join in the celebration! Happy Father's Day to my dad - the BEST dad in the world - and a wonderful role model to Dan, Uncle Bryan and Uncle Steve! We love you ALL!!!

Whirlwind Visit to the WINDY City!

The Morra's embarked on our first road trip of the summer in early June. We traveled with the Walter's north to Chicago for a long weekend. After the long drive up there, we opted to stop at Gino's East for some pizza. Dan and Bob both enjoyed our "pie" a bit more than Angie and I did, but the kids all loved their spaghetti! They also enjoyed all the readily available reading material written on the walls of the restaurant - you can notice all the graffiti in the pics above!

We then got some great views of the city as we tried to find our hotel! Our Garmin's were working overtime, but sending us on a wild goose chase - thankfully we found it! Even more thankful that the boys brought their Beyblades with them to keep all five kids ready while we unloaded our cars and checked in!We took the girls up to our room to "chill" while Bob and Ang checked in as they ended up pointing us to the hotel but couldn't get into the right lane to turn to get to the valet - gotta love city driving! And check out what they did - relaxed on the bed!!!We took advantage of the City Pass so we could get as much sightseeing in as possible! First stop was the Field Museum! We passed this fabulous "water" wall on the walk there...Say hello to Sue - the dinosaur!Here is the great skyline outside the Field Museum and enroute to Shedd's Aquarium!We caught the beluga whale show at the aquarium, but the boys really like the penguin exhibit - go figure, eh?After a long day of sight seeing, we headed back to the hotel and decided on dinner. We hit the streets walking and headed to the Rainforest Cafe! A delish dinner for all, except for poor Sydney, who ended up getting sick! :( She was a trooper though and managed to walk back to the hotel at the end of the evening! Day Two started with the breakfast of champions - Dunkin Donuts......then a long cab ride to the Museum of Science and Industry where we posed in our Yankee garb in front of this HUGE train!Then, after lunch, parted ways with the Walter's and found our way to the subway...LOVE this pic of the boys holding on to the pole!The train stopped and we got off at Wrigley Field - to see the Yankees play, of course!We found our seats......just in time to see Vince Vaughn throw out the first pitch!The Yankees, of course won, so we hopped back on the El and headed to meet up with the Walter's again for dinner at Ed Debevic's!Seriously, I think this was the funnest part of the trip! Here is half of our table......and the other half...And here are the five kids with our FAB waitress!!!Day Three - No trip to Chicago would be complete without a stop at the Sears, oh, I mean Willis Tower!!! Here we are outside the TALL building! And here we are INSIDE the building...The first step out was a tad bit, oh, TERRIFYING, but then we all got used to it - some of us more than others as the boys all bellied up to the city!As for me, I was happy to stay on my feet! :)Can't wait to head up there again!!! Chicago is "my kind of town!"

A Sea of PINK!

On a very EARLY June morning, my mom and I met up with the Weier's and Walter's to walk the St. Louis Race for the Cure. We all donned our Siteman Cancer Center t-shirts in honor of Aunt Jackie who was diagnosed with melanoma in March 2008 and hit the streets!

Here is a quick pic of mom and me at the Metro Link station......and here is our entire crew!The fun part is always sending Aunt Jackie, or Angie's sister, Aunt Nicole out to all the vendors to get the "free" stuff - this year they were both MIA so we had to fend for ourselves!!! Angie's Aunt Deb, Nana and Ang look like they did pretty well with the McArthur's tea! The race finally started and the streets were covered with thousands of people - all in PINK! Luckily, many of them had umbrellas as it sprinkled - just a bit - to cool us off a bit!The rain lasted for only a few minutes - our crew kept smiling the entire time!Our 5k was cut a BIT short as we jumped out of the race to catch the Metro Link back to IL to get some lunch! But, I did manage to get this picture of the arch and all the walkers coming into the finish line!What a great tradition we have started! Looking forward to it again next year - hopefully Aunt Jackie and Aunt Nicole can be with us!

Happy Birthday, Gigi!

This is for my lovely brother, who reminds me to BLOG!!! Thanks, Bry - I must say that I do LOVE looking through all these pictures and I'm happy to report that I'm only 5 months behind! :)

I'll pick up right where I left off - in June, my grandma, lovingly referred to as Gigi but her Great Grandchildren - celebrated her 87th birthday! All her grandsons were there to celebrate - Alyssa unfortunately was in Memphis! :(

They all voted to take her to lunch at Applebee's! The car ride was just as much fun as the actual lunch - but how can it not be fun with 4 little boys, a great grandma, and two moms? Nick and Jack are in the back - Luke must be hiding! Henry and Gigi made up the second row, while Aunt Jackie was our driver and I, of course, was operating the camera from the front passenger seat!
During lunch the boys were all very well behaved, but of course, we drew a crowd - one couple was so tickled by our lunch group, that they bought our table a round, a round of ice cream that is! Check out these smiling faces! Because there was so much laughing going on with the group, the ice cream melted a bit - have no fear though, Gigi had a plan - STRAWS!!!Henry was not about to be undone though - he opted to try the spoon method as well!!!What a great afternoon out with our beloved Gigi and her boys!

Can't wait to celebrate again with you next year, Grandma!

Visiting the Baby REDBirds!

After the fabulous day at the zoo, we headed back to our hotel, donned all the RED we could and headed to the Memphis Redbird game! The boys were SO excited! This has been the first summer that all 3 of my boys are loving baseball - good thing too, because we planned some new stadium visits for the summer! :) Here is Nana, Papa, Uncle Bryan, the boys and Alyssa - check out where our seats were - fantastic!!!
We got there early so we could walk around and see everything - good thing too, because the kids definitely kept us busy!!! They got tattoos...as they are modeling on their arm!
And some amazing face - and arm paintings!!! Check out Alyssa!!!
Nick opted to get this NY Yankee "thing" on his arm!!!
Luke's fireball turned out HOT too!!!Jack, of course, had a YANKEE ball done too!!! There were also plenty of games for the boys to play!And snacks to eat, as Luke is enjoying his cotton candy!And then it was time for the game to begin! Here is Fredbird's cousin Redbird, starting the game!The game was great - the Redbirds won!!! To top of a most perfect day, there were FIREWORKS - and honestly they were amazing. Perhaps because we were sitting so close to the field where they were shooting them off! But, we were all trying to get pics!!! Here is Nana taking a stab at capturing the moment!Here is Alyssa and Uncle Bryan enjoying the show!And here is my shot - sad to say, but I have NEVER been able to snap any good pics of fireworks - even with my AWESOME camera!!!