Picture update

The weather has NOT improved here in Chicago area. It goes from cold to AHHH!!!! COLD!!!!!! to cold, to snowing and  back to cold. Repeat and repeat and repeat. So we have not done too many noteworthy things, because we are too busy being cold. However, Grandpa Jim came to town and it was great to have him! Friday, we visited downtown Chicago to go to Eataly. There are many little counters and restaurants within the big open floor plan 2 story eating place, and it was fun looking through all the imported Italian goods. We ended up purchasing some sheep cheese, pasta, and red pesto, with which we made dinner. 

Grandpa came to visit... and we visited Eataly!

Grandpa was up for the task of corralling Landon in this building full of tempting things.
Here they were watching someone make fresh mozzarella. YUM!

 We ordered authentic Neapolitan pizzas- very thin crust and baked quickly in a very hot pizza oven. We each loved our pizzas, and Lando loved the bread! After lunch, we headed down to the gelato counter- The whole thing was a little taste of Italy. Definitely brought back great memories.

Austin's happy about the gelato!

 We also visited the Chicago Treehouse in Lake Zurich with Landon. Though geared toward slightly older kids, it was fun! Of course, we forgot the camera and had to resort to documenting the outing on our phones. The best part was that the play structure and tunnels were big enough for adults to help the kids up. So I crawled around with Landon in the tunnels and went down BIG slides with him. Austin had a harder time fitting, but still climbed up with him a few times. Landon's favorite room was the basketball enclosure. It had 2 baskets that were way too high for him, but that didn't keep him from trying to shoot baskets. There were about 10 multi colored playground balls in there, and Landon played with all of them. I think he would have stayed there the whole time if we had let him.

 Lando had some cute faces going on in the bath the other day, so I documented them. He turned 18 months old about a week ago and we had our Dr's appt this week. He is 35 1/2 inches (off the charts!) and 27 lbs., 5 oz. (75%). So for now, he is tall and a little skinny. 2T shirts are fitting great, but 2 T pants are way too big. Why do they do that?  Dr. said he looks great and is on track with all his milestones. He is talking up a storm now, although most of the time we have no clue what he is actually saying. He says "dar"=car, star, and "doon"= spoon, balloon a lot, as well as ball, gym, sock, geese, mom, dad, grandpa, "DOWWWN", done, dog, cat "meow!" in a high voice and lots of "MAMAMAMAMA!" when he's upset I can't understand him. He knows pretty much all his body parts and loves poking belly buttons. He prefers to be put down and then go to sleep now, so we put him down after a little rocking and he goes right to sleep. We know, we are really spoiled.

His beloved ball!

 In order to prepare him for sleeping in a little tent (if no full size crib is available at the hotels we are staying at), we set it up and had him sleep in it the other night. I was prepared for multiple trips to his bedroom in the middle of the night, but he did great! A few times he got up and came to the door, but when I checked on him later, he had gone back to the tent to fall asleep with his ball blanket and whale. I think he's ready.

I bought this Italia shirt for Landon when he was in my belly. Now it fits him. It looked so big before!

Yay for my sweet boy! We love him so!