Happy Birthday Clara!

11 years old... sigh....

chinatown...

With our freer weekends this year, we have decided to use some of this free time to explore the city as a family.  Saturday was our first outing.  We had originally planned on hitting a museum, but given the busy week we had had and that it was a nice, rainy, sleep in kind of day... we opted for a low key trip to Chinatown for lunch instead.

When there was a break in the clouds, I made the kids pose with their zodiac signs.

Clara was born in the year of the snake...

 

Alex was born in the year of the dragon...

 (he's pointing out something about the dragon being the "most awesome", but is covering up the rest of it, so I'm not sure what it goes on to say)

Thought the dragon looked cool against the fall leaves...

I took very few photos since it was really raining most of the time.  Clara loved all of the little shops.  I thought we were never going to get her out of one of them!!

One shop everyone enjoyed was the candy shop...

... the Sakura Matcha Kit Kats were amazing!

It was a really nice outing!  We had a good time as a family that afternoon before the kids headed out that night with friends to a haunted house.  Love that we have more family time together!

columbus day...

I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, but Clara has changed to a new school this year.  She's been at her new school for about 4 weeks now and just loves it.  I'm loving it too.  It's funny, this new school is a private school, but seems so much more of a neighborhood school than her old neighborhood school.  Many of her friends live within walking distance of the school and she's been walking to school with them in the morning and playing at the park with them after school.  Only two other people in her grade at the "neighborhood school" actually lived in the neighborhood.  Anyway, friends and their proximity to school wasn't our reason for making the switch, but it's sure been a big bonus.  The parents at her new school have been extremely welcoming and are a very active group.  On Monday, Clara's school was out for Columbus Day.  I guess every year, families from the school make the trek to Michigan for a day of fall fun.  This year they invited us along! 

First up was the pumpkin patch...

We spent several hours here!  I have very few photos from the day because, to be quite honest, I hardly ever saw my child.  She was off with a pack of kids in the corn mazes, bounce houses or the haunted house.  She brought her little camera along... I'm curious to see what photos she has from the day... maybe I'll see if I can post those next.

Oh... here's my child!

She slowed down just long enough so that she and her friend could be on Instagram on my phone! :-)

The pumpkins Clara picked out for us...

Clara and I became obsessed with the various types of white pumpkins...

After the pumpkin patch, they typically go apple picking, but since there aren't any apples to pick this year, we went to the dunes instead...

I had a tough time getting a decent shot... the first one was into the sun and the second one, I missed focus on and caught the trees.

But Clara is about halfway up in each photo in the pink coat.

After the dunes... one last stop... Redamak's for burgers before heading back to Chicago!  The kids had a blast, but I felt a little sorry for the other diners as about 50-60 moms with kids descended upon the restaurant all at once!  They were all pretty well behaved, but we did take the noise level up just a bit!  :-)

Clara had an absolute blast with her friends from school and I had a great time meeting and chatting with the other moms!

big trouble...

... in little china...

tribute...

The poor boy woke up on the second day of shows (the one I recorded and have been posting songs from) congested and with a sore throat.  He still went up there and gave it his all though!

it always amuses me...

... that the boy who will not sing in front of anyone, will get up on stage and do this...