Mi-Chicago

Last week Jake had to travel to Chicago to do work at the Ford Chicago Assembly Plant.  Since Ford was putting him up in a cool high-rise corporate apartment the girls and I thought we would tag along.  Jake got a 2013 Lincoln MKZ to drive so we squished in for the 4 hour drive.

Scarlett started yelling "mom! mom! mom!  I drew my hand!"  It was the best hand tracing she's done yet!

Scarlett's such a diva!

Here's the apartment we stayed in for the week.  14th Floor.

Chicago, or as Scarlett would say, Mi-Chicago.  Not sure why she tags the "Mi" on the front, maybe from Michigan?  All the pink lights are for Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Chicago is the 3rd biggest city in the US!

Our parking lot was hidden on the side of the building.  The way Jake found it every day was by the bright, yellow "Adult Books" sign.

The girls didn't take long to settle in.

We set the twirls up in Scarlett's room.  When we first walked in their room Scarlett said: "My room! ... It doesn't have a TV in it..."  oh my goodness!

I found the twirls playing together in their pea pods......

With the rainy weather we spent a lot of time in the apartment watching TV and eating.  It didn't look like rain in the forecast so the rainy week was a wrench in our plans.  I didn't bring enough stuff to do, we were getting creative with what I could find around the apartment.  Luckily we had cable!

Scarlett told me "I want to go to school."  I told her "You have to be five."  Her reply: "Five is a big number...  I can count that long but I can't wait that long.  See - 1 2 3 4 5."  haha!

I put these cuties in baskets...

...the next day I found Siena had climbed in one on her own!  haha!

Getting creative.

Scarlett likes to use these phrases "What's the big idea?"  "Is that clever?"  "Oh snap!"  and while we were here she turned to me and said this:

Putting the straws in the juice box proved to be very entertaining!

I was tickling Siena and she was making adorable giggles, Jaide came over and laid in the floor next to her to be tickled too!  ADORABLE!

Watch Jaide's face when she puts the play doh in her mouth.  Little stinker!  

Real Chicago pizza - double decker!

Scarlett's been watching Handy Manny a lot lately.  One day out of the blue she started counting to ten in Spanish!?!  I don't know much Spanish, but I've been trying to help her learn a few more words since she's so into it right now.  "Mom what is cup in Spanish?"  Google Translate to the rescue!  Check this vid:

When the weather was nice we went out and explored the city.  The building has a doorman and concierge!  Fancy!  Scarlett loved the twisty door.  It was weird to take the girls out by myself.  There are not a lot of children - so lugging around 3 littles seemed out of place.  The girls were great, they loved seeing all the commotion.  I wasn't too happy about all the smoking on the streets, but at least they weren't smoking indoors.

On Sunday morning we looked at the window and saw a bunch of runners.  It was the Chicago Marathon.  We decided to go to church that day.  What was supposed to be a 5 min drive turned into over an hour with all the runners!

Church was held in an elementary school.  Sacrament Meeting was in the auditorium.

When we were sitting and waiting for the meeting to start, Scarlett looked up at dad and finally noticed his beard.  She said "Dad, something's different about you.  I know, you're a pirate!!!"

Shopping was difficult.  We spent like a million dollars at CVS every day.  We finally found a grocery store in the bottom of a building.  The aisles were so squishy and we spent another million dollars there too.

We found a huge candy store, Scarlett picked out a candy necklace.

The most popular attraction in the mall was this:

We found this cool jungle themed restaurant.  They sat us right next to the animatronic elephants.  That meant every 10 minutes they would start going crazy and we would have to play damage control to keep the girls from freaking out.

The twirls are changing so much these days.  Jaide likes to take her socks off and she always holds her hand out (palm up) when she wants something, like this cake...

Siena likes to talk all the time - though we don't understand her and she likes to blink hard and frequently - like a game of some sort...

The volcano was a huge hit!

One afternoon I took the girls on a walk to McDonalds.  We walked in and there were balloons everywhere and tons of people in red and white striped socks.  It was the 40th Anniversary of the Ronald McDonald House.  They were selling socks for charity and asking people to "Show Your Stripes" #forRMHC.  It took the whole meal to talk Scarlett into taking a picture with a real clown (and for Siena to stop crying when she saw him).  I told her if she wore the socks she could ride the escalator afterward.

I was holding the twirls while one of the RMHC volunteers said she'd take Scarlett on the escalator.  Ronald decided to follow.  The guy who was taking pictures of us with my camera in the photos above came over and grabbed it to snap this photo.  Without even asking me!  I thought it was awesome!

We met a lady in the lobby of our building pushing a stroller of TRIPLETS!  We chatted for awhile and I found out that she's married to the chief engineer of the project Jake is working on.  We met a few times to play during the week.  Between our 6 kids 3 and under (her boys are 2.5) it was MADNESS.  But tons of fun.  Her triplets are all fraternal and were a complete surprise... Leslie Knope style.

We were less than a mile from the Magnificent Mile with all the famous shopping.  The girls and I went to explore the area (and maybe see Oprah).

One of the malls had a Lego Store.  The girls loved the big bin of blocks.  We had to leave shortly after this photo was taken cause Scarlett had to "go potty, right now!"

I even wore my Lego earrings (thanks Jami!!!)

The American Girl mother store.  It's HUGE (several floors).  They even had a doll hair salon!

Scarlett's favorite part of the mall: the glass elevator.

The Hershey's Store - the whole street outside smelled like chocolate!

After walking all day Scarlett complained that her legs were hurting.  Luckily I had come prepared!  I strapped one baby on and pushed Scarlett in the stroller.  Siena loved pushing!  I was exhausted when we got home!

We went to the Lincoln Park Zoo on Friday.  It's a free zoo!!

We found this tree house.  I could tell in that moment Jake wished he was 3 years old again.

Scarlett's legs were sore again.  Jaide got to ride this time.  I let her sit on the handlebars so it wasn't so much work.

I bought new shoes for the twirls.  They were driving me crazy by falling off all the time.  So we went to CVS and bought $400 hair ties (or something like that).  I used the ties to make ankle straps.  They stay on great now!!!  Problem solved.

Before we left Chicago we went to the Chicago Exploratorium.  It's a half hour out of town and in the basement of a rec center type building.  The girls were in HEAVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nobody puts baby in a corner!

We had a ton of fun.  I'm glad we got to tag along and see the big city.  I have more appreciation for what the city folk have to do (like Liz in NYC or my in-laws in St. Petersberg).  So much work just to go grocery shopping... but so much to see!