Illinois Christmas - Part 1

Almost every year we go after Christmas to visit Dave's family. This year we mixed it up a bit and went the week before. Our first stop was to visit Grandma Swan in southern Illinois. She recently broke her foot and didn't feel up to traveling so we went to her. Rather than flying this time, we decided driving was the best option since it was about $800 cheaper. We didn't think Caleb could handle the twelve hour drive very well if he was awake, so we left at his nap time, then stopped for dinner and to let him run around Walmart to burn off some energy, and finally tucked him back in his carseat to sleep as we drove through the night. It worked relatively well as long as we kept driving, but if we needed to stop to switch places or something, he usually woke up and was hard to get back to sleep. (This was frustrating since my doctor had told me to stop frequently to avoid blood clots that come from sitting too long during pregnancy.) The uneven pavement on some of the roads and bridges also caused him to stir a few times. However, the most upsetting part for him seemed to be that he wanted to play with my hair to get back to sleep and the crick in my neck could only endure so much toddler hair pulling.

We finally made it though and in good time. Caleb woke up in the morning as happy as usual - not phased at all by the fact that he woke up in a new place. The next three days were spent catching up with each other. Caleb showed Grandma Swan the new things he could do and gave her a ton of hugs. At one point he started referring to her as "Swan." In this little video you can hear him say it if you listen closely:

Our short visit also gave us a chance to catch up with Dave's great aunt and uncle - Lotella and Phil Cole. Caleb warmed up to them immediately and told them all about the different books he had. At one point he got in a slight debate with Uncle Phil over a picture of a salamander, which Caleb adamantly stated was a frog despite his uncle's best attempt to explain frog's don't have tails. They were both patient and attentive to him which he enjoyed.

After a few days with Grandma Swan, we headed to see Grandma and Grandpa McKinstry. Grandma McKinstry, who is often a forward thinker, had a small stuffed dog for Caleb to unwrap when we arrived and plenty of old toys from Dave's childhood set out to entertain him until we opened our gifts the following day.

My mom saved the same Little People barn and a very similar
house from my childhood, so Caleb was already familiar with it.
However, I think this set had more animals which was definitely
of interest to this toddler.

She also had the parking garage and a lot of cars to
go with it. This was Caleb's favorite!

He got the hang of it quickly.

Another exciting "toy" he found was Grandma McKinstry's piano from her childhood. We found him running back to it time after time. Even after falling backwards off the bench once and hurting himself, he didn't seem discouraged. However, the fall did make for a great sympathy story that he kept trying to tell his grandparents over and over again because they'd missed the whole scene.