Pre-school Party

Photos from Patrick's Pre-school Christmas Party

Merry Christmas

December 2010

December has been a busy month so far, but we're not complaining! Last weekend was the Yuletide Festival at Patrick's school. He was so excited that we were in "his gym". I volunteered Saturday to help set up and then again on Sunday to help with the Santa pictures. Patrick helped me to bake a few things for the bake sale.

Cousin Mark came with us and I think it was good for both of them to have moral support when it came time to sit on Santa's lap. The Santa that helped out at the festival actually lives on our block. We think we are pretty special to have one of Santa's helpers just a few houses a way! Cousin Nora saw him over Thanksgiving and got her picture taken with him.

It really is a fun event and can't wait for it again next year.

Thanksgiving 2010

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year and these are the only pictures we took! I'm sure my Mom has some so we'll have to edit this later. Patrick and Nora had a great time together. Patrick shared his toys pretty well for 3+ days. We did some shopping, met up with Mark and baby Claire and just had an all around good, relaxing weekend.

Veteran's Day Weekend 2010

We headed down to San Antonio during our long weekend over Veteran's Day. We had a great time seeing everyone and looking for armadillos (too bad we didn't find one). Patrick enjoyed the extra attention from his cousins, Aunts and Uncles and of course his Meme and Papa and Patrick and Charlie stocked up on their cowboy gear.

We had a great time at the zoo and riding the train! It was wonderful weather and made it hard to come back to a cold Thanksgiving and the coldest December on record in a long time, Ugh. It's going to be a long winter.

Halloween 2010

So here it is almost Christmas and we haven't posted about Halloween....anyway, we had another fun time at our neighborhood Halloween party this year and trick-or-treating with our neighbors. Patrick chose to be Buzz Lightyear this year. I was hoping for a cowboy, maybe next year. Charlie filled in as the cowboy this year, ha.

Patrick and his buddy Jonathan.

Patrick and our neighbor "Captain America"

We went to a Halloween party at our co-workers house a couple of neighborhoods over. Patrick had a blast once the power ranger "Jack" took his mask off. Charlie dressed up as a cowboy that night too. Dan, our co-worker said later he didn't know whether Chalie was in costume or not, ha ha. The kids/parents got to carve pumpkins. I think Patrick's is the second from the right. Halloween has really become a lot of fun again seeing it through Patrick's eyes.

Patrick wasn't too sure about all of the "scarey" Halloween decorations people put out. He asked a lot of questions about the skeletons coming out of the ground in front of the house a few blocks over. It finally became less scarey when he had to have an x-ray for a sore leg when we were up in Michigan visiting Great-Grandma Goss. The emergency room let us take the x-rays home with us and we explained that that was his skeleton. Every few days he likes to get out "the pictures of his skeleton".

Pumpkin Farm - Part One

Tractor race.

Hey Mom...look at me.

Dear Family-

The Pumpkin Farm is great fun. I enjoyed racing a pedal tractor, riding the grain train, riding "Brownie" the pony, running through the corn maze, climbing tractor tire mountain, sitting on a real combine, feeding/brushing the farm animals and jumping on the giant orange pillow. Below are my photos taken by my mom, dad and grandma. I hope you enjoy the photos.

Aunt, Grandpa, Mom & Dad

Do I see a race track?

First things first. Green is diesel...yellow is regular.

Sunday Fun

Dear Family-

Today after church we went back to the church grounds for the 4th Annual Octoberfest. My favorite attraction is the extremely oversized slide. The slide has a very steep ladder like the one at WTTW Kids Fun Run (see earlier blog). Mom is impressed that I was brave and climbed the ladder by myself. Other attractions included a petting zoo, face painting, mounted police from the City of Chicago and a live band. We went to the grocery store after the festival and my parents put groceries on top of me while I rode in the cart. I thought it was fun to be part of the large pile of groceries. Tomorrow is soccer class.

Love,
Patrick

Mom's Garden

Dear Family-

Here are some of the photos Dad took of Mom's flower garden. Yesterday I rode my tricycle with Mom and last nite we played with cars and read books. Mom and Dad ask what I want to be for Halloween. I let them know that I would like to be a fireman,Buzz Lightyear and a cowboy. Dad says that we need to find three different Halloween parties so that I do not have to decide on just one costume. I am excited about the upcoming celebrations of Halloween and Christmas. Mom and Dad used my Cars calendar to explain the timeline of the upcoming holidays. Dad tells me about Thanksgiving but I don't see the fun of Thanksgiving for children...no decorated eggs, no dressing up in costumes and no Santa.

Love,

Patrick

Construction Site

Today I spent time at my job site loading sand into Euclid the Dump Truck. Dad took photographs of Mom's garden. He said he wants to remember the garden in the middle of winter. Dad's favorites are the roses, sunflower and pumpkin blooms. I think Mom's flower garden is beautiful. Today Miko spent three hours at the groomer...I told Mom that Miko is gorgeous. We plan on buying more Honey Crisp apples tomorrow. Today we bought mums, pumpkins and fall decorations for the front garden. Santa will be proud of me when he visits my house because I have a beautiful Christmas tree in my bedroom. Mom and Dad celebrated their 8th Wedding Anniversary on the 14th. While I took my evening nap, Mom and Dad ate takeout from the local Chinese restaurant.

Love,

Patrick

August 2010

We stayed home the first couple of weeks of August to recoup from our camping trips, me transferring out to the plant (no more downtown lunches with Charlie) and just the heat of the summer was wearing on us. The middle of August I flew out to San Francisco with my Mom and sisters to celebrate my Mom's 60th birthday. We spent a couple of days in San Fran and a couple in Napa. It was fun to see how different San Fran is from Chicago and Napa was very pretty. I look forward to heading back with Charlie and Patrick sometime.

While I was in San Francisco/Napa with my Mom and sisters, Patrick and Charlie Attended the Public Television run/walk. Patrick said he had a great time and got to meet Duck from Word World and Buddy from Dinosaur Train. Both are some of his favorites!

Our neighborhood park was "remodeled" this summer. It turned out great, Patrick loves the swings (no more baby swing for him) and the climbing wall and the fire engine and the slide.....really he just loves it all.

Patrick started preschool at the end of August. Charlie and I both joined him on his first day/orientation. I think he is really enjoying it. The other day after school was out, he asked to go back. I think think that is a good sign. They have gym class on Tuesday and get to walk underground through a tunnel from their classroom to the gymnasium.

Patrick is already getting homework assignments, not sure how I feel about that....and Patrick is not a fan, but we try. This week's assignment is to name the children in his class and to walk backwards. He has the walking backwards down and a couple of names (there is a Nora, so that is easy and I think all of the other boys are named Michael).

Our garden ended up being pretty successful. We grew a ton of tomatoes from just two plants, we had a few hot peppers and a couple of bell peppers. Our sunflowers finally bloomed but we are still waiting on the pumpkins. It was fun and we have already thought about how we will tweek it for next year.

July 2010

Charlie and I both celebrated our birthdays in July. Patrick loves birthdays so it made celebrating lots of fun. We were in Michigan for the 4th of July weekend (my birthday) hanging out in Grandma and Grandpa's boat on Torch Lake and playing at the beach in Elk Rapids and we stayed in Chicago for Charlie's. Patrick and I picked out an ice cream cake for Charlie, unfortunately it was a flop and ended up tasting like the packaging it came in....oh well, we had a fun day and we'll continue our quest for a delicious ice cream cake next year.

We took two camping trips in July, both up to Michigan. The first we stayed at Petoskey State Park. We had a great time celebrating Nora's birthday and splashing in the waves. A couple of weeks later we headed up to the Traverse City State Park for a mini family reunion. It rained most of Saturday so we had a good time at the mall riding the carousel and Mackenzie helped Patrick make his first build-a-bear. Once the weather cleared up we played at the park and went for a bike ride. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of either trip. I'll have to track some down.

Happy 3rd Birthday Patrick!

The Cake. So 6 months ago, seriously, I asked Patrick what kind of cake he would want for HIS birthday (we had just been through a marathon of birthday parties). He answered, "A fire engine cake." So, I went online a found a video that showed how to make a fire engine cake. Little did I know that we would be watching that video at least once a week upon Patrick's request. There was a lot of pressure the night before his party to get the cake right. Thanks to Grandma and my "artistic direction" ha, Patrick was a very excited little boy to have the perfect fire engine cake. I think ours even turned out better than the video.

Have you seen a cuter 3 year old with a fire engine cake!

Cousins Keegan and Mark, playing with the cozy coupe.

The neighborhood and family at the party.

The water table was a big hit. We lucked out with the weather, we were worried about rain in the beginning of the week, but it turned out to be great!

Charlie grilled chicken kabobs, Grandpa made his newly famous potato salad, and Grandma did all the rest. Grandma and Grandpa helped out so much, I don't think the party would have been such a success if it wasn't for them. Thank you!

Patrick was so excited to have his cousins and his neighborhood friends all over for his birthday party! He received a lot of great presents too!

Sunday was his actual birthday. The Wells family and Grandma and Grandpa stayed the night and we went out to breakfast for Father's Day. Patrick opened some more of his presents and we had a nice relaxing day. Just what Charlie wanted for Father's Day. It was a pretty special day celebrating Charlie, a great father and husband, and Patrick my favorite 3 year old in the world!

And with that, I think we are all caught up! Good night.