Friday, September 24, 2010

Morton Arboretum

On Tuesday, we met Aunt Domi and Cousin Caroline at the Morton Arboretum for a fun-filled day. We had never been there before, or at least to the kids area, and it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of different areas to climb on and run around. Aunt Domi took some great pictures with her amazing camera (and I had a few good ones from my cheap camera too), so I thought I would share some of my favorites.

Here are Ben and Caroline getting a good view...
Ben climbing on the giant "spider web"...
Abbey enjoying herself on all the different climbing areas - she's a good climber!
Caroline, Abbey and Ben having fun...

Crossing a bridge...
Abbey crossing a bridge...
Playing on the rocks in the stream...

And even Juliette had fun!
Isn't she sweet!
Caroline and Abbey...
Ben, Caroline, and Abbey had a lot of fun!

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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Bear Hunt

Now that we are approaching fall and it is getting darker much earlier, it is time to resume the bear hunts around our neighborhood. This is something creative that Daddy started doing with the kids and they absolutely love it. They get their flashlights out and go searching for bears, singing along the bear hunt song from a book we read once. Besides all the fun, there is the added bonus that the kids get ready for bed super fast if they know that a bear hunt is going to happen once they are all ready! Here's Ben in his ranger hat and Abbey in her bear PJ's and boots, both ready with flashlights!


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Sunday, September 19, 2010

Hakuna Matata

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Daddy's birthday is today! So the kids and I spent all day making birthday decorations, a special dinner and a carrot cake made from scratch (Daddy's favorite)! Here's the cake after we sang!

Ben enjoying his cake. You can see our decorations in the background. Each of the kids finger painted a paper and we cut them out to be balloons! A Happy Birthday sign is hanging next to the balloons.
Abbey enjoyed her cake.
As did Juliette!


Happy Birthday Daddy!!
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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Chicago Half Marathon

Theresa and I completed another half marathon together. This time we upped our training with the goal of breaking 2 hours and all our hard work paid off! It was a hectic start though. We stood in line for the port-a-potty for a half hour and missed the start of the race!

Luckily we were able to get in not too far back and get going.
Pretty similar running styles...I guess that comes from running together every weekend!
And SUCCESS!!! My finishing time was 1:56:53 and Theresa's was 1:57:22. Great race - love you Theresa!!
And then it was off to celebrate with some delicious sushi!
The kids seriously love eating sushi!


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Lake Arlington

On Labor Day we went to Lake Arlington and took out the paddle boats. Just a few quick shots taken from my phone at the kids having fun on the boat!


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zoo again

one more zoo picture taken from my phone...
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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Zoo

We got our camera back, so here are some pictures we took from the zoo! Here they are, ready to go with out picnic lunch packed in the back!

Ben and Abbey check out the rhino!
Mommy and Juliette...
Ben climbing on the play set...which is the last time we had the camera!
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Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Other Weekend Happenings

Well, we continued to have a great Labor Day Weekend, unfortunately, I cannot show you any of it. On Sunday, we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and our membership and spent the day at the zoo. We packed a picnic lunch and really enjoyed ourselves. Unfortunately, we somehow lost our camera while we were there :( But the good news is that the Brookfield Zoo Police called me later that night to let me know it had been turned into the Lost and Found (good thing I checked there before we left and gave them my information)! So, we will get it back, but I have to go pick it up and the zoo is not exactly close to us, so it will be another week or so before we get it back. I will post any pictures we took at the zoo that day once we get it back.

But, I didn't want to stop telling you our adventures, so here is just a brief description of the rest of our weekend - I will keep it brief as I know you really only want to see pictures!

Monday, Labor Day, we went to Lake Arlington, which is about 3 miles from our house. We hadn't been all summer and it was a great day to go. They have a little sandy beach there (which we didn't know about, so the kids just got sandy and wet in their clothes to have some fun). We rented a paddle boat and the kids really liked that. It is rented for a half hour, which was really enough time. Ben and Abbey probably could have stayed out longer, but Juliette was antsy and really just wanted to be rid of that life jacket she was wearing! We had a nice picnic lunch there and spent some time on the playground there too. It was a nice and relaxing day to end the weekend. I do have some pictures of it on my phone, so maybe I will try to see if I can get those onto the computer...I'm sure my in-house tech support can help me with that task :)

Hope everyone else had a great Labor Day weekend too!

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Pirates Cove

All summer Ben has been asking to go to Pirates Cove, which is basically a big entertainment park for kids. He went there on a field trip with school last summer and somehow we just never made it there this summer. I happened to look into it this past week and noticed that it closes for the year next weekend, so we decided we better go! Luckily, the weather was great today (sunny and upper 60's) and we had a great time. Check out everyone on this slide!

And there was a cool train you could ride. We rode it multiple times...

The girls riding the train...

They also had paddle boats, which Ben and Abbey really enjoyed. Here are Daddy and Juliette cheering on Ben.
Abbey had a lot of fun...
More train riding...
Luckily, it wasn't very crowded so we got to ride everything multiple times without waiting in line too much. It wore everyone out and we got home just in time to put everyone to bed right before the kick-off of the ND game. It's hard to tell with everyone wearing warmer clothes over it, but each child sported their ND gear today. Here is Juju showing where her loyalties lie - GO IRISH!!


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