Trip to Chicago

This past weekend we headed to Chicago for my 10 year high school reunion and a chance to visit family and friends. We left Friday morning to fly out there. We are so blessed to have such an easy, wonderful baby. We had so many people tell us that they didn't even know Mady was there. She played for about an hour- wiggling around and looking out the window. At that point she started getting crabby, so we convinced her that a nap was a good idea. Lucky us, she slept for about an hour or an hour and a half. And by the time she woke up, it was time to give her some lunch. So we gave her a quick diaper change and fed her the lunch that we had brought with us. And then we landed. Yay!

After we landed we had to quick pick up the pack and play that we were borrowing from our friends Rob and Christa. The bonus to picking that up from them was that we were able to meet their brand new daughter Inara. She is so tiny! She wasn't even 6 pounds at birth and wasn't much bigger at this point. Mady's favorite part of visiting Rob and Christa was getting to hide in the different rooms and shut the door. Sometimes she would leave it unlatched enough that she could get the door back open, but sometimes she pushed it too far. Then we would hear a little fist banging on the door to ask us to let her out. Too cute!

So after that stop, we grabbed a few quick things at the grocery store (diapers!) and then headed to my brother's house where we were staying for the weekend. We ate dinner with them and then went to Chunga and Jill's house to meet their daughter Annika. So many new babies! We had a great time hanging out with them and Mady loved playing on their stairs and getting chased around the first floor. It makes such a fun circle! Of course Chunga and Jill were getting a huge shock by seeing a toddler that is very close to a year older than Annika. What a glimpse into their future!

Ok, so that's Friday. Friday night Mady slept like crap. I think she was cold and unsure of where she was at. So she woke up at 4:30 AZ time after going to bed at 10:30 (AZ time). That is not enough sleep for baby girl- or her mama! Saturday we took it pretty easy. We visited with Sarah and her family and went to dinner with some more friends. Then Sarah and Uncle Jeff watched Mady while Luke and I went to my reunion. We had a great time. At least I did. Luke was good at keeping me company! I was able to see a lot of people from my past that I hadn't seen in years. Some of them since high school graduation!

Sunday morning we were up early to drive up to Michigan. We were meeting Luke's aunt and uncle at a political rally for Barak Obama. Luke and I are pretty undecided at this point, so that was really interesting for us. We ended up chasing Mady around for most of it and ended with Mady doing a somersault off a curb. She was trying to step down and wanted to put her hands down to help herself. It didn't work out so well and neither Luke or I was quite close enough to stop it from happening. We took a walk down the pier at Grand Haven after the rally and then headed over to my grandma's new condo. We were able to see the rest of my family and enjoy a nice dinner with them. Grandma really enjoyed watching Mady run around being her silly self. And Mady finally slept a little better that night- thank goodness for a dark basement! It was so nice!

Monday we spent the morning with grandma and stayed until lunch. Then it was back in the car to drive back to IL. It rained so hard! I was so glad that Luke was driving! Mady was asleep in seconds of getting put into her carseat and slept until we got off the freeway. She was too good to us! Monday night we just went to dinner with my brothers to thank them for letting us stay with them. After another rough night of sleep, we were up on Tuesday with enough time to finish packing and head out to the airport for our flight home. Another uneventful flight later (Mady slept for over an hour and a half this time) and we're home! We had a great time, but we're so happy to be home. Mady just wasn't able to sleep at all while we were there and that means Mama couldn't sleep either. It was so nice to be able to pop her into her crib for bed tonight and have her go to sleep without a fuss and without needing someone to be in the room until she fell asleep. Ugh! It's nice to be back!