The Parrillo Family

Our boy packed on some weight and started to show his personality a bit at one month. Here's a photo of Sadie at the same mark - one month - and you'll note the similarities. Can't wait for our days of watching and playing sports with this guy!

In addition to heading to Noonie's Halloween Party and going to get pumpkins at Sonny Acres , the girls also carved pumpkins and went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Sadie was a rainbow.  And Eloise was a peacock.  And Topper was Mickey The Mouse.  Nat (and Grammy) did a great job on their costumes. Both Ellie and Sadie went to their school parties in their costumes: Ellie and Sadie also carved their pumpkins.  (Well...I mostly carved them, but they drew the designs and helped clear out the 'guts' of the pumpkins.) Here's some photos of that process: That's Ellie's on the left and Sadie's on the right.  I carved them about as closely to the girl's actual design as I could. And the kids braved the cold weather and went around the neighborhood for candy on Halloween:

We took the girls and our little boy out to pick pumpkins - as we usually do - at Sonny Acres on North Avenue this year.  The girls had a great time posing for pics with all the signage and finally settling on a few perfect orange pumpkins for them to carve. Topper was strapped to Natalie for the entire process, but that didn't stop him from getting in some of the photos.  See him there on the far right in the third pumpkin?! Here you can see some of our photos from our trip to Sonny Acres in 2013. Here are some photos (including the one with Ellie looking in the dog house!) from 2011.  Sadie wasn't around then . Here's the post/photos from our trip in 2010 - Ellie's first trip there .    And here are our photos from this year's trip below:

As we do every year, we went down to Frankfort (this time as a family of five!) as my mom hosted her annual Halloween Party with all the cousins.  The costumes were pretty great and the kids did a great job coming up with creative ideas. Sadie was a rainbow. Ellie was a peacock. The Topper was Mickey Mouse.   He was all of 7 days at this point! Here's some photos of Noonie's Halloween Party from 2012 . And below...you'll find photos from this year's party: And it wouldn't be Noonie's Halloween Party without a pinata being beaten up on the driveway.  Check out these action shots of the girls and their cousins taking a big swing. The day couldn't have been better as the colors of my folks yard really shined and the temperature cooperated, too!

Eloise actually casting a vote! This is the seventh time that Eloise has joined us at the polling place and the 3rd time for Sadie. But....being just two weeks old, this is the first time that Topper joined us! Here's a picture of the girls from this March where we voted in the Primary . And... here's the girls back in 2012 voting for the President .  When we had *just* Ellie, we took her to vote in 2010 .  And here's the first time she voted with us when she was just a few months old . With Ellie getting close to being five years old, she was MUCH more interested in the whole process.  She even joined Nat in her 'booth' to help cast the vote for our friend Tom Cross for Illinois Treasurer. Check out Sadie's sticker.  She was so proud!