Happy Thanksgiving!

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit for Thanksgiving. We have some traditions now, since we've lived here so long, and watching the Christmas parade was one of them. It was Sweet Pea's first one and she seemed to like it!

I sat with Curious Z and helped him catch all the candy. . .

It was getting dark, so this one is quite blurry, but I couldn't leave it out - Backpacker and Car-man marched in the parade with the Cub Scouts and threw out candy to all the parade watchers. Car-man loved it!

We went to Chicago for a day - it was a little harder because of Sweet Pea, but we still had fun. Here she is sitting in a high chair like a big girl.




Grandpa treated us to lunch in the Walnut Room at Macy's and the Christmas fairy came around and had the boys make a wish and then sprinkled them with fairy dust. As you can see in this picture, Car-man took this very seriously. . .











The tree is decorated differently every year and this year was covered in toys. Can you see Rudolph's abominable snowman hanging there in the middle?






Here's the whole gang. . .







A real, live toy solder at FAO Schwarz. . .

Looking at the windows at Macy's. . .

Then we went to Millenium park and saw all the cool sculptures. Here's the big shiny bean (I'm sure it has a real name, but I don't know what it is!). I like how the city is reflected in it. . .

. . .the the boys under the bean playing with their reflections. . .

. . .one of the big face-towers (don't know their offical name either). These are so cool in a creepy kind of way. They blink, smile, spit water out their mouths. . .Car-man and Curious Z were fascinated.

The sides of the face-towers are good places for creative silhouettes. . .we tried to get a picture of every color. . .

Backpacker looks like he's in a mug shot. . .




We listened to some carolers and had free cider and hot coffee. . .it was a good day. And, we made it home safe and sound (except for a little encounter with a cop pointing out that one of our headlights was out, which Backpacker knew, but just hadn't gotten around fixing it yet. . .but, we didn't get a ticket and he fixed it the next day (almost), so it was a very good day!)