The Parrillo Family

Sadie continues to get involved in making the world a better place.  This year, she was a leader in the school Environmental Club where they learned about the impacts on the Earth of our behaviors and how to best recycle.   She also continues to be our animal lover.  All sorts of animals.  She DESPERATELY wants a ferret.  Not going to happen.  But, she does love her Lizzie. And, she's still involved with Girl Scouts.  Here she is (below) sorting her Cookie orders to get them ready for delivery. And, 2022 marked the first ever FULL 5K that Sadie ran with Nat.  They ran 'the whole thing' during the Downers Grove Turkey Trot this month.

What has Frankie been up to this year?  Taking on new activities, staying busy and learning more things than I did when I was eight years old.  He's taken to STEM/science kits.  He's done experiments in chemistry and biology and even electricity this year.  Here are a few photos showing some of his experiments he does at the kitchen table.   He also is interested in the workshop - taking things apart mostly.  He was gifted a new workbench from Granddad this year and has been using it all the time.  He's even trying his hand at music - with a new set of electronic drums.  Thankfully...they come with headphones.   

With Ellie turning six in a few days, she's starting to develop an interest in Legos.  Sadie is still into Duplos but loves building things along with her big sister.  We've given Ellie a few Lego sets recently (Elves sets) and I figured we should try to nurture this Lego phase as best we can, so I packed them both up in my car and took them out to Cantigny for their annual Lego Train Show. It was really awesome.  A huge setup with trains and towns and buildings all built out of legos.  The girls were awestruck, but as good consumers, what they really wanted was to head to the room where vendors were selling Lego sets so they could buy some themselves! We ended up with two new sets and some happy building engineers...