Sunday night we headed out to the Morton Arboretum to see their new display, Illumination. It’s an interactive lighted tree exhibit.

They have nine interactive light experiences placed along an illuminated, circular path. Some of the more fun ones included singing to black walnut trees and watching them change color, projecting your face onto 30-foot-tall evergreens, and being a ‘tree hugger’ – when you hug the tree, it lights up.

It was really well put together. I could see how much effort and thought went into every piece.

I thought the kids would also find it amazing. Dancing, changing lights delighting them at every turn. Hot chocolate stations and open fires. All these seemed like really exciting ideas for the kids to experience. You never know what will hit them.

Jack was cold, he thought something smelled like poop (I told him we were in nature, city boy!), and he didn’t like the warming stations because he didn’t like the smoke.

Warming station.

Ben sat in the stroller or on Adam’s shoulders for the entire walk, when he wasn’t crying about his foot hurting.

The twins made it about half way before they were crying to get out of the stroller. They are so young I’m not even sure they noticed the lights.

In fact, I think the only thing they all enjoyed was visiting the winter train exhibit afterwards, the Enchanted Railroad.

They were pretty excited for drive through McDonald’s as well…

I’m starting to feel a little inadequate when I see what all my friends are doing around the globe.

Last week I saw my friend Fionnuala Hanahoe’s awesome new interactive iPad book, Scribbaloo Pigs.

This week I’m decorating my girlfriend’s Anna Hart’s new tote bag.

Anna and I at Petra and Ryan Comerford’s wedding in Phuket, Thailand. Circa 2001

I seriously need to find some lower achieving friends to make myself feel better. I was thinking getting all the laundry done and food on the table today was a major feat of fantasticness.

But Anna’s energy levels always out did mine, even back in the day. And I knew Anna for a long time. I probably consider her my closest and longest friend from my days in Hong Kong. She ended up marrying one of those strapping South African men I mentioned living with from my Scribbaloo Pigs post and now lives in Singapore with him and their three kids.

Anna and I at one of the most incredible parties, Teena Goulet’s 40th murder mystery. Anna’s character was “pregnant” which went over well in Lan Kwai Fong later that evening, especially dancing with our friend David whose character was a priest.

When I left Hong Kong she was working as the office manager for my ex-boyfriend. I think she still works for him, remotely. He started a research company called GaveKal. At the time it was 4 people but now it’s grown into 4 countries and 45 employees.

Anna has also done a number of incredible things, including publishing a book called The Organizer and being the founder of the Singapore chapter of the charity Room to Read.

And as if that isn’t enough, she just started selling her own line of tote and handbags!

Here is my tote. I filled it with pictures of my family and some quotes because 1. My family is what my life is about 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 2. I’m not very creative. But having the bag and thinking about the best way to fill it made me want to strive to have other interests so I could look more interesting to the rest of the world when I carried it around!

If you look on her website you start to realize there are all kinds of ways people can use this. Sports fans, dog lovers, creative types can all personalize it the way they want. She had her daughter do some art work for her. So far, none of my kids have that sort of dexterity. Perhaps what this bag is really trying to tell me is that I should strive to teach my kids fine motor skills instead. Fine motor skills will make me more interesting!

Either way, I love the idea. The bag is very well constructed, snaps everywhere and the photo pockets very smartly have a fold over flap to protect the contents. They also have the signature Anna Hart bright color scheme which was a joy to see, even though it now it sadly lives half a world away from me.

Not good with measurements but she sells them in two sizes. Mine is the bigger one and it is about this big…

The more years Jack attends his elementary school, the more impressed I become.

Jack attends a fine arts magnet here in Chicago. When I was doing my Magnet Applications for Jack last year, my system was to find magnets with A ratings within a 5 mile radius of our house, then continue to spiral out until I reached the maximum number of 20. If I got too far out, I would start again at the 5 mile radius and add magnets with a B ratings.

I found his school that way. It is a small school that many parents have not heard about unless they are in the arts themselves. Still, even without all the hype, there were still 1000 people applying for 14 spots. Out of twenty, it was also the only school we won the lottery for.

Last year I was blown away with the Kindergarden Graduation. But that was nothing compared to this year’s holiday show!

Mimes…

Many, many incredible piano solos. And so much more! Clever and funny plays like this one where the kids were dressed as snowmen…

There were dances. Ballet dances, modern dances, and african dances…

And bands! This school has their own kid bands! Here they are performing smooth criminal…

 But of course, my favorite was the first grade dreidel song…

Jack is in the top row, all the way to the right.

I never would have picked fine arts over something like math and science, but since it we luckily got the slot at this school, I’m starting to see what benefits performance arts can have on a kids confidence and creativity levels.

And I use the term highlights loosely. These events were either the zenith or the nadir of the week. I’m still not sure.

1. When Stan first arrived to our house Ben decided to strip down naked then jump in Stan’s lap and ask him to smell his hand. Which smelled like poop. The naked theme did not end there…

2. During the 18 month check up for the twins we were asked to strip them down in order to measure them. While Adam and I were both holding a naked baby in the hallway, Ben, who was suppose to be sitting in the examining room waiting for us decided to strip down naked, run into the hall, jump up and down giggling and ask to be measured as well.

3. Aaron developed an annoying habit of having a bowel movement right after dinner. Unfortunately after dinner is bath time.

4. When Ben announced one morning that he didn’t want a Mom, but preferred to have 2 Dads instead.

5. The realization that not one but both twins know Papa’s name and call for him all the time, and have for WEEKS, but they still don’t know my name.

My 41st birthday started out pretty rough. I woke up at 2am because Ben was pushing me off the bed. He almost never wakes in the middle of the night and I have no idea how he got there. All I knew was that there was not enough room for the three of us. I went downstairs and slept on the couch.

Then the twins woke at 5:30am. Not that different than most days but I was so hoping for something a little later for my birthday.

As my birthday landed on a Friday, it pretty much seemed like just another normal day. Which depressed me a bit.

Twins up to their normal tricks, even on my birthday.

I kept checking my facebook page for birthday wishes. A total of 65 people out there in the wide world wished me a happy birthday. Unfortunately everybody I physically spent the day with completely ignored it. Okay, two out of three of them have a vocabulary of about  30 words, but I was still kind of hoping that they would somehow magically stop fighting, crying and pooping for just one day.

When Adam came home I announced I was not, in fact, turning 41 today. I was going to wait and turn 41 tomorrow, and have a birthday weekend.

Mmmm. Strawberry cheesecake, maybe it wasn’t all bad…

And so this weekend I made up for it with a great couple of days filled with stuff I don’t normally do – shop, date night at Prosecco, foot massage, and wonderfully, an afternoon with Stan.

The kids insist on photo bombing Adam and I’s date night photo

Stan and I were buddies from our days in Hong Kong. He now lives in London and happened to be here on a short layover between cities.

I’m not sure he appreciated the visit as much as me. Look how the older boys treated our guest…

After all that abuse we left Adam on his own with all these rug rats and we met up with Matt Moder for a lovely liner? dunch? at Revolucion Steakhouse.

Stan was also grappling with his own birthday thoughts. His was a big one this year. And I know on big birthdays you have a tendency to wonder if you’ve ticked off all the boxes you should have by that age. Stan wished he had ticked off more.

“Wait, didn’t you basically create your own global currency that trades publicly?” I asked.

“Um… TICK!” Matt seconded. “Where is the box for that?”

Lovely, lovely weekend and now I’m ready to be 41 for the next 363 days.

Did anyone see the facebook postings on Dinovember? I had a few friends post it (Thank you Rachel and Tina) and I was quite taken with the idea. These parents place dinosaurs in different poses in the house every night, mostly getting up to mischief.

After seeing it, I started to get obsessed about it.

It was just the kind of thing my father would have done for me when I was a kid. He often would make the extra effort in order to surprise and delight us. I told you about his elaborate tooth fairy tales before. But it didn’t end there. He did so many wonderful things when we were kids. I remember once I woke up in the tent I asked for my birthday!

So, Dinovember was just my alley.

But we put a twist on it.

We Thanksgivikahed Dinovember.

Day One. Also the first day of Hanukkah.

The first morning Jack found them and we started the legend of the mischievous Hanukkah bears. We didn’t count on the fact that they boys would each want one. And that they would each want to sleep with them to keep them out of trouble for the next night. We had to wait until they fell asleep and wrangle them away from them.

Day 2. Zip Lining Thanksgiving Hanukkah Bears.

Here is a close up of their Thanksgiving get-ups…

Those are Hanukkah bears from Build a Bear Workshop. It’s actually very hard to find a Hanukkah mascot. A bubbeleh on the shelf, if you will.

Day 3. Also Black Friday. The Hanukkah Bears have a battle against the Christmas Mascots. 

Here is a close up of my toilet paper roll and construction paper mascots. 

This bear in the back preferred to build a snowman, and the last one is just laying in marshmallow.

Day 4. Looks like someone found the music bin.

There was a bear audience as well.

Day 5. The bears toilet paper the bathroom.

On day 6, they partied with the original toys that come to life when no one is around…

Day 6. With Woody and Buzz.

Day 7. Do you think we have enough stuffed animals?

Finally the bears were caught by Jack’s Switch & Go Dinos, four of which he received for Hanukkah. Other Hanukkah toys that Ben got, like superheros, The Buzz Lightyear Monster and Splinter, helped them.

Day 8. Finally Captured.

This week, onions, pumpkin, rainbow carrots, sweet potatoes, sage, spinach and cranberries.

I feel like this post should be labelled “Thanksgiving” instead. Or maybe Thanksgivingish.

We used the cranberries to make a very simple cranberry sauce.

Adam asked for creamed spinach for Thanksgiving and I delivered with this batch. it’s a lighter version, no heavy cream.

Fresh Picks Sweet Potatoes (right) were mixed with store bought ones (left).

When I was a kid I always remembered the marshmallow sweet potato dish and could not resist having it this year. But I also really wanted the pecan, cornflake, brown sugar topping as well. Thanksgiving only comes one a year so I just put both on top.

The rainbow carrots were also put out on the Thanksgiving table. Peeled, cut and steamed. No sauce needed.

Some onions and sage were used in the stuffing.

And the pumpkin was used for pumpkin salsa. WHAT KIND OF THANKSGIVING DISH IS THAT you ask?

Simple Steamed Carrots.

It’s not. But I’ve been obsessed with Rick Bayless’ Pumpkin Salsa. It’s a limited edition and lately I’ve been eating it like it’s… like it’s… well like it’s going out of style.

I peeled and cut the pumpkin into large chunks and roasted them next to tomatilloes, roma tomatoes and garlic.I put them all in a blender with some chipolte in adobo, one of the onions from above, salt, a dash of sugar. It was a bit thick so I added some water and voila! It wasn’t as spicy as Rick Bayless’ and was a bit sweeter, but I think I can tweak it a bit next time.

We hit Zoo Lights at the Lincoln Park Zoo tonight.

We try to make it every year, but as we get more and more kids, the task seems more and more daunting. I’m fraught with anxiety I never had with one or two kids. Will I lose one? Will it be fun for all the different age groups?

And then there is that moment before you leave, the one where Ben is throwing a temper tantrum on the floor for no apparent reason, one twin is pulling off the mittens you just put on while the other one is kicking off his shoes where you think that this is definitely NOT worth it.

But in the end Adam and I always do it. We get out, we make the effort. We try let the kids have as many new and different experiences as we can. And in the end it is almost always worth it.

And it was another eventful and fun evening for all. Everyone loved watching the lights that went on and off set to music. The picture above does not do it justice. And the twins did their first train and carousel rides.

(Aaron’s head is by Ben’s chest.) Adam had to drag Sam out when it was over.

Having so many kids does change the landscape, though. Instead of going and spending a lot of time there we went for about an hour. Adam commented on how different this was from our experience of taking Jack to the zoo when he was the same age as the twins. Adam would ride the carousel with Jack over and over again because Jack loved it so much.

So much time and money back then! If I only knew then what I know now I would have become a nuclear physicist in all that free time I wasted!

These days, once around was plenty. For six of us to ride the carousel for 3 minutes it cost $15!

I know I’ve lived here for a decade now, but it always amazes me how much this city has to offer! Zoo lights are great for all ages so if you are one of my Chicago readers, check the weather for a good night to go. Make the effort.