The Bird.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had dinner, drank wine, blah blah blah... but let's get to the real Nebraska Thanksgiving tradition...

TOM OSBORNE

HERBIE HUSKER

NDAMUKONG SUH

Tim and Jerry went to the game and Tim took his camera. He got lots of great shots of the team and the stadium inside and out, but these were the classics! Yay for the Huskers.

Now, onto Turkey Day itself. We had a fun day! We tried something new and ate later in the day so we had all afternoon to cook, drink wine, eat munchies and watch football. Alex got to nap, too. This worked out very well. The Grandma's may not think so, however... they were challenged to an UNO game that no reasonable person could ever win. Adam was cheating (he would, of course, deny this) and Alex was pulling all the cards off the table as they were playing. All we could hear from the other room was lots of hooting and hollering and laughing. I thought maybe it was the wine, but no... it was just UNO.

Tim and I did most of the cooking but we relied on Grandmas to bring the best part of the meal - the pies. We had a yummy day and so much to be thankful for!

We got our leaves cleaned up just in the knick of time... The boys LOVED jumping in the giant pile and we had a nice day to do it. Just a few short days later we are faced with single digit windchills and snow flurries. Winter is here.

Birthday Boy.

Happy Birthday Alexander! Today we had a little party for the guy... he truly enjoyed it and seemed to understand that today was all about him. He blew out the candles before we were done singing, and he clapped and clapped. It looks like Christmas morning around here with all the gifts. We are very fortunate to have such wonderful friends and family to share these special moments with.

We have a 2 year old!

Halloween 2010

The month of October through the eyes of a 6 year old = PUMPKINS and CANDY.

The Browns did multiple pumpkin patch visits (although we opted for the small, cheaper version rather than the large, expensive, carnival version) and ended up with a multitude of pumpkins to display in green, orange, yellow and even white. All the big ones were carved and were quite scary.

Enter the candy... the giant bowl of "treats!" as Alex calls it. First thing in the morning the day after halloween Alex comes in the kitchen and says "treat!, treat!" while jumping around and clapping. oh my. Hopefully sometime soon the kids will forget where I hid the stuff and begin focusing on what comes next (Santa, of course).

All in all we had a great halloween and had a nice evening walking the neighborhood. We made it 3 blocks, which is farther than ever before and Alex was very involved this year. He said "trick or treat" and "thank you" for all the candy. Here's a family photo. I have no idea who the skeleton farmer guy is?!

My Kind of Town - Chicago...

Enough of this marathon nonsense, lets talk about the rest of our trip! Here are a few photos of some of the highights.

We took a "Sea Dog" boat tour of the river. It wasn't quite the sophisticated Architectural tour that we've taken in the past - this one was more for families and people who aren't that interested in anything that's remotely historically accurate. After the river tour, the boat went through the lock and out onto the lake for a speed boat ride. It was pretty fun. I think Adam enjoyed it.

On the speedboat:

Posing for a family photo after our boat ride on Navy Pier. The weather was gorgeous on this day (much cooler than the day before when I had to run.... )

We went on the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier - Adam always says he's afraid of heights, but the ride didnt seem to bother him. He was fascinated by the fact that they wheel never stops. In order to get off and on, you have to just jump in while its moving. Its moving pretty slow.

Here is Mr. Brown at the top of the John Hancock building. This was the first morning we were there. I was busy at the marathon Expo picking up my bib and packet while the boys went sightseeing.

On the last morning we were there, we met Cheryl and Alison for breakfast at a great little cafe called West Egg. Tim got this nice photo of me telling them goodbye after an eventful weekend. It was so nice to have them there.

Its not a trip to Chicago without some YUMMY Giordanos pizza. This stuff is crazy good....

GOOD BYE CHICAGO!