Chicago Christmas Activities

Baking, of course!  We love to help Mom.

Winter Wonderfest at Navy Pier was a blast as usual.  Koen got to go on a lot more rides this year and I went on all the adult rides by myself since I am tall enough now.  It was awesome!  Mom really wanted to join me, but not with the baby in her belly.  Next year!

The boys skating - Koen's first time!

My school Christmas program

We surprised everyone by stopping mid-song and turning to our partner for a dance!  I'm in front in the middle dancing with the girl in the red dress, Mia.  As you can see, the parents were loving it and flashing pictures like crazy so it was hard for Dad to get a close-up :-)

Weekend with Uncle Ray and Narin

Uncle Ray and Narin stayed with us for the weekend to go to a wedding here and since Uncle Ray can't make it up to Hancock this year for Christmas, we had an early Christmas in Chicago!  They sure know what we like - Legos and markers!!

Looking spiffy for the wedding!

My friend Silas came over and helped us build the train puzzle model that they gave us.  It was a mess, but we succeeded!

We dove into the block-painting set that they gave us as well...and decided that we needed to be shirtless for the project.

Thanks for the great gifts and fun times, Uncle Ray and Narin!

Zoo Lights

We made our annual trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo to see the Zoo Lights and our friends Sam and Clara joined us this year.  It was a warm December night in Chicago - we are usually bundled and frozen by the time we get through all the exhibits, but not this year!

The Christmas Season Begins!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We went to the Owsiaks for our third annual Thanksgiving weekend and had a blast, as usual!  We kicked off the day (literally) by playing some outdoor football with Daddy and Rachel's boyfriend, Chris.

 MnM's - the perfect way to end a Thanksgiving meal :-)

 I got to help Uncle Doug put up their Christmas tree - I've been looking forward to doing it again for the past 2 years!

 S'mores - sans graham crackers - before dinner.  An Uncle Doug specialty!

Fall

We did a lot of fun things this fall - two of my favorites were making our own scarecrow at a Harvest Festival and cleaning up the leaves in front of our house with Daddy, Koen, and our neighbor Jerardo.

Happy Halloween!

I designed our pumpkin face for Dad to carve - it's our best one yet!

 We went to our friends' house to trick-or-treat with the same crew 5 years running now.  It was a blast!

 All the kindergarten classes sang some songs together at our Halloween assembly.  To finish it off, we performed the "Thriller" dance along with the 1st grade.  We've been practicing it in music class with Mr. Feliciano since the beginning of the school year!

 After the assembly we paraded through the school halls.

 A couple weekends ago we went to a pumpkin patch/Halloween festival at a park with our friends Sam & Clara.  They had bouncy houses, face painting, and a petting zoo!

More pictures discovered!

We found a whole bunch of great pictures that Daddy took on his phone - some go back as far as mid-summer!  So take a look back and enjoy more fun from the past 6 months :-)

Millennium Park fountains downtown

4th of July at our friends' Jamie, Charlie, and Stella's house in the burbs

Water fun night at summer camp at church

Bouncy house at our block party

Kidzapalooza (part of Lollapalooza music festival downtown)

Cousin Spike (Michael) was there too!

Lots of ice cream stops this summer - Tastee Freeze, Burger King...

U.P. Beauty

Happy Birthday Nana!

Koen's first time on the tube with mom

And Noah's first time by himself!

"Touch a Truck" event with our friends Joshua and Lauren

Farm market in MI with Emmie