Thanksgiving with the Kalizabs

we played at an awesome playground near Katie & Alex's house the day after Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving trip. We spent Thanksgiving in Illinois with our good friends, the Kalizabs*. En route to Illinois, we stopped in Madison to see Jessica's folks both on the way there and the way home. Simon did quite well, and after the first night didn't even sleep terribly as he has on some past trips--which gives us hope for all the time we'll be spending away from home over Christmas!

Abbie (3 yrs), Simon (11 months), & Izzie (15 months)

In Madison, we all got a chance to catch up with my folks, and Simon enjoyed showing off his crawling in the much-more-spacious layout of their house. In Illinois, Simon enjoying having some playmates and a whole house of new toys! Here you can get an idea of how well Izzie & Simon hit it off:

Best Buds (37 seconds):




We must say that we feel like when we left here, Simon acted like an infant, and when we came back, he was suddenly acting like a toddler. As we like to say now, when Simon does something that seems toddler-ish, "it must have been those Kalizab girls!" We're pretty sure that Simon's own developmental timeline has very little to do with it, and he may have stayed a charming, agreeable infant forever if Abbie & Izzie hadn't shown him what fun it is to be a toddler ;-).

And with that, we here in the Gubbins household are turning our attention towards the end of the semester (crunchtime!) and, more enjoyably, Christmas!

See, Simon has already turned his attention toward Christmas...

*and yes, their last name is as much Kalizab as ours is Gubbins...you know, the Kalizab's...Katie, ALex, IZzie, ABbie...if they have another one we'll have to change their last name!