Welcome Everyone!

Hello and Happy New Year!

I have decided to give this site a try for our family updates. The other one is VERY time consuming and as the kids get older I am finding less and less time to update it with pictures. Not to mention I take WAY too many pictures to have to crop, shrink and upload to the other site!! HAHA! This site should be easier and faster to maintain. The other site (www.geocities.com/christyannsparks) is still accessible if you wanted to check out pictures from before August 2008. But I will be starting with August and be moving forward on this site. I hope to be caught up through December in the next few days. This just means you will all have a LOT to check out all at once...hahaha!

Thanks for keeping up with our happy little family! :)

September 2008

September was another fun month. At the beginning of the month we signed Lily up for a class at the park district called "Princess Tea Party". She was a little scared at first to be in the class alone (surprising since she was doing fine in school). After she realized that we were just in the hallway waiting, she was fine. It was a very cute class. All of the girls (including the teacher) were dressed like princesses. They did crafts, singed, danced and learned some things about princesses. She really enjoyed it!! That same weekend Jim's brother Aaron was turning THIRTY!!! So there was a party for him to celebrate! Everyone had a great time. Jim REALLY enjoyed getting and giving Aaron his gag gifts which included a hair replacement piece. It was all in good fun!!

DJ moved a little closer to becoming a BIG BOY when we got him a twin bed. He was very excited to sleep in it and had no problems moving from his crib to it.

DJ also took a class through the park district with Mom. It was called nature babies and was held at one of the parks in town. We took nature hikes and learned about a bunch of different wild life stuff. DJ's favorite class was one where we met at the green house and observed Humming Birds. He STILL talks about it MONTHS later. In the slide show below you will see pictures where I took both kids there one day. DJ wanted to show Lily the humming birds.

We continued to enjoy the beautiful weather by taking bike rides and playing with friends. Our friends Joel and Michelle Gordan came with their three children to visit. It was a great time. Later in the month we took a trip to Champaign where we were able to visit some old friends. We spent a day with the Tutich Family, who Christy used to nanny for. Alexa and Maddie were about 7 and 4...they are now 15 and 12!!!! Time really flies!!! They are both growing to be beautiful and wonderful young ladies! We had a GREAT time and the kids loved playing with the girls! The rest of the trip Jim had to work while the kids and I toured Champaign-Urbana checking out all that has changed. The kids enjoyed going to the park while Christy enjoyed checking out her old stomping grounds (went by U of I, old apartment and house). We also took some time to see the Miller family. Art, Kirstin and Brianna are doing great. They were happy to share their news with us that they are expecting their second child in 2009. We also met with Pam Garrison, who Christy did her Student Teaching with. It was so nice visiting with her and having her see how big the kids have gotten.

Last but NOT least, Christy went to her first Bears game since the 2003 season!!! Between being pregnant and having babies at home (and not wanting to leave them) she opted out of going for several years. Well she wasn't going to miss a game this year!!! She took her best friend Andrea to the first home game against Tampa Bay. For those of you that don't know...Tampa is Christy's 2nd favorite team!! The weather was AWESOME and we had a GREAT time!!! We can't WAIT for next season!!

August 2008

August was a very busy month for us. We spent a lot of time enjoy the beautiful summer weather. The most exciting part of the month was Lily starting Preschool. She attends Chesterbrook Academy 3 days a week, 4 hours a day. The first week she did great!! The second and third were a bit harder. By the end of the forth week she was doing very well. She had made a few friends that would get very excited to see her when she would arrive.
We took a weekend to meet Christy's God Father and his wife, Paul and Julie at their summer trailer in Lake Mills, WI. That weekend Paul's sister and niece, Cynthia and Danielle, also came up for the day. Danielle brought her husband and son with. It had been four years since everyone was together and we all had a fantastic time. Lily, DJ and Hunter had a blast playing together. Below is a slideshow of pictures for the month. Please enjoy!




Lily's Best Bud, Ethan, turned 3 on Aug. 14th. We have a tradition with the Mattison family that on the child's birthday we all go to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner. The kids REALLY enjoy this!!! Ethan then had a party and we had a blast celebrating with everyone. He even had a bounce house. The highlight of the party was Andrea getting in it with the kids. They LOVED it! Below is a short slide show of pictures from Ethan's birthday.





At the end of the month Jim's Step Father, Jay, graduated from DePaul University and Evanston Northwestern with his nursing degree in Anesthesia. He has been working VERY hard the last several years to comeplete this. Jim's mom threw him a huge party and a lot of famliy from out of state came to celebrate. It was so nice seeing everyone! The party was on a Saturday afternoon and that evening we all went back to Deb and Jay's. The next day some of us went to Chicago to take an architectural boat tour down the river. This was a blast and we saw some pretty amazing sites!!! We then headed back to Ron and Cindy's for a BBQ. Again, we enjoy good food and GREAT company! Please check out the slideshow of pictures from the entire weekend. Enjoy!