Why I Oughta...

If you look closely at the photo up above, you'll see a boom truck on the right with a guy in the cherry picker installing white Christmas lights on the trees out on the Randolph side of the Daley Center. Turns out, I spotted the exact same thing last year, but they were putting up the lights even earlier?!?  I posted these photos on September 22nd of 2015 .  This year, they're almost three weeks later. Here's a photo that shows more of the lights in the trees. If I recall correctly, they actually turn these lights off for a bit, until we get closer to Thanksgiving.  So, while sure, this is technically Christmas Creep, I still stand by my statement that this is just good planning.    I also kinda love to see it.

This month's wall calendars feature Toy Story 3 on the left in the Pixar calendar and the one and only Memorial Stadium on the right in the University of Illinois wall calendar.  October is - maybe - the best time on campus, so I love seeing the football team featured in the month. Last year, I turned the calendars over on the 8th of October , so that means I've gained another four days in the annual contest.  At the end of September, I was up -21 days .  So, this thing might just be over before December even starts. For those keeping track like I am (Which, we all know is nobody!): January took 8 days to put up the calendar . I don't think I was tracking January last year. So let's call it a wash. (+0 Days) February took 16 days to put up the calendar. In 2015, I turned it over on the 17th . (-1 Days better) March took 8 days this year. In 2015, I turned them on the 10th . Posted on the 11th. So...that makes it -2 days better. April took just 7 days. I did

For the past five years, our girls have been enjoying the little chocolate treats that come inside the Trader Joe's Advent Calendars as well as the larger one that that Nat stuffs with little treats on our kitchen table.  And the Elf shows up every morning.  And we've also started down the North Pole Communicator route , too.  So, we're busy with daily activities.  But this year, we've up-leveled the game by joining in on the annual Lego Advent Calendar business. Above is the front of the Lego City version that the Bird will be enjoying.  We also got a different version for the Babe, but I'll post that another day. I'm also inclined to pick up this year's version of the Holiday Train at Lego to set up a little village for the girls to play with their Advent creations because we won't be putting up our O Gauge setup once again this year. If they had these things back in the 80's, I would have been all over them.  I'm hoping that that ki

This is the fourth and I think final post on Lemax Spooky Town for the year and it features the Spooky Hollow Pumpkin Patch structure.  This one was released last year, but is being carried this year at Menards along with the others that I covered including: the  Scariest Halloween House ,  the Black Cauldron Boutique and Wanda's Wicked Cupcake Shop . This one has some exterior and interior lights but is the smallest of the bunch.  Again...the Mayor of Mantleburg has ruled and while he does, indeed, celebrate Halloween, he's not having any city expansion nor annexing any new structures into Mantleburg this year.  Who knows...maybe there will be an uprising on the town council to overrule the Mayor of Mantleburg next year?  Once we have a place for all the structures of Mantleburg to be displayed properly?  Time will tell.

Back in April of last year, I posted some photos of a new eye doctor place opening on York Street in the Elmhurst City Centre called Spex here on the blog .  If you walk by the place today, you'll see that they've rebranded to "MyEyeDr". Spex is a chain - you can see the locations here - and so is MyEyeDr -  so I'm wondering if it is a franchise kind of thing?  And the folks in Elmhurst decided to go a different direction?     Here's the new page on the MyEyeDr page showing the Elmhurst location .  Whatever the reason, they've spent a lot of money in awnings in just a year and a half, amirite?

In the Venn Diagram that includes Lionel O-Gauge train stuff and Disney stuff, the overlap has been small but consistent over the years.  You can go to any train show (and...yes those things exist!) and find some vintage Mickey the Mouse cabooses and box cars from over the years. And if we were to map people who would have an interest in that intersection, I'd gladly raise my hand.  As we've talked about before, I grew up with a Christmas Train.  My Dad would break out his vintage post-war Lionel train some time after Thanksgiving and we'd set it up.  Sometimes, around the tree, but at some point, my Mom relegated it to the basement.  That tradition - of breaking out the Lionel train set - has been one that I've tried to bring to my own kids.  And, my Dad fed the beast by giving the oldest girl - The Babe - her own set when she was 1. So, beside last year - when we were transient during the holidays - we've set up our Holiday Train.  And we're not aimin

We were at the Babe's school for new parent orientation recently and as we exited her classroom, we were able to see some of the work that the class had done.  And as I looked for the Babe's paper, I saw this above.  Sure...she gives really good answers for what she needs to do in 1st grade.  But, look at the bottom where the kids were asked to color in their own backpack.  She picked the Fighting Illini and the Block I?!?  Yep.  Not Mickey the Mouse.  Not My Little Pony.  Nor Shopkins.  Or her *actual* backpack - which is cute...but probably hard to draw because of the squiggles and such. Nope.  She went with the orange and blue.  I-L-L! Proud parenting moment for sure.

Over the weekend, we packed the kids into the minivan and drove around Hinsdale looking at some houses/house features as we work to finalize our own house.  We saw some pretty beautiful places, but we also came across an Estate Sale.  Which.....I couldn't *not* go in, right?  It was a nice, old house on the outside, so my hunch was that there'd be some gems inside. After waiting for my number to be called (yeah...it was one of those Estate Sales.  Where they had you pull a ticket like you do when you're waiting at the deli counter.), I got in and poked around.  Nothing.  At least for us.  So, I went outside to the garage and discovered something!  They had a few cases of vintage 3 1/4" glass ornaments in their original boxes.  That's the side of the box above and the top of the box below.  They say "American Made" from Coby Glass Products.  If you poke around on the web , it turns out that Coby likely didn't make these, they were using Corning bl

The calendar may read September, but the folks at Menards already have Christmas on their mind. Seriously.   They have their Christmas stuff up already!  Well...most of it.  The "Enchanted Forest" isn't up yet because the Halloween inflatables are still up.  But, all the lights and lawn items for Christmas - as you can see - are on the shelves. And think we were excited?  Just look at the Bird running up and down the aisles celebrating Christmas coming soon.   Last year, the Menards in Melrose Park put up their Christmas stuff in early October , so they're a bit ahead of where they were last year.  But, this isn't the earliest sighting of Christmas stuff at Menards on record.   Here, back in 2011, I posted a photo of the Babe with holiday blow molds on September 17th . Alas, we didn't buy anything from the Christmas section, but we *did* buy a few Halloween items that they still have displayed. Christmas creep is real and I, for one, welcome it.

We spent a few days up in Twin Lakes Wisconsin and besides the beautiful views and lovely screened in porch, I was glad to see that just like in Coloma, there's a pretty active garage sale circuit that one can run on the weekends.  Maybe it is a 'lake house town' thing? I found time to stop at one and picked up a few items including this angel above.  She's old, but not *that* old because her head is squeeze-y rubber.  But she's in impeccable shape.  Super bright white.  No dirt or marks on her.  I also bought a plastic blowmold Santa that takes a light in his back.  It is the same one that Nat's parents have on their counter during Christmastime and I *think* it dates back to her Dad's childhood.  Which...means it is from the 1950's - 60's?  But this one that I bought, just like the angel above, was in just about perfect shape, too! We left the Santa up in Twin Lakes for Grammy and Granddad and who knows?  Maybe he'll get a shot at the bi