Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat.

Guess who M dressed up as? Surprise, huh :-))








I have to say that my favorite costume was a little boy who was dressed up as a hotdog. It was the funniest thing. And, for those of you who are wondering he preferred mustard rather than ketchup.



Then, we had dinner over at the pfour's.

Hide and Seek!

Treats

Today is M's Halloween party at school. Check out the treats below....homemade marshmallows (if you have never made marshmallows from scratch, you've got to try it) and scary tarantula cookies. Eeeeeks!

Crazy Jack

We just couldn't wait until Halloween. Today we carved a pumpkin. Mia drew the face and Chris helped her carve it. Cute!

One Giant Step For M

This summer at the pool was a big turning point for M. She was doing so incredibly well that we didn't want her to "forget" during the winter how much she liked the water. So, we enrolled her in swimming classes at a local college. We've been going every Saturday for about 5 weeks now. Until today, she absolutely hated the classes and told us such every week. She never wanted to go but we always talked her into going thinking that if she just got there...... Last week she was screaming and crying so hard I took her out of the pool. I didn't know what to do and felt so terrible for her.


At first today she was protesting with her best faces and arguments, but then the aquatics director came over and gave her some extra TLC. Eventually after some clever talking she got her into the pool. From that point forward M had a great time and even told me several times that she loves her swim class.


This called for a celebration. So we headed over to the Blue Max for a cup of hot chocolate. Afterwards, M got to pick out some pumpkins to carve.
















I could not be more proud of M for being so brave and trusting. She's an amazing little girl!!!!

Symbol of Fall

Cornucopia---a symbol of fall. (Or, horn of plenty as we say down South) This is what I associate most with Fall that I remember from my childhood. We always had a horn of plenty on the dining room table filled with fruits and veggies. This is one tradition that I am keeping alive--but with fake produce!

Morton Arboretum

We have been talking about visiting the Morton Arboretum for some time now but just never got around to it. The Pfours are members and were going today so we tagged along....just in time for the Fall Color Festival. It was spectacular! You almost forget that you are so close to an urban area when you enter. As you could guess, we spend most of our time in the Children's Museum enjoying the treehouses, rope thingys, baby and big people mazes, stone walking over water, etc. Then, we walked around one of the lakes which had scarecrow trails. Then, we continued our German theme with brats, roasted corn and taffy apples with all of the fixins'!!!! A perfect day!

Oktoberfest.....a repeat

Last night we met the pfour and Reddings out for dinner. It has been ages since Chris and I celebrated Oktoberfest but for some reason this year was different. We celebrated twice!! Maybe because it's a lot of fun for the adults and it keeps the little ones entertained with some slammin' music AND a dance floor (primarily for the kids). One really important lesson learned from our partying.....Chris learned how to do the Chicken Dance..... the right way. Man, it was so embarrassing all of these years at weddings with a partner who couldn't do the chicken dance:-))

Learning to Write

This is M's first real success at writing her name. Unprompted, M wrote her name on the chalkboard. Yeah, she added a couple of extra letters but I'll cut her some slack :-)) She just got a little letter happy. Exciting!! (Thanks again Aunt Ti for the alpha workbook.)

Apple Pie

I baked my first apple pie today. It was hard work, but well worth the effort. Delicious!! I think I impressed Chris and M. Guess what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow?!?!

A Perfect Fall Day

M is at a really good age to enjoy a hike in the woods so we ventured out to Palos today to get back in touch with nature. We saw butterflies, fish, turtles, The Little Red Schoolhouse (which is a nature museum), lots of bees and hives (yikes).... We had a blast.

I'll spare you any more backside shots!




Water break time......

Oh, and I woke up with an eye infection this morning. Check out these sexy specs!

M's Turtle

M works on lots of art projects each week both at home and at daycare. She was exceptionally excited about her big art project this weekend that she worked on at daycare. She was finally able to bring it home today. We were walking home from daycare this afternoon and M decided that it was a good idea for her new turtle to have a stick. There you go. Too bad M doesn't know that this is as close as she is coming to "owning" a pet... if I have any say in the matter!!! (yep, I'm a meanie!)

Knox's Spice Dry Rubs

Knox's Spice Co is a family owned and operated company in Berwyn. We know the owners---Bryan and Jen--- from M's daycare. While chatting with Bryan a couple of months ago I discovered that he and Jen are in the spice business. Naturally, I had to test the spices and I'm happy to say that they are delicious!!! You can use them in just about any dishes that you can imagine. I recently used the cracked pepper rub in my weekly frittata and it was excellent!! I liked them so much that I sent the BBQ gift basket to my dad for his birthday. Oh, and Bryan's Southern boy so that adds some credibility in my book!!

Rating: A+

Check it out at www.knoxspice.com. Enjoy.

Celebrating Oktoberfest

Chris' mom was in town this weekend (Mike, she came to pick up another puppy!!). When asked what she wanted to do this time around she said that she would like to go to Oktoberfest. For anyone who knows Chris' mom, this was completely unexpected. Oktoberfest = beer, right! She doesn't even drink and can be a bit of a picky eater so I didn't think she liked sausages (sorry, mom mom). Needless to say, I was a little unsure of how this would turn out.

In our search for celebration, tonight we headed down to Lincoln Square for a stroll and good eats at the Chicago Brauhaus who also had a live band that played....what else but...traditional German music. We had a giant pretzel from Munich, pork schnitzel, sauerkraut, red cabbage and brats. My favorite brat was the white one....don't remember the name (Ang, can you help?) Chris and I used to live only a few blocks away and never ate at this restaurant.....our loss. I've never really been excited to have German food based on my reasoning that I don't enjoy sausages and I've had "real" sauerkraut in the past that I didn't care for. Man, was I mistaken. I will definitely be back this winter......turns out this was a wonderful idea as we had a blast!!!

M enjoyed her first time at a brauhaus!!! (ok, she didn't drink the beer but she really wanted to hold the stein!)

Buddha

We used to call M buddha belly when she was an infant...for obvious reasons. Buddha until she was around 2 years old. Now we are graced with the presence of M's buddha belly only when she is going through a growth spurt. Well, buddha as treated M good. Today she had her annual check up with her pediatrician--Dr. Wilson. M is 75th % in height and 50th% in weight---now isn't that funny. All previous check up it was the quite the opposite. Our little baby is a little girl (snif, snif)


WE LOVE DR. WILSON! Even though we now live in Oak Park we still go the City to see Dr. Wilson. She's so sweet and gentle with little ones which is really important in our minds. She also understands and appreciates all of the questions that we have for her about various things. Even, our questioning of certain vaccinations, etc. We are very fortunate to have such a trusted doctor looking after M.

Doggy, Dog

The shock, the horror.........check out M's doggy hat that she made today at school--90% by herself. She was very proud of herself as she should be! (By the way, M's pose was all M's idea. She thought it would be funny for the blog...yeah, she said that.)

OK, now off to watch the Cubs play.