The Parrillo Family

What stage presence?!? Here's Sadie really hamming it up at her Little Lambs Christmas performance as captured by one of our neighbor's camera.  Just look at those animated movements.  Nailed it, right?

Sadie helped Natalie put up the garland and lights outside the house at 222.  As she's getting older, each Christmas season gets *better*.  Between the Advent calendars and hanging up ornaments on the tree to LOOOVING Santa Claus , she's all-in this holiday season.

As any family does, we spent some time in the nights prior to Halloween carving pumpkins.  Ellie and Sadie both drew what they wanted their jackolanterns to look like and then I took out the knife and cut them as best as I could to how they wanted them to look. Here's the post from last year showing us carving the pumpkins  and trick-or-treating.  Frankie was just 10 days old on Halloween in 2014. Both Sadie and Ellie had good imaginations when it came to drawing on a face. The girls were able to wear their costumes to their Halloween parties in their own classrooms.  Here's SD as "Princess Ariel" the Mermaid right in front of her Pre-K classmates. And here's Ellie as "Mal" from Disney's The Descendants.   How about *that* look!?! On the actual Halloween day, we were lucky to have Noonie join us and go around the neighborhood with all three kids as they trick-or-treated.  (Well...Frankie just kinda stayed in the stroller, ...

2015 was the first Easter season as a family of five for us Parrillos.  Topper was right in there with his sisters as you can see from the photo above with all three kids wearing their bunny ears.   Easter for us started about a week ago when we went to Ellie's school for an egg hunt.  Ellie and Sadie both got involved and we were able to spend some time with Ellie's teacher (Mrs. Estes - who Eloise just absolutely adores! and some of her classmates.  See the animated photo below for a peek at the girls and some of Ellie's classmates.   Then later in the week, the girls spent some time coloring their own eggs.  We blew some out and hard-boiled some and both the girls made their favorite color (For Ellie it was all pink all the time.  For SD, she went with mostly blues!) The Easter season culminated as it always does on Easter.  After opening our own baskets and going to Church in town, we went down to my sister's house (down...

As I said last year in my 2013 Christmas Eve @ Noonie/Papa's House post:  "Christmas Eve at Noonie and Papa's is epic!" That's how my brain is programmed to perceive the celebration down in Frankfort at my folks' house and that's how I *hope* my kids are going to remember the nights there, too.  Ellie has now been there for five of them.  Five of them!  Sadie has been for three.  But Topper?  This was his first time. The festivities revolve around the cousins and as you can see in some of the photos below, there are LOTS of them and they LOVE being together.  It really is a magical thing.  The girls (and Topper) got to meet Santa (again) and sit on his lap.  They also got to (gasp!) drink Sprite.  Yes...Sprite.  (It is the little things that mean so much, right??) Papa and Noonie spoiled them all rotten and everyone got into their pajamas at Noonie/Papa's house before the long car rides back to Elmhurst. I couldn't i...

Ellie and her Bestie/Cousin J rang in the new year in style at "AnaKikki's house" along with V and S, too!  Bet your New Year's Eve wasn't as festive?!?  Nor as fun (with milkshakes!)...

We've come a LONG way since that very first Christmas with our one-week-old Eloise .  After a great night at Noonie and Papa's on Christmas Eve, we woke up early as Eloise came into our room to tell us that Santa had visited.  After opening all our presents (well...to be honest, Sadie wasn't all that interested in opening stuff, so some of her presents just stayed wrapped under the tree!) and eating our traditional breakfast of Kirschbaum's coffee cake, we packed up the family truckster and headed out to Naperville for Christmas morning round two at the Moran's. The girls couldn't have had more fun opening presents with their aunts/uncles and Grammy and Granddad.  We all even had matching shirts thanks to Grammy! As both Ellie and Sadie get older, each Christmas season gets better and better.  While I'm pretty sad to say goodbye to Christmas for a while, I can't wait until next year to see Ellie and Sadie's eye's light up when the season s...

Here's a video of our visit to Noonie and Papa's house for Christmas Eve 2013.  If you are reading this in your email and can NOT see the video above, click here to watch the video on our site .

Christmas Eve at Noonie and Papa's house is epic.  At least, that's how I always remember it.  And...that's how I'm hoping my two girls will remember it, too! We packed up the girls and headed down to Frankfort for the full day of festivities.  We played games, eat lots of snacks, went to church and sat in the way, way, back and even had a visit from Santa.  It was a perfect day and one I hope the girls will remember! There's a ton of photos, so if you are reading this in your email and can NOT see the slideshow below, click here to see all of the photos .

This weekend, we took the girls to see the Big Guy and as you can see above, it was a surprisingly mixed experience.  We first tried to go see Santa at Macy's on State Street after a trip to the Walnut Room with Noonie and all the girl's cousins, but that line was waaaaay too long.  So, we called an audible and tried the line at the Christkindle Market at Daley Plaza in the Loop .  Nat braved the cold, while I took the girls in the Pedway to wait out the line.  We arrived just in time. And...Natalie had a plan.  She talked to Eloise about 'being brave' and take a look?!?  It worked!  Eloise even responded to one of Santa's questions and even gave him a shy 'high five'.    Don't believe me?  Check out this video.  ( If you are reading this in your email and can NOT see the video, click here to watch the video .) Sadie, however, made us proud with her "Stranger Danger" reaction.  Pretty perfect photo. Here's a look at ...

Eloise couldn't be more excited for Christmas.  Everywhere she looks, she sees Santa Claus - or as she calls him "Ho Ho TaTa".  I think she knows that's not his name, but at this point it is her nickname for the guy in the big red suit and she's sticking to it. We've been having fun opening up our Advent Calendar everyday and looking for our "Elf" who oftentimes doesn't actually sit on a shelf, but somewhere out of arm's reach.  Part of the "Elf on the Shelf" tradition - which my sister Sharon gave us as a gift last year - is that the kids get to name their own Elf.  Sounds like they name him/her each year.  We asked Eloise what she wanted to name her Elf - and (I think) because of the connection to getting candy (like she does with the Advent Calendar after she 'finds' the Elf each morning), she decided to tell us that the Elf's name was "Trick or Treat".  So, we have a little Elf that visits us each morning -...