This post is just embarrassingly late considering that we went to Brady’s first Bear’s game (a preseason, Saturday evening affair) in August! We got a hotel room for the weekend and made a super-event of the whole thing. Since we only have 4 tickets, after tailgating as a family, Brian took the boys in while I went back to our hotel room. We met up later at Navy Pier for the Saturday fireworks show. The next day we went to our favorite beach spot for Air and Water Show viewing. We have been BACK to Soldier Field a second time this season, but Brady didn’t go to the game (10/28 vs. Panthers…Bears win with a last minute field goal). We decided preseason and actual games are far different and Brian wasn’t ready to handle the three boys alone quite yet with Brady being kinda wiggly. So…we invited Logan’s friend Sam to come along. Again, we all cooked up some food and enjoyed a little tailgating before the game. We walked together towards the front of Soldier Field, but Brady and I split off, grabbed a cab and went to Navy Pier for the afternoon. We hit Build-a-Bear, the Children’s Museum and lots of different fun stores.

Here are pictures of our 2 Bear’s adventures, The Air and Water Show and of my trip with Brady to Navy Pier. It’s always a blast to spend some time one-on-one with my boys!

Pre-Season Game: Aiden and Brady still have their “we cut our own hair” summer cuts and look…so warm we’re all wearing shorts.

 

Brian said that I was making the tail-gate too girly with olive oil, bread, goat cheese and wine. Ha!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

Of course there was some football-throwing on the beach. The kid front and center in the water is NOT one of mine ;)  Brian took a LOT of plane pictures…here are a handful of good ones

Our Second Bears outing with Sam in tow…still loving the car-sitting more than chairs around the car. Sam is a Packer’s fan…so we loaned him some Bears gear. Logan and Aiden (in true little-boy-spirit) spent the time during tailgating trying to convince Sam that we had signed him up to sing the National Anthem. He didn’t fall for it!

Burnham Harbor Lot. Me = girl in puffy blue coat…quite a change from our pre-season affair!

This is the dog Brady got at Build-a-Bear. He is wearing an snowboarding outfit and sunglasses…his name is Summer (Brady’s decision). 

This is a super-cool exhibit at the Children’s Museum about cardboard. There was a room where you could play with boxes, cut them…stack them…make them into crafts. I just LOVED the wall outside the play room…amazing! Every thing on the wall is 3D and made of cardboard.

There was another area where you could take these pieces and build all sorts of structures. You would be amazed at what other people had done…forts with covers on them (provided), crazy stairs…lots of cool stuff! We spent a lot of time in this area.

The view from the water-play area. Sure beats the view from our local branch of the Children’s Museum!

Brady in a borrowed rain-coat playing with the water stuff.

Since it was right before Halloween, there were all these fun activities going on…lots of kids walking around in costumes trick-or-treating from store-to-store. This was a funny band outside all in crazy skeleton costumes.

This is a post of 2 completely different stories.

1. Brady and the Library

Last Thursday morning, I asked Brady he if wanted to go to the library for a while. We had a pile of books due and I told him he could pick out some more. He was eager to go and, before we left, he grabbed all of the change in his allowance jar, asking me if I thought the library might need more money to buy books. I honestly didn’t know, but I said he could take it with him. By the time he picked out literally 20 books, I had completely forgotten about the money. He had it in his fist…which he bumped repeatedly into my leg as I was handing over our books to the lady at the front desk. “Oh! I said – I’m not sure if you can help me, but my son wanted to bring all of his change in today and wondered if you guys might be collecting money to buy more books”. The lady who was helping me, plus the girl sitting next to her, literally went ga-ga. One started writing down his information, telling him how generous he was while the other ran off in search of the library camera. They asked us to come around behind the circulation desk, took his picture, told him more about how awesome he was ;) and asked if it would be OK to post his story on facebook. I didn’t think they would do it, but they did! The best best thing about this story is the WONDERFUL positive reaction Brady got for his first big philanthropic deed…I hope it will inspire him to be generous and think of others even more in the future!

here is a screen print I took of the facebook post…

So now for the thing that totally freaked me out:

2. Yesterday morning, Logan and Aiden were playing football in the house before school (despite the fact that in-house football playing is currently prohibited because Logan smashed the xbox kinect controller and broke it last week). Logan went to throw the ball and WACKED his hand into a wall in the foyer. He ran into the kitchen where I was making breakfast and packing lunches yelling, “owww! oww! That REALLY REALLY hurt!” He grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and was standing right in front of me when he said, “Whoa…I don’t feel so good…I feel really weird.” I told him to sit down so he started to try and sit, but fell over on his side on the floor, knocking the dog’s water bowl over and sort of collapsed. I screamed for Brian who was upstairs. This is what happened next:

Me (literally SCREAMING): Brian! GET DOWN HERE NOW!

Brian: What? Why?

Me: BRRRRRIAN!

Brian: Can you at least tell me why I’m coming down there so I know what I’m getting myself in to?

Me: BRRRRRRIAN!!!!

Logan started coming around, blinking. Brian appeared in the kitchen from the back stairs and I said, “I think Logan had a seizer.” I said that because he was sort of shaking and literally drooling. Turns out after some internet research and further questioning that it was definitely not a seizer, but he did faint.

Logan then jumped up on his feet, started this sort of “calm down” motion with his hands and said in a very firm voice, “It’s OK…I remember everything…2 plus 2 is 4.”

We took him to the couch where Brian did some more questioning (including how old is your mom?, what is the date? and when is mommy’s birthday? <—how about “how old are YOU?”) Anyway, he got all the answers correct and I insisted that he start drinking a LOT of water. He said he was fine to go to school…and he did. I spoke with the nurse after drop-off and she went directly to the teacher’s room to tell her what happened. I was in volunteering in his classroom later that day and all was well. I, however, had a horrible morning. I kept re-living the whole incident and feeling totally freaked. I know it’s really a minor thing in the scope of what could happen to your child – there are families that deal with WAY WAY more drastic things, but it did give me some perspective on how very truly lucky we are to have three healthy little boys. I’m absolutely sure that the fainting episode was a combination of early morning dehydration, lack of food and a huge WACK to his finger. phew!

Yesterday was another fun Halloween for everyone at the 554. All three boys enjoyed a costume parade and party at school followed by our usual neighborhood gathering, trick-or-treating and hanging with friends until…oh…just a little after “real” bedtime. This year Logan went as a lacrosse player, Aiden wanted to be “a bolt of lightning going through a rain cloud” and Brady was, for the second year in a row, a ninja…but a RED one this year – different from the black one last year!

One pretty cute story: last night before leaving the house to join our friends, I called the boys over in a stern voice and said that I had some specific trick-or-treat instructions to give them. When they all looked up and came over, I said, “now remember boys…mommy likes snickers, twix and twizzlers”. They giggled, I laughed. Later, at the after-party, Logan appeared next to me with a hand full of mini snickers saying, “here mommy…these are your favorites so I got them for you.” I found out today that he was in the basement of our friends’ house, trading stuff from his bag for snickers from the other kids so he could give them to me. Isn’t that the sweetest thing?! The other boys, including Brian, made sure to share some of their treats with me as well. I had a pocket-full of stuff that was being handed to me all night by my four sweet men.

Here are a ton of pics!

Nana and Papa sent some last-minute Halloween fun. Here are the boys carving pumpkins and making spooky cookies on Halloween-eve

Sometimes, when extreme concentration is required, it’s best to stick out your tongue…according to Logan :)

 

Brady recently inherited some new PJs from cousin Jack and is QUITE fond of the snowmen fluffy ones. He is standing on the counter because he knew where there were some orange sprinkles from last year…and thought it would be best to just get them himself.

Aiden made his spooky pizza cookie look like a monster with arms

Kona and Logan display frosting beards…yes, the dog had a little sugar too I guess

Red Ninja Brady getting ready for his parade at school

 

Aiden in his costume and coat for a cold outdoor parade around the school. He took the “cloud” off because it started to fall apart. Pictures only cloud…that’s what it became :)

Here comes Logan’s class…he’s far right in the white helmet

 

I volunteered for Aiden’s classroom this time. His very first elementary school party!! He’s way at the bottom

I got wrapped up in the “mommy / mummy” wrapping

 

Getting ready to head out – Kona had a little Halloween flair…it’s actually meant for a cat, but it was the only thing I could find that was small enough for her.

A mid-trick-or-treat candy break

Here are some of the moves Aiden utilized to display his “lightning-ness”

Brady ended a little early and slipped into something “more comfortable” before we went back and had dinner with friends. Crunch bars are his favorite!