The Road to Second City...

I can hardly believe it's almost been a week since we started our trip! Time goes so fast, I swear...

Last Tuesday morning, we loaded up our little SPH vehicle and began the long road trip to Chicago to visit family and ring in the new year. My Mom traveled with us. Yep, all 5 of us in our trusty Impala. JOY!

We stopped in Iowa Falls and had a really nice lunch & visit with Ty's gram. The girls were able to give her their Christmas gift in person, which is always nice. It was really a great way to break up the long car ride, as well.

We made it with few stops, and finally decided to stop and have dinner not too far outside of town, as the girls were HUNGRY! We arrived in Elmwood Park at around 8:30 PM, said hello to everyone, dropped my Mom off, and headed to Kelli & Randy's in Forest Park to unload and sleep!

Kelli worked a half day on Wednesday, and Randy worked, so we spent much of the day in EP visiting with my Mom, Aunt Kathy, Uncle Joe, Uncle Rick, Kait, and Tucker! But, not before a little of this in the morning:



That's right, folks. We Tyler actually had to scrape our windows in the morning. {Gasp}...



At least the girls got some rightful use out of their adorable winter coats:



I think Tink wasn't quite caught up in rest yet, how about you?



I spent most of the rest of the day taking him in:



It's a hard thing to avoid. Oh.my.goodness. Tucker is the sweetest boy! Every time I picked him up, he nuzzled his little massively adorable head into my neck and gave me hugs. He still has sweet baby smell and he is just warm and cuddly. Heaven.



Uncle Tyler got his fair share of cuddle time in, too. Tucker is such a BIG boy! He is filling out 18 month clothing, and I believe Kelli said he weighed 26 pounds at his last check! Wowsa! Not bad for just shy of 9 months...



He has the funniest little facial expressions. Chubby cheeks. Little elf ears. he looks like a little cabbage patch kid... in the best way possible, of course...



Needless to say, Sassy and Tink were all.over.him. 24/7. Like white on rice. The definitely showed their cousin some ♥!



They also did plenty of their other favorite thing to do while in Chicago... drive their Auntie Kaitlin nutso! Here she is as the bearded lady:



And again as a human jungle gym:



♥♥♥♥♥

Later Wednesday evening, we returned to Kelli & Randy's, where Kelli and I tried out a new recipe: Porcupines served over mashed potatoes. Mmm...

I can't wait to try them at home with ground turkey and brown rice, sans mashed potatoes for our healthy new year 2011!

We got off to a wonderful start in the Chi...