Zoo Lights

We are going way back here.  I have some catching up to do over the last 2 months!

The weather the weekend after Thanksgiving wasn't terribly cold so we decided to go check out the Zoo Lights at Brookfield Zoo.  This was our first time there!

You can't tell from the picture, but the kids were excited to be at the zoo at night!









They also each got their first mold-a-rama. We usually skip right by those, but this was a special zoo trip!









It was a fun night and something we will try to do every year if weather permits!

Happy #5 to Luke!

Today our baby boy is 5!  It's hard to believe how quickly time has gone by. 

I always get super nostalgic as my kids' birthdays approach (as do most parents I'm sure), but Luke's birthday is even more special because of the time of year. 

There is just a magical feeling around Christmas time and I remember how special December 2008 was for us.  Everything felt "extra magical" that year! 

Christmas songs would bring me to tears as I sang them to my new baby boy, going to Christmas Eve mass for the first time with my new family of 3 brought me to tears, knowing that our lives had changed forever in the best way possible during the best time of the year made me cry happy tears! I know it was also hormones, but you have to admit that this time of year just "feels" different and I feel so blessed to celebrate our sweet baby boy at Christmas time!

This little boy made us Mommy & Daddy and we love him to the moon and back a gazillion times!

Happy 5th Birthday Lucas Walter! 

Thanksgiving 2013

Our Thanksgiving kicked off on the Tuesday before with Luke's Thanksgiving Feast at school!

Luke was looking handsome as usual that morning!





Buddies!



Wednesday we headed to Grandma & Grandpa Zukowski's house to celebrate Thanksgiving!

This picture is hilarious!



And this is the "smile" I get from Paige a lot these days!



Who doesn't want a cookie as big as their head?!?!



We had a great evening with the Zukowski's!

The next morning we watched the parade on tv and then headed to my grandparent's for some more Thanksgiving feasts!



And sadly, that was the last picture I took all day. (November seems to always be a light month of pictures for me.) We did have a great rest of the day though. After my grandparent's, we went back to my parents' house to celebrate with the Kohr side. This is always crazy as every year there are more kids and they get bigger and louder! Always a fun time though!

Notre Dame Football Game

Wally's parents have season tickets to Notre Dame football games so a few weekends ago Wally and I got to use those tickets for a day away! The last time I had been to Notre Dame was 5 years ago when I was 7 months pregnant with Luke. It was a good time, but I remember being absolutely exhausted at the end of the night and it was the first time my feet had swelled during the whole pregnancy. Luckily this time around I was much more mobile!



We got there early and did a little tailgating.



The weather was chilly and it started to rain for a bit so we did some tailgating in the car in the parking lot too! Once the rain stopped, we caught the shuttle bus and headed to campus.

Of course, per Wally, we had to take a picture in front of Touchdown Jesus.



We decided to have lunch at Legends which is a restaurant/bar on campus near the stadium. It was nice to warm up and relax for a bit. We finished lunch just as it was kickoff. Neither of us were in a hurry to get in to the game so we wandered around campus for a bit.





It was nice because it wasn't so crowded since most everyone was at the game.

We finally decided to head into the game at halftime. It was actually a really good game with each team taking turns scoring. Notre Dame pulled it off in the end though.

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It wasn't terribly cold at the game, but the wind was blowing in our face. I'm not sure I would have made it sitting there for the whole game!

After the game we made our way to the mass that is held 45 minutes after the game. We headed there right away and still had to stand but it made it much quicker to get out and catch the shuttle back to our car.

All in all, it was a fun day despite my worries about the weather the whole week leading up to the game!

Thanks to Grandma & Grandpa Z. for watching the kids and for the tickets!

Trick or Treating

Our town was one of the few who postponed the trick or treating to Friday night due to bad weather.  The only problem with that was that the weather was fine from 4-7 on Halloween night and actually fairly warm.  Wally and I weren't too happy about changing the date and of course Luke wasn't either.  He had been looking forward to it all day!

We decided to put the kids in their costumes anyways and see if our neighbors were home to do at least some trick or treating on Halloween.





And they're off!





After no one answered at the neighbors, they trick or treated at their own house - the cutest trick or treaters I had!



Daddy decided to bring some of his Halloween science demonstrations home with him.

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Finally Friday evening came around and our neighborhood was hopping with kids in costumes!

This is how our kids roll for trick or treating!



Luke was out for over 2 hours with Wally but Paige didn't last quite that long. Both kids made out very well!!!!

Boo at the Zoo

Last Sunday we made our first visit to Boo at the Zoo at Brookfield Zoo and Grandma & Grandpa joined us!



This year we have a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle - Leonardo specifically - and a Foofa (from Yo Gabba Gabba)!



As usual, Luke was the leader!



Foofa made herself comfortable while we got some lunch!



Love this turtle boy!





We didn't quite make it in time to participate in the parade, but we were in a great spot to watch it, which was actually probably more fun anyways. We saw so many cute costumes! And the cheerleaders leading the parade even stopped right in front of us to do a quick mount!



Paige wasn't too sure of all of this at first!



But she came around and started waving to everyone! She makes such a cute Foofa and I have to say we didn't see one other Foofa there (but the Turtles were very popular this year!).







Super cute pic!!!



I love this one of us - we didn't even tell Paige to make a funny face and Luke's pose is perfect!



As you know from previous posts, my kids can't get enough of this stuff!







This one is the best though :)



We had a lot of fun checking out the monkeys on this trip!





The decorations were fabulous at the zoo!



We ended our visit with the kids favorite animal!



This was our first time at Boo at the Zoo but definitely not our last!