Thankfulness

Rob, Carrie and Eleanor came in Wednesday night to stay for a few days. Here are The Captain and Tenille before leaving for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. Actually, this was before we left for ours. Rob had not showered yet and they went to Carrie's family for dinner.
We went to Deerfield where Liz and Van had been for a while and some other family members came too (cousins of Mary's). I got to spend some nice time with Vivian.
We also got some good shots of all 3 cousins together. I think Vivian loved hanging out with her older cousins. They adore her and made lots of googly faces at her, which made her giggle!
Check out that full-bodied joy! What fun to be a baby!
Uncle Pete is also a huge fan of babies. Here he is talking football with Viv. I was going to say "introducing" her to football, but I've seen some photos of Vivian and her dad snoozing in front of a game.
She's quite fashionable already.
I was in charge of pies for the dinner, so my children got to lick the whipped cream beaters. I'm a huge proponent of letting children lick the beaters or spatulas...whatever the case may be.
I couldn't decide what to make, so I made 3 desserts, but then ended up with a 4th after I took some cinnamon rolls across the street to Ed and Helena yesterday morning. The dessert on the far left is called Nantucket Cranberry Pie and it was almost more like a cobbler- with the cakey crust on top. The back pie is a banana pumpkin mousse from Ed's restaurant (Carrie's enjoying some of it next to me on the couch right now) the middle one is a pretty standard pumpkin. Though I forgot the new trick I had read of baking it on top of a pizza stone to help the bottom of the crust bake a little better. In front in the red spring form pan is an apple tart that was my favorite.
Pete got to help cut the turkey.
And Henry and Clara were the first at the table. This was before Clara spilled her little cup of water. Other than that, and some extra getting-up-and-running-around the dinner went very well and was delicious.
This morning we avoided all of the door busters, but did head out early to take the kids to a 9:50AM showing of Tangled, which was great! It was a first movie for Clara and Eleanor, who both sat through the whole thing. Henry loved it too. Clara did get up to dance a few times when there were musical numbers, which will be a great memory and story to tell her about her first theater experience.

More (warning, it gets a little sappy)

This poor child...we squeezed every possible ounce of birthdayness out of this weekend for him and he was pooped!
He was excited to open some presents, but a little bit overwhelmed too. You can't tell, but Anna also has a bow on her head in this pic. Henry placed it there for her.
He was very thoughtful about his wishes. I resisted the temptation to ask him what he wished for. I hope they all come true!
Tonight at bed I was telling him that I wasn't entirely sure what his plans were for the morning. I said something like "I'm sorry, Honey, I got your plans a little confused I guess." His immediate reply to me was "You don't have to apologize. You're still the best mom."
How could I not wish all of this little boy's wishes would come true? Just when I need it most he hits me with huge amounts of genuine, unfiltered love.

More Birthday Madness

We finally made it downtown for the Chicago parade of lights....along with the rest of the population of the greater Chicagoland area.
Then we went to the Rainforest Cafe for our first crazy experience there. Behind the kids is a big crocodile. Notice Clara's new sideways smile.
Here we are after the meal. It was probably 8:45 by this time. The kids were wiped and Clara was developing a little bit of gunky eye.
Here we are this morning. Henry opened a few gifts, skyped with Grandpa Bill (new cap) and Uncle Rob and Aunt Carrie and talked on the phone with Grammie. Here he's checking out the book Pete and I got him.
Here's another gift from me and Pete...it's a cool Magic Schoolbus science kit with all different dinosaur experiments.
More excitement is in store for today. Henry has a birthday party to attend (Rachel's!) and we plan to have a few friends and family over for dinner and cake tonight. Can't believe my little guy is six years old!

Dinosaur Birthday Party!

This morning we had Henry's birthday party with his friends from school. It was the first time to have any of these friends to our house. A bit of a momentous occasion. Of course we had to have a dino party! The first activity as the kids came in was to color masks. (I have a vague memory of a birthday party of Rob's where the kids colored masks too...Rob?)
While some kids finished masks other kids played a little bit of dino ring toss. Here Henry's helping his sister feel successful.
If you look closely you may notice that the girls are making rainbow dino masks.
Then we played a little bit of hot-potato dino pass.
And we took a group photo.
And a smiley one. That girl in the gray in front seems to be Henry's favorite. She has her glasses off in this photo. Keep the name Rachel in mind...you may continue to hear in over the years.
We did a little bit of dino egg racing. They had to push the eggs with their noses. I think there was lots of cheating. The stakes were high for dino sticker and dino silly band prizes.
Here was a play-doh game where we had to make different dinosaurs as quickly as we could. Also in this photo you can see the bags of groceries kids brought to donate to the food pantry. Henry collected about 5 bags worth of stuff! Stay tuned for a post in a few days after we go deliver those things.
Then it was time for dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets (hooray Whole Foods!) and fries and grapes. We made the volcano erupt after cupcakes.
Notice that Rachel is sitting right next to Henry.
I think it was a pretty successful party! Tonight we're going to attempt the big lights parade downtown. Tomorrow is another party with family and friends!

Baby Vivian!!

For 2 months Clara has been talking about "Baby Vivian!!!" Saturday we finally got to meet her. Here's my first meeting with the little sweetie.
And here she is meeting Uncle Pete.
Clara could not wait to hold her. She wanted to give her lots of kisses.
Henry got a chance to hold her too.
But Clara wanted to still be helpful...
Here's a proud cousin!
Vivi and I got a lot of nice cuddle time together while everyone else went to play outside. She made lots of cute faces and nice little sleepy noises for me. Here she is almost smiling.
She also looks cute in jammies.
Thanks to Liz and Van for putting us up and for having such a cute little niece for us!

50's Day

Henry is celebrating his 50th day of school today. 50 days of kindergarten!!! They had homework last night where they had to count out 50 of something to take in to share (Henry chose Legos) and today they will have a sock hop.
It may not be very 50's, but there are flames on the sides of his Converse. His choice. He also has a comb in his back pocket. My choice.
We were ready for school a little early and it's my Wednesday off, so he and I walked up to Starbucks for a 50's hot chocolate before walking back to school. He held my hand the whole way. We also did some big adding. "Mom- I know what 3,000 plus ten is." But be careful what you say. I've been a little lax in what I say in front of him lately and he's starting to get a bit of a big head. Yesterday he told Will he was smarter than him and then proceeded to tell the story of how his teacher asked if they could find any words in the word November (be, or....) Henry raised his hand and said "venom!" He came home with a Word Wizard award. What can I say? The kid is smart. Just don't tell him that. I'm trying to refocus on being resourceful and curious and trying hard, rather than being smart. Our other key phrase with him these days is "kind and helpful". As in "when you pushed your sister and yelled in her face were you being kind or helpful?"

Okay...still to come: photos of Baby Vivian!

Visiting Ohio: part 1

This weekend we drove to Ohio for lots of lovely visiting. I'll split this into 2 posts.
First we drove to Troy and spent the night with Aunt Paula and Uncle Ron. It had been way too long since we had visited...well before we were married. We were treated very well.
Hot dinner was waiting upon our late arrival. We had encountered snow, traffic, an accident and mistaken addresses. But we were still greeted with smiles and delicious food.
The next morning Aunt Paula was up and ready to feed us again before we had to hit the road for our next stop (see next post).
These pictures are presented in no specific order:
Henry with some juice- apparently already having downed a waffle.
Smiley Henry with Aunt Paula.
Sticky Face Clara with Aunt Paula.
Pete playing with the old fashioned pencil sharpener.
My favorite mug.
Henry, Uncle Ron, and a glider gun.
We also enjoyed meeting Zipper, who is a very sweet pooch. And we had a tour of Paula's art studio and some of her newer creations.
We plan to head back for a longer visit soon.
Oops...almost forgot. There was also, of course, some artwork to be made:

Gobble Gobble Gobble you up!

Henry's November "family funwork" project was to disguise Tom Turkey so the farmer can't find him when it's time for dinner. Henry, of course, chose to disguise his as a dinosaur.

This morning....for those of you who care about hair...

A little more normal...except for my corny expression.

After

It's dried straight and I'm still adjusting.

Hair Cut Day

Before

Halloween

This first picture is actually from a couple of weeks ago when the kids woke up with face paint still on from Pumpkinfest. They like to read the Sunday comics together.
Here are Pete and his dad yesterday afternoon.
The kids were ready to go, posing by our headless scarecrow.
Grandma and Bampa came to see them trick-or-treat their first few houses.
Here's our spooky family pose.
Henry and Clara made their first visit to the neighbor's house. Jan filled Henry's Unicef box with lots of change.
Here come the Huelkes. Anna's nurse cap was adorable.
Jonah came up to treat with us as he does every year. It's hard to believe that the kids are starting to outgrow this table.
And that's about all of the pictures I took! It was happy haunting, though! And we have way too much candy in the house now. Please, come over. Eat some.