The Weekend

We enjoyed a quick visit from Lonnie this weekend. The kids were very excited to see Grandma and jostled her around vying for her undivided attention. It will be interesting to see how it all goes down at Thanksgiving when they have to share her with each other AND their cousins!

After talking about it for almost a year, we finally made a trip to the Kohl’s Children’s Museum in Glenview. We went ahead and pulled the trigger on a family membership before we even visited the place, because it only takes three trips to pay it off. We figured it had to be good enough to meet that requirement, considering we made at least that many trips to the Little Beans Café last winter. Great move on our end! The place is awesome and will be a new favorite spot for the cold winter ahead. It has so many fabulous exhibits, including a tiny Whole Foods and Potbelly Sandwich Shop! Adorable! Nick loved all the “butts” to press (butts = buttons for those not fluent in Nick-speak) and Lainey pretty much loved everything. The only thing missing is you can’t carry your latte around with you like at Little Beans, but you also don’t have to fight for every square inch of space (trade-offs.)

Sunday we hit up our much-loved m. henry for brunch. It was a slightly disappointing visit—Mark’s food came out cold and they forgot my order altogether. But, they comped my blisscakes and fixed Mark’s benedict fairly quickly, so we’ll let it slide. Nick stole ALL of my blackberries from my blisscakes. The plate was barely on the table and his little hand shot over and started grabbing. Stinker. Stealing food from my plate is his new trick. Even if he has the exact same thing on his plate, he’ll reach over and take mine. But, both kids were really well behaved, so if I have to lose my blackberries to avoid a public tantrum, so be it.

After brunch, it was time for outdoor play to work off our indulgence and soak up that fresh fall air. Lainey showed Grandma how she can ride all the way around the block on her tricycle, before hitting the leaf piles--still a favorite activity of both kids. We played outside until the runny noses were flowing a little too freely.

And then just like that…it was time for Lonnie to drive back to Moline and for us to start preparing for the week ahead. Oh weekends, why are the best of you so fleeting?

Crossing the "bridge" she built between the two piles

A pile of leaves works better than a playpen at keeping Nick contained...

Un-doing our raking