The Parrillo Family

There's a little bit of a 'bro-mance' happening between Frankie and his Uncle Shaun.  Everytime we get together, Frankie is drawn to Uncle Shaun and thinks he is just the absolute coolest.  Shaun, for his part, *is* pretty cool.  But he also spends time with Frankie that has made an mark on him.  When we ask Frankie who is 'Best Friend' is, you know what his answer is?  "Uncle Shaun". They play with cars and also balls and buckets - as evidenced in this photo.  I know it won't always stay this way, but I thought that this 'special relationship' that they have was worth noting here on the blog, so Frankie can look back when he's older. 

There isn't much that screams "Summer is here!" like sharing some ice cream with your sibling on the back stoop.  Here's SD and Frankie loving life and eating ice cream together. We have a pretty good archive of covering our kids eating ice cream on the family blog here.  Click here to take a spin back through some of the posts .  They're all super cute. 

These guys! And they even had costumes.  Nat's influence (obviously).  But they all seemed to have so much fun.

Just a few days ago, Sadie went off to Kindergarten for the last time .  Today, she is a Kindergarten Graduate!  Here she is, in her gold gown, entering the Church at St. Mary's for the ceremony. Sadie is still her loving, caring, silly self.  But she's also now becoming a kid.  She loves her friends, her teachers and also nature and animals.  She cares about her siblings and always wants to make people happy.  This was her first year at SMG and she certainly made her mark.  And her brain?  It is growing leaps and bounds.  I already told you this month about all the reading she's doing. But she's also so creative.  I'm so proud to be her Dad and to see her conquer this milestone of Kindergarten Graduation. It was only two years ago that Eloise hit the same Kindergarten Graduation milestone.  She was, however, at Immanuel Lutheran in Elmhurst.  Here's the photos from that day in 2016 . Along with a few of her fellow cla...

Just a day or two before Kindergarten Graduation, here's SD enjoying a sweet treat on "Park Day" at St. Mary's. 

With Spring here, we all could have some warm-weather fun.  And that means using the fireplace out on our screened porch for s'mores!  Here's SD and the Big Beef melting their marshmallows. And here's SD with one of her friends - our neighbor - loving life and guzzling marshmallows.

Ahead of her upcoming Kindergarten Graduation, Sadie went off to school for the last time as a Kindergartener this morning.  That's her on the last day in May 2018 above. For comparison's sake, check out the photo below of her first day of school this year.  As Nat said on her Instagram post with these photos :  " Their skirts are a little shorter and their smiles are a little brighter. " I'll be posting photos of her Kindergarten Graduation in the coming days.  

Take just a second to go back to this post in September that shows Frankie heading off to his first day of Preschool as a (then) two year old .  Today, he had his last day - and performance - as a three year old Preschooler.  He's made friends and learned (sometimes the hard way) about how to play with others.  He's also...not wearing diapers any more!  And, that's pretty awesome. At three and heading into Summer, I can confidently tell you that Frankie is ALL BOY.  He wants the blue plate at dinner.  He wants to watch Mighty Morphine Power Rangers.  He watches sports with me (sometimes).  And he's alternately so, so, so polite and demanding.  He listens (when he wants to) and expresses himself in good ways and bad ways.  He's also so smart.  Listen, folks...we have a baby genius here.  (LOL). I'm so proud of him for taking on school for the first time and can't wait to see him grow. Here's Frankie in his chair particip...

Here's our crew with the.best.mom.out.there.  Happy Mother's Day, Nat.  Thanks for all you do for all of us. 

I wouldn't go so far as calling us a "fishing family" just yet, but it seems that all three kids have taken to fishing off the pier on Lake Elizabeth up in Wisconsin.  And that's because they're all having some success in pulling a fish or two out of the lake each time we put our hooks in. I've posted about fishing before here on the family blog, but a big piece of this is due to Uncle Bill.  He's a real angler and he's a major force in pushing us all to get equipment and to enjoy the sport.  Check out Eloise up top.  Holding her very own Rock Bass. (I think.) Below you can see the Beef pulling out one of his many Bluegill.  Sadie hit a bunch, too.  She was so proud of herself. And even their little cousin - who is the best fisherman of the bunch (thanks to his Dad!) pulled out a few fish.  Look how proud he is!

It literally feels like yesterday that we were baptizing our first born child Eloise.  Here's the post from all the way back in February of 2010 when we posted about that event .  But, now, eight years later, our wonderful Eloise has now had her First Communion.    As you can imagine, there's a lot of dress and shoes and outfit details, but I don't know any of them.  Natalie can fill in the blanks, but what I can tell you is that Eloise looked perfect.   We arrived at St. Mary's (where Eloise goes to school) to find her banner hung on one of the pews.  Eloise put this banner together - and despite us having to audible from fabric glue (which, folks, just doesn't work!) to hot glue - came out nice.   Eloise takes school and her religion very seriously.  And she's created a special bond with Fr. Shaun at SMG who gave the First Communion Mass for the school kids.   After the Mass, we (of ...

SD has learned so much this year in Kindergarten, but the most profound leap she's made is in her reading ability.  Just as recent as a few months ago, she wasn't reading a lick and now?  She's jumping into Dr. Seuss books and falling asleep in this position each night.  Her Sister Eloise is a good reader, too and that's because Nat has worked with both of them so much.  Here's a flashback to three years ago and a picture of Sadie 'reading' to her brother the Big Beef .  Cute, cute, cute.