JOY in the journey : Big city day part 1

I absolutely LOVE living in Chicago on the weekends! I must admit it can get a bit lonely during the week. Cole works crazy long hours and I am mostly on my own with the kids during the day. It's probably my own fault but I really haven't made many friends here, and actually have made zero that stay home during the day. So I really start missing all my Missouri stay at home mamma friends and their babies (ok, enough with the pitty party). But on the weekends when our whole family is together it seriously feels like we are on vacation. There are SO many exciting things to do in this city! I really want Sylvie and Magnus to experience as much as they can while we are here, and the list of fun stuff to do with your kids never seems to end.

This past Saturday we decided to head downtown for the day and see what we could find. So after eating a breakfast of blueberry pancakes (made by Cole and Sylvie while Mag and I slept in), we packed up the diaper bag filled with snacks and everything we would need for a day out (so I thought) and hit the road. The L is right behind our apartment. Like if you took away our bedroom wall our bed would be on the tracks, not exaggerating. It goes by all the time day and night. It took me quite awhile to get used to the noise and vibrations and not wake up in a panic that I was about to get run over by a train. I also must mention here that every time it goes by, about every 10 minutes, our TV cuts in and out so bad that it's not even worth turning on. DVDs are the only way to go :) But I recently have gotten really good at riding the L (only took a year right) and was pretty pumped to be able to tell Cole which stop to get off at to start our downtown adventure (Roosevlet...bam!). Sylvie loves the L and even made a little friend during our trip down. Magnus slept in the Baby Bjorn like usual.

Once we got downtown we headed over to the feet statues. I'm sure this has an actual name, but we just call them the feet. Sylvie thought they were so funny and loved running through the maze of feet. She also was obsessed with trying to climb them. Next we decided to walk down to Buckingham fountain. Sylvie has never been there but every time we drive by it she starts freaking out so we figured she'd really love checking it out. On the way there we came across a cool man on a horse statue and another fountain. Sylvie tried her luck rolling down her first hill and definitely had an interesting approach. We finally made it to Buckingham fountain and let me tell you it is huge! I know they say KC is the city of fountains, but we don't have anything as big as this guy! There were a bunch of wedding parties and quinceanera parties taking photos in front of the fountain and Sylvie ended up being more into watching "the princesses" than the actual fountain. She kept saying "she's in a long dress. Oh no! Her dress might get dirty". Magnus however must've loved the fountain, because he kept sleeping.

We kept heading North and came across a street art spot where there was tons of sidewalk chalk and a roped off spot on the sidewalk for people to create their own art. I'm not sure who was more excited me or Sylvie. Everyone loves some good sidewalk chalking right?? It was so fun to watch people stop to write their name then go on their way. We however wrote our names, drew pictures, dumped out the chalk, reorganized it, put it back, drew some more, etc. It was next to impossible to get that little lady to leave.

Next up more fountains, the bean, etc... to be continued... I wasn't lying, we had a REALLY big day!