Our Chicagoland Adventures

thankful

Look who came to our house for Thanksgiving!! Yes their parents came too, we missed them too. But these two are the cutest EVER!!

Adam was never too far from Carson. Here they are having a snack before bed. Carson was great to share his bed with Adam. Adam loved it!!

We only have two TVs at the moment and the boys wanted to watch a movie. I rarely let my kids watch on my bed. Since Adam asked I'll break my own rules.

I'm so grateful that Bailee is willing to make the rolls every year. She had many little hands helping this year.

We usually eat in the formal dining room off of Mom's china. The china hadn't been unpacked yet. So we ate of snowman plates instead. I wasn't too disappointed.

Friday morning we did our Christmas gift exchange. Everyone opened up one gift with Adam and Retta opening up two. Lucky!! It was so fun to watch every ones excitement. They all LOVED what they opened.

Then off we went into the city. It was a cold, cold day.

We had about 1 1/2 hour wait at our favorite deep dish pizza place. It was worth it!!

We have to get Garrett's popcorn! There was a line there too. Worth it!!

After the city we went to see Frozen. Super cute! Super fun day.

Then Saturday arrived, they had to drive home. :(

Karlee rode back to Texas with them. She had a ortho appointment on Monday. After her appointment she spent the day at Boswell with her friends. She loved seeing everyone one but it made it hard to come back to Chicago. She's struggling the most with the move.

she got a job!!!

Can you guess where? She loves it! I love to see her when I go visit. Which is a couple times a week. :D

the big city

Brian needed to go into the city for a work meet and greet a few weeks ago. I tagged along for fun. He got out of work much later than planned. We arrived about 15 minutes before it ended. Oh well. We then walked many blocks in the cold to an amazing Italian restaurant, Quartino, with a few of his colleagues. They had the best fettuccine alfredo I've ever had. It was very crowed and loud though. Definitely not a place to go for a quite intimate dinner. We'll go again anyway.

This is my favorite building in Chicago. It's a parking garage.

mason's adventures

Mason has had a lot of his own adventures this last month. There was an A/B recognition. They had donuts and hot chocolate before school. Even though his grades weren't from Haines he still got all A's from Creekview.

His first band concert. He was so very nervous. Of course they all sounded great. Once the 6th grade started their songs he wasn't as nervous.

Then one Saturday he went rock climbing with the Scouts.

The two wards in our building also do a MAY Group, Middle school Aged Youth. Since there are so many middle schools here once a month a family hosts a party to get all the middle schoolers together to help them...bond. He went in November and they went swimming. Only about 12 kids were there but that's actually a perfect size. He had fun. I'm hoping he'll want to go again.

His school also has a ski trip planned in January that he has asked about going on. My only concern is that he would need to go to lessons possibly by himself. I know he won't like that. I think we'll try and go as a family first then next year he can go with the school. I'm hoping we can take advantage of where we live and expose the kids to winter activities like skiing. I love to ski! I hope we can go soon.