Christmas Countdown List

Anna at Sugar Boot and Weasel posted about her Christmas Countdown Advent Calendar last year, and I had absolutely planned to steal the idea this year, but I might not have gotten my act together had it not been for her recent posts about it. The plan is to write each of these ideas onto a piece of paper, put them in a cute little envelope marked with the numbers 1-25, and open one envelope each day to see what fun awaits us.

I spent a good amount of time this afternoon working out which ideas I wanted to do. I printed them out, cut them into strips and was shuffling them around on the calendar to try to find what activity worked for which day. Otto looked at the little pieces of paper and asked some questions, made some observations. He mentioned that it was very good that he can't read, because then he could look at my notes and see all the stuff I was planning and then it wouldn't be as much of a surprise (I was trying to be discreet, but I obviously failed). And then he told me: "I would like it even better if the envelopes didn't have just words in them."



I think they will both be really excited about this when we get going, but of course Otto is remembering previous years' Advent calendars, whose felt pockets were stocked with a different gift each day. I am planning to fill each pocket with a piece of chocolate in addition to the envelopes, and I was hoping to get by this year with chocolates and activities. But I confess that today I also looked at the Lego Advent calendar. We've always been of the philosophy that we can't have enough fun ways to count down the days until Christmas. I am really trying to cut back on our spending this year, butt I do think the boys have enjoyed the little things they get to count down each day approaching Christmas as much as they like the Christmas gifts themselves.

1. Make homemade marshmallows (and some hot chocolate to go with them).
2. Make paper chains for decorating the house.
3. Do you have some pretty paper leftover? Let's make a paper lantern.
4. Go to the Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza. Bring your new paper lantern, and join the Children's Lantern Parade!
5. Let's go to Ben's Christmas Tree Farm to pick out a beautiful tree. (But be careful not to squish any elves that may be hiding in the branches!)
6. Make popcorn strings for the tree.
7. Write letters to friends. Seal them with wax so they're really special.
8. Let's go see the Wonderland Express train at the Botanic Garden.
9. Take a bubble bath by candlelight.
10. Make crystal snowflakes.
11. Make felt bird ornaments for the tree.
12. Let's go to the Museum of Science and Industry to see Christmas trees from around the world.
13. Give a gift to a charity.
14. Make ice suncatchers .
15. Have a bedtime puppet show.
16. Make and decorate cookies.
17. Let's go to Winter Wonderfest!
18. Let's go listen to the carolers at Cloud Gate.
19. Make edible ornaments for the birdies.
20. Let's go to Zoo Lights at Lincoln Park Zoo.
21. It's the first day of winter! Did it snow? Build a snowman! If there's no snow (or even if there is), make snowman pancakes for dinner.
22. Cut out paper snowflakes to decorate our windows.
23. Decorate gingerbread houses.
24. Tonight is Christmas Eve! Write letters to Santa. Don't forget the milk and cookies!
25. It's Christmas Day! Hooray!

Making this list got me so excited about the fun activities in our future that I was ready to get started right away. We took one of the ideas that didn't make the final cut...and we did it tonight! We had a relatively simple dinner tonight, but at the last minute, we dressed it up all fancy with candles and some of our most special wine glasses (ones that Otto has recently asked about). The boys wanted to wear their ties and pretend to be waiters, but we were unorganized in the moment and couldn't find them, so they settled with draping towels over their arms and welcoming Martin home by telling him his table was ready.



It was lots of fun, and we ended up serving a very special dessert: chocolate and creme cookies (knock off Oreos) with milk, served by candlelight. They've never tasted better. Plus, they make really great rafts for traveling clones. Until they capsize.

Sunday in the Park

Dunes Day

On Saturday, November brought us more sunshine, and some more warm weather. We made a late breaking decision to head to Warren Dunes (and apparently, so did a lot of other people). It was sort of late in the day by the time we arrived, so most of the organized/sensible people who were there were on their way down as we embarked on our journey to the top.



It's hard work climbing up a dune. We had to stop and rest.



Rolling down makes it totally worth it.



We walked over to the far side of the dune, where there was a really steep but smaller dune.



There were two boys down at the bottom of it, a bit younger than Max and Otto. Their father was at the top, waiting with their dog. The boys were having a really hard time climbing back up, and even when they would make it a good distance, they would both slide back down again. We watched them for a few minutes, and then Max and Otto decided to slide down and join them. They quickly realized the problem with this dune is that the fun of sliding is first, and over really fast, and afterwards, you still have to climb back up it.



We made our way up pretty slowly. We had to dig our hands into the sand and then pull ourselves up, repeat.






We made it back to the top (and the other two boys came up with us). Plus, these guys were waiting for us up there. At least they were unarmed.



Back at the bottom again.



We walked over to the beach and watched a small plane fly overhead, a huge amount of gulls gather and fly away, and a few other families sitting on the beach, enjoying the end of the day. Max always seems so peaceful when we're someplace far away from the city. He was content to sit and play in the sand for a long time, but Otto was ready to go.



We took a last look at the sun and the lake before we left.

Back at the Arboretum

Another beautiful November day found us back at the Arboretum to check out the Children's Garden (when we were there last Sunday, we barely left time for exploring this fabulous playground, so it was our first stop today).










Otto thought this log looked like a seal. It looked more like that if you saw its "tail." From here, it looks a bit like an alligator.



After we were all officially done at the Children's Garden, we stopped for lunch in the really nice cafe there. And then we drove over to the final set of animal houses in the exhibit. These were our least favorite of all the ones we saw, so it was funny that we almost didn't manage to see them (we had seen all the other houses on our visit last Sunday).

Our favorite one here was the spider web, but even that seemed too much like the Children's Garden we had just left.





Another hill, good for rolling down.

AT-AT Pilot and Boba

Our latest foray into the wonderful world of animation:

Sunday in the Neighborhood

We spent Sunday morning at the Farmers Market, now indoors at the Congress Theatre.











We dropped off all the goods back at home, and we went to Holstein Park. We found this leaf with a bunch of weird things on it, which we can not identify. Any idea? Eggs? Disease?



And there were more opportunities to get very very dizzy.

Smashing Pumpkins

The Morton Arboretum

We went to the Morton Arboretum to check out the animal houses before they closed this exhibit.

First, a trek through the wetland. The Pollywog Pond:



The skunk den:



The Great Blue Heron nest:



On our own walk through what turned out to be a sort of wetland (the piles of leaves were hiding substantial puddles, and the boys were only wearing their Crocs, yuck), we found a Buckeye tree, and we collected a whole bunch of buckeyes.





On to the Woodland Romp, where we saw the Raccoon Den:





We also collected an astonishing number of ladybugs from the Fallen Log house.









The Squirrel Drey:



Then we went on a hike to the Big Rock, a large granite boulder that, thousands of years ago, was apparently picked up by a glacier and carried here like a little pebble, probably from northern Michigan or Canada. It's hard to imagine this giant rock was carried like a pebble, but we tried. It is estimated to weigh about 14 tons.





It was notable how this walk through the leaves compared to our walk in the leaves two weeks ago, when all the leaves were bright and soft. These leaves were dry and crunchy and made such noise when we walked that Otto found it disturbing. He wanted us all to try to walk through them without making all that noise. Prior to that, we were all stomping and kicking and making as much of a ruckus as possible, so I suppose we went a bit overboard. We tried to walk through as quiet and stealthily as possible. But that was pretty difficult.



We found mushrooms.



Slightly off-trail.








We ate a delicious lunch in the cafe at the visitor's center, but we left plenty of room for the freshly popped kettle corn. I'm not usually a fan, but this wasn't too sweet, and it was still warm. It was hard to resist.





The boys joined a lot of other kids and rolled down the hill. Many times. It was such a great rolling hill, and almost no one was able to roll straight down. It was hilarious to watch all the kids colliding into each other and standing up, completely dizzy. I remember loving that sensation, spinning myself around until I was so dizzy I would fall over. I absolutely hate to be dizzy now, and in fact, my equilibrium is somehow off, and I often find myself dizzy, even when I'm just sitting up from lying in bed, or getting up from the couch. It is nothing but unpleasant, in my opinion. But here are a bunch of kids, saying, "Bring it on!"



We walked the maze, which at first, the boys thought was totally lame. Until they got lost in it and realized, "This is a REAL maze!"

Then, we checked out the children's garden, where there is some of the best playground equipment we have ever found.







It was warm enough to wade in the water. (!) Our children decided to risk it and leave their shoes on. Otto slipped, but at the end, and he didn't actually fall in the water.



As we were walking toward the car, Otto pointed out a patch of trees by the lake and said, "Look at this beautiful spot where we could sit and watch the sunset!" It's so funny to hear them say things back to you, in a sort of excited tone which most likely mimics your own way of talking. But there was no denying that Otto had a great idea. We sat under the trees, eating the last of our popcorn, as we watched the sun set behind the trees on the lake.

Zippety Zoo Da

We've been reveling in the string of warm sunny days we've had in the last week, especially after the cold and gray October we had. We spent a particularly lovely Friday at the Brookfield Zoo.

They still had their giant pumpkin on display.



And we found the peacocks, roaming around the grounds as they are wont to do. We were really excited to see them, since on our last two visits there, we didn't find them.





And we visited the Macaws, Max's favorite.





Otto showed this little Penguin his Puffy, and we can only assume the little guy was pretty confused. We imagined he was asking Puffy, "How did you get on THAT side of the glass?"





The giraffes were enjoying the afternoon too.



We walked the trail along the lake, which we have never done before. I hadn't even realized it was there until our last visit, when we saw it towards the end of the day and were too tuckered to tackle it. On this visit, I knew I wanted to take the extra time to do the long loop, and luckily, the boys were excited to do it too. We looked for birds and other animals, although we didn't really see anything of note. A lot of squirrels. Still, it was a perfect day for a walk in the woods.

To Market We Go

The Logan Square Farmers' Market has moved indoors for the winter, and lucky for us, they've chosen the Congress Theatre for the location, which is just a one block walk from our house. It's a treat to see this space in the daylight. There's a noticable haze throughout the lobby, no doubt the remains of the previous night's concert audience. There was recorded music on this visit, something light and airy, trying to capture the feeling of a warm fall afternoon and highlight the crisp, delicious apples and pears that dominated the stands, but they could not completely mask the grungy factor of the actual space, which we considered a bonus.







Of course, there were crepes to be eaten.






And we had lots of fun with our remote control, which we've only recently been using to get some family portraits. Otto took several self portraits.





It was such a beautiful sunny day that we wanted to stay outside. The boys consented to go to the park, but they spent a large chunk of this time playing their DSi's while sitting beneath the shade of the slide (so they could see their screens, of course).



And so we lured them on yet another walk, this time to check out New Wave cafe, a newish coffee shop that opened up in the heart of Logan Square. The draw? They have an old Nintendo 64. It's so old and unreliable that there are printed instructions atop the player which say something like: "If the game stalls, wiggle the cartridge, then take it out and give it a kiss." There are more than a dozen games, but we found the one with our most favorite hero. Mario is everywhere we are, it seems.


No complaints here, though. We were able to have a relaxing time in both a park and a cafe, and take a long walk on a nice afternoon, too. It's all good.