Ukrainian Village

The last Chicago neighborhood Jason and I went to this summer was the Ukraine Village. It was interesting to be there with everything going on over there. The war is clearly still on their minds and hearts, which makes sense. There were lots of pretty murals and churches.

The restaurant's bathroom had this gem!

Crazy Blue Hair Day

It was crazy hair day at Jake's school, and he has always wanted to dye his hair for crazy hair day. This year I finally knew about it far enough in advance to get the spray, so we went for it! When he came home from school, he said lots of kids complimented him, which of course was icing on the cake. Mission Accomplished!  

Grandma Eldredge

Grandma Eldredge came for a visit! It is always fun to have her here, and she was lucky enough to be here for Eli's first band concert of the year.

Food

I've recently begun to buy into the idea that the way to a teenage boy's heart is through food, and so sometimes I take this handsome young man out to get food. 

Ali's Famous

The person who takes photos at school events obviously agrees with us that Ali is very photogenic and took several of her for the school's Facebook page.

We enjoyed going to the varsity football games in time for the halftime show this season. We were in good company with other marching band, cheer, and dance team families; it was always super hard to find a spot shortly before halftime, but when we would leave shortly after halftime there were always plenty of spots!

The Quillens Visit!

JD had a work conference in Chicago and brought his family with him! Lianna hug out with both me and the kids here at our house, and downtown with JD and we all had an amazing time!

We took a trip into the city to Chinatown and loved having Lianna share with us some of her favorite foods from the local bakeries.

Jake and Eli played hooky from school and took them to Blackberry farm with us.

We also had to go to Cantigny.

It was so fun to see Ali hand-me-downs on this adorable niece!

Thanks for the visit!

Many Person Blanket

We have a large comfy blanket in our family room. When someone is using it and another person joins them on the couch, they often exclaim, "Two-person blanket!" and grab part of it for themselves. On this day, and third and then a fourth person claimed part of the blanket, making it a four-person blanket for the first time!

The Fluxx Phase

Jason introduced Jake to the card game Fluxx and thus began what I like to call the Fluxx Phase. Many a game is played every day and has been for a couple of weeks now. Side bonus, Jake is getting better at losing with grace!

More cooking

Eli keeps hitting it out of the park with things he cooks from his DnD cookbook. This apple pie was as pretty as it was tasty.