Chicago!

We made it! The trip here was a long day, but we all made it just fine. We found a play space with lots of kids and excitement for Otto to play on at the Philadelphia Airport which made the fact that our flight was slightly delayed much better. Otto was not really big on napping during this whole day of excitement, but who could blame him, it was quite and exciting day. We drove from home to Philadelphia where we saw Nonna Jen and Sir, as he likes to be called. During the 2.5 hour drive he slept for 40 minutes at the most. On the way to the airport he might have squeezed in a mean 15 minutes which he was sure would hold him over for the day. After much coercing he closed his eyes for about 20 minutes more before we got on the plane. While on the plane we found that all the toys I had lugged around all day failed in comparison to the skymall catalog which he turned the pages on for 40 minutes. After about 20 minutes he supplemented straight page turning glee with page ripping, which also turned out to be a lot of fun. We managed to keep him happy for the rest of the flight with food, Signing Times video and finger puppets. He feel asleep in the car on the way to Northbrook and went down for a fairly good night of sleep considering he was in a new exciting place.
On Friday we did some visiting rounds with Rogers work and Otto visited with his uncles. Matt was here when we got here and Ben arrived that evening. We have since been hanging out around the house and seeing family in the area. Both Uncle Ben and Matt have been on a campaign to get Otto walking and today it started to look like they are getting somewhere. He took a solid three steps from Ben to Matt, or was it Matt to Ben, they were so excited they can't remember. He walked back and forth between the two of them a few more times in the hall and then came into the family room to show off for the rest of us. He did a few more steps to prove he still had it in him and did some really good standing while "reading" magazines and eating keys. Some of his favorite passtimes. I am surprised he did the walking today, he has not been feeling too well lately. I am not sure if it is a cold, or his second top tooth coming in but he has had a slight fever and it very snotty. Still he has been in good spirits if we keep him entertained which is never a problem here.
Tomorrow I am going to make our traditional Christmas Eve dinner for the Faden's which I am really looking forward to, standing rib roast, yorkshire pudding, the works. But more than that, I am looking forward to filling Otto's stocking after he goes to bed. I will be sure to capture all moments on film, well really an SD card and get the pictures up as soon as possible. Until then, I hope everyone is having a good holiday.