.: Our First Big Trip with Bella

We recently went to Wisconsin to visit Rowdy's family and also took a quick overnight trip to Chicago to see the city. It was Bella's first flight and our first flight with a child! We seriously loved the trip and loved seeing everyone but, I have said it and I will say it again, traveling with a child is just SO different than traveling with just adults! Man, I was exhausted by the end of the trip! Bella did great, especially considering how unstructured her usually very structured schedule was. She did good on both flights and was very interested in everything that was happening on the plane all around her. The only part she didn't like and got a little grumpy with was landing, not her favorite. A little story from our flight home: we had made it the whole flight and Bella did great, we were so excited to be home. We landed and the pilot came on and said, the good news is we are here early but the bad news is they don't have a gate for us so we have to wait about 10 minutes. Not great news but not devastating either. So we got everything together so we'd be ready to go and then, cue the scary music, Bella made her **ahem** "poop face." Sorry folks, but, it's the truth! Well, I was holding her and there was definitely something going on. We pulled up to the gate, the seatbelt sign went off, I could smell Bella so I wrapped a blanket around her and hoped we could fly under the radar until we got off the plane. The whole flight Bella had been "talking" to a 2 year old boy in front of us. Well, we stood up to get our bags and the boy stood up and looked up at me and promptly announced to the whole plane that "Your baby has a stinky diaper!" Thank you little boy, thank you for making that known to the whole plane, if it wasn't obvious already to everyone around us with a functioning nose. It was a good laugh and we got off the plane and beelined it for the bathroom to change the little miss. Oh traveling with kids! It was so fun to see family and so great to have all of Rowdy's siblings in one state at the same time! Rowdy's Dad was inducted into the Milwaukee Baseball Hall of Fame so that was also very exciting. We stayed one night in Chicago and explored the city a little but we definitely need to go back so we can see more of it! Please excuse the excessive amount of pictures, we just had so many fun things to capture and remember!

This pretty much sums up our little girl on her first flight. She took about a 30 minute nap and wanted to play the rest of the time!

In Chicago on Michigan Ave. We loved walking around and we had such great weather while we were there. I loved snuggling Bella close and she definitely loved exploring the city this way!

Me and my sweet girl!

Bella and I on the Magnificent Mile

More Bella and I, near the Old Water Tower

Our family near the Old Water Tower in Chicago after a yummy lunch

Bella, Rowdy and Grandma Kay (Bella's Great Grandmother)

The Whole Gang! Rowdy's Dad and all 7 kids! A BIG family!

Rowdy and his brothers, Scott and Tuffy

Rowdy and I at one of the parties

This is what Bella and I did during church. We stayed in the service for a little while but Bella got a little squirmy and rambunctious so we headed out to the lobby. She was very content to play with the contents of her diaper bag and eat Cheerios.