Another busy weekend!

It seems like every weekend continues to get busier and busier. I always look forward to this time of the year when things usually slow down a bit more. The weather gets colder and for the most part we are stuck inside just relaxing and hanging out. Hopefully those days will be here soon, but for now we're just busier than ever!

This past weekend we had fun hanging out with the Watsons on Friday night. We used to live right around the corner from Justin and Suzanne in our townhouse and spent a ton of time together. We miss the random nights of getting together for dinner, dessert, or just hanging out and watching a movie. It seems like since we moved time has flown by and we haven't gotten a chance to see them nearly as much as we'd like. We finally decided that the first Friday of every month would be our night to hang out and catch up. So, this past Friday they came over for dinner and we had a lot of fun being together. Their son, Nolan, is a year older than Caleb and we have always looked forward to seeing our boys become friends. On Friday night they spent a little bit of time "playing" side by side. It'll probably be a few more years before they really get how to interact. For now, it's just fun to see them together! Shortly after Justin, Suzanne, and Nolan left we were joined for the weekend by Tyler's family. We had a lot of fun hanging out and Caleb really loved being with his Grandpa, Grandma, and Auntie Kalyn. It's always so special to see this side of the family with Caleb since they live so far away. We're just thankful they at least live within driving distance and not all the way across the country.
As you can see from the picture above, Caleb had his first trim given of course by his Grandma Sue. His hair has been growing like a weed and really needed to be cut. He isn't ready for a true haircut (which will most certainly be given by Grandma Sue). For now, he just had a little trim around the ears and in the front. It's amazing how different he looks though with such a little change. Our little boy is really growing up!

Dash William

Back in August one of my greatest friends, Brandy, had her first baby....Dash William McCarthy. Brandy is a wonderful friend and I was so excited on the day she told me she was pregnant. I was about four months pregnant with Caleb at the time. All I could think about were the days when our little babies would play together and grow up to be great friends just like their mommies. That excitement grew even larger when I found out she was having a boy. We would not only get to share in the joy of raising babies who are almost the same age, but we'd get to share the experience of raising little boys! After months of waiting, Dash was finally born and we brought Caleb over to meet his future best bud. It's been great getting to watch Dash grow over the past few months. I love watching all those stages go by that seemed to be such a blur when Caleb was going through them (probably thanks to the enormous lack of sleep)!

This past weekend, Dash had one of the most important moments in his life so far on Earth: his baptism. I am blessed to be Dash's Godmother and I am so honored to have this role in his life. I can't wait to watch him continue to grow throughout the coming months and years. It's awesome to have this special connection with a baby whose mom means so much to me. Brandy has been an awesome friend since the moment we met and now she, her baby, and the rest of her family will forever be connected to my family!

Halloween Fun!

After a VERY long week with excited 7 and 8 year olds, Halloween was finally here on Friday. I never thought I'd make it to the end of the week! It's tough having Halloween on a Friday for the simple fact that all week the kids are anticipating it. At the same time, it's nice to be able to have a whole weekend to let the excitement wear off after all the trick-or-treating. Hopefully they'll be nice and mellow by Monday since I have my first observation of the year with my principal. Anyhow, we had a very fun day at school. We even had a visit from a little pumpkin! My mom was nice enough to bring Caleb to school in his costume so that he could see my kids and march in the parade with them. By the end, he was one tired baby...he fell asleep in Grandma's arms before they even made it back to the car! On a side note, the wonderful teacher holding the baby was partially dressed as a red crayon (I added the rest of the costume later).

When I got home, I was so excited to see all the kids in the neighborhood coming out to trick-or-treat. In our townhouse, we had only a handful of trick-or-treators. It was great to finally have kids to hand candy out to! It was also nice to finally meet some of the neighbors we've seen out and about over the past few months since we moved in. Tyler and I have been meaning to stop by and introduce ourselves for awhile, but time just slipped away from us this summer. I decided that before the weather was so cold that nobody would be out, we'd finally go meet these residents of Lake Road. Having a kid to bring around for trick-or-treating gave us the perfect chance to do this. I, however, felt like it was silly to go knock on doors and get candy for a 7 month old. Instead, I decided to make little treat plates for the neighbors and deliver them with our little pumpkin!After about a half hour of going door to door we had a very tired boy who'd had enough of his first trick-or-treating experience. It was great to finally meet all of our neighbors though and we can't wait for the next Halloween when Caleb will hopefully be a little more excited about the entire experience!

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!

Breast Cancer Walk

Saturday was a beautiful day and we were lucky enough to spend it downtown doing the Race for a Cure. Although we were not racing we all got together to walk the 5K. The three of us walked with my dad, mom, sister, cousin, and cousin's girlfriend. It was a ton of fun walking together and enjoying the scenery of Chicago on a gorgeous Fall day. This was Tyler's first time doing the walk and as you can tell, he really got into the spirit of the event. Caleb was also a first time "stroller" and he pretty much slept the entire way.

It is really an awesome experience to do the walk. All around, you see people with various shirts and signs dedicated to all sorts of people. In some cases, you see signs where people are walking in memory of a loved one who lost the battle of breast cancer. When we were lining up to go, we saw a woman walking with her dog and she mentioned that she was walking in memory of her mother who just recently passed away. Along the walk, one of us noticed a sign of someone who was walking in memory of her best friend who just passed away within the last few weeks. It's heartbreaking to see the people who are walking in memory of a loved one, but also encouraging to know that they are making the most of a terrible loss and honoring someone else's life.

We are SO blessed to have walked in celebration, and not in memory, of my mom who had breast cancer 2 years ago. The lump was found completely by chance during surgery. If she hadn't had the surgery, there's no telling whether a mammogram would've detected it. The entire situation is one of those where we are completely reminded of God's awesome power and control over EVERYTHING! In one of my favorite all time verses, Jeremiah 29:11, it says "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". In this case especially, the verse rings true. God had planned this to happen exactly the way it did. He knew the outcome of it long before my mom was ever even diagnosed. We are just eternally grateful that the outcome turned out the way it did and my mom was given a future that gave her more years here on Earth to be with us!

Nana Pam

There's no doubt that our dear little Caleb isn't loved to the moon and back. There are so many people in his life to give him love and we are so blessed to have all these people around. One of the people high on his list of favorites is Nana Pam. Pam is linked to our family through my cousin Ben, who dates Pam's daughter. She (and her whole family) are wonderful and we love that they are part of Caleb's life. Pam adores Caleb and Caleb adores Pam. We were lucky enough to have her watch him when I was back at work in the spring. Now she does not babysit on a regular basis, but does serve as our back up on days when Grandma Leslie or the other sitter can't watch him. When she hasn't seen him in awhile, she often gives us a call just so she can come by and "love on him" (as she puts it). There is no doubt that she is an amazing person who just loves our little boy to pieces. We are so thankful to have her in Caleb's life!