Illinois trip, part 2

My brother and his sweet wife had their first child in June and we were blessed with the opportunity to head up to Chicago from Paxton to meet him for the first time! My mom and step-dad met us up there too! Jody and Christine are resident heads at Stony Island, which is one of the apartment buildings on the campus of the University of Chicago. They were able to arrange for the use of one of the empty apartments on their floor to house their guests during the month following Charles' birth, which made it much easier for our large family not to overwhelm the new parents with too much noise! It was a great visit! Here's a peek:

Jody took us on a short tour of some of the new things on campus since our last visit - including the new library. This picture is from a trip to a nearby Gelato place - expensive, but SO yummy!

The girls each got to hold baby Charles - when PawPaw Bill wasn't hogging him:)

Jody and Nathan gave the kids multiple rides on this cart (used for moving students in) up and down the hallway outside their apartment. It was a huge hit - especially for Isaiah!

Isaiah practiced his climbing by making a general nuisance of himself. He loved climbing up on the coolers and peeking through this window in the kitchen. When he could get away with it, he tossed things off the ledge right and left. He was really quite proud of himself for this!

Jody also took us to see one of the museums on campus - Addy loved the Egyptian artifacts and Isaiah loved riding on PawPaw's shoulders.

Baby Charles and Isaiah wore matching outfits the last day!

When we left Chicago, we headed to Indianapolis to meet my sister Adrienne (and her daughter) and step-sister Erika (and one of her sons) at the Children's museum. It was a lot of fun!

Nathan and Isaiah with one of the Transformers.

Nathan enjoyed this exhibit as much as Isaiah did!

Dress up!

Digging for artifacts. It was really interesting to watch my girls at this display. Addy jumped right in and started digging and Jayden was very timid. Even though we could tell she really wanted to do it, we had to come back to it multiple times before she would give it a try. She finally did and had a great time looking for dinosaur bones.

The Barbie exhibit was the favorite for my girls. They sat at Barbie's desk and did their own fashion show.

We were all tuckered out by the end of the afternoon. Here is a picture of the girls with my niece Vivienne just before saying goodbye.

Time with my family is so precious and this stolen few days was such a blessing. I'm so thankful for the chance to hold my new nephew - it's just sad to think how long it will be before I get the chance to do it again!