I have a few pictures and videos from Christmas Eve. We start with an innocent little man on a stair.

And a dog that got a new present.

Being a dollar store stuffed bone, he pulled a hole in it right away. It needed surgery, but Gizmo didn’t want to wait.

The only problem was that when he got it, the sewing needle was still in it. We got the needle out and gave him his bone back.

This is what happens when these 4 cousins are together. Imagine what it will be like when all 8 are together!!

And no Christmas blog is complete without a picture of the Christmas prime rib!

Near our house is a person who really gets into Christmas. Their home must singlehandedly keep Com-Ed in business! This year, they had a sign in the yard directing you to tune to a radio channel. This is what you see and hear if you follow the directions.

On the Sunday following Christmas, Kevin and I each took a girl on an adventure. Kevin took Kayla to the Basement of the Dead. It is an indoor, military style laser tag facility that also doubles as a haunted house at Halloween. It’s tactical combat with authentic look & feel weapons. Kevin took all of the older cousins and Kayla along with his sister and brother-in-law. They ran around like crazy for 3 hours, then had pizza and came home.

I took Ashley and her friend Becca on a downtown trip. We started with a train ride.

Then a chilly 1.5 mile walk along Wacker Drive to Eataly. This is a restaurant that is more like a little market, with multiple counters that serve a variety of food types. We started our lunch at the bakery counter, with a small loaf of crusty bread, a brioche bun, and a tomato and mozzarella foccacia. We had to take the glass elevator up to the second floor first.

A couple of lemon sodas rounded out that part of lunch. The real reason for going, however, was THIS counter:

Everything there was made with Nutella. They even have buckets of the stuff. Check out the weight on this container. For reference, the standard grocery store jar is 13 oz.

We had our Nutella made into a crepe. Here are some videos of one being made for us! I love the cool little batter squeegee thing! And the Nutella spreading technique is pretty fun too.


Here is our finished crepe, oozing out Nutella goodness.

And the girls attacking it.

They wrapped up with a little bit of chocolate chip vanilla gelato. We then walked back, stopping by a sculpture for some pictures.

3 miles of walking and all that Nutella really wears out girls!

Everyone had fun on our adventures. And one final picture to close out the post. Here is new baby Malcolm’s baby blanket!