End of summer '09

It's been cool here lately, which always bumbs me out. I love fall, don't get me wrong, but Chicago summers are so short and the winters are so long that I always feel a little panicky when the 90 degree weather starts to go away. You can't swim in Lake Michigan when it's 70 degrees, that's for sure. But we're trying to do fun end-of-the-summer things before we get out our jackets. Wednesday morning, we headed to 31st street beach to have a little snack picnic.

We didn't even go down to the sand, but the picnic was a big hit.

The kids played on their favorite park, and Sammy met a little friend who was happy to play firemen-rescuing-people-from-burning-playground-equipment with him.

There were attempts to climb trees.

And Sam brought his bike and baseball stuff. An unfortunate incident occured when he hit his wiffle ball so far that it ended up in the lake.

That night, after Cecilia had gone, we had a back-to-school dinner to celebrate Claire starting her first year of home school and Sammy starting back at City Garden.

We cut out pictures of things that the kids liked from magazines and made crowns for each of them. Claire really picked out most of the pictures. She's going to do gymnastics this year, which explains the gymast picture on her crown.

For Sam's, she basically cut out every sport picture she could find. He loved it.

Claire picked the menu. Her favorite food it take-out chinese chicken. I felt thirsty for about 3 days after this meal. I swear the main ingredient in this stuff is salt. But I didn't mind not having to cook dinner!

Here she is...the big 6 year old.

Haha! The crowns were so tall.

Make-your-own banana splits were for dessert. The kids picked out all the toppings: caramel, fudge, sprinkles, and whipped cream. Sammy and I were a little sick after this (lactose!) but it was totally worth it.

Claire had a sleep-over last night with a friend, and Sammy was lonely, so we let him have a marshmallow roast on the stove with his friends. I think it's official...summer is over. But that's okay. Fall is really my favorite season...it's just so short!