Halloween

Liam dressed up as a skeleton and Grayson had a scary mask for Halloween this year.  We did a Roscoe Village Halloween bash at the Knight's house and walked around to the different stores in their area to trick-or-treat.  It started snowing on Halloween so we had to snap a picture of the snow.  We had fun walking around our neighborhood, but it was so cold we didn't last long.  

Mother-Son "Minute to Win It" Luncheon

This year the school started doing a Mother-Son "Minute to Win It" Luncheon to give the mom and sons something fun to do together since the girls do the Daddy Daughter Dance.  They put the mom/sons together in teams at each table and had different competitions.  We had a lot of fun participating in the games and wore cool bandanas. 

Liam's school field trip to Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Liam had a class field trip to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  I was able to be a chaperone along with 6 other moms.  We took the bus from the school downtown to the orchestra.  Liam was so excited that I was there helping his class.  I was a little worried about how the kids would behave at the symphony, but the program was geared towards young kids so it was perfect.  The orchestra put on a great production of a book that included the instruments and a man who told the story.  It was very interactive and the kids had so much fun participating.  I was so happy that I could be a part of his first time to the symphony.    

Skiing in Beaver Creek

We had our first ski vacation as a family in Beaver Creek, Colorado.  We spent 5 nights at the Westin from Feb 14-19th with the Ross Family from Michigan and had such a nice time.  We signed Mommy, Juju and Grayson up for ski school for 3 days, but unfortunately Julia broke her tail bone on New Year's Eve and was not able to ski.  She offered to help us with Liam so this was a huge help. 

 We didn't get into Beaver Creek until late on the 14th so I think Grayson was overtired for his first ski day.  He ended up leaving ski school early and was not excited to go back.  The next day Daddy convinced him to go again and told him he would be watching with Juju and Liam.  This was the only way to get Grayson to go to ski school.  He actually had a great time and spent some time on the green hill where Mommy was taking ski lessons.  At the end of his lesson he went down the big green hill and had a blast.  We were so impressed with how much he improved.  At one point he told Daddy and Mommy that he loved skiing and was so excited to be there.  The final day he did not want to go back to ski school so Mommy, Juju, Grayson and Liam spent the day going on the Gondola and hanging out in Beaver Creek while Daddy skied with Phil, Kat, Logan and Paxton Ross as well as Ethan.  

The first night we both grabbed dinner on our way from Denver to Beaver Creek.  Craig is obsessed with Blue Bonnet in Denver for Mexican food so we had to stop there on our way to Beaver Creek.  The second night we enjoyed dinner at Northside Cafe, which was a casual, but delicious restaurant with everyone from the Ross family as well as the Braham family.  The third night Mommy, Daddy, Phil and Kat went to Game Creek Restaurant for dinner which required us to drive to Vail, take a gondola to the top of the mountain and then take the snow cat to the bottom of the hill where the restaurant was located.  They had a prix fixed menu that was delicious.  We had such a fun time experiencing this amazing place.  How nice that Julia, Ethan and Logan watched the younger boys to make this happen.  The next night we ordered Italian food and enjoyed it in the lobby of the hotel.  The boys had fun making smores outside the hotel.  We were sad to leave, but had such a fun time and can't wait until our next ski vacation.  Hopefully next year Grayson and Liam will take ski lessons and love to ski as much as Daddy and Mommy.  Of course Mommy still needs a lot of lessons, but had a great time moving up to level 4 for ski lessons.