Chicago Celebrations

As always, we packed up right after Christmas and headed to Chicago. After Erie, PA received nearly 60 inches of snow, we decided to take the route through Canada. We had generally clear roads, and sunny skies for most of the trip, but had a two hour wait to cross the border when we reached Michigan. I guess we weren’t the only ones trying to avoid the mess in Erie.

By the time we got there, both kids were in the pajamas, but Caleb was eager to open gifts.

I had a hard time this visit, capturing good photos of Hannah who is now walking, but here’s one of her with her dad. She has a variety of these little animal pacifiers which she loves.

We not only celebrated Christmas, but on the 30^th we celebrated Hannah’s first birthday, and Caleb’s sixth birthday. The night before we blew up about 100 balloons and tossed them into Caleb’s room. Much to my surprise, he slept through it all.

When he woke up in the morning, he found one package on the dining room table, and a clue for the next. One clue required popping balloons until he found the six with the words to the next clue. It extended the birthday celebration through most of the morning.

One of our gifts to Hannah, was a water table. Even without water, it proved to be a popular gift with both kids.

Adam has made a poster to commemorate Caleb’s birthday every year since he turned two. Caleb remembers every one of them, reminding his dad the night before of the images he’d drawn on last year’s poster. Here are this year’s. Caleb received quite a wonderful camera for Christmas, and was eagerly taking photos of everything he could.

And Hannah’s for her nickname “Hannah the Banana”—who knows where that came from?

 

Sharing your birthday with a one-year-old isn’t too bad. I think it might become a bit more challenging as Hannah gets older and has some opinions about how things get done. And one last photo of Adam, Sarah, and Caleb at dinner one night—one of my faves from the trip.

Thanks to Laura Bassen, Caleb got one of my more involved birthday cards. I pinned it as soon as I saw it on Laura’s blog, and recreating it wasn’t as difficult as I expected. It opened and closed perfectly at home, but required a bit of adjusting once it was opened in Chicago. Looks great, though, in his bedroom which is decorated with a space theme.

The card required just two sets of dies: “Space Journey,” and “You’re a Star,” both from Simon Says as well as some Dark Indigo cardstock and a bunch of scraps (all Papertrey Ink.)

I’ve learned the hard way, not to give toddlers a shaker card. Ella took hers apart the minute she opened it on her second birthday. But I figured I’d go for it for the first birthday since Hannah was unlikely to want to play with it. I found a shaker kit I purchased quite awhile ago which made it easier to assemble, and frankly, quite a bit sturdier as well.

I’ve had the Mama Elephant “Carnival Cupcakes” stamp set for quite a few years. The little bunny and the cupcake both come from that set. I colored them with Copic markers and fussy cut them, adding some Distress Glitter to one layer of the cupcake. The sentiment is from Papertrey’s “Birthday Bash” set–also an oldie. The balloon and strings are dies from Papertrey and the number one is from the “Typewriter Numbers” by Memory Box. I added a few Nuevo glitter drops as a final embellishment. 

That wraps up December! Now on to finishing up my reflections on 2017, and putting the final touches on the One Little Word for 2018. I’m pretty sure the number of blog posts in January will double (triple?) the number in December.