Big Boy

Would someone please tell Caleb to slow down a little? He's growing so quickly, I feel like every time I turn around he seems a little bit older.

This morning, I fed him his yogurt for breakfast and then he wanted a turn. He spent 15-20 minutes feeding himself the last of the yogurt. When did he get old enough to do that? It's still far more efficient for me to feed him with the spoon, but he did eat quite a bit by himself. Sigh.... he's getting so big!

Chicago! (pt 3)

Final Chicago post - I promise!

Sunday
Day 5 - Aunt Paula and Uncle Bill let us spend the night at their house on Saturday night, I was so relieved to find a soft, comfy bed waiting for us upstairs! I slept so well! We were able to get up leisurely and go downstairs for some breakfast. It was nice to let Caleb run around and watch cartoons while I sat at the table slowly drinking my cup of coffee. I know that doesn't seem like such a big deal, but after so many days of constant rushing around, having a few hours to unwind was huge.

Around 10:30, Roger and his family came by with Grandma Hart (Mal's mom). As soon as she walked in the door, Caleb leaned for her and wanted her to hold him. It was the sweetest thing! Even though he had never met her, he knew she was someone special. He kept wanting her while we were gathering up things to head to Jonathan's cousin's house for brunch with the rest of the family.

Attached to Grandma Hart as soon as she walked in the door! 

From left - Aunt Paula, Grandma Hart, Caleb and Uncle Bill 

Once we were all packed up again, we all drove over to Mike and Lauren's house just a few minutes away. They have a gorgeous historic home in downtown Belvidere. I wish I had gotten a picture of the outside, but it was too cold to venture outside! (The whole time we were up north it didn't get above 40 degrees.)

Mike and Lauren have two little girls, Zoe and Maya. Zoe is the oldest of all of Grandma Hart's great grandkids and Maya is only a month older than Caleb. We had all of the great grandkids on that side together except for Lana. They all had so much fun. The two older girls played well together and the two little ones followed them around a lot. It was a great, relaxed afternoon and so nice to catch up with everyone.

Roger, Juliana and Zoe

Caleb brought Grandma Hart a book to read and then climbed up in her lap - precious! 

The kids table 

The big kids table - plus two little ones (again - Jonathan is the cameraman) 

Yay for toys to play with! 

The big girls worked on a craft while the little ones watched and played with materials. 

Grandma Hart's cake - YUM! 

Maya enjoyed her piece. 

Caleb napped and missed out on cake - silly boy covered himself up : )

Grandma Hart and 4 out of 5 of her great grandbabies. (From left - Zoe, Maya, Juliana and Caleb) 

Giving Grandma Hart a BIG hug before she left. 

Caleb and Maya found some fun drawer pulls. 

Caleb's favorite toy while we were there - we are now in search of a "manly" baby stroller
: )

We had a great time with Jonathan's Mom's side of the family. We left Mike and Lauren's around 4 to head to the airport. O'Hare definitely took more patience to get through than the Houston airport, but it is MUCH larger. We gave ourselves plenty of time to return the rental car and have dinner at the airport. We then had the opportunity to let Caleb play in a really cute play area in the airport.

The flight back home was more challenging than the first flight. Of course, this flight was also delayed, but only an hour as compared to 2 for our first flight. On the plane, Caleb fussed a little bit as he tried to get comfortable and slept for around half of the flight. He woke up abruptly after a while though and could not get back to sleep even though he was exhausted. There was some loud crying for the rest of the flight, but it could have been worse. I think he would have gone back to sleep if it hadn't been so hot in the plane. They had the heater on in Chicago (when it was needed), but never turned it to AC through the flight and it got rather warm. The poor baby was sweating like crazy. It was a stressful few hours, but I knew there would be an end point. Once we got off the plane he calmed down. He stayed awake while we got our luggage. Luckily, he fell back asleep on the way home and went easily into bed at 1:30 in the morning.

I think we were all ready to fall into bed at that point! I slept like a baby until around 8 this morning and Caleb slept til 10:45! I think he was so ready to be in his own crib and catch up on some sleep! It was nice for me to have the morning to get everything unpacked and laundry going in peace. Jonathan went in to work in time for his 10:00 meeting, but came home around 3:30. I'm sure he was tired too.

As I've typed out these posts, I realized how much we crammed into a pretty short visit! We had some great opportunities to visit family even though three of the days we only had evening family time. I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to visit everyone again. It's been 2 years since Jonathan and I took a vacation up to that area and we really needed to get up to see everyone. It was a challenge with Jonathan being busy most of the days and me chasing a toddler while 6 months pregnant, but I'm glad we were able to do it.

Like I said on the first post, it was a whirlwind of a trip, but we made some great memories!

Chicago! (pt 2)

Friday
Day 3 began around 5 am for us. Caleb woke up and had trouble falling back asleep, so Jonathan brought him to bed with us in hopes that he would at least rest. He played for maybe 10 minutes and then let me pat him to sleep. I couldn't fall back asleep, but I loved laying in bed watching Caleb and Jonathan sleeping peacefully. It was one of those moments that I hope I can remember always. (We have never let Caleb sleep in our bed, so it was a special day) He amazingly slept until 7:30 with us and then we continued our day much like Thursday.

We found a McDonalds in a different area of town (I couldn't handle downtown traffic again) and this one turned out to be pretty much opposite of what we had the previous day. Caleb and I were the only white people in the entire place and it was definitely a neighborhood hang out. Everyone was perfectly friendly and the meal was good, it was just SO different from breakfast the day before.

We spent the morning/afternoon at the robotics competition again. I got a few pictures of Caleb playing and you can see how the competition is set up.

Cutie playing in the stands with the competition going on in the background

The little Walle robot that scared Caleb (it was shorter than him)

The "pit" where each team has a booth to repair/work on their robot (Jonathan's team is in the left corner)

The playing "field" 

Getting set up for a match

Beginning of match, the robots were hanging inner tubes

Teams won points each time they completed the FIRST logo with inner tubes (they had to be in the correct order)

We had fun watching matches and hearing all the cheering each day we were there.

On Friday evening, after matches finished up, we left together to head to Grandmuzz and Grandpa's house in Rolling Meadows. Jonathan's brother, Roger, and his family had driven up from Iowa earlier in the day so that we could all visit with each other. We went out to eat at a nearby restaurant and then went back to the house to visit before we had to get back to the hotel. It was a quick evening, but good to visit. I hated to leave so early, but Jonathan had a mentor's meeting at 8:30 and Caleb really needed to get to bed at a descent time (still past normal time, but before 9!)

Playing with a doll house before dinner

Juliana helped Caleb get to the table

Playing together while waiting for dinner

All of us at the table (minus the cameraman - Jonathan)

Grandmuzz and Grandpa with two of their great-grandkids. (Lana was the only one missing)

The Lutz men

Saturday
Day 4 - On Saturday, Jonathan didn't have to be at robotics quite as early, so the three of us walked to a nearby Starbucks for breakfast. It was really the only time we spent as the three of us the whole time we were in Chicago, so it was nice to be together.

Playing in the hotel that morning

Eating breakfast - yummy banana!

A view of Sears Tower from the Starbucks

Watching people and cars outside

Bundled up to go back outside

Saturday was the final day of the competition. We spent the morning there and around lunchtime Roger, Jill and Juliana joined us. We got to watch several of the finals rounds before we had to leave for nap time.

An impromptu nap during the morning (during loud matches)

Having fun

Caleb sat still well for Uncle Roger - he wouldn't watch matches with me! 

As soon as the awards were over at the end of the day, we quickly went back to the hotel to pack up and drive to Belvidere. We got there around 8 and immediately put Caleb to bed. While we still slept in the same room as him, it was nice that he could fall asleep without us making noise around him. Jonathan and I chatted with Aunt Paula and Uncle Bill before we went up to bed.

It was yet another long day, but the exciting news is Jonathan's team was first in the Midwest regional! They also won awards for coopertition (which stood for helping other teams) and design quality. They were already going to the FIRST championship in St. Louis because they did well in Houston, but this gave them more practice against some really good teams.

Chicago! (pt 1)

Jonathan, Caleb and I returned last night from a whirl-wind trip up north. I think we did more in 5 days than I usually would do in a whole month! (Ok - maybe that's an exaggeration - but we did A LOT!)

The high school robotics team that Jonathan mentors had the opportunity to travel to Chicago to participate in the Midwest Regional for FIRST. (They had participated in - and won - the Houston regional a few weeks ago) With Jonathan's plane ticket and hotel room being paid for by work, we realized it would be a great opportunity to visit his family in the area and not spend a fortune. We made plans only around a week before he was to leave, so I quickly went into planning mode. It was a crazy few days, but worth all the stress to introduce Caleb to many of his relatives for the first time! (Warning - this will likely be a long, wordy post. I want to be able to look back and remember a lot of what we did!) 

Wednesday

Day 1 of our trip was essentially a travel day. We left home around 9 to make it to Intercontinental in time for our 11:30 flight. As we turned onto the main drive for the airport, I received a phone call that our flight had been delayed 2 hours. Since we were almost there anyways, we went ahead and unloaded the car, checked our bags and began our adventure. I have to say, the check-in, security and all of the "annoyances" of traveling went very smoothly. We made our way to our terminal and started trading off watching bags and following/watching Caleb. 

He loved watching the planes taking off and running around like a crazy boy. The plane ride itself was fairly uneventful. It was a lot of work to keep Caleb occupied, but he did extremely well. He had fun playing with his new laptop, coloring and eating tons of crackers. After a while we turned on a dvd for him to watch (thanks Acords for the loaned dvd player) and that lasted him until we arrived. 

The rest of the day we spent settling into the hotel and then attempting to find dinner. By the time we made it back to the hotel we were all exhausted. I think Caleb and I were asleep by 8! 

Thursday

Day 2 - Jonathan had to be at the robotics competition by around 9 each morning, so Caleb and I got ready early, dropped him off and then went in search of breakfast. (Our hotel had an attached restaurant that charged around $16 for breakfast - no thanks!) This was my sudden realization that I hate driving in downtown Chicago! For some reason, it took me actually driving to realize there are no parking lots, lanes are narrow, and it was rush hour. Yikes! Caleb and I made it to a McDonalds, but I think I nearly had a stroke getting there! 

THIS is the McDonalds we went to. It was crazy! There was an escalator to the 2nd floor. It was nice sitting upstairs and looking out over the traffic. Caleb liked watching everything. It is certainly the only time I've had to get my parking "ticket" taken care of at a McDonalds so that I didn't have to pay to get out of the parking lot. Like I said, crazy! 

From there I didn't really have a plan for Caleb and I. I knew I couldn't handle driving around Chicago, but didn't want to be at the hotel all day, so we drove back to the competition and spent our morning there. It worked out perfectly. Caleb could play and run around without having to worry about how much noise he was making, we had lunch there with the team, and then we went back to the hotel for nap. After he woke up, we went back to the competition until Jonathan was done (around 5). We did this each day of the competition and it worked out perfectly. 

After Jonathan was done on Thursday, we met up with Grandmuzz, Grandpa Lutz and Aunt Lois at an Italian restaurant nearby. This was Caleb's first time to meet his great grandparents and my first time to meet Aunt Lois. We had a great time eating and letting Caleb meet everyone. After we finished eating, we all drove over to visit Aunt Nan at the rehab center she's in. Caleb did wonderfully through the whole evening even though dinner was later than he's used to and we kept him out way past his usual bedtime. 

Grandmuzz and Caleb getting to know each other

From left: Aunt Lois, Grandpa Lutz, Grandmuzz, Caleb and Me (Jonathan took the pic)

Grandmuzz and Caleb talking with Aunt Nan

Caleb and Aunt Lois

In case you don't know, Grandmuzz, Aunt Lois and Aunt Nan are all sisters. Grandmuzz is Jonathan's Dad's mother. (Jonathan's grandmother and Caleb's great-grandmother) 

We got back to the hotel that evening some time after 9 and all crashed. It was a super long day, but it was so special that Caleb got to meet so many people and he did really well considering nothing was familiar. 

Phone pics

I don't take pictures with my cell phone all that often, but when I do, I never fail to forget to do anything with them! I happened to look at them earlier today and thought, I should share these, so here they go!

A few weeks ago, Jonathan, Caleb and I had dinner with my parents. I was in the ladies' room when we were seated, and when I joined the group I noticed that Caleb was sitting with Grandma and Pops. He was super cute sitting there in the booster seat!

While we were finishing our meals, Caleb got restless, so Jonathan let him do some coloring. Doesn't he look so happy! (And big too - doesn't look like a baby anymore!)

Since he enjoyed coloring so much at the restaurant, I bought some crayons for him, but hadn't really had the chance to use them. Yesterday, he was beginning to fuss a little, so I got a few crayons out and let him color in the back of my planner. He had so much fun! These pictures aren't the best because all I could do was hold out my arm and hope I was somewhat centered on Caleb! 

I wish I could take better pictures with my phone, but I guess they're better than nothing when my camera is unavailable (or out of reach). 

Hope you enjoyed the random pictures and sorry for all of the run-on sentences. It's bedtime and my brain only functions at half speed on Sunday evenings! It's sad when you know most of the sentences look wrong, but can't figure out how to fix them! Guess it's time for bed. I hope everyone had a great weekend, I know I did!