Random photos

Here are some random photos.  First off, someone in this family has sticky fingers when it comes to taking more than enough after-dinner mints from the golf club.  Yes, it would be Charlie. Ha ha!

I decided to get a new rug for our foyer.  Plus, it was on sale!

I rather like that pop of color and because it was on sale, I'm not too concerned about it getting too dirty :-P

Charlie is back at the orthodontist's office because they needed to take a couple extra scans. I love how they give such attention to details.  I really hope the boys' new Invisalign will work!

Actually, they just have little "nubbies" installed on their teeth today. And did get a whole box full of retainers each. Actually, Graham got 2 full boxes. I'll explain some more in a new post :-)

We found an old train station that's been converted into a shopping mall.  I love the arches!

I think this was like one of the first horse-drawn water hose for the fire department here - way back when.  So cool!

I can't believe this.  The sign on the window actually says no kids allowed in this antique store??!  That's terrible!

And on this other side of their store - on another door, there was a sign that said "No wheelchairs".  Can you believe that??!  

There's still an old train in here and it sits on an old train track.  And I think you can dine in it. We will have to try this one day:

Off to the movies for us, after a really long time. Nice part is, it's pretty much empty except for the 4 of us and 2 other people that are seated waaaay on the top most row.  Ha!

Sitting close to Graham so I can snag some of his chips :-)

Graham is so funny.  He doesn't actually open up his bag of chips until the movie starts.  And I mean that bag stays closed through all the ads and all the previews.  If only he is this patient in everything else!

I finally had to turn on the 4WD function on my car last week. I can tell it's on because this little green thing shows up on my dashboard:

It was so slushy with rain and snow.  Yuck!

Definitely no golf today!

So thankful the simulators are available at the golf club.  We all can have some fun while it's cold outside.  Nothing like trying to hit the driving range cart :-D

Or, just go sledding with the kids and the neighbors.  Ha! I did tell Charlie he is not allowed to go past that tree at the bottom of the hill. Otherwise, it's definitely getting too close to the lake!

Graham gets home too late during the school week (actually, it's super dark by 5pm!) so he's trying to take advantage of whatever snow that's left over during the weekend:

Brrr, it is definitely cold.  Although, Graham has a thumbs up!

I'm not so sure but at first this tree looked really cool in person, but looking at it in the photo - it's looking rather scary.  LOL!

Lake was frozen but now it's not quite frozen anymore.  Boys are still finding bits and pieces of ice along the shore:

I saw this cute Joy sign in one of the neighbor's yard and am using it for a nice photo :-D

There was some deck cleaning over the weekend too:

Graham loves to shovel!

Well, there's a blizzard coming our way very soon and looks like everyone is prepping. There was actually a line when I went to get gas today!!

I also made sure we had some extra meds on-hand:

I probably should have bought some pepto for poor Charlie this past couple of days.  He threw up in the middle of Monday night in the bedroom that he shares with Graham.  Graham didn't even nudge when I turned on the light to clean. And not even when I pulled the sheet off his bed! Thankfully Charlie is better now. He is back to school tomorrow. Last day before winter break. Woohoo!!

And we've stocked up on some food too. There were like 4 checkout lanes open today compared to the normal 1 lane. In any case, we have lots of ingredients for "chunky monkey" bagels - blueberry bagel with peanut butter, topped with bananas and granola.  We learned that at a restaurant recently on our roadtrip back from MN. Yum!

Oh, forgot that there is a drizzle of honey too.  Super yum!! :-D

I hope this house holds up for this first storm.  It is going to be below freezing with all the wind chills.  Just insane! It's our first winter in the Midwest and of course, we are literally going to be bombarded with a "Bomb Cyclone".  Yup, that's what they are calling it! YIKES!!!

Music recital

Both Graham and Charlie had their school holiday music recital recently.  Graham is still playing violin and Charlie plays the clarinet.

Charlie cleaned up quite nicely!  He insisted on wearing the jacket:

He's looking like he knows what he is doing - especially for someone who doesn't practice at home.  Ha!

Here's a quick video of Charlie:

Not too shabby!  Although he did admit that he went off-key one time :-)

And here's Graham at his middle school:

He has a uniform that he wears so that's simple enough.  He seems to be playing quite well too for someone that doesn't practice at home.  Ha ha! But he does have orchestra every day in school  :-)

I'm so glad both boys are still playing their instruments.  Oh, speaking of which, I thought we were going to have a private recital at home for the holidays.  Might have to make that happen somehow :-)

Putting up the Christmas tree

This year I think we have to give most of the credit to Charlie.  I'm so glad he was so motivated to get the tree up and with all the decorations as well:

This pre-lit tree still looks good after all these years.  We've had it since Graham was born - 12 years!!

Charlie was determined to get every ornament up on the tree:

I was just happy I was able to find all the Christmas stuff/boxes in the garage!

Ta da!! So pretty!!

We added a couple new ornaments this year.  Charlie wanted a fish one but while looking for it in the store, I found this blue-ish butterfly.  It's a nice reminder of our time in California as the area that we lived at was once a haven for Blue Butterflies:

We ended up ordering Charlie his fish ornament online.  Haha, this kid is too funny.  Still so hooked on fishing!!

We decided to go with some colored lights this year - for the Christmas tree and also the hedge along the driveway.  I think I'm really liking it with colors :-)

And of course, I can't comment enough about Charlie's new Ugly Sweater. Ha!

I believe it's the first Pridgen family ugly sweater and it comes complete with bells along the collar.  Charlie loves it!  He can't wait to wear it during Ugly Sweater Day at school this week.  He has also been prancing around and singing Jingle Bell Rock while wearing it.  Charlie is such a character!

Holiday Train / Cashew allergy??!

Earlier in the month, we wanted to go see a holiday train, not too far from the O'hare airport.  We picked up Bobby near his office and went to a small restaurant to have some fried chicken. I don't know why the fried chicken but I just wanted to try it:

The coleslaw wasn't bad but the real star was really the chicken sandwich.  That was actually quite tasty!

Well, we tried to get to this holiday train but traffic was SOOOO bad!!

What really made us turn around though was actually when Graham started to feel unwell.  His nose wa already quite stuffy and during dinner, he mentioned that his belly hurt. And then, in the car he couldn't stop scratching himself - saying that he was just itchy all over.  Oh boy! Allergies??!  But to what??!   

So we drove home and stopped at the drug store to get some meds for poor Graham.  And of course, we needed some sort of 2nd dinner and ended up with donut holes.  Charlie order like 20 but came home with like 50??!

He obviously was not complaining about that!  I guess the best time to buy donut holes is at 8pm at night. LOL!!

Well, as for Graham - we had him take a shower and he came out of it completely in some sort of rash.  Thank goodness we had stopped at the drugstore before coming home.  The meds took effect and he was fine the next morning.  Now the question is... allergies to cashews??!  He ate some of my snacks in the car.  He doesn't normally like anything with nuts but he was so hungry he ate them all. Thankfully there wasn't much of it in the bag.  We'll have to look into this one some more for sure!

Graham and Charlie as Elves

The season of The Santa Clauses came and went so quickly.  It was so much fun though trying to spot Graham and Charlie as extras on the show.

Graham is clearly seen to the right here with one of the main elves.  Graham said they were actually told to look at a tennis ball.  Ha ha! 

I love their ears and costumes!  And oh, that backdrop is actually computer generated!  There are hundreds of TV screens put together to make that movie magic.  How do I know this? Because all the parents had to walk behind this screen and sit in the dark while their children were filming. LOL!

In this scene, Charlie ended up towards the front of the screen, on the left side:

The boys actually got in trouble during filming and were both pulled off the set for a time out.  And in order to keep the boys separately, Charlie ended up being noticed whereas poor Graham is towards the back of the screen somewhere.  I'm not sure if Charlie actually learned anything about being the naughty one after this incident??!

And in the final episode, we spotted Graham for a few seconds on the screen!

What an awesome experience and so much fun for the boys to watch themselves on TV.  I mean, I still can't believe how these boys are in a TV series!  Definitely something they will remember forever and talk about for the rest of their lives :-)

Happy Halloween (Oct 31)

I can't believe Christmas is next week!  And so I can't believe it's taken me THIS long to get the Halloween post up. Yikes!!

Being one of the Room Coordinator for Charlie's class, I was able to participate in his class party:

For tonight, Graham is going with his Spiderman outfit (again) and as for Charlie, he is "Stickman".  We taped up some glowsticks on his black clothing:

Seems to work quite well!  We were testing it out in the bathroom.  Ha ha!

And I decided to use the trunk of our truck to set up our little Halloween "staging" area for the trick-or-treaters.  Turned out pretty well!  Or at least some of the trick-or-treaters thought so too, which made me very happy :-)

I was prepped to buy lots of candy so there were two HUGE bags of candy.  Hopefully it's enough! The boys did dump their stash in the truck halfway through the night, so I told them I might use theirs to give away in case I run out. Ha! 

Right during setup, I did have to clean up the driveway because of this squirrel though.  Can you believe it??!

The boys' pumpkin lit up nicely at night.  We did buy some teeth for it to make it look a bit more scary:

Awesome sunset tonight!

This is the first time we let the boys roam around the neighborhood to go trick-or-treating by themselves, well actually - with their friends.  But each of them had their own friends. It was a bit difficult to not be worried, but all was well in the end.  Look at all the candy they got. YIKES!!

Oh, one more video.  This one of Charlie dancing with this glowstick costume.  Such a ham!

I wonder what next year's Halloween will entail?  Both Graham and Charlie are growing up so fast and their opinions are constantly changing!

Charlie's artwork

Seems that Charlie has been quite busy with art class at school!  Check out his work:

I love this one too:

Looks like it took a lot of time and patience to get these done. If only he was this patient with me a home! Ha!!

Charlie has been selected to post his artwork on a website called Artsonia. It was something the school had initiated.  We are able to see all of his special artwork and of course, buy merchandise with his artwork printed on it.  I'm guessing that's the whole reason behind it - although some of that does go back to the school. So, it's all good.  Just happy that he is still practicing his art skills :-D