The Parrillo Family

What's better than a "Secret Pizza Birthday Party" at a trampoline park?  One that you share with your best cousin.  These two boys celebrated together and jumped around with their family and friends.  What lucky boys. 

The Big Beef is F-I-V-E!  And we celebrated with a Pokemon-themed party.  He's a smart, curious and loving little boy.  He snuggles with his Momma more than the girls and he amazes me with his smarts almost every day.  We love you Beef! For comparison's sake, here is Sadie's 5th Birthday post . 

This is four.  For Frankie Parrillo.  He's a really awesome kid.  Full of goofs.  And so much gentle, gentle love.  Frankie was greeted on his fourth birthday with the traditional Parrillo family accoutrement including a cupcake breakfast and a party with his family.  Earlier in the week, he was celebrated at school, too: By the end of the day, we finally got around to sing-ing him Happy Birthday and he made it a dinosaur party by wearing his T-Rex paws and having his sisters growl like dinosaurs with him. He's a sweet boy who is increasingly becoming *all boy*.  He likes all things distinctly boy-related and wants to hang out with the boys more and more.  At the same time, he's super gentle and loving and will tell you - on a dime - that he loves you so much. Hard to believe he's four already, but can't wait what this coming year does for him in terms of growth.  I'm excited to see him continue to grow up and be the best l...

It included a birthday party to see the Incredibles 2 at the Tivoli Theater in Downers Grove.  And the usual breakfast cupcakes.  Sadie is six and she's incredible.  Funny.  Goofy.  Caring.  Loves animals.  Loves her siblings.  Is quick with a compliment.  And with a shoulder to cry on and an arm around you to embrace.  Here's SD on the morning of her birthday: She was lucky to have her cousin from Elmhurst sleep over! The day included some pampering:  here she is getting her toes done.  Look at that side smile?!? And we had a party for her, of course.  Grammy delivered with Gummy bear-inspired cookies. And she was surrounded by cousins. Here's our crew: She shares a birthday with her great Uncle Frank, too!  What a special treat!

Wow. Eight sounds so old, doesn't it? Our little Eloise is 8.  And she's just an incredible human being. We celebrated her with a weekend of activities including a kid party on Friday night, a family party on Sunday, a field trip with her classmates on the actual day and a 'fancy' dinner with her crew. She's growing up so fast.  Check out this video of all the moment's of Eloise's life up until now.  (If you are reading this in your email and can't see the video below, click here !)

Having a birthday that takes place close to Halloween and having the name "Frank" seem to indicate that A LOT of your childhood birthdays are going to be centered around the holiday and various monsters.  So, it should come as no surprise that just like last year , Frankie had a 'monster' birthday.   On his actual birthday, Frankie got a little bit of help from his sisters to blow out the candle on his monster ice cream cake. Here's the photos from his 2nd birthday party .  And here's the photos from his 1st birthday party .   Then a few days later, we had a party where the whole family came over to celebrate Frank.  Here's Great Grampy Ray and Great Uncle Frank settled in on the couch watching Frankie's bestie cousin play with some toys in our family room. Nat made a monster cake.  It was awesome! And while there were LOTS of awesome presents that Frankie was so happy to receive, one of them got a littl...

This weekend, we brought most of the family together at our temporary* house (Thanks, Marini's for the house!  We missed them, though!) to celebrate Frankie's second birthday.  The Beef, as I call him, turned two.  And since he's born so close to Halloween, Nat threw a "Monster Mash".  Complete with a huge inflatable Frankenstein out front. Decked out in their Halloween costumes, Frankie was Marshall From Paw Patrol, his sister SD was Ariel from the Little Mermaid and their cousin won the costume contest with the incredibly detailed and imaginative bespoke Dump Truck outfit that Uncle Bill created in his workshop. Everybody liked posing in front of "Frank" with Frank. What a happy boy on the day of his birthday party! The Monster theme extended to the birthday cake.  And some incredible Frankenstein cookies made by Grammy. And we all gathered around and sang the Happy Birthday song to the big guy.  He was so happy with all of hi...