Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was fun this year. Wednesday night we put up our tree and had our traditional pork with cranberries dinner just our family. We usually do this after Thanksgiving but this year was a bit different. We opted for a fake tree this year and are super happy with it. The girls enjoyed decorating and eating their cookies that we baked ;)
Thanksgiving Day we spent in the city at Grandma's house. It was a nice small group of us and the girls had fun. We fed the ducks after dinner and enjoyed the nice weather!








Then Friday we headed up to the summer house for a long weekend and what fun we had! Christopher and Patrick came and the girls had a blast with them. Mia and Christopher play so nicely together and are both so sweet to watch interact. They are both so smart and are just on the same wavelength. It was a full house and it was great; Grandma, papo, papa (came for the day), uncle jason and aunt kelly, the cousins, uncle chris and aunt christie and us. We hung out, went to dinner in st. joe's, played games, took the kids to the local water park, relaxed,watched football...and us girls took a nice 7 mile run on Saturday morning. It was great to have everyone together for a long weekend.

Symphony!

Yesterday was our annual trip to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for their "Once Upon a Symphony" children's performance. This year was "Golidlocks and the Three Bears". Mia and Annie were excited because their friend from the Summer House, Dylan, met us there with her mom so the girls sat together. We arrived early for their pre-show activities then watched the performance. It was great as always. Papo, Grandma, Dad, Mom, Annie and Mia had a great time. Then afterwards we said bye to Dylan (she was in chicago for the day with her mom and friend to go shopping!) and headed to greek town to have lunch with Uncle Brian for his birthday. The girls gorged on Taramosalta (Greek caviar) and Saganaki (flaming cheese) and of course olives. They had Pastitio and lots of greek bread. We sang Happy Birthday to Uncle Brian then came home. It was a fun afternoon. We watched the Disneynature "Oceans' for movie night and we really enjoyed it - next we will watch "Earth"
Today I taught Sunday School and the kids had fun playing outside since the weather has been so nice. Dad took the girls to nature preserve in town for an afternoon hike while I had a nice run
We are excited for Thanksgiving this week! We will be going to grandma's house on Thursday, coming home and put our tree up and pack. Then Friday heading to the summer house for a long weekend with Aunt Kelly, Uncle Jason, Christopher and Patrick, Uncle Chris and Aunt Christie, Papa, Grandma and Papo! The girls can't wait!!

Pictures!

Our friend has his own small photography business. He had asked us if he could use our girls to photograph for new marketing. In return for free family photos we said - sure! Here is a link to a few of the photos he blogged about. We are anxious to see the rest. It was a fun day and the girls (Mia really did great) had fun posing.

Caporale Girls - Mona Lisa smile?

During a playdate yesterday we saw a coyote in our friends neighbors backyard! The kids were excited to see it.



Annie having an early Turkey treat from Sweet Mandy B's!



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poor bosco

Big huge storms popped up Saturday afternoon out of nowhere! Dad had just left to go on a 20 mile bike ride and the weather looked great. About 30 minutes later the skies turned black and Bosco got really scared...we all jumped into Mia's bed to hide out from the storm. Dad texted us to say he was ok (he was biking on a local trail and had driven to it), he was also hiding out..in the Van! After the storms passed, he was able to finish up his bike ride. Bosco was able to resume the rest of his day too.


Sunday our friends hosted a local fun run in honor of World Run Day...Mia enjoyed running with her friend, they ran .54 mile....


Annie ran too...for a little bit, then I pushed her in the stroller for 1.4 miles. It was a beautiful day!

Friday was also the first time that the girls were babysat but someone other than grandma! Our friends daughter is 13 and Annie and Mia love her...so we dropped the girls off at their house on Friday night so we could attend a coffeehouse talk at the church then we went out with our friends to hear live music at the local pizza place in town...what a fun night! The girls were asleep when we picked them up but they had a blast with their friends...next time we will have our sitter come to our house!

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Vote!

We've been talking about the presidential election in our house. We've read (Mia has read the first one to us)....



And had some mock election votes for what to eat for breakfast, lunch and who to vote for. We added in Jason Mraz as the green party - he got Annie's vote. We plan on taking the girls to vote tonight so they can see it firsthand - dad and mom will take each girl into the booth - only they will know who we vote for!

daylight savings

We have all adjusted just fine to the time change, just don't like how dark it gets so early! It was sure nice to have that extra hour, I always feel it the Monday morning after...ahhhh

Mia is reading like crazy all of my trade books from when I was a teacher. She is just reading and reading while I make dinner. Annie is drawing me pictures of certain colors I tell her to draw, she even got GRAY correct. Such smart girls we have....
Annie is a barrel of laughs...when we ask her to count (she can count up to 20) will say
1...2...3... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Some pictures from the weekend.... Mia's friend Jacob's huge birthday party, Mom and Dad climbing the Willis (sears tower) on Sunday, Dad's 4th time, Mom's first (finished with PR 23:44 for dad, Mom 23:51)

Mia hit the pinata like a champ


Annie attacked it like a hacksaw!











Our view....