A little weekend getaway

This is now the result when I ask him to say, "Cheese!"

 This past weekend, I caught wind of both my sister-in-law and her husband AND my brother and his girlfriend taking weekend trips to Chicago. I decided that Burkley and I would hitch a ride up with one and back with the other and take a trip ourselves. It was a lot of fun!

Burkley playing with my friend's daughter!

The weather was BEAUTIFUL. It was much hotter than usual, so I of course packed the "wrong" clothes for us all...most of the time Burkley was either pantsless or just stripped down to his onesie because he was so sweaty.




My awesome sister lent us her car for the weekend so we could travel throughout the suburbs visiting old friends all weekend long. Our first stop was grabbing a bite to eat for lunch and then heading up to the school where I used to work to visit all my old teachery friends and see some of my old students. Then, after school, we met another old teacher friend at a park with her kiddos. The next day was spent visiting a few other teacher friends outside of school, allowing for more quality time and good conversation. We also participated in a few events at my alma-mater's homecoming! We got to spend time with my sister and her husband as well as my bro and his girlfriend who were visiting. It was a great trip!

My sister is an awesome cake decorator (took classes and everything!) and she has some great cake supplies. We were picking out what we needed for Burkley's birthday and he thought he'd help!

On this trip, Burkley just seemed so old! It was a weird feeling! He was waving "hi" and "bye" to everyone, just being his cute social self, which was fun. He was clapping at everything and exploring lots. The coolest thing was when, in the car ride up to Chicago, he signed for the first time! I normally don't spoon feed him very much, except yogurt and applesauce generally, but in the car, I wanted to keep things clean, so I was feeding him a little snack of mac-n-cheese. I was showing him the sign for "more", as I often have in the past six months, and he did it back! It was so exciting! The funniest part was when he was staring at his hands, concentrating on closing his fingers to make the motion rather than leaving his hands open like when clapping. This video was taken on the way home when he was doing it some more! Hooray for new milestones.

Playing trumpet with the pep band at the football game!

Though he isn't walking on his own yet, he is pushing everything around! He pushed this stool all around my sister's apartment. We couldn't believe how tall he seemed!

He loved reading this book over and over to himself in the car while I snoozed off and on, hee hee. :)

Well, until he got sick of being in the carseat and threw a fit (as per usual on long car trips...i.e., more than 20 minutes) so, since we in the middle of nowhere on the highway, I took him out for a bit. So sue me! It was worth it for temporary sanity from the hysterics.

As he gets older and older, he keeps getting more and more fun. Though, sometimes I get sad that I don't have a little baby anymore. That's alright, I will continue to enjoy each new stage! I've been told by a friend that months 12-24 are just as awesome with all of the new developments that come along!