18 Week Semi-Roller and Other Adventures

Dear Kiddos, 

We have been quite busy this week. We've visited great grandparents, jelly belly warehouses, natural history museums, rode trolleys, and much much more. Read on to find out the details. I apologize if things are out of chronological order, but I'm working with limited resources and it's just easier this way. 

Today is Christmas Eve. While everyone was busy in the kitchen working, Nathan wanted to help out too. Grandma had a great idea to have Nathan help decorate the Christmas cookies.  Nathan did a pretty good job putting the sprinkles on. There is a great variation of sprinkle quantity between from one cookie to the next, but you are just being the sweet boy that you are and considering the different preferences in sprinkle amount. 

Hannah is getting pretty big. Her 6 month clothes fit perfectly, any more growth, we'll have to put her in 9 month clothing. I guess the 4 month regression is over. She's back to sleeping longer. In fact, last night she slept from 1:30 to 7:30! Woohoo!

One morning, we drove to Kenosha to visit the Jelly Belly distribution center. Nathan was really excited to ride the "train.: He still doesn't know that jelly beans are good to eat, so we'll see how long that lasts. 

Afterwards, we visited Kenosha's museum of Natural history. It was pretty good, but the highlight of the trip was the trolley ride around town. And guess who we met when we boarded the train? 

 Nathan was OK with giving the Claus' each a hug, but sit on Santa's lap? No way. It was way past naptime for that. On the other hand, Hannah was as cool as a cucumber.

 Nathan was sad to say "bye" to the trolley.

Another day, we drove downtown to visit Uncle Timmy's new place in the city. Nathan found his futon to be the most fun piece of equipment. 

Uncle Timmy is a bit unsure what to think of this crazy kid. 

The revolving doors downstairs was also very intriguing. 

 Close to Uncle Timmy's apartment is a new children's park. Nathan really liked driving the boat. This park is probably the coolest children's park that I've seen, for kids young and old. There were even huge slides that older kids thought were awesome.

 Hannah was bundled up, but the cold chicago wind made her hands frozen.

 Another day, we visited grandma's work and Nathan got to decorate (and eat) a whole doughnut.

 Hannah is definitely able to do more things after this 4 month regression. She's able to grasp things and put them in her mouth and this morning, she rolled over from her back to her side. She's also sitting up pretty well (if she's propped up a bit).

 Nathan has had a lot of fun playing with daddy's old toys. But his favorite thing to play with is grandpa's train set. The first day he saw them, he played with these trains for 3 hours.

Tinkertoys, marble run, brio train set and hockey are Nathan's favorite toys here. Unfortunately, toys aren't made the same way anymore. Kids these days are getting gypped.

We will have more excitement as Christmas day approaches. More to post later!

Love,
Mommy