Trip to the museum

On Sunday, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry with Grandma and Grandpa Nold. The last time we visited the museum, Jack was quite a bit younger, so it was fun to see him experience things on a whole new level this time. We also got to see the museum decked out for Christmas (you can't even see Charlotte's face in the picture above because she's craning her head so far back to look at the Christmas tree). We also checked out the new Dr. Seuss exhibit, which was pretty intriguing, but unfortunately they didn't allow pictures to be taken in that section.

Jack and Charlotte both enjoyed checking out the model city of Chicago and all the little trains.



The museum had Christmas trees from all over the world decorated and diplayed. We took a picture in front of the German tree for Sarah :)

This was an exhibit about weather that was new since we'd last been at the museum, and it was really cool. We spent a lot of time in this area, until some "lightning" went off, which made a really loud noise and terrified all the children.

Tornado!

Charlotte loved running over these lighted areas which showed reflections from dripping water.

It doesn't show up in the picture, but there was something spinning around in this cylinder that really fascinated Charlotte.


Pushing the stroller is always fun.

Jack was in hog heaven with all the lights, spinning things, and buttons to play with. If only there had been monkeys, I think this would have been his definition of paradise.


Racing some remote-controlled cars with Dad.

Jack and Grandpa experimenting with some colored lights.

The last stop was the Idea Factory, a children's zone that we had been to before. Jack was able to do so much more this time by himself. He and Charlotte both had a blast. Charlotte spent some time with Grandma in the baby area before we let her loose around the other activities.



Jack really loved sticking balls into this tube that sucked them up and across the room--as did all the other children; it was hard to get a turn sometimes.

Picking up some magnetic blocks with Dad.

Hard at working pumping the lever to make bubbles.

So many spinning wheels!

The cool water zone. It was nice to have easy access to this area--the last time we were at the museum, I think there must have been a school group in this zone, and with all the kids we could barely do anything here.


Tired girl. Both of the kids took good naps when we got home!

Busy weekend, and welcome Sarah!

Poor Charlotte! Our normally laid-back little girl did not react well to Santa this year.

We've had a a great weekend seeing the sights around Chicago and enjoying holiday festivities. Another exciting event was the arrival of our new au pair, Sarah, from Germany on Thursday. Our current au pair, Elif, is leaving in a week to go back to Turkey. It's hard to believe she's been with us for almost a year. We'll miss her! Jack and Charlotte have been enjoying getting to know Sarah, and showing her around Chicago. Here's a picture of Charlotte and Sarah downtown yesterday at the Christkindlmarket. We thought it would be nice for Sarah to see a little bit of Germany in Chicago, but unfortunately the market was such a madhouse we only stayed for about 15 minutes.

Prior to going to the market, we had been at a Christmas party at Andy's gym, the Buckingham Athletic Club. Fortunately for Charlotte, there were many other things to do besides visit Santa. We had a nice breakfast, and the kids were able to run around and play. Charlotte was fascinated by the pool. Here she is giving some encouragement to the swimmers.

Is it any surprise our little Drago loved boxing?

Jack got a cute monkey painted on his hand.

Today we went to the Museum of Science and Industustry with Grandma and Grandpa Nold. The kids had such a great time, and I have a ton of pictures to sort through for my next blog entry :)

(Another) trip to the ER

Jack had a rough night on Tuesday. He had a run-in with a glass shelf on our TV stand and got a nice gash on his forehead. We actually have those shelves somewhat blocked off, but that did no good when Jack decided to take a running leap and dive headfirst toward them.

I thought he would get stitches, but they put "glue" in his cut instead. Too bad that wasn't around back in my day. Here's a close-up shot of Jack's wound and goose egg.

Before September, Jack had only been to the ER once, when he was 1 and had bronchitis. Last night was the 3rd time he's been in 3 months. (The first trip was for illness; the second was when Jack thought it would be a good idea to shove a little ball down into his ear canal. I think I forgot to mention that in the blog because it was right before we left for Thanksgiving.) Let's hope we won't have any more visits for a while! In the meantime, Jack seems to be suffering no ill effects from his injury, and he has not taken any more dives toward the TV.

Sexy and I Know It

Charlotte is famous for her love of food, and of smearing food all over herself. She really outdid herself a few weeks ago when I took these pictures. It was taco night. She managed to get chunks of meat tangled in her hair.


And the piece de resistance--she had a surprise for me when I took off her tray. No, she does not have an outie. That is a wad of taco meat jammed deep into her belly button.

Talk about saving food for later.

More Thanksgiving

I've finally come to the end of the Vermont pictures! Here are a few last random shots of the kids. As always, Charlotte is very entertaining during meals. At lunch one day, she was determined to get as much food as possible in her hair. She laid her head on the tray.

She eventually tired of trying to be creative and just squashed the food into her hair directly.

This is my favorite. I call it "Baby Hillbilly Garbage Disposal."

Charlotte was not a fan of her "lobster-claw" hands when I first put her mittens on.

Charlotte is such a sweet little girl, but she also has a temper. This is what she's recently started doing when she doesn't get her way:

We also got some cute pictures of Jack.

So precious. Jack was so worn out one night that he started falling asleep at the dinner table. We moved him to the couch and he passed out.

Jack and Charlotte discovered the wonderful noise that can be made on the washer and dryer. Fortunately this discovery wasn't made until our last night there.




We had a great trip to Vermont and were so happy to spend time with Grammy, Grampy, Uncle Paul, Great Grampy, Maria, and our extended relatives. We miss you!

Thanksgiving, con't.

We got to to spend a lot of quality time with family on our trip to Vermont. The kids, Grammy, and I went to Burlington one day to visit with relatives. First we stopped to see Great-Grampy and Maria. Charlotte had never met them, and Jack was 2 when he last saw them, so I was so glad we got the chance to spend some time together. Here's Charlotte "helping" Maria with some toys and Easter eggs.

Charlotte and Great-Grampy

We also visited with several other members of the Jarvis clan--Aunt Kathy, Aunt Marty, Uncle Cary, Nicole, Rachel, Justin, Jackson, Cooper, and Sam. We were so happy to get a chance to spend time with everyone! Regretably, time went so quickly this was the only picture I got of Jack and Charlotte with their cousins. Jack and Sam had a blast playing together. Charlotte, who normally sticks to me like glue, kept running away from me because she so badly wanted to play with the big kids.

Luckily we were able to get more pictures during our time with Grammy, Grampy and Uncle Paul.

Charlotte usually put up a fuss if someone else held her when I was around, but I at least managed to get 1 good picture of her and Grampy.

Grammy had a great helper all week. Jack assisted with loading the dishwasher, getting the mail, and going to the store most days.

Charlotte was also a huge help in the kitchen.

Uncle Paul arrived later in the week, and as you can see from the stare-down, Charlotte was a bit suspicious of the new stranger.

Jack, on the hand, took full advantage of his fun Uncle Paul. They spent quite a bit of quality time flying and reading together.

Grammy had a special surprise waiting for Jack and Charlotte on Thanksgiving night--a big tree outside decorated with Christmas lights. Charlotte hadn't really started pointing much before this trip, but she definitely pointed a lot at the tree!

Jack was fascinated. He did think it was important to tell Grammy that the tree was missing a star.

Andy, Grampy and I took an outing to a local brewery the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was small and rustic, but the beer was tasty and we had a good time!

More pictures to come....