All That Jazz {Chicago}

Every Christmas my family drives to Chicago to spend Christmas evening with my mom's brothers and their families.  Unfortunately I don't have any pics from that night; my mom must have them all on her camera--bummer.  The time spent with my aunts/uncles/cousins is always fun - I always enjoy the smorgasbord of food (including several traditional Swedish dishes--my Grandma is full Swedish) including the Limpa (Swedish rye bread) and ham with my uncle's YUMMY ham sauce!  For the past two years we've started a new tradition for the adult gift exchange of giving handmade gifts.  Each family makes one type of gift to give all the other adults.  Last year I made these fabric covered button bookmarks:

This year I made reusable java jackets (I don't have an actual picture of the ones I made, so this is the pic and the link from the site where I got the tutorial):

{Click on the picture to be taken to Little Birdie Secrets for this--and MANY other--cool tutorial}

After spending the evening at my aunt/uncle's house, we headed back to the hotel to rest up for a day of shopping on Michigan Ave.  After a large buffet breakfast, we headed out for a little shopping before Ashlyn and I met up with my mom and Brittany at American Girl Place for lunch with Angel (Ashlyn's Bitty Baby).  If you have a little girl and are able to do lunch at AGP, I would highly recommend it!  It was so stinking cute in there and just every little girl's dream!  It's not cheap, but you do get quite a lot for the money--a 4 course meal and a few little extras to take home, plus the experience and the opportunity for LOTS of pics and Flip video :)

For Christmas I had gotten Ashlyn and Angel matching outfits to wear to our AGP lunch.  I loved their dresses, but I was pretty surprise by how many people (AGP employees included) who stopped us and asked where we had gotten them.  At first I was hesitant to admit that the outfits were contraband from Kohl's, but after a while I got over it :)  If they're cute, who cares where they came from, right?!  Since Ashlyn just has a Bitty Baby (and I'm planning to wait a while before getting her a Just Like You doll or an historical AG doll--she enjoys Angel so much I don't see the point in adding another doll to the mix just yet.) we mostly stuck to that relatively small section of the store.  I can see, though, where parents can go broke in the other parts of the store!


I think I had as much fun as Ashlyn did at this place!  After lunch we went into the bathroom and what do you think we found?  Doll holders!  They look sort of like coat/purse hooks, but they're meant to hold dolls while you take care of business--they thought of everything!

 

While we were lunching with dolls, Kyle and Maguire were out scouting the city for the best street act.  I may have mentioned before ;) but Maguire is obsessed with music!  Oddly enough, there were virtually no street performers to be found, but they did find "The Tin Man".  You know, one of those guys painted in metallic paint who look like statues and do some robotic movements.  Maguire was transfixed and even now (February--yeah, I'm late in updating) "Tin Man" is something that he talks about almost daily.  Kyle took one of The Tin Man's cards, which is a 4x6 glossy card with a picture of him on it.  Maguire makes sure to know where it is at all times in case he thinks I might not know who he's talking about.  

An added treat for me was, after lunch and getting the kids down for a nap (thanks mom & dad!!), that I was able to meet up with my dear friend, Dara!  It used to be a tradition for us to meet up for dinner whenever my family was in town for Christmas, but adding kids to the mix--among other things--made it more difficult to keep that up.  So I was excited that it worked out for us to hang out and shop together for a few hours. I miss seeing and spending time with that girl!

 

Between lunch at AGP, the Disney Store, The Tin Man, the huge breakfasts, throwing coins into the fountain at the hotel and all the quality time with Uncle Nate, Aunt Brittany, Oliver, Papa and Mimia, it's no wonder the kids ask on a regular basis, "When can we go back to Chicago?"