Is October Really Over?

It's so hard to believe that this month is almost over! I can't believe how quickly the holiday season is approaching. This is definitely my most favorite time of the year...and it's even more exciting now that we're sharing it with a little one!

Life has been pretty busy around the Sturm home. Follow along with these pictures and you can hear a little bit about what we've been doing:

Tyler and I have been very busy at work, but are both enjoying our jobs a lot. Tyler is developing more relationships with old and new clients. If you've ever wanted to meet someone who truly loves meeting others and building relationships, it's definitely Tyler! This job is perfect for him (and certainly something I could never do). Work is going well for me, which is a good change from the stress of my class last year. I have 24 amazing students who are all huge teacher pleasers. I've always had at least one defiant kid in every class, but this is the first time I have a whole class of kids that really try to be good at all times! They are very energetic and keep my incredibly busy all day, but at least they're nice to work with! On the whole, we're both very happy at work...but we certainly love coming home at the end of the day and having time with our fun little guy.In the middle of October, we hosted a Fall gathering at our house. We had lots of friends over for food and fun. We asked everyone to bring chili or another dish to share and ended up with tons of yummy food and five different chili recipes to taste! After we ate we all hung out in the backyard around a warm and cozy fire. The night was perfect for a bonfire...not too cold, but just enough chill in the air to need a sweatshirt and a fire! It was awesome to have so many people over and catch up with old friends. Hopefully this will be the first of many backyard bashes!Caleb has grown and changed so much over the last month (well, he seems to do that every month)! This month he has grown into an even happier baby than he already was. This child laughs and smiles SO much. His babysitter on Tuesdays and Thursdays is always commenting on how easygoing and joyful he is. Grandma (who watches him the other days) often tells of how Caleb keeps her laughing and smiling all day. All around he's just a happy camper! Lately, he's added quite a few new sounds to his vocab of babbling. One of which is da-da-da-da (which Tyler is quite stoked about). We completely understand however that he has no clue what da-da really means when he says it, but it's exciting to think that one day those little sounds will be said with meaning! Caleb is also getting very close to being mobile. Right now, he can move just about anywhere...but he gets there by going backwards. We're working on encouraging him to crawl in the right direction, but aren't in too big of a hurry for that to happen. We know that once this kid starts moving, he probably won't stop!
This past weekend, we journeyed down to EIU to surprise Kalyn (Tyler's sister). She was going through her initiation into Alpha Phi, which was my sorority at UofI. I was able to surprise her by being there to pin her at the initiation. I am SO excited that Kalyn is joining this awesome sisterhood. My years in Alpha Phi were priceless and I gained so much from being in my sorority. I'm sure she will also have so many great memories! For now, it's just wonderful to know that she's adjusting to the college life and getting involved. It's hard to believe that when I met her, she was just a tiny little junior high girl. Now, she has blossomed into an amazing 19 year old who we both love a ton!

The rest of our weekend was spent in Champaign with my sister. We stayed in her awesome new apartment. It was fun to hang out and have some quality time with Auntie Tracy. She is truly an amazing aunt to Caleb and we can't wait until she moves back up here and can be around even more!Earlier this week, Caleb had his first experience with snow. Yes, it already got cold enough to snow in Chicago. Although it only snowed for about ten minutes, it was just enough time to get Caleb bundled up in his snowsuit. We took him outside to see how he'd react and he really didn't seem to care too much about the white stuff falling all around him. I'm sure with time he'll learn to love the snow...if not, he might need to be shipped down to Grandma and Grandpa Sturm's house for the winter (where an inch of snow shuts down the whole town)!

Last night we had fun carving pumpkins. My mom and dad came over and joined in on the fun. Grandma helped Caleb with his first pumpkin experience by letting him play in the "pumpkin guts" for a little while. He really seemed to love mushing it around in his hands. Meanwhile Tyler, my dad, and I carved the three pumpkins pictured above. We ended the night with a yummy pumpkin pie (something I wish I could bake all throughout the year, but wait patiently until the fall season to cook up several times).

That's about it for the latest events in our home. We hope everyone reading this is had a great October and is looking forward to November, December, and all the holidays just as much as we are!

A Busy Weekend

We had a very busy first weekend of October. Friday night began with a late shopping trip to Babies R Us to look at car seats. Caleb is getting much too big for his infant carrier (even though it's supposed to last up to 30 pounds). We decided it was about time to break down and buy a bigger seat for him. After a lot of looking around and weighing pros and cons, we chose a car seat. We took it home and left it aside until Saturday morning when Tyler attempted to put it together. It all came in one piece, but Tyler still spent a good hour trying to figure everything out (and that is not because he is challenged in that area...he's very good at assembling and following directions). At the same time, my dad was trying to figure out that same car seat at home (we had to get two since Caleb spends so many days during the week with Grandma). Anyhow, both men in both homes gave up. This picture below is how I found Caleb when I finished getting ready. He was waiting patiently for his dad to put together the car seat and get him dressed for our big trip to Champaign. Needless to say, Caleb was finally dressed and we made it to Champaign (in his old car seat)! Also needless to say, the car seat is back in the box and ready to be returned. We highly recommend not buying an Eddie Bauer car set to anyone ever looking for one! We finally made it to Champaign and starting off visiting Auntie Tracy's apartment. Afterwards we went out for a yummy lunch and then headed to Curtis Orchard. We used to spend many Fall afternoons there during college, so it was great to finally go back. Caleb had fun with the whole experience. I think his favorite part was the pumpkins!

When we left the orchard, we headed to campus to walk around and take in the scenery. It was great to reminisce about all the old places we went to, lived in, studied at, and so forth. Of course Caleb was told over and over about how much we can't wait for him to be there in 18 years and have all of his fun memories.

Overall, it was a very busy day and we had so much fun getting to go back to the place where it all started!