A trip to IL

We had a fun time in IL celebrating Christmas with Nick's family. Cayle spent a lot of his time asking for balls, and wanting to play in the gym. The last three days we were there flew by, so it will be easiest to give a picture montage of everything we did!

Nick's birthday was on Monday (the 19th).
Grandma and Grandpa joined us for his birthday dinner!

Grandma and Grandpa passed out their Christmas presents to everyone after dinner.
Grandma made Cayle a pillow cot to take naps on!
We also received some new hot pads that she made for us!

We stopped by Grandma Alice's house on Tuesday for a short visit. She had a piggy bank for Cayle that plays music and helps him learn to count. He loves that pig!

We went to dinner at the Firefly on Tuesday night. It was amazing! We had stuffed mushrooms, lentils and pitas, pizzas, entrees (Nick had the Ahi Tuna and I had the crab cakes with baked shells and cheese), dessert, and, of course, plenty of wine (I had hot apple cider)! After dinner we drove Cayle by some houses that had Christmas lights synchronized to holiday music. We thought his neck was stuck because he spent so long staring at the lights!

On Wednesday, Grandpa took Cayle to the John Deere store to look at tractors.
Turns out Cayle really likes John Deere!
He has only been home a few hours, and he has already
been playing with his new tractor from grandpa!

On Wednesday night, we had an intense game of family wiffle ball in the gym.
It was a great game filled with some untimely strikeouts and errors!
We also exchanged gifts with each other. Cayle is really learning how to unwrap gifts. He got some new farm animals that he loves playing with! Nick and I got some new clothes
and some other fun items (ask Nick about his awesome new boxers!).

The trip was a lot of fun, lots of good family time, and lots of good laughs. Cayle did great on the trip with the travel, and adjusting to a new place to sleep and a new schedule. He learned everyone's names and was able to say them and recognize everyone.

Now that we're home, we'll spend a few days relaxing here at home and starting some Christmas traditions with Cayle. Our only real plan is to have some appetizers Christmas Eve - probably about 10 pm? - and then head out to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We'll take Cayle to his first midnight mass on Christmas Eve, then head home to get some sleep and let Santa have time to drop by!