Smoking, Raking and a Day Off!!

October has been a beautiful month so far! We've finally slowed down from our busy summer and enjoying the cooler weather by playing outside. We've also gotten some things done around the house which has been nice.

Kory got a smoker recently and here he is pulling apart the pork shoulder he smoked for like 15 hours. Otis LOVES when Kory gives him a piece :)

I have a bunch of paid time off to use yet for 2011 so I decided to take a special day off and just spend it with Emily. I let her choose what we were going to do that day. I threw out all kinds of ideas like movies, museums, bounce houses, bowling, etc...but nope....

Our first stop was Fired Up Pottery where she LOVES to go. Seriously...you want to be Emily's new best friend?? Take her painting. She loves it. She painted a little car and a pig that now sit on her dresser at home.

Our 2nd stop was the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison. It's a free zoo which is awesome and they have lots of things for the kids to do. This is the train we rode on together.

Here she is on the train. So happy to have a special day with her mommy :)

Our zoo also has an entire playground in it so here she is on one of the climbers.

In mid-October, Emily and I made our last trip of 2011 up to Hayward, Wisconsin to visit my parents. They live up there full time now so this is our first winter without Mom or Dad nearby. Hopefully they will still be able to come down here for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I took 2 days off work and we went up north to just hang out and I got to do some much needed studying for my project management certification exam that I'm taking in January.

Here Emily is helping Grampa cover his wood pile for the winter....or maybe she's supervising and not actually helping :)

Love this pic of Grammy and Emme just before we worked our butt's off raking the neighbor's leaves

If you look way in the back you can see my dad with the leaf blower and mom and Emme with the rakes. We spent a few hours at my parent's neighbor's house raking leaves. They are an older couple and this would have been a lot of work for them to do on their own.

Love this pic of Emme playing in the leaves. Do you think she likes it???

Hi beautiful girl!!!

Where's Emily????

 I like writing this blog not only so I can go back and see the things we've done and how much Emily has grown up, but I also like to write the blog so family and friends who live far away can still feel like they "know" Emily. So for those of you who aren't here to see Emily's crazy outfit choices I thought I would post this next picture. She is a complete mind of her own when it comes to clothes. I like to let her do what she wants as long as it's somewhat appropriate. So you don't think panties and motorcycle boots are appropriate? LOL! She wasn't leaving the house like this - just playing with her babies. She is quite the little fashionista!!!