Chicago Weather/Christmas and more!

The weather in Chicago has not been as terrible as I thought it might be. This was my biggest hesitation in moving here. However, last weekend was below zero for two days in a row! We took pictures of our windows in our bedroom because they looked like what should be the view from the outside, but no...these pictures are from the comfort of the inside of our bedroom!

Norah is up to all sorts of things these days. She is learning to do animal sounds which is really fun. My favorite are the gorilla and elephant sounds. We will try to get a video of that soon! She has been repeating us alot lately, or trying to, so we feel like she will be chatting up a storm real soon.

One of my recent favorites is that she makes fish lips and gives kisses! Here is a picture below!

The week leading up to Christmas we got a big package in the mail from Uncle Jim and Aunt Charlotte! Norah had so much fun with the box itself and the paper inside to hold the packages still! Josh got a bunch of cute pictures so I added those below.

This Christmas we were here in Chicago. With the recession and money being a little tight we decided to wrap up things that we already own that we know we all enjoy. We had so much fun wrapping a bunch of things up for Norah once she went to bed Christmas Eve! We also wrapped things up for each other too, which was alot more fun than we thought it was going to be! It was fun to see what each of us thought the other really enjoyed or had forgotten they enjoyed at one time!

This is a picture of all the presents under the tree after we were done wrapping!

Norah quickly found the empty wrapping paper rolls first thing in the morning! Daddy made her a sword later in the day, but it is now in the trash because it got destroyed by our little "wrecking ball,"! (My cousin Jason nicknamed her this over Thanksgiving because, well, let the name speak for itself!

Here we are helping her get started!

This is me in my Christmas Onesie! I kept seeing these at Target and could not resist once they were 50% off! I'm also taking a call from my Aunt and drinking my iced coffee!!!! Yummy!

This is Norah's piano that she loves!

Here is a Raven beach ball that Norah loves to play with! Uncle Tim works for Raven and they brought this on one of their visits and well, Norah does not want to give it back!

Here is a picture of the aftermath from the morning!
This is a picture from my mind as a kid, which is so fun!

The best part was that after we opened presents we had homemade cinnamon rolls that Josh made the night before! They were so good and we have continued to enjoy them each day since! I took this picture today, so you don't think we ate that many Christmas morning!

So that was our Christmas! Josh made a video that condensed that hour and 15 minutes it took Norah to open her presents for your enjoyment. He has had this up on his blog for awhile, so sorry if you already saw it. Oh and Josh has polar bear pj pants on that I got him on discount too when I got my onsie! There was not a lot of great selection in the men's department, but I thought they were fun!

A different Christmas

This year will be a different Christmas for us. Due to me taking time off for job interviews, we are not able to travel at all for Christmas. We were really bummed in a lot of ways, but there are moments that I think it may be nice to just be at our home and not have the stress of traveling. Traveling with an active one year old is a whole different ballgame compared to when she was a newborn and slept the entire way.

The part that has been great is that we have had a bunch of visitors this past week, which has been nice to see friends and loved ones before Christmas comes. With our string of visitors, we have also had some Christmas parties with Divinity School friends! It's been a lot of fun and we squeeze in naps when we can so we can keep going!

It all started with my birthday on December 12th! I had a great day at work celebrating with Bess, my coworker. She got me a chocolate cake to have with our morning coffee and yellow roses, then she treated me to lunch at a old school diner type place that had the greatest old fashioned hamburgers, fries and coke! I went with regular coke instead of diet since it was my birthday! By the way, I'm 30!

After work I drove home and Josh was making me homemade General Tso's Chicken, which is my favorite Chinese dish! It was better then any restaurant I've ever had! Seriously it was really good! He also had a bottle of my favorite wine, Moscato D'asti! Here is a picture of the meal! Oh and our favorite beer too! It's called Fat Tire. And Brussel Sprouts too, which is my favorite vegetable.


After dinner I was sent on a scavenger hunt looking for little pieces of paper all over the apartment. Throughout that search I had little clues to a website, which led me to this. After watching the video, I opened the ornament and it told me to log on to a Gmail account. When I did that, there was an e-mail in there for a gift certificate for a Swedish Massage for 60 minutes!!!! I have been wanting a massage for so long because I have never had one. I actually started crying when I went onto the spa's website to check out where I will be going because I cannot imagine having a massage for that long! I can't wait! I set it up for December 27th!

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Later that night, we had 4 friends arrive for the weekend. Branden, lives here in Chicago about 40 minutes away and then Sarah, Jay and Wendy arrived from Canton, OH. We stayed up late catching up and then had homemade crepes the next morning. After that we went downtown and showed off as much of the city as we could. We came back and had dinner and then went back downtown for a concert with a band called Over The Rhine. It was a great concert! They have amazing voices! It was great seeing everyone and fun to celebrate my birthday for the weekend!

Here are some pictures from the weekend!

L-R Wendy, Jay, me, Norah, Josh, Branden, Sarah

Here we are trying to get a normal picture and one of us is struggling a bit!

The big Christmas tree in Daley Plaza!

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This gang left on sunday and on monday, two former students of ours, who babysat Norah often while we were in Wheeling, flew into town for a four day visit! Ben and Annie are their names! It was so good to see them! We played board games with them alot while we were in Wheeling, so we were anticipating some fun! They were really sweet and brought Christmas presents for us. They got Norah some books, Josh a new board game, called Last Word, which was a lot of fun and we played it every night while they were here. For me, they got me the greatest gift ever! That's right folks, "The Happy's Head Trip"!!!!! I included a photo so you would know what it was and how you use it! It's awesome! Annie had one and I was so jealous!!!


While they were here we took them to the U of C campus to show them around. We also tried to do the blitz tour of downtown. The best thing was that they wanted to go to the top of the Sear's Tower to see the view, so I did a little research and it would cost the same amount of money to go to the top of the Sear's Tower for the view as it would to go to the Signature Room, which is on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building, and get the view and lunch! So we opted for that and we were not disappointed! It was really cool to be up that high!

Here are some pictures from our time with them!

This is Ben and Annie playing with Norah!

This is the view from our table in the Signature Room! It was so high up! There are swimming pools on the tops of some of the buildings!!! I thought that was only in the movies!!!

It was so cold while they were here!

Josh's oldest brother Tim and his wife Marisa stopped by on saturday on their way from Madison, WI to Cleveland. We made them a big old filling lunch so they did not have to stop at a crappy rest stop and eat food they would regret. They were supposed to come friday and spend the night rounding out our string of visitors, but Tim got the 24 hour bug and stayed at home an extra night to rest up. It was great to see them for a short time!

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It fell below 0 today here in Chicago! It was a little crazy walking to church. I bundled Norah so good and she cried the whole way there! I felt so bad, but I wanted to make sure she was warm. I carried her in a wrap thing that my friend Katie made me so that we were body to body to add extra warmth.

This Chicago weather is crazy and especially when the wind kicks in. I had to stop at one point and make sure I was balanced. I was about the cross the street and the cars at the intersection all waited for me to get my balance and wait for the wind to pass and let me cross. It was very kind as they were sitting in their toasty cars!

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I added a picture for my parents because this was their Christmas present for Norah. In case some of you do not know, my mom is a world renowned piano player so it is only appropriate for them to give her this gift!

Norah loves the piano and plays it all day long. She sits in her chair half the time and plays and the other half she stands, plays a song and then makes sure everyone in the room is paying attention and then she bounces at the piano and wants everyone to join her!

In case you have never heard of my mom the piano player, she may have only been world renowned in Beaver County, but you're missing out!

Hard times...

I have had what some would call a "heavy heart" lately. In my daily routine I have been hearing others life stories, situations and just their general everyday happenings. A lot of them break my heart. I have cried often and have not known how to respond other than crying and saying I'm sorry.

It just amazes me what some people live through in their lifetime. My worst nightmares are people's realities and I feel so bad. I think I feel bad because in some regards our time in Chicago has been hard for us. I think I have had the harder time and Josh is learning to cope with me day in and day out. I know he would disagree with that, but that's because he is a nice person. It has made me feel very thankful for him in so many ways. I have been feeling lately that I do not deserve to have such a wonderful husband. I know one of these days things will be better, but that's a hard concept to wrap your mind around in the middle of circumstances.

With that said, my situation pales to others. We have very supportive and loving family and friends who help us in so many different ways. We know we will never be able to return their kindness in the same capacity, which is difficult to grasp, but hopefully we can be creative and help them out in other ways down the road.

I think we have a lot to be thankful for and we have been very thankful. I think this time of year causes a lot of emotions, some good and some sad, and I am grateful for my interactions with people and their willingness to share hard things with me. My prayer list might be long but it's worth it in the end. It's a small way to extend my help when I am not able to physically be present with them.

Hopefully this all makes sense, I'm fighting too many tears to go back and proofread! ;)

Norah is 1!

Norah turns 1 tomorrow (December 3rd)!!! I can't believe it! She full blown walks now. It's weird because I can hear her walking around the apartment. I know that may not seem like a big deal, but I love the sound!

We have celebrated her birthday twice now. Once with friends in Canton, OH for the annual Malone Thanksgiving gathering. Our friends graciously helped us travel there via plane tickets. It was really the only way we were going to make the quick weekend visit and it was worth it.

The other celebration occurred over Thanksgiving with my family. We had Christmas morning on Thanksgiving morning, then Thanksgiving about 4 hours later and then we had a little birthday party for Norah and Caleb. Caleb is my sisters son who is two months younger, but we figured we would squeeze it in since all of my siblings were together with our little ones. It was a crazy weekend, but so much fun! It was like a mini daycare.

We have over 200 pictures from the past two weekends, but we will be uploading those to flickr over the next week, so check back. I am going to add a few favorites!

Here are the cousins in the tub!
(L-R Norah, Caleb, Ellie and Cora)

This is Norah and Ellie in a laundry basket! They were little chums over the vacation.
They often had yelling wars.

These are the great grandparents with all the kids!

These are the proud grandparents!

Here are all the siblings, spouses and kids!
(L-R Jarrod and Heather with Cora and Ellie, Andrew and Amanda with Caleb, Dave and Peg with Emmet and little Hazel who is due at the first of the year!, Josh and I and Norah)

This is Norah getting a little kiss from her cousin Emmet...so sweet!

This is Norah and Caleb getting ready to eat their cupcakes made by Josh, Emmet and Cora.

This is a cute picture!

Halfway done!

BAM! Caleb rubbed it in his eye and well, this pretty much wrapped them up and they were both sent to the tub to clean up!

Now that Norah is 1 or she was close enough to it we turned her car seat facing forward in the car! She seems to like it, but I think she gets a little distracted from falling asleep because she can see us. Oh well! I love it facing forward.