A day JUST for HIM...

Those of you that have been reading my blog for awhile now may remember last summer when Eva and I had a special day JUST for HER.  It was a day spent with some dear friends of mine from high school and their little girls in Chicago.  Just the girls.  It was such a special day (click HERE if you want to read about it). 

Anyway, my friends and I decided that the boys needed their own special day too.  Soooo this past week Jaden had HIS special day with Mommy in Chicago along with Jill, Stacey, and their munchkins!

As Eva did with her special day, Jaden counted down the days.  He literally could not wait.  The part that made me smile is that he was excited to go to Chicago, but our family travels to Chicago quite often...the part he was MOST excited about was RIDING THE TRAIN!  Our little man was beside himself!! 

So, our trip started off boarding the much anticipated train...




Alllllllll Aboard!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was a chilly day in Chicago, but still beautiful!  Luckily we planned for some indoor fun at the Shedd Aquarium!  

It's so fun to spend one-on-one time with each of my children.  Their personalities are both very different and it allows me to really soak in who they are.  Here's me and my special little date for the day...

 We had a little walk to get to the Shedd Aquarium.  Here's my little guy standing in front of the beautiful building...



Once inside we literally spent the entire day exploring.  The kiddos loooooved it, and I really think the adults did too!  Here are some of our favorite exhibits...



 Jaden and I both loved the dolphin exhibit.  This picture of Jaden is one of my favorites...he just sat there in awe.


 Jaden loved the sting ray exhibit (above) and also the shark exhibit (although he walked into the shark exhibit with his hands over his eyes...I had to convince him the sharks wouldn't hurt him).  He also loved that there was a scuba diver in one of the exhibits.  He said, "Mommy, I wish I could pet the scuba diver!!"

We watched a 4D Dora and Diego movie.  Oh. My. Word.  I may have loved it even more than the kiddos did.  I didn't know what "4D" really was....now and do and it is AWESOME.  Not only is the actual movie in 3D, but it involves all your senses.  When Boots the Monkey peeled a banana you could smell it.  When they were blowing bubbles there were actually bubbles in the theater.  When Dora was driving a plane your seat shook like you were riding with her.  Honestly, I know it was for kids but I was completely in love with the whole thing.

Another one of my favorites?  Look who I got a little snuggle time with during the trip...

Ahh...love her.  This is my friend Jill's new little pumpkin, Anika.  Isn't she precious.  Don't you think she would have liked to come home with me??  I do.  I thought about seeing if she would fit in my purse.  She is just too darn sweet.



Our time at the Aquarium literally took all day...so afterwards we walked towards the city, looked at all of the pretty sights, and just enjoyed our time together! 

 Gotta love these handsome boys!  We ended up walking 15 blocks and they didn't complain!  Love them!

 The boys found some flowers that had fallen off a few trees.  They had SO MUCH fun throwing them up in the air and pretending it was snow!!!!!  It had all of us giggling!

Jaden in front of the the waterfalls in Millennium Park.  Last year the girls ran barefoot through the water....but it was much too chilly for the boys to do that! 



This was such a fun day...and one I will always remember.  I loved watching Jaden soak in the city, as well as some special one-on-one time with Mommy.  As with my special time with Eva, I made sure today was a "YES" day...

"Can I have a cookie?"  YES!!!
"Can we go to the special movie?"  ABSOLUTELY!!!

One of my favorite moments was right before we boarded the train to come home we went to Subway to pick up some dinner (eating on the train is always a special treat)!  Jaden walked over to the rack of chips and waited for me to show him which ones he was allowed to have.  I smiled and said, "Buddy, you can have ANY chips you want today...it's YOUR special day!"

Funny how something so simple made his jaw literally drop.  He was so excited and after much thought decided on a bag of Cheetos.

After getting back from Chicago and saying goodbye to our friends I decided I had one more special treat up my sleeve for my little guy.  Our family does not eat at McDonald's, but Jaden had been asking for weeks to play on the playplace.  I decided since it was his day we would do just that.  When we pulled into McDonald's Jaden was ecstatic.  I asked him what he wanted to eat (an ice cream cone perhaps?) and he said, "Mommy, I don't even want anything to eat...I just want to play on that slide!"

Love him.

So our evening ended with us playing at McDonald's.  He was too nervous to go down the slide, but we both had fun climbing through the playplace (in case you noticed, yes, I did have a dress on...and yes, I did hike it up so I could climb through the playplace with him)...it was alll worth it.

Such a special day....and memories I will forever hold in my heart. 

Love you little man.