Today, my sweet Mother-in-law took myself, Ava (my niece) and her granddaughter to see Aladdin at the Lincolnshire Marriott Theater. It was so cute and I actually really enjoyed it!
We went out to lunch with the kiddies afterwards and headed back to my mil's house so the girls could play.
While us girls were talking in the other room, the little girls were playing and I snuck in to take a picture of them sitting on the chair together playing at the computer. As I was about to take the picture Ava put her little arm around S's shoulder. How cute! :-)
Stacey and Little C came over. Ava just ate it up, she just loves babies and little kids. She is going to be a great cousin some day!
One week from today we will be enjoying this beautiful view and the company of family.
We are headed to North Myrtle Beach to celebrate the wedding of Ryan's brother and his future wifey!
I simply can't wait to have this view! Our hotel is right on the beach and oh how I love the ocean! Rejoice!
I have a fear that I will not want to come home...
Oh what a wonderful weekend...
On Saturday I went over to Jen's house and got to hang out and do some hair. I got kind of 'stuck' on my way over because of a parade, but it was all good!
Jenny so graciously offered to play with my hair for our wedding and it turned out GREAT! I love it SO much!!! So...she offered to do it for the wedding! Thank you so much Jenny!!! You don't even know how much I appreciate it! I can mark the hair part off my list!
After that, me and Ryan picked up my mom and headed over to my cousin Cody's new place! It is so nice...we want to move there! We hung out with my dad and his roommates family. Kind of like a housewarming party!
I put this picture up for you Nonni and Zizi Nikki! Doesn't he look so cute in his little apron?! I just HAD to get a picture of it! :-)
Sunday was Bears day...what a game. Too bad they lost. :-(
Hope all your weekends were wonderful! Back to the daily grind tomorrow... One full week and a three day week and we're off to Myrtle Beach for Ryan's brothers wedding. We can't wait to go!!!
We went out to dinner tonight with my parents and Ryan's mom and stepdad. Our moms have met before, but it was the first time for everyone else. We went out for some pizza!
Hmm...this seems to be the same 'ole pic that we always take!
She's such a cutie! I actually got a picture of her smiling WITH her teeth showing!!! Yay! She hates to show her teeth when she smiles, too funny!
I got 'shots' of everyone while they weren't looking...wasn't up for the photo op! :-)
We all had a great time, of course who would have guessed it any other way?!Yesterday...Sunday September 21st was
MY FIRST CHICAGO BEARS GAME!!!
Well it was my first real football game too! We had a great day. It stinks that they lost, but I had a fun experience! I thought it was going to be a little bit cooler, but au contraire, it was pretty stinkin' hot out. Not to mention we were in the endzone in the direct sunlight! By the time we left, my hair felt like I had taken a shower (um, yeah, it was full of sweat!). I did get some much needed sun, although my sunglasses did a great job of giving me a raccoon sunburn on my face. :-)
I decided to put up all the pictures that we had so here you go...
Sit back, relax and put your feet up! Oh and these are for you guys, Mike and Stacey so go on and save picture as!
The beginning of our journey
Yesterday we had some of my family over for Ava's Family Birthday Party.
This, of course, sent me into a cleaning frenzy ALL DAY LONG on Saturday. So much so that when I woke up on Sunday morning, the tops of my thighs (not sure what that muscle group is called) were sore, yes...sore from cleaning! You could imagine my delight in knowing that I didn't feel bad working out at all over the weekend! I did it while cleaning, right?! ha!
I had to do something special for her! She's my little mini me! I got her a happy birthday decoration and she LOVES Hannah Montana, so I got those decorations hanging there too! She took those home with her to hang up in her room!
Of course there were presents!
And plenty of Barbies! Including one that feeds little doggies bottles and those little doggies piddle after (actually I'm sure while) drinking their bottles...good luck with that one Mom and Dad! :-)
Per Ava's request, Grandma made her a cheesecake for her birthday. I got her a number candle, for some reason she loves those?! And I also got some trick candles! Only one of them worked, but she got a kick out of it!
Our camera was acting up again...dang thing! Some of the pics are a little bit blurry...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AVA!!!Last night after work, Ryan and I met Jenny and Mike at the movies. We went to see the new Batman movie. It was our little birthday celebration for Jenny! The movie was pretty good. I can't stand to sit in movie theater chairs for so long though. My butt hurt SO badly! It's too bad Heath Ledger is no longer with us, he was brilliant in that movie and I wish he could continue to play the role of the Joker, as I'm sure they will be coming out with yet another. That was a fun time spent with friends. I'm a little sick of popcorn though...
Afterwards, mind you it was about 10:45pm, I had to run to my Dad's to pick up my niece. She was spending the night tonight, unless I wanted to pick her up at 6:30am this morning...nothankyou.
I awoke pretty early this morning, much in part to Ava. We had a full day though. We colored, made fortune tellers (remember those?!), watched a movie, took showers and went to the mall where she got a new outfit, got to play in the arcade, had some icecream and I went to Archivers to get some stuff for a little craft I had in mind (below).
And then guess what happened after we got home...
AVA DECIDED TO CHOP OFF HER HAIR!!!
Doesn't she just look adorable?! She wanted me to straighten it, and I did, but I thought it looked even cuter when it was curly. All her beautiful curls become much more curly.
Ava had a birthday party to go to at Pump It Up (a bouncy/blow up place) and Zizi was ready for some peace and quiet :-) 
Now, on to my craft. I had put two pictures up in the hallway, but didn't really like them. I didn't hate them (they were pictures of random streets in Italy...which was cool), but they weren't my favorite. I don't feel like they were me? So I got this idea from just reading around on the internet. I went to the scrapbooking store and got some cool paper (hello discount bins...perfect for this, but cheap either way) and then some rub offs. I wasn't sure what kind of rub offs I wanted, but I think the ones I got were cute. What do you think? Aren't they pretty neat? I love the print on the outside frames!
I hung them in our hallway, leading down to the bedrooms, in a set.
I can't wait until we are married. I have so many monogram ideas, it's killing me! But I really want to wait to even make anything until after that is officially my last name :-)
I am beat after today. My Mister had a show tonight and I was too tired to do anything, but I did manage to clean (since there was glitter everywhere in the livingroom) and do some grocery shopping. Now I'm about to settle in for a good Lifetime movie (I think I have a problem...)!I realize these are a little bit late coming in, but they are here...
This past Saturday we had a family reunion on my Dad's mom's side (get it...got it...good!). It was nice. I didn't really know all that many people. Our reunions on that side of the family were at a half for awhile due to stupid family fights (that we had nothing to do with...it was the older folks...I think!).
They decided to start the tradition again this year at a local park. It turned out pretty well and the weather was beautiful!
Ryan had to work for part of it but came afterwards. It was so funny when he got there, my Grandma paraded him around the place and introduced him to EVERYONE as her 'future grandson'. It was really funny the way she was showing him off!
The Hitzke Family
Random photo...my sil (she will kill me when she figures out this pic of her is on her! hi morgan...if you're reading! :-)), a cousin, me, my uncle, my brother, Grandma and my dad.
Grandma, Dad and Adam (my brother)
Me with Grandma and Dad
This was so funny! Ava was in her glory on this day! There was a park and games and all that good stuff. She was rarely around, except for when she wanted a drink. At one point we were like, where is she. Low and behold, she was over on the volleyball court playing volleyball! I had to capture the moment. The adults would let the little chitlins hit the ball so they felt included but most of the time Ava stood there like this (above) with her hands up in the typical volleyball stance! It was too cute!
She is such a doll..isn't she?! She is spending the night tonight and all day tomorrow! She's also getting a haircut! She wants it short, but I won't let her do that! I'll post some pics tomorrow!I have had a relaxing yet busy/tiring weekend. It was mostly Saturday, but it was really a great day. I ended up watching Ava for the day. I picked her up bright and early and we headed back to our place. Ryan had to work, so it was just the girls for the day.
It was Ava's birthday this past Thursday, she is a big 6 year old now! I can't believe how fast she is growing and how smart she is, her personality is just hilarious! Ava opened some presents from me and Uncle Ryan.
She got a cool High School Musical shirt (she is in love with all those things; HSM, Hannah Montana, Jonas Bros, Camp Rock, I could go on and on...) that Uncle Ryan picked out for her. It came with a cute little guitar radio with headphones.
...and she got a cute little sun dress (which I obviously picked out!).
...and she got a Disney Radio cd/dvd. My mom had gotten her a cd walkman (or isn't it discman? Technology schmecmology!) since she loves listening to music...you know it's cool to Ava, but it great to everyone else who doesn't always want to listen to Miley over and over again...everyone wins in this situation! Anyways, Ava was listening to it in the car and singing and, bless her heart, she was so funny! She has no tone, but it was so cute how she was singing along and then mumbling when she didn't necesarily know that words. Too cute!
After that we decided to make some different cupcakes that I had seen on Kelly's Korner. See the end of this post for the outcome/directions (they're good!). Of course, I had to let Ava lick the rest of the bowl, that was the best part when you were little, at least it was for muah.
Then 
AND NOW...Cookie Suprise Cupcakes!!!
Distribute your cake mix into the muffin pans so they are half full.
And voila! This is what you have!
Frost the tops with your favorite icing! I decided to put my icing in a plastic bag and pipe it on. Ava and I tasted one and they are SO good, very chocolatey, but SO good!
I had a nice relaxing day today that included painting my nails and watching various Lifetime movies! It's been a great weekend, I'm so sad that it is almost over! :-(
I hope you all had a great weekend too!
