Daycare break

This month our daycare provider, Pratima, is off to India to visit friends and family for 3.5 weeks so we decided it was a good time to take a trip too, and found a cheap flight to take us on a trip to Chicago and Madison, WI to visit some friends.  Austin traveled well - he played a bit on the plane and then napped in the Ergo carrier.  We were certainly laughing at ourselves walking into the airport with 2 large suitcases, a carseat, a diaper bag, a stroller, and a baby.  The same trip a year ago would have probably been done with only 2 carry on duffel bags and certainly no singing puppy or baby einstein piano!   

It was great to see some old friends.  We hadn't seen the Haynes family in over 4 years, and hadn't seen Andrea and Jon in at least 2 years.  We ate some brats and some semi-deep dish pizza, drank some good midwest beer, and even got out and explored Chicago and Madison a bit. 

Strolling in Chicago near Millenium Park

We really enjoyed meeting the Haynes's kids, Molly and little Julia.  Molly did such a good job playing with Austin while we were visiting!  We didn't take any pictures with Julia, who is just 2.5 months old.  She was such a sweet baby.  It was kind of amazing to think Austin was that little not too long ago!

Austin and Molly

We walked around downtown and took pictures at the must-see Chicago attraction - The Bean.  We had never seen it before, and while I've seen many pictures it was super cool up close:

Just outside of Chicago we also got to visit one of Mike's old friends from college, Marnie.  She has 2 four year old twins.  They took a while to warm up to us but definitely had  great time playing with Austin.  They had even picked out a bin of toys to share with him when we got there. 

Madison is only about a 3 hr drive from Chicago, so we also got to visit with Andrea, Jon, and Zoe.  Zoe is only 2 months younger, and is just starting to sit up and interact a bit more.  They were super cute together, although turns out Austin is a bit of a bully.  He was a little agressive reaching out and grabbing her hair....and...very unhappy when Zoe played with some of his toys.  I think he's starting to show alot more emotion because as soon as we let Zoe knock down a stacked cup tower, Austin started bawling.  We need to work on sharing!

The weather was nice enough to go on a hike at a nearby park.  We had no idea that there were hills outside of Madison!

We have a bit to update in terms of Austin milestones.  Nothing too major, but definitely signs that he's growing up.  While playing with baby Zoe on our trip, Austin finally rolled over front to back!  But...only twice and not again since.  He's getting closer and closer to crawling every day, lots of wiggling going on.  He really has gotten good with spinning around and turning on his belly, but still hasn't figured out how to move forward in a coordinated way.  Speaking of growing up, we also traded in the baby bath tub for a bath seat.  Thanks to Value Village for selling a bath seat for $3!  Its pretty cute - Austin definitely was trying to sit up in the baby tub so now he can kick and splash in the big bath tub.

He's been getting much better at using his fingers to grab things instead of his whole hand.  Last week he actually figured out how to put his pacifier in by himself.  We were really only using it in the carseat and for naptime and bedtime.  His first self-binky was in his crib in the morning, which put him right back to sleep.  Now if we put the pacifier amongst his toys, he will choose to put it in sometimes.  It may be a bad habit, but it does soothe him, so we're okay with it for now.  With this new skill, I thought that maybe he'd have the coordination to eat a finger food.  Before our trip I tried giving him 'puffs' (baby finger food that basically dissolves in the mouth) but he still just smashed them in his hands.  But...today he was really using his index finger to flip a switch on one of his toys, so I tried the puffs again at dinner and...success!  He went right for it and put it in his mouth.  At first he didn't seem to excited about them, but after putting a few more on the tray he concentrated very hard to pick them up and put them in his mouth.  Of course, several pieces did fall on the floor.  A silly milestone perhaps, but pretty exciting to see.  I'm totally looking forward to being able to feed him finger foods in the upcoming months!

Well, somehow next week is already Thanksgiving. We're looking forward to hosting again this year.  I remember last year when we said 'can you believe next year we'll have a baby, and he might even be crawling.'  Yep, that was just about right!