Cate's cake

Happy birthday baby girl!

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Playground in December

We are enjoying our California vacation and looking forward to Matt, Jack, Hugo joining us tonight.

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Ready for Christmas

We are spending Christmas in San Diego this year, but since the boys were excited about decorating we got a little tree for our house. The boys had a great time putting up all the decorations. Cate slept through most of the festivities.

Hyde Park parrots

There is a flock of parrots that live in Hyde Park. Lately we've seen a lot of then in trees around campus eating red berries.

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Little Yellow Jackets

We went to see the GT-Northwestern game last night. The game was terrible - we got destroyed - but our friends Chris and Rebecca were there with their daughter Gioia. Jack, Ellis, Cate, and Gioia were all over the arena, cheering and climbing and eating and generally being unruly. Chris was the first friend I made when I went to Tech and I get such a kick out of seeing our kids play together. In this picture, Jack and Gioia are waving their white and gold shakers so fast that my cell phone camera couldn't catch up.

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Thanksgiving

Our first Thanksgiving with just our little family, and our first with all 5 of us. We missed seeing our extended family, but it was very nice to celebrate on our own.

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Reckless!

Cate is a climber.

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Spurs

Jack is playing basketball now. He is actually pretty good. His team is the Spurs. They are not good, but that's ok. They spend half the time doing skills workshops and only a little time on their half court games.

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Sweet foster kittens

The four foster kittens we have right now (Zombie, Fog Machine, Itchy, and Scratchy) are some of the friendliest kittens we've ever met. Zombie and Fog Machine are deep grey while Itchy and Scratchy are pure black. They are all beautiful!

Look at Cate go!

Grandpa takes great pictures

Here are some of the pictures Pete took during their visit.

Halloween!

We had a very busy Halloween weekend - parade and party at Jack's school, two parties with friends, and trick-or-treating. The boys wanted to be Ben 10 aliens (their favorite superhero characters) and Cate wore the little pumpkin costume that all three have worn for their first Halloween. I made the Ben 10 costumes - I was happy with how they turned out and the boys had a lot of fun wearing them.

Jack tries on his Ben 10 Four Arms costume.

One of the few times Cate looks small

Working on the pumpkin

Checking out the newly lit jack-o-lantern

Ta da!

Four Arms ready for school

Four Arms and Big Chill

Big Chill waiting for the parade

Four Arms marching in his school parade

Cute little pumpkin! Our friend Chris took this picture at their Halloween party.

Big Chill is fired up for trick or treating

The whole gang at our friends' house.

Trick or treat!

Cate ignores the president

Cate and I had a great time seeing President Obama at a rally on campus yesterday.

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Nap

Ellis doesn't nap very often anymore but some days he just can't keep going. The blanket was added by me when I found him on the floor.

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The Lions

Here's Jack's football team, the Lions. We really liked the league - all the kids and coaches were very nice and Jack made a lot of progress getting more comfortable with team sports. Now on to basketball.

Homecoming

We had a great weekend in Atlanta! We met my parents at our cousin Kay's house and went to an Alpha Chi Omega reunion, Georgia Tech Homecoming, and a Braves playoff game.

Birthday cake

The boys are always wild to make me a birthday cake, but it's tricky for Matt to make anything interesting with them helping. So this year I made my own spiced sweet potato birthday cake and turned it over to them with a cake decorator full of frosting! They got to make me a cake, and I got a yummy birthday cake.

Self portrait

This is Jack's self portrait that was hanging on his locker at parents' night tonight. I love that it is so modern yet still looks just like him!

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Sweater weather

We had our first fall weather today, which allowed me to bust out this ridiculously cute sweater I have been saving for Cate.

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Great playground

This morning, Ellis, Cate, and I went with our playgroup to check out a new park here in Chicago. It is called Adams Sangamon park and it is one if the coolest little places I've ever seen. They have created an interesting landscape of hills and valleys - even in the playground area - and the playground has lots of levels and interesting climbing structures. Ellis was in heaven! When we go back I'll take more pictures - I just got one of Ellis and Cate in this bowl swing.

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Flag football

Jack is in a junior flag football league this fall.  He is in the 5-6 year old division and his team is the Lions.  All the teams have their own jerseys in the colors of their corresponding NFL team.  Here is Jack in his Lions jersey before his first game of the season.  It was pouring rain and not very warm, but the kids played anyway.  Jack is very proud of playing football and has been trying very hard even though it is all new and a little challenging for him.

Finally peaceful

Cate had a rough night, until I finally gave up trying to sleep. Now that I'm sitting up next to her she is miss peaceful.

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Happiness is...

...being naked and having your big brother helping you.  Cate loves it when Jack helps her stand!

Firehouse visit

We got to visit a firehouse in Chinatown with our playgroup. Ellis thinks sitting in a fire truck is serious business.  The woman in the picture is our good friend, Emily Fong.

The little girl in the mirror

While we were in Vermont, Cate and Granddaddy were always talking about the little girl in the mirror.  Cate is very fond of that little girl.

Summer in Vermont

The kids and I spent 6 weeks in Vermont with my parents this summer.  We all had a great time!  Here's a slideshow of some of the highlights:

Tink's kittens

Our foster kittens are two months old and almost ready to go back to PAWS for adoption.  They are shy little things even though we have handled them almost every day and their mother is super friendly and snuggly with us.  We are having them spend their days upstairs so hopefully they will be less jumpy when they go to the adoption center.  They are really fun and playful once they get past their shyness.  They love to chase a string and will tumble in and out of my lap when they are playing.  Cate loves to sit with me and watch them tumble around.

Gody's visit

Gody stayed with us for a few days and took some really great pictures of the kids with his fancy camera.

We had fun taking Gody to the Museum of Science and Industry: