Santa Surprise

So there we were, celebrating Luke's birthday at Nana's house when Isaiah came running in from outside. He was taking his new puppy, Blue, out and walking up the driveway was someone who looked like Santa Claus.

A couple seconds later there was a knock at the front door and we ran to it and there was Santa Claus!!!

At first I thought it might not be the real one, it might be one of the ones that Santa assigns to dress up like him and go to places like the mall, and our school, and stuff like that. But he knew it was Luke's birthday, so after some discussion with Eli and Sophie we decided it was, in fact, the real Santa.

So he hung out, had us sit on his lap and tell him what we wanted for Christmas...

Then he read us "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

He passed out Rudolph noses for us to put on and he had candy canes.

Pax was having none of it by the way.

And then he wondered if any of us could play any Christmas songs for him on the piano. I didn't have my music but I gave it my best shot, and he loved it.

Also, not sure what was in that cup, sorta smelled like Whiskey...

Goings-On

There's really nothing to this post, no real big event that occurred to show you pictures from, I just thought it's been a couple weeks and I'd give you a quick glimpse at what we've been up to.

Weather in Chicago has been amazing, so amazing that 2-3 weeks ago, in NOVEMBER, we actually went to the beach with Juliana.

We've also been hanging with our friends Lucy and Felix.

Way, way fun. And check this out - Mae and Felix are almost exactly the same age...

And then Mae had 50s day at school, so she busted out my old poodle skirt my friend's mom made a couple years ago and she got down and boogied with it.

Picture Day!

So when Nonie was visiting we had our art teacher, Ms. Kenesey, who is also a professional photographer, take pictures of our family. So without getting into too much narrative,  the whole group headed over to beautiful Humboldt Park about a mile from our house and to follow you will see pictures of Mabel, me, Pax, Mom and Pax, Mae and Dad, Nonie and Mae and me, Nonie and mom and Mae and me. Okay, you get the picture (get it - get the picture?), here we go...

Um, Mae started to get a little bit tired of smiling.

Nonie = 90

And backing up a couple weeks ago...

Well, there we were, minding our own business, when Nonie came to visit for the weekend so we could celebrate HER 90TH BIRTHDAY!!!

I know, right? Amazing. Not only that, if you hung with Nonie for about 6 seconds you'd realize she's actually about 36 posing as 90.

And it was almost Halloween, so you know what that meant - carving pumpkins.

Here's Mae's go at it:

Meanwhile, Nonie couldn't decide what the heck she was going to do.

In the end, though, it all worked out nicely.

Meanwhile, Aunt Debbie and I were still trying to get that mess of a heap of pumpkin muck cleared out of my pumpkin. By the way, Aunt Debbie also played "Book Fairy" that weekend. Every time we'd go to bed she'd leave a book for us by our bed. And every time we woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, next time we came up? Another book or two on our beds. Being the gigantic bookworm I am, you can pretty much figure out that the Book Fairy and I are pretty tight.

In the end, a wild success, I'd say.

And it wouldn't be a birthday without a big old party, so Uncle Brian, Aunt Tasha, Eli, Zaya and Nana & Papa all came down and we had ourselves a nice little celebration.

Mom decided to order from one of our favorite Italian places - a must with a Nonie with the name Mufalda Anita Bocelli - and we got it on.

And then we served cake...

And Pax served the ice cream. Only he didn't really serve it. He just asked if he could serve it so he could, well, I probably don't even have to tell you, do I...

All in all, the weekend was amazing - other than the fact that Uncle Jim stoke my Blackhawks ticket! - and I'll just leave you with this.

Twick o Tweat

That's how Pax puts it, thought it was an appropriate title. So let's get right to it.

Geared up for Halloween by spending about four and a half hours on my haunted house drawing, complete with four pieces of paper taped together.

And then it really got going on the big day. I know you're going to be really really surprised, but I wanted to go as Jonathon Toews this year. I actually wanted to go as Patrick Kane but dad said something about how you have to treat women nicely or something so we pivoted and went with Toewser. With a little help from mom and dad's friends and their hockey gear, we really knocked this one out of the park.

And not surprisingly Mae waffled back and forth about 751 times before landing on a raccoon, but I gotta say it was a really good choice because she made a pretty darn cute one.

So we headed out to Nana's because there was only one group we wanted to spend Halloween with - COUSINS!!! It was a mess of a rainy day so our strategy was to get all dressed up and then wait for some holes in the rain, then we'd sprint out the door to GET CANDY! First ones out there were our boys Eli and Isaiah. Eli made for an awesome ninja and Isaiah was supposed to be a magician but once he added some fake glasses he found at Nana's he was starting to get called Harry Potter, so as is the case with Zaya, he just rolled with it.

And without further ado, there's Pax in his construction worker outfit. What was significantly better than his actual costume was the fact that you could keep asking him what he was and listen to him say the word "construction." Classic Pax.

So after a couple rounds of GETTING CANDY and then taking a break, our next wave of cousins came so we hit the streets again with Sophie and Luke.

Oh, and there was a quick outfit change as well. As you can see, Eli took on the Harry Potter costume for trick or treating round 2 and Isaiah is that black blob standing next to Luke, who is the Incredible Notre Dame Hulk or something like that.

Okay, other big Halloween news is that we got to meet Nana's new puppy that she got earlier that week. Her name is Lily and she is so stinking cute it's not even funny.

And yet, in true Mabel fashion, she was really worried more about not letting Buddy feel neglected so she stayed close to her best buddy, Buddy.

Even brought him with for trick or treating.

At the end of a long day, Lily fell asleep right where I was hoping she would. On the way home from Nana's Mae and I proclaimed it the best Halloween ever.

Oh, and not to be outdone, say hello to the center forward (Mom) and right midfielder (Dad) of the Croatian national soccer team.  HRVATSKA!

Oh, and one more thing for this post, which is not necessarily related to Halloween or costumes. Nana was making a couple cakes and decorating them and Pax was sitting up at the table and wanted to try, so he took a stab at decorating the cake and here's how it looked. Go Pax! Squeeze that cake frosting dispenser with all your might, buddy!