Sick one

L stayed home from school today. She was complaining of a stomach ache last night and said it was still their this morning. We did sneak in a little shopping though when she was feeling better.

Mom and B time

B usually sees the orthodontist in his Oak Park office, but they wanted a 3D X-ray of his mouth so this afternoon we went to the LaGrange office. We left the house early so we could do a little shopping at Trader Joe's and figure out where exactly the office is. B apparently has two teeth growing in the roof of his mouth and the X-ray will tell the doctor whether they need to come out.

After the appointment, B choose to have a chicken tender dinner at Popeye's. We rarely eat there and it was pretty good. As I was tucking B in, he said we need to have more mommy/B dates. Aww.

Hostess gift

Allison brought me a Christmas cactus as a hostess gift for Thanksgiving. It looks good now, but I'm wondering how long I'll be able to keep it alive.

Family fun day

This afternoon we went downtown Chicago to see "A Christmas Carol" at the Goodman Theater. It was the first time B and L had seen a live theater performance. The actor who played Scrooge was really good. I've heard some families make a tradition out of it and go every year. We won't be doing that, but it was nice to see once. It was also great to see the Goodman Theater, which I'd never been in. I don't think there's a bad seat in the house.

Our seats were the first row of the balcony.

Afterward, we headed to our favorite Pizzeria Due for a late lunch/early dinner and were seated immediately. That was a change! Still had to wait an hour for them to cook the pizza, but it was well worth the wait. I even have a slice left over that will probably be my lunch tomorrow.

Decorations

We put up the Christmas decorations today. Thanksgiving came down and Christmas went up. The kids all helped with the Christmas tree though E had a neighbor friend over so she only put a couple of ornaments on. B did most of the carrying of boxes from the garage into the house and E helped with the lights and garland. This was our only weekend to do it since we'll be in Jamaica (!) for the next two weekends, then it's Christmas in Staunton, and finally Christmas. Whew!

Andy got all fancy and put lights around the front living room windows:

Shopping

Andy was at Best Buy by 9:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving waiting for the store to open at midnight. He was able to get what he was going for and made it back around 2 a.m. (at least he claims, I was asleep). Grandma B spent the night so she watched the kids this morning while Andy and I did a little Christmas shopping. We didn't get too much done, but lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise was a nice break. I love how they garnish the drinks! Here's my margarita. Andy got into the holiday spirit (literally) and drank a Disgruntled Elf.

Thanksgiving

We had a nice small group for Thanksgiving. Everyone was able to sit at the dining room table - no kids' table!

E made the turkey and here she is rubbing oil on it before plopping it in the oven. The directions said it heat the turkey at 475 degrees for the first 30 minutes. The smoke detector went off four times! Once we turned the heat down to 350 for the remaining time, it was smooth sailing.

This was a yummy caramel apple bundt cake I made. It fell apart a little when I took it out of the pan, but fortunately the caramel hid most of the goofs.

Here's L snacking on the appetizers before our guests arrive.

Fancy pants

This year, E is brining our turkey (using Alton Brown's recipe) and searched the internet to find a fancy napkin fold for our Thanksgiving table. The ones she ended up with look fabulous!

Olympic Day

L's school had a fall Olympic Day today. They usually do a spring Olympic Day and it's far too late to get it in the yearbook so I had to jump at this chance to include an Olympic Day in the yearbook. The younger grades did a bunch of relay races this morning, then I went back again in the afternoon to see the older grades. L may look like she know what's she's doing with this hockey stick, but she was hitting it into corners and under chairs.

In this picture, her class is trying to put themselves in order, from January through December, by their birthdays ... without talking. Apparently that was pretty difficult for her class. They were all messed up. L's holding up seven fingers to show her classmates that her birthday is in July.

Back from Texas

Since summer, B's laptop has been making an odd and very loud noise whenever the headphones weren't plugged in. When the headphones were in, the sound was fine. A technician came out last week to look at it and couldn't fix it so we had to box it up and ship it to Texas to be fixed. It was only gone a few days, but B sure missed it. It was sitting here when he got home from school yesterday. It's nice to wake up and see B sitting at his computer again, laughing at videos.

Turkey day

L brought home this cute turkey today. We're going to put it up on the wall for Thanksgiving dinner.

Da Bears

Andy took B to his first professional football game today - the Bears vs. San Diego Chargers at Soldier Field. The weather wasn't bad (meaning it wasn't snowing or freezing) and they had a great time. Andy got the tickets through work and they included access to the stadium's United Club, which was super cool. The ticket prices were unbelievable. Fortunately, we didn't pay. The $335 ticket price was broken down by $111.61 for the seat, $13.39 for taxes, and $210 for club privileges. Yikes.

Here's B enjoying chicken nuggets in the United Club before the game started:

Here come the Bears!!

And they won 31-20!

Museum breakfast

This morning we went to the Museum of Science and Industry for its annual members' breakfast to light the tree and kick off the holiday season. We enjoyed a buffet of fruit, cinnamon rolls, pancakes, sausages, bacon, eggs and breakfast potatoes. The main tree is decorated like Whoville from the Dr. Seuss story since the museum has a display about him now. We even had the Grinch get in this picture of the kids in front of the main tree.

This is the 70th Christmas Around the World celebration at the museum. It's pretty neat to walk around and see the trees decorated for the various countries. E was pretty fascinated with the Japanese tree. I always think the Germany tree looks best because it's most like a traditional Christmas tree, but this year the England tree with its Prince William and Kate's wedding certainly caught my eye.

After looking at the trees, we toured the museum's Smart Home and saw an Omnimax movie about the construction of the the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Then we went to Pizzeria Due for a late lunch. It was the first time we've sat on the second-floor balcony. Fortunately, it was closed in with plastic windows and it had some heat lamps. It was pretty comfortable temperaturewise and a great place to sit and watch the shoppers pass by.

We had a hour or so to relax before heading to church for its annual Thankoffering potluck turkey dinner. We didn't eat too much there. We were pretty stuffed.

Silver and gold

In time for Christmas, L chose silver and gold bands at her orthodontist appointment today. The hygienist popped off a bracket while putting the new rubber bands on. L said that was quite the experience as they had to take off all the brackets and replace them.

Turkey trot...er, walk

Today was the annual Turkey Trot at L's school. Students in grades 3-5 run four times around the school building (a city block) and the top boy and girl in each grade win a $10 gift certificate to a grocery store to help toward their family's Thanksgiving dinner. L didn't do much running or trotting. When I saw her she was walking. No gift certificate for us.

Art?

Each year, L's art teacher makes a sculpture type display on the school's chainlink fence. Her first year she made flowers out of plastic bottles, which turned out pretty neat. The next year she created a design out of plastic grocery bags (not my favorite). This year, she's using old DVDs and CDs to make a pattern on the fence. It's growing on me. The CDs change colors depending on how the light hits them. I took a picture of it and plan to use it as the background on the yearbook's autograph page.

Bridging

This afternoon E's Girl Scout bridged from Cadettes to Seniors. She received a patch, a pencil, a congratulations card and a senior year membership star. Her leader even gave her a sash with the new troop's numbers on it. It was a gorgeous fall day so her leader planned the ceremony for outside. It was short, sweet and to the point, just the way I like it.

Here's a group picture after the ceremony:

And a bunch of silly girls:

Trivia!

Tonight was the church's annual Trivia Night. Our next-door neighbors J and S joined us, as did our neighbor, P, who lives behind us. We formed a team with a few church members and called ourselves the South Siders because we all live on the South Side of Oak Park. It was a lot of fun, but we lost. We really lost. We came in last. We did, though, score highest among the three teams on the Bible questions, thanks for S. And we did pretty well on the history questions. Sports questions and geography were way out of our knowledge base. Maybe we can redeem ourselves next year.

L was given a trophy for being the only kid who attended and gave the teenage babysitter someone to watch. B was there, but decided to play his DS rather than trivia and E was there as the scorekeeper who collected the answer sheets and tallied up the scores.

11-11-11

It's the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011. The most interesting fact I heard is that if you multiply 111,111 by 111,111 it equals 12,345,654,321. Hmmm.

Hat day

Today was hat day at Irving. L took two hats - a set of smiley face antennas and a glittery Santa hat. She wore the smiley faces till lunchtime, then switched to the Santa hat. Students had to donate $1 to wear a hat for the day. The student council is then going to donate the proceeds to cancer research. I went over to the school to get a few pictures of crazy hats for the yearbook and bumped into L as she was coming out of the restroom.

Boy cave

A couple weeks ago, B got the idea that he needed to build a tent in our living room. He cleaned out the toy corner (yeah!) and put up blankets, attached to the windows and lamp. He's made it pretty cozy inside. It has a nightlight and a sleeping bag, pillows and a blanket. He likes to sneak inside and play his DS or do some homework and on the weekends he's been sleeping in there. I told him it's coming down before Thanksgiving and since that's where the Christmas tree will be going, the tent won't be back up until after the new year.

Even E likes the "boy cave":

Lucky lady

E is a lucky girl. Today we went to a craft show at the Catholic high school in town. The show used to be held at OPRF but apparently the rent for the show was going to triple (!) so the organization moved the show. Anyway, E wanted to peak inside the "other" high school in town and this was a way to see some of it. The crucifixes and the pictures of the pope kind of freaked her out.

The show seemed smaller than in previous years. Maybe there wasn't as much space so they had to reduce the number of vendors. We flew through the show, not seeing anything we wanted. E's favorite part of this craft show is the raffle. For $1 you get two tickets and inside each ticket is says "Sorry, try again," "Free ticket" or a number. After a few tries, E pulled out a ticket with No. 25 on it. She was so surprised to receive an American Girl paddleboard set, valued at $38. When she got home she gave it to L, who was thrilled with the surprise.

E has also won the raffle in past years, for at least the last three consecutive years. She won here and here.

A visit from grandma

B likes to call me on his cell phone when he's walking from home school if his friends aren't around to walk with him. Yesterday, he surprised Grandma Barbara by calling her on his walk home. He described everything he passed and she said it felt like she was walking alongside him. He invited her to spend the night, but Andy came home too tired to manage that. Instead, he picked her up from her apartment this morning and she plans to spend the night. It has been months since she's been over. The kids all took turns sitting with her in the recliner, talking to her and showing her photos. E even pulled out her laptop and showed grandma all the cool things she'll be able to research when she gets her own laptop.

The photo is E showing grandma the junior varsity golf picture.

I asked B what's the best thing about having grandma here and he said, "Just her being here." Awww. He's a sweetheart. Grandma said she left with enough hugs to last her until she comes back.

Ouch!

The nurse called this afternoon for me to come pick L up from school. Apparently, she jumped off the monkey bars at lunch recess (on a dare) and then one of her friends jumped on her, accidentally hurting her ankle. The nurse put some ice on it and sent L back to class to take a test, but after the test L came back to the nurse, saying it still hurt. I think on Fridays, they just let the kids go. We got L's backpack, talked to her teacher and signed her out of the building.

Here she is resting at home, ankle up on a cushy pillow, munching on addictive cheddar popcorn and watching cartoons. I'm expecting a speedy recovery.

L's Thanksgiving

L surprised me this morning by setting up our Fisher Price Thanksgiving set. We've had this set for years. It gives the kids a decoration they can actually play with. She said she sat the Pilgrims next to the Indians because it wouldn't be too nice if the Pilgrims were on one side and the Indians were on the other. It's a bit surprising that we still have all the pieces of the set. Somewhere through the years, we gained a pumpkin, though.

Self-portrait

L brought this home from school the other day. It's her self-portrait.

Decorations

Halloween is serious business in Oak Park. Some neighbors go all out decorating their homes and yards. One of the best I've seen is where L's friends E and B live, just a half block from us. They started putting up the decorations several weeks ago and last night when I was there, the mom was still decorating - lighting candelabras on the porch and putting fake blood on a skeleton. She was dressed as a pirate, too. They really like Halloween.