November!

Cooking Class, a photo by tracyg00 on Flickr.

November was jam-packed with activities. We started the month with a kids cooking class on a Tuesday night at "The Kids Table" in Bucktown. We went with the Swanson girls and Sarah Herrmann and sweet potato pancakes were on the menu.



The kids had a fun time making the pancakes and just as much fun eating them.





Two days later, we had Jake's friend Simone over for a playdate after school. I think I wrote about this a little bit already, but here's a photo of them decorating some cupcakes for Simone to bring home to her sisters:



Megan and Jake took a 4 week art class with the Swansons at the Niles Park District. They did a lot of painting and had a decent time, but Megan thought she could just do that kind of art at home. She probably needs a bit more of a challenge. Here's the group:



When Darin has to travel for work, we usually send him photos to his phone. Here's a quick photo that we sent...."New PJ's":



Mimi and Papa stayed with us for a little while before heading to Florida. The kids loved walking Harry. I wish I could say the same about Harry liking it. Here's Jake walking/dragging poor Harry:



I can't believe all of the above happened within the first week of the month. On November 9th, Jenny and I went to Vegas for Jimmy and Michele's wedding. Darin stayed behind with the kids. The ceremony and reception were really nice and we had a fun time with not enough sleep and no voice after one day. Fun, fun. Here's a ceremony photo:



And a shot of Jimmy, Michele and Dane at the reception:



The following weekend, we went up to the cottage and brought Francesca with us. I took them to Kettle Moraine to do some hiking. It was a pretty chilly day, but not too bad if you were moving.



We went off trail a bit to find some good photo locations. Here's one of my fav's:



And we also made it to the kids' mountain bike easy path. We didn't have bikes, but it was fun to run over the log jumps:



The Cleavelands joined us on Saturday afternoon and of course, the kids all love computer time (not really sure what they were even doing here):



And they always love to play on the trailer. Here's a top shot of Jake and Pierce:



Jenny and Flip hosted Thanksgiving, which was great for me because we launched a new Thanksgiving day 5k in Evanston. I would have been crazy to try and take on that holiday this year! The kids always love Aunt Jenny's house:



On Nov. 29, our Brownies participated in a publishing program at Journey World (a Girl Scout facility downtown). They had a really great time and was seriously the best $10 we've ever spent for an activity. It's like a little mini city there and they each took on a role to create a newspaper.



That is a quick wrap-up of the month. Perhaps I'll get more caught up and be able to add more detail to these posts while it's fresh!