Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Birthday Party in the Park

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We went to the park Thursday morning then came back to the house to start our turkey. As Chance napped the turkey cooked and by the time he woke up the whole house smelled like turkey. The three of us ate and ate, turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce and greens. Then we topped it off with yummy apple pie.


On Friday we (unfortunately) had to go shopping, grocery shopping. We never do shopping on Black Friday because most of the time it just isn't worth it but this year it just so happened that we got paid on this Friday and needed groceries so off we went, It wasn't that bad if you stayed in the grocery sections for Sams and Walmart so we were safe. After we made it back from the store we pulled all the Christmas boxes down from the attic and starting putting up decorations. We got all of our lights up and snow globes set around the house (I love snow globes) and all of our little trees set up, now all we need to get is our big tree. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and munching on leftover turkey.


Today we had a birthday party, for Ana Maria, one of the little girls in our playgroup, to go to so after hanging out at the house this morning we headed out to the park where the party was being held. Chance had a great time running around and playing with all of his friends. They kicked the ball, ran around trees, hit the pinata and ate cake. Ana Maria's family is from South America so they made really tasty tomalies and we had hot choclate to keep us warm. It was a good time, Chance took a great nap after we got home.

Our New Yard

We have been struggling with our yard ever since we moved into our house (2 full years ago now). At first it was all over grown and weedy so we decided to rip it all out and start over by laying down grass seed. lots of man hours later we had a green lawn but no grass. Then it seemed no matter how much we worked on the yard the weeds we taking over before the grass could even get a hold. So, for the last year we have weeded and sprayed and everything else but still we could not play in the yard without getting poked and scraped and probably bring sand spurs back in the house with you. Now we have taken a totally different turn we pulled it all up and covered it with mulch. Our yard is red and our flower beds are black. It is great! The yard is no longer pokey it is soft and squishy. You can run around in it without getting hurt. We still have our rose bushes and other plants as well as places we have already made to bring in a few more plants we already have in mind. We are also going to make a couple little pathways with stepping stones and have already made the design for a tunnel/archway.

There is a vine running along our fence which is really thick and at certain times during the year has little white flowers on it so we are going to built a long archway near the fence using the vine to cover it, the way this vine grows it will be totally covered in no time. We have been spending a lot of time outside now that the yard is so nice. Chance loves to run around with Deedle, they are great buddies. He takes Deedle's leash and they run around the bushes and play together, another project we have in mind is closing the area under the house with lattice and putting a little gate at the back of the house, to keep Deedle (and Chance) out of our renters little part of the yard, when we get that finished we don't have to keep Deedle on his leash when he is in the backyard. For now they have a good time but sometimes Deedle's leash gets tangled on things which is both annoying and sometimes funny. One of their new things to do while playing outside is sit on the bench together, Deedle just jumps right up there and so does Chance.

No Pictures

Chance is going through a "No Pictures" phase. It is ok to catch his picture but if you ask him to look at the camera he hides and says "no pictures" so here are a couple hiding pictures.

Recent Playdates

We have had two playdates recently that spawned a lot of pictures the first is a trip to the zoo:









We rode the Carousel and played at the playground before walking around to see the Monkeys and other animals. The first time Chance rode the Carousel he wasn't too sure about it but this time he loved it and anytime he gets to play with his friends he is pretty happy, this time he played with them more than he looked at any of the animals.







Then a few days ago we met our group at a Farmer's Market Uptown where we have been a few times. There wasn't a lot that we needed to get but we grabbed a couple tomatoes and a few free samples (Chance actually ate some Kale) and I did spot a couple things I might come back for next week to add to Thanksgiving dinner. After walking around there for a little while we went back to Nancy's house where we let the little ones play in the yard. The weather is still wonderful here, I am so glad they can still play outside, little ones really need to run around. In this second picture Chance and Octavian are pretending to sleep. Chance really loves babies, we have a new member of our group who has twin girls who are only 6 months old ever time he sees them he pats their heads and talks to them, this time he tickled their feet. He is so cute he will tickle Daisy's feet then run around the stroller and tickle Darla's feet then he will jump up and down until they laugh which they always do. I don't have a good picture of all this yet but when I do I will post it.








These last two pictures are from a playdate we had at Mariah's house just yesterday. Chance had fun playing in the sandbox and the little "log cabin" in the backyard.

Train Table

In trying to figure out what to get Chance for the Holiday season this year we decided to expand his train collection. We decided to go so far as to build him a train table. We wanted to get started on it early because Scott will be out of town from Thanksgiving to December 17th not leaving a comfortable amount of time on the other end to build a train table from scratch we picked up the wood and got to work. Neither one of us had ever built a train table before but Scott has made a few pieces of furniture and has a pretty good eye for things like this so even though we were newbies we did a pretty good job (if I say so myself). This is the progression including a video of Scott working hard and Chance running around (which he does very well).

Pictures are back!!!

OK you might not actually know why I haven't made posts in a little while but here it is, I maxed out the amount of pictures allowed by Blogger at the same time that the yearly membership came due at Flickr pretty much cutting me off from being able to put pictures on the blog. Without pictures it's just not the same and so I didn't feel motivated to blog. But now we have pictures again so there will be a few posts to catch up. First here are just a few pictures of Chance that have been taken over the last couple weeks.
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we have a fire pit in the back yard while my Mom got us for Christmas last year and we finally built a fire in it. Now we have built a few fires and even roasted hot dogs one night for dinner.


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We've been taking a lot of walks recently with the weather being so wonderful, just the other day we started off at our coffee shop right down the street and ended up finding this great little grocery store just a few blocks form the house. We knew it was there but last time we were in it there were just a few grocery items but now it is like a full on grocery store just smaller and with a bend toward natural, organic and local which is great. The prices aren't too bad either, it won't replace our weekly grocery store trips but it will be great for picking up little things in between as a matter of fact today we walked over for butter which we had run out of the night before. The second picture in this set is Chance sitting on the sidewalk drinking his juice that we bought him at the new grocery store.

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Finally this past Saturday there was a little sidewalk chalk competition at the school right next to our house, it was free and open to the public and only one block away so we went over to have a little sidewalk chalk fun. The other artists had more of a plan than we did but we had fun. There weren't a lot of people there so there wasn't really much of a competition but we drew Chance's name, a robot and the TARDIS as well as other stuff and they even let us keep the sidewalk chalk that was provided.

So it looks like there is some code sticking out from each picture I am not sure how to make that go away so if anyone out there does please let me know, thank you.

Paddle Boats in City Park

I had heard that way back before the storm there were paddle boats in City Park. Then a few weeks ago we were driving through the park and saw a little sign saying the boats were coming back to the park. I have been very excited about this because I we all three like boating and until now there hasn't been anywhere very close to get on the water (unless you own your own boat).

So, today we went to City Park where we rented a paddle boat and paddled ourselves around the water. We went under a bridge and around the area where we usually sit to feed the ducks. The ducks were all there floating around while we paddled by, it turned out that a large portion of the waterway was blocked off due to construction in the sculpture garden so we paddled around the main lake, past the fountain in the first picture and back to the dock. They said they plan to have the construction finished next week so we are going to keep our eyes on it then go back when we can go farther in the water, which should be really cool because we will be able to go through the sculpture garden and the whole park. As it was we still had lots of fun and can't wait to come back.

We also discovered a whole new thing at the park this visit. It is a big Oak tree filled will different size wind chimes. I completely forgot to take a picture of it, but I plan to set up a picnic playdate there before the weather gets too cold so I will post pictures of it them, It sounded heavenly. After the boating we walked around the water, then sat on a bench with our feet dangling over the water. Chance has started hiding when I start to take his picture. I ask him to smile and he either hides or lays down. That is what he is doing next to Scott by the water in the second picture and in the third picture that is why he is laying on this bench but I outsmarted him, walked around and got my picture anyway.

On the way out of the park we stopped by a new art instalation near the water. Chance and Scott had a good time chasing each other around and around this big piece of art which you can see in this last pictures.

Trick-Or-Treating

Last year we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood but this year we couldn't find any other little kids in the area to go trick-or-treating with so we got in the car and drove uptown to State Street. Every year they close off State Street to cars so it is safe for everyone to walk in the street and run around. This place looks like somewhere characters in a movie would go trick-or-treating, big old beautiful houses, wonderful old Oak trees making a canopy over the street, everyone friendly and sitting out with big bowls of candy people in costumes everywhere and nearly every house has decorations some with fog machines and sound effects, it was great. The first house we went to had skeletons all over the yard doing fun and funny things like climbing trees and playing with hula hoops, Chance was very interested but not scared at all he walked up to the front door with us but wasn't quite ready to say "trick-or-treat" they decided to give him some candy anyway and they were rewarded with a very sweet "thank you."
Oh I just realized I forgot to tell you that Chance was a Mummy. We made all of our costumes, Chance's costume was the best he was mummy from head to toe, Scott and I had 'mummy mommy' and 'I'm just the mummy's daddy' shirts respectively.
Anyway, after the first house we moved on down the street trick-or-treating from door to door. At first Chance just said 'hi' then he said 'Halloween' then finally he started saying 'trick-or-treat' and by that time he was good to go. He even visited the last couple houses on his own without one of us holding his hand.
Near the end we ran into two of our friends from the playgroup, Nancy and Andrea and their little ones, Octavian (Thing 1, with blue hair) and Alyssa (Ballerina) and Avi all the little guys seemed really happy to see each other in the crowd of unfamiliar faces. He was so cute carrying his basket and saying "trick-or-treat" such a big boy. By the end of the evening he was so tired we were carrying him back to the car and he was all floppy like little ones get.

I still want to get pictures from the Halloween party that we had last wek up on the blog but haven't gotten around to it yet, soon I promise.