Olivia's 5th birthday Party

Way back in July, we had a very fun birthday party for Ms. Olivia at our local splash park.  The day after the party we left for our trip to California, where we lost our camera.  we lost the pictures from the party and vacation! In my mind, I kept thinking, that anyday Disneyland was going to call and say they had found my camera hidden in some corner that in 6 months they hadn't cleaned.  That didn't happen so I don't have any pictures from the party, except the ones that my friend took.  I'm glad we at least have something. 

It ended up being the hotest day of the year.  A whopping 98 degrees, which in Chicago is crazy!!  It was perfect for a splash party though and the only problem we had, was keeping the frosting of our very darling cupcakes from melting.

Suzana and I have daughters that have birthdays 1 day apart, so we had a joint birthday party for Olivia and Sierra.

I had fun making the food for the party. I made nutter butter flip flop cookies that turned out so cute and brightly colored caramel popcorn. We had fruit, colored gold fish, and cupcakes with little '5' flags on them.

I love my sweet girl!  I know she loved her party and had so much fun with all of her friends. When we got in the car and were driving home from the party she said "that was awesome!" Happy 5th Birthday!!

Scenes from Christmas

We visited Santa this year, with no tears from anyone. Although Will had terror in his eyes, he held it together.

Last day of school for 2011. They both had their Christmas parties at school.

We have had one significant snowfall this year, but within a few days it had melted away. It has been abnormally warm this year (knock on wood) and we didn't have a white Christmas. :(

We went downtown to visit Macy's store windows and the walnut room. On our way, we passed this iconic building in Chicago.

Everytime I see this building it scares me. My stomach just drops at the thought of backing up to park in those parking spaces. Yikes!!

In one of Macy's windows, we got a sneak peak at Santa's nice list and Will's name was on it. It made the other two a little concerned.

This store is so beautiful and impressive inside. FYI: It's the same one Chevy Chase (Clark Griswold) visits in Christmas Vacation.

We went to the viewing area in the walnut room, overlooking that gorgeous tree.

Look at the coffered ceiling oh and the tree. :o

Outside Macy's on State street.

We had more outdoor plans for the day but the weather made it impossible. It was sleeting and cold but we did make time to stop at the very famous Garrett's popcorn and got a jumbo size bag for a snack. Delicious!!

Ben was very excited (or trying to stay warm or both). The picture caught him in mid-jump!

We had to wait in line for about 30 minutes to get the popcorn. It's that good.

Buddy returned to our house after Thanksgiving and has kept us busy with finding him each morning. The kids love him!! Even Will knew what to do this year. He was the first to find him a few times. He would run to where Buddy was hiding, point and yell until someone saw what he had found.

We made gingerbread houses and sugar cookies.

Olivia and I in our cute matching aprons! She actually helped me make the dough and icing this year too.

Although, it is way more fun to decorate and eat them.

On Christmas Eve morning, we were able to go help our friend Jimmy open his presents. I'm so glad we got him, two years in a row. He is always so sweet!!

We spent Christmas Eve with our friends the Browns. We had such a fun night and we love them so much! I don't know what we will do next year without them. We ate dinner, talked and the kids sang Chistmas songs and dressed up as the Nativity. For the record, Olivia has eaten all of her gummy bears and the whoppie cushion and swords have all been in use, since we left. :)

This year we tried doing something a little different. We bought all the kids presents with the following guidline. "Something you want, something you need, something to wear and something to read". It made buying presents easier for us and they still had plenty to open. Of course, in addition they still received gifts from Santa, grandparents, nana, aunts and uncles too.

This year Ben asked Santa for a Skylander Wii game, Olivia wanted a Doodle bear, and Will got a Little Tykes basketball goal that he hasn't stopped playing with since Christmas morning. Something sweet that Olivia asked for this year, as her 'something she wants', gift was a locket that had her Mommy and Daddy's pictures in it so that we could (and I quote)"always be close to her heart." So sweet and so funny!

Buddy left us this note, that we found on Christmas morning. There were tears from Olivia the night before, knowing that we wouldn't see him for a whole year!!

On Christmas morning we opened presents, had homemade cinnamon rolls and went to church. We took a picture outside but everyone was lauging so hard because it was freezing!!

Merry Christmas!!

Thanksgiving

We got home from Minnesota, the day before Thanksgiving. Rick and I had been trying to decide if we should go downtown for the Thanksgiving Parade the next morning. We went to bed deciding that it was too much trouble, too cold and too early.
On Thanksgiving morning, I woke up to Rick tapping me on the shoulder at 6:40 saying, "The kids are all dressed and in the car, lets go to the parade!" What a way to wake up!!!!
I'm really glad we ended up going, it was early and cold but it was really fun. We got great seats beside a movie sign and it blocked a lot of the wind.

We have a saying in our house, "It was fun until it wasn't!" That's how it ended. After about two hours everybody was done, so we left before even seeing Santa. :(

We headed home, I made Thanksgiving dinner and we ate, watched football and did nothing the rest of the day. It was great!!

November

Ben was able to get his Bobcat badge at his first pack meeting. We are working on his Wolf badge now, and since he is so excited about Scouts, we are going to get as much done as possible in the next few months.Why do kids love jumping on beds so much? It's the first thing that they do when we get to a hotel room. One night, after baths, I ran dowstairs to get something and when I came back to my room this is what I found.

Rick was home for a whole week during Thanksgiving (hallelujah), so we took the opportunity to go to Minneapolis, Minnesota and go to the Mall of America. We had never been and I don't know if we will be in the Minnesotta area very often again, so off we went for a short three day trip.

We stopped at this cute 'lodgy' restaurant in Wisocnsin for lunch on the way up.

Once we got there, we wasted no time and went stright over to 'The Mall of America'. To say the it is enormous is an understatement. It has every retail store that you can imagine!! For someone who likes to shop it was so fun!! We made a game plan and decided that we would do the first floor that night. We had dinner and then headed back to the hotel to rest our feet. Are my kids the only ones who watch t.v. like this? They can watch a movie hanging upside down and they dont even notice.

The next morning we went back over to the mall and shopped the second floor and then stopped for a few hours in the middle of the day to play at the amusement park inside with the kids. We all had so much fun on the rides and thankfully, Will took a great little nap in his stroller for a lot of it.

After the rides we went and shopped the third floor of stores. This picture is so funny to me. Look at the look on my face. It pretty much sums up how I was feeling about Olivia's indecision about what shirt to get. She, on the other hand, looks delighted at trying on so many clothes.

By the end of the day, Ben kept saying "My dogs are barking!" So we ate dinner and headed back to the hotel for the kids to swim. Rick very generously offered that I should go back to the mall ALONE, while he took the kids swimming. I definately took him up on it!

It was so nice to get away from home for a little trip. As a bonus we came home with all of our Christmas shopping done too!! Wahoo!!!