Night out on the town

Saturday night we hit the city again, this time for a dinner out with the Hartmans.  We were wild and crazy and didn't even get seated at our restaurant until 9:30 after spending a few hours at a local bar.  We were totally young, hip, urban couples out on the town, it felt awesome!

Last weekend we also had cousin Jackson's 4th birthday party and Dad and Grandma Della came down for a whole day visit, too.  Fun, fun!

In kid news, Claire has been calling Matt by his first name instead of "Daddy" lately.  She'll walk around calling for him, "Matt!  Matt!  Matt!"  He always says, "You can call me Dad." I swear she laughs and points at him and just pronounces him to be "Matt!".  She has been waking up early in the morning but, unlike in the past, she actually has been falling back asleep with us for another hour which is such a bonus when it happens.  She is still sleeping with a book in her crib every night, too, and lately is obsessed with sleeping with the recordable book from Grandpa Craig, "On the night you were born."

Speaking of Grandpa Craig, a while back Luke and I were playing outside and Luke said he wanted to show me the fishing poles from Grandpa Craig that were in the garage.  I had no idea what he was talking about, since my Dad wasn't that big of a fisherman that I thought he would have given us some poles.  Plus, we hadn't seen him that recently.  But then Luke showed some poles to me in the garage, and I was like "Oh well, guess Dad must have given them to Matt sometime and I missed it."  I asked Matt about it later, and he was puzzled.  Then a little while later Matt was like "Oh wait!  Craig's List!  I told Luke I got those fishing poles from Craig's List!!"  Hahaha!  What a smarty pants.  I swear you can't say anything around this kid, he's a complete sponge.  We went to BW3's randomly last weekend while we were out and about.  Looking at the menu I suggested a few things to Luke.   He paused to consider and then said "We can't get junk food, Mom, we have to eat something healthy."  Then I told him that this was the only kind of food they had here and he said "Then why did we come here, Mommy?"  Touché!

Building a brick wall.  He puts bricks from behind the back garage in his wheelbarrow, transfers them to the dolly, and then stacking them into this brick wall.

Jackson's birthday party was a nature reserve and was sooo fun!

Miss Kelly teaching the kids about animals and birds

Nature hike

Claire decided she didn't want to hike anymore - this is the part of the hike that Matt & Claire got separated from the rest of the group.

Smores!

Birthday boy Jackson and Lukers

Happy Birthday to Jack!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed party

Rebecca and I outside of the restaurant

Just a couple of kids in love!

Awww, snuggles for Grandpa

Showing Grandma Della her teapot

First Attempt - Chicago sights with the kids

We attempted *key word "attempted"* to take the kids downtown to see the sights of our great city.  Being just 30 miles away from one of the best cities in the world (totally unbiased), I couldn't believe we hadn't yet taken them down there more often to expose them to all the sights at our fingertips.  We had been to the Lincoln Park Zoo, Shedd Aquarium and the Museum of Science & Industry over the past 4 years, but we had yet to see Navy Pier, Millenium Park, Field Museum, Planetarium or the Nature Museum.  I had this plan all summer to take the kids on the Metra train downtown, then go to Navy Pier and ride the huge ferris wheel together.  The summer came and went though, with all the busy-ness that it always is.  One Saturday we did actually buy tickets for the train to go downtown and do my plan, but unlucky for us there was some sort of problem that the trains weren't running, and then we couldn't drive downtown because it was Lollapalooza weekend and the traffic was horrific.  ANYWAY, long story not-so-short, we finally drove the kids downtown last Saturday.  It was suuuuper cold out, though, so not really my ideal outdoor sight seeing day.  It was.....how should I put this?....Not fun.  Claire threw a tantrum because she didn't want to wear her coat the second we got out of the car, then continued to be a little whiner/crier/generally unhappy and frustrating pre-terrible-two toddler the entire time we were there.  Luke wasn't so bad, but he was way more interested in eating through every snack in the diaper bag then actually seeing any of the sights we were down there to see.  I thought (mistakenly) that they would think the Bean was cool!  And the huge faces!  But, no, not really.  We had intended to go to Navy Pier after Millenium Park, but Matt and I were so exhausted by Claire's bad behavior that we just...couldn't.  I really don't know how parents have more than two small kids in the city, you really need that man-on-man defense to stop them from hurting themselves or others!  We ended up just driving back up to our neck of the woods to go to the Kohl Children's Museum.  After that kind of morning it was so nice to just let the little monsters run free in a safe, contained, educational environment.  

In this specific picture Claire only wanted to stand where she was standing and wanted NO PART in moving to another area of the park.  

Why hello there statue face!

Reading/Art nook continues to be a huge hit

She loves to sit in these baskets

Playdate with Jack and Mikey

Fall Fest - petting zoo and pony rides!

How cute is this picture that PJ drew???

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun this year.  Luke was really into it, and Claire could actually participate this year.  Actually, Luke was not so into dressing up and leading up to the big day he wouldn't pick a costume.  We went to the Halloween store and he roamed around with Claire admiring all the decorations, especially fascinated with the scary life-like zombies, but still wouldn't pick a costume.  It wasn't until we told him he wouldn't be able to trick or treat without a costume that I swear he picked the first costume he saw, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  We didn't even think he knew what that was!  Anyway, he made his choice and was good with it!  Claire wore the little ladybug costume that Mom and Dad had given her, she was so cute.  After a pretty mild week, it turned really cold that day, so it was a bit of a short trick or treat run.  Enough to get more candy than we needed and cement in those memories, though.  Like last year, we spent the evening at the Hartman's, enjoying the holiday with them and the Cohen's.  

Before I go into the rest of the pics from Halloween and the week, I wanted to post some cute pics from last weekend that Matt took while I was in Annapolis at the wedding.  They were having a great time, too!

Ice cream sundae bar at G&G's

Luke's good buddy Joey's bd party

Daddy/son bike ride

Daddy/daughter breakfast

Here are the pics from the rest of last week and Halloween.  

Tuesday night we celebrated Emil's birthday.  Happy Birthday Emil/Grandpa!

Trying on his mask at dinner one night before Halloween

Mom was kind enough to give us all of my childhood Halloween decorations - they sure do bring back the memories!  The kids loved them.

I went to Luke's Halloween party that morning at his preschool, so cute.

Getting ready to start trick or treating - we had a little scuffle over who would get to carry our one Mickey Mouse pumpkin, and who would get the regular pumpkin pail.  Since it was technically Luke's, he ended up with the prize.

Obviously I'm wearing a crow on my head.

And obviously Claire is clutching a tropical bird beanie baby (Eloise's) along with her pumpkin

Luke ran so fast between each house, but this year Eloise and Sarah kept up with him instead of him being totally on his own.  Eloise was pretty competitive about who would get there first to ring the doorbell, it was a fierce competition!

Claire and I were not so fast....we were constantly trying to catch up, Claire so wanted to be with the big kids.

Eloise is so sweet with Claire.

Here's a little video to give you a little taste for yourself of the trick or treating experience.

Basement bounce house action - the three girls were wrestling in there.

Who can resist trying on the crow, I ask you?  Not this girl!

Not pleased to report that we experienced our first snow of the season this week.  Can't wait until I'm reporting on our last snow of the season (check back in 8 months...).

Claire took this picture of us - she's very serious about her photography