Why do they make commercials that make me cry?

Thanks Britt.

Thanksgiving

I hosted my first Thanksgiving ever. And cooked my first turkey. It was all a success! I didn't take a picture of the spread, but it was quite impressive.

Like half of my Facebook friends, I also made these turkeys as favors. They are more difficult than they look. I don't know what possessed me to do these. I'm usually not inclined towards craftiness.

Testing out the mysterious brown things

He approved

The Best 2 Years

We celebrated our 2 year anniversary last week! We had decided to keep it low key because we're going on a pretty fun trip next week, but Jason had a few surprises up his sleeve.

Like a heart-shaped pizza. We had already eaten a couple slices before we remembered to take a picture :)

Adler Planetarium

We haven't been back to the Planetarium since we first moved here, but since we were able to get a free pass there, we took Brieann. We also managed to get free parking 100 feet from the entrance. Woo hoo!

The planetarium is only so-so if you just go to the free stuff. We spent a lot of our time watching Luke play in the children's area

Breanne in the space shuttle model. We have a similar picture of Jason from almost 2 years ago. It's remarkable how similar they look. Except for that whole gender thing.

He would play in the water/tub all day if we let him

This was a faux underground thing so kids could be "space explorers" and see out onto other "planets'" terrains. He happened to see me through one of the windows, crawled over and smiling so big at me. He kept hitting the glass, trying to touch me.

Part of the same faux underground thing. He seemed to enjoy this

Look who is walking! He doesn't do it consistently yet, but he can walk 10 feet or so by himself if properly motivated. Most often, he prefers walking while holding on to one of our hands. I thought this picture was adorable.

The kids area has a fake fireplace thing with stars above it. I think during certain times of the day, kids sit around the "fire" while someone points out constellations to them. There was a "garden" nearby (see 2 pictures down) with rubber "wood chips". Some of those wood chips made it over to the fire pit. Luke is trying it eat them.

And I'm trying to stop him.

The fake garden. All the stuff here is rubber. Luke just kept pushing the wood chips around and around.

I was trying to distract him while Jason and Brieann looked at their skin under a microscope. For real.

Zoo Lights

We went to Zoo Lights at Lincoln Park Zoo while Breanne was in town. This was Luke's zoo trip. Coupled with the couple million lights around the zoo, he was pretty fascinated by everything

It was definitely cold enough for ice sculpting

This is out of focus, but gives you a decent idea of the number of lights they put up at the zoo.

He loooved looking at the fish

Giraffes are neat

First time with Santa. Remarkably there was zero line for this when we got there. It's like people didn't realize Santa was sitting there ready to take free pictures. Once we finished, the line was about 30 people long. I'm glad we got there when we did.

I think Luke was looking at the monkeys crawling around right here. I don't totally remember, but I love the looks on his and Jason's faces.

Brieann (aka Breanne) was here

My sister-in-law was here for Thanksgiving. The Friday after, we showed her around town. Unfortunately, it was pretty cold that day, but Luke held up pretty well. He only really cried on the river architecture tour, and I didn't blame him. If it was socially acceptable, I probably would have started crying too.

Also, I still don't really know how to spell her name. Her response: either way is fine.

The bean

Christkindlmarket: a German-themed market downtown that sells schnitzel, brats, beer, and Christmas ornaments. Almost like Oktoberfest.

Inside the Macy's downtown. This is a (famous?) restaurant called The Walnut Room on one of the upper floors of the store. It was so crowded because it was the day after Thanksgiving. We entertained the idea of getting hot chocolate, but decided it wasn't worth the wait/price.

Stopped by Billy Goat Tavern for dinner

And a couple of bag-pipers wandered in and played some music

Luke 10 Months

My Mr. Man is 10 months old already! He's now been out of my tummy longer than he was in it. Weird. We just love having him around. He has a very easy-going personality. He isn't really afraid of strangers and after 5 minutes in a new place, he just starts exploring.

He still only crawls, but he is *this close* to walking. I guess he has technically taken his first steps, because he'll take a couple of steps while walking between Jason and I. We're not really counting it though, because left to his own devices, he still crawls and cruises exclusively. I think he'll start daring to let go for a couple steps soon though.

He has 6 teeth now. All four of his upper incisors came in within a week of each other. But since he is an easy-going kid, he took it like a champ.

He loves playing with balls and chasing them around the house

You actually can't tell from this picture, but we have a climber on our hands. He tries to scale anything he can grab hold of (high chairs, pianos, shelves). He has great upper body strength. He also likes to dive off of couches face first. This picture is a very common scene at our house because we always have to catch him by the feet.

Jason likes to put Luke on his shoulders and spin around in circles.

And hold him upside down. Luke loves this and squeals with delight.

Once we stopped swaddling him, he started sleeping on his tummy. As soon as we put him in bed, he immediately rolls over into this position. Also, he is a dream to put to bed for naps and at night. We used to rock him in the bouncer. When he outgrew that, he would sometimes fall asleep while drinking from his bottle and sometimes cry himself to sleep in his crib. Now, we just set him down when he's tired and he goes right to sleep. Awesome!

He and Jason will sit and watch videos on Jason's laptop. They'll watch anything from Matishayu to Baby First's Peek-a-Boo. Luke loves it.

Halloween

We got Luke dressed up no less than 3 times for Halloween. Why can't there just be one designated night for Halloween like there used to be? I guess I shouldn't be complaining about having parties to go to, but it still seems a bit much.

Luke went as a puppy. He was so cute I just about died.

He likes to beg for whatever we're eating

And because he is dressed like a puppy, he looks like a little begging dog from the back. Also, see the tail? It would wag whenever he crawled, which just added to his cuteness.

Candy! He didn't eat any though (except for today when Jason gave him what was basically straight sugar...)

First trunk or treating! Although trunk/trick or treating with your less than one year old is slightly embarassing because everyone KNOWS your kid isn't going to be eating the candy.

Carving Pumpkins

Neither Jason nor I are huge into Halloween, but we do like carving pumpkins. They're about the best part of the whole holiday.

Laying out newspapers for the guts. Luke's first reaction was to eat the paper, a very typical reaction for him.

Watching Dad open up the pumpkin

He was not a huge fan of the innards

Still looking warily at the slimy stuff

He did warm up to some of the seeds. He started playing with them.

And trying to eat them. He immediately spit out all that he put in his mouth.

He was more interested in Jason holding him while the pumpkin was scooped out.

Jason doing the actual carving of the pumpkin

My boys and the finished product!

Boo