Halloween 2012

We had a great October and ended it with a very fun Halloween! We went to our church Harvest Party the Saturday before Halloween and the boys all dressed up. They had a great time playing games, winning prizes and jumping in the bounce houses. Dave left for elk hunting early this morning so it was just me and the boys for Halloween. I decorated the downstairs with a sign, tablecloth and blow up ghosts and spiders along with pumpkin muffins for breakfast. When Colt walked downstairs this morning he saw the decorations and says to me "Mom, where are all the rest of the decorations, this is not very much!". That kid LOVES decorations, it makes him so happy to see places decorated and he always makes a big deal out of it, I will remember that for the holidays this year. After I got home from work we spent some time doing a craft and made pumpkin people. After Case woke up from his nap we headed out to do a little early trick or treating at friends' houses.

 My three superheros. Thanks to Aunt Kenzie's great Christmas gifts last year I did not have to spend any money on their costumes.

 Colt and Jax showing off their superhero pose.

 Working hard on their pumpkin men.

 Jax's pumpkin face, I did the cutting and he did the gluing.

 Colt LOVES any type of craft, his favorite thing to do lately is sit at the table and draw, color, cut, glue and repeat. We have so much craft stuff in this house from him I do not even know what to do with all of it.

Colt made a pirate pumpkin and did it 100% by himself.

 Case's expressions are priceless, I feel like they capture his personality so well.

 Super Case running away (what else is new?).

 Our first stop was Audra's house, the boys ran up to her door and Case was yelling "punkin" the entire way. Colt knocked on the door and both the boys yelled "trick or treat".

 While Case ran over to me with his new pumpkin.

 The boys got a few pieces of candy and we hung out with Audra and Hayden the Zebra for a little bit. Then we headed over to my parents for dinner, chili, apples with pumpkin dip and pumpkin bars. The perfect fall foods and my mom made sure to have some crafty Halloween stuff for Colt to do as well. My mom ended up taking Case back to our house to put him to bed and I took the boys to Wa-Hi for the trunk or treat in the high school parking lot. The boys were awesome, saying "trick or treat" and then "thank you" after they got candy. When we finished the boys had AWANA to go to but we still had about 25 minutes so I drove to a neighborhood close by and we walked up and down the street, knocking on doors and saying trick or treat. I let them go to the door by themselves and just watched from the sidewalk. Colt was awesome about making sure Jax was with him and reminding Jax to say trick or treat and thank you every time. Colt is seriously the BEST big brother, I hope this never changes. Jax loved it too, he was much more shy and unsure about all of it but I know having Colt there helped him to come out of his shell a little bit. Every time they would run back to me and say "Mom, we got a (insert type of candy here)" then "Ok lets go knock on another strangers door". My favorite was when Colt said to me "Mom why do we knock on strangers doors?  That is not very safe!" We finished up the trick or treating and then I dropped them off at the church for AWANA, they had the best time and were both so excited when I picked them up. We came home and snuggled in my bed watching a movie and eventually falling asleep in my bed (a big treat for them!). It was such a fun night and reminded me how much I love the holidays. It was fun to see things through their eyes (because honestly I was not looking forward to taking them trick or treating, I was tired and have been going on little sleep lately) and it just made me so happy that they are mine!

 There is nothing like a mom and her three boys, I will love them forever!

Chicago

My mom, Marni and I took a girls trip to Chicago this past weekend. Marni was running the Chicago marathon and really wanted us to go with her so of course we went. We had a great time, I was very uneasy about leaving the boys. Dave and my dad already had their annual chuckar hunting trip planned so Dave's mom offered to watch the boys for part of the time I was gone until Dave got back and watched them the last 2 days. We left Friday afternoon and didn't get home until 2am Wednesday morning due to some issues with our flight. Besides the plane issues the trip was wonderful and so much fun to go to a city I had never been. Chicago is beautiful, clean and so much fun to walk around.

Welcome to Chicago!

 

 We made it! After 2 flights we met up with Marni at the airport Saturday morning at 1am.

After sleeping for a few hours we went to a Caribou coffee shop (Carbiou coffee is my new favorite...oh so good!) had breakfast, worked out at the hotel gym and then headed to the Chicago Marathon race EXPO.

Marni picked up her bib and her swag bag and we walked around the EXPO for a couple hours.

We stayed at the Hyatt and all of the elevator doors had Chicago marathon signs on them. In fact the entire city had marathon signs everywhere we went.

The EXPO was very cool, it had a ton of different vendors and considering there were 45,000 people running the marathon it was really well organized and did not seem too crowded at all. We headed back to the hotel around 4 and then had dinner reservations at 5:30 at RPM which is an Italian restaurant owned by Bill Rancic and his wife Guiliana DePandi. The food was so good, easily the best Italian food I have ever had. We turned in early that night since we all had an early wake up call to get Marni to the marathon start.

Sunday was all about the marathon. Marni rocked this race, I hopped in with her for a bit at mile 13 and snapped some pictures of her running (I had my phone with me). The course was incredible and the crowd support was unbelievable. I don't think there was ever a moment in the entire race when people were not screaming and cheering for you.

 Showing off her marathon medal. She finished in 3:34!

After the race we showered and walked to Lou Malnati's Pizzeria for some Chicago deep dish pizza. We all agreed it was just alright, it was the perfect thing to try after a long run because we were so hungry but the deep crust and all the cheese was not my favorite.

 We finished eating and then hit the town on foot walking to Millennium Park so we could see "the Bean". The bean is basically a bean shape mirror with no seams. If you look into it as just the right angle you can see yourself and the entire skyline of Chicago in the reflection.

 There were so many people there and we also saw a lot of people wearing their marathon medals and hobbling around. Marni was not hobbling and she forgot to wear her medal (much to my mom's dismay), in fact she acted like she had not run at all that day and we walked for two hours around the city before heading back to the hotel for dinner.

That night we went to dinner at La Tavernita which was a Spanish style restaurant with a Latin influence. Also very good and different from anything we had ever had before.

Monday we stayed in bed a little longer and then went to breakfast and had some of Chicago's famous bagels. After breakfast we showered and got our walking shoes on. We were all leaving Tuesday morning so Monday was the only day where we could really explore the city and do some fun things.

We started by walking over to Soldier Field and `checking out the Bears stadium and the official Chicago Bears store.

Then we went over to Navy Pier and walked around.

Navy Pier was right on the water and was gorgeous. It reminded me of a carnival on a boardwalk. There was a ferris wheel and lots of little vendors selling cotton candy, kettlecorn, candied nuts, etc.

Next stop was Wiener Circle which is apparently famous for their hotdogs. We got  2 hotdogs and shared them between the three of us. They were good, the place was just a shack but the food was tasty.

After indulging in some not so healthy food we walked down to Wrigley Field.

After spending the entire day walking and going as fast as we could from place to place so we could see as much as possible we finally made it back to our hotel just in time to change and head to dinner.

We had our last dinner in Chicago at the 95th floor Signature Room, it was a very nice restaurant and the view was completely worth it.

We also celebrated my mom 55th birthday and Marni's 30th birthday.

What a fabulous trip! I loved getting to spend some time with just my mom and sister. It was definitely a trip I will never forget. Thank you Marni for an amazing time, I love you little sister!