Being Thankful

Welcome to the World Maddox!!!

2012-01-19T19:27:00.001-06:00

Our sweet little nephew was born into this world via c-section on Monday, January 9th. He was 6lbs 15oz and 18.5" long. He is absolutely perfect!!!

Maddox Wayne Vosberg

Tony, Kacey, Maddox and big brother Zander

We got to go to the hospital on Tuesday after work and Emily was sooo excited! She had never been to the hospital (that she remembers!) so she asked about 1,000 questions on the way there. I tried to prepare her the best I could. We only stayed for a little while, but it was great to spend some time with Kacey & new baby Maddox.

Em giving him kisses

Look at all that hair!!!

Sweet baby boy :)

On Sunday, Kory got to meet his new nephew. He had a good time holding the little sweetie. We were over there for 2 hours and Maddox was awake the entire time! Pretty good for only being 6 days old. He is the best baby!!!!

Kory and Maddox

Emily finally got a chance to hold him herself. She was super cautious and had a great time being the big cousin.

Here I am with my new nephew. Getting my baby fix :)

Em even got a chance to feed Maddox. She was sooooo cute with him!

Hi sweet boy!!!

So handsome!!

Congrats Kacey and Tony!!! Thanks for giving us a new nephew. Love you guys!!!

Happy New Years Eve!!!

2012-01-19T18:54:00.002-06:00

For NYE this year we went to the annual party at the Mounds Country Club in Fort Atkinson. Our friend is the GM at the club and he throws the best parties! We go every year for New Years and Halloween.

We were lucky enough to have Kory's mom and step-dad babysit Miss Em for us. So we got ready at their house. We went with our very good friends, Kathy & Andy (they also happen to be our neighbors!!).

Kory, Teresa, Kathy & Andy all ready for the party!

Then Em and Zander decided they wanted to be in the picture. It was too cute!!!

Celebrating the close of 2011!!!

Brenda (Matt's wife), Ellie (Tim's wife), Me, Kathy and the bartender's girlfriend :)

The boys looking all studly

Self portriat :)

I really liked my glasses and apparently couldn't wait for someone else to take my pic! LOL!

Ellie, Brenda and Me all ready for 2012!!!!

Kisses for Brenda!

We had a great time as always. We came back to Bonnie & Tom's that night and got to have a nice hot tub adventure before going to bed. Thanks to Kathy & Andy for coming with us and thanks also to Matt & Brenda for inviting us.....oh and Kory probably wouldn't be happy with me if I didn't tell you about the dinner. It's. to. die. for. YUM! Crab legs, prime rib, pork roast, chicken marsala...all you can eat! Kory ate his money's worth...and mine :)

Happy 2012 everyone! Here's to a great year!!

Emily's 4 year pictures

2012-01-09T19:51:00.001-06:00

We got Emily's 4 year pictures taken by Krista at Vintage Pear Photography. Emily has had her pictures taken by Krista since she was 6 months old. She does an amazing job! She always manages to capture Emily's huge personality and that is what I love about our pictures!!!

ENJOY!

p.s. Do NOT order pics right from here - there is a link at the bottom to the Walmart website. If you want to order pictures, order them from the Walmart link. The ones posted here are not high-resolution and will probably not print all that well. We have full rights to the pictures so it's fully legal to print them at Walmart. If you are having issues, let me know and I will help you. I am also sending out wallets to close friends/family soon! PROMISE!!!

Everyone has been telling me for a while now how much Emily and Kory look alike...I never realized it until I saw this picture....OMG! She is a spitting image of her Daddy :)

Order pictures here: http://photos1.walmart.com/walmart/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=7039976003/a=3242809_3242809/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=walmart/

Em's Actual Birthday Mini-Celebration

2011-12-29T20:21:00.005-06:00

We celebrated Emily's birthday a few weeks ago with her big party, but we still wanted to do something special on her big 4th birthday. Kory and I both had the day off, so we let Em pick 2 activities for her day. First we went out to breakfast with Grammy and the Stampf's. That was yummy!! Then we went to her first activity choice which was....

Pottery painting...surprise surprise! They even made her a special birthday crown :)

Here is Daddy telling her how good she is doing

Mommy and Em

So proud of her light switch cover

After pottery painting we drove out to the west side to go to Build-A-Bear...her second activity choice!!

Here she is waiting inline with her Hello Kitty she picked out

With her Daddy!

Helping stuff her Kitty

Warming her Kittys' heart...awe.....

Giving her Kitty a bath

After Build-A-Bear we came home for naptime. Unfortunately, the birthday girl decided to throw some fits and she lost her special dinner at McDonalds :( So we made dinner at home and then just the 3 of us had cake and she opened her presents.

More presents!

Woo hoo!

Lots of books and games!

Who doesn't love Perfection?

Her special birthday cake with her 4 candles!

Daddy letting her lick the frosting off the candles...YUM!

FOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have had a great Christmas and Birthday season, but I am very ready to get our lives back to normal. Emily seems to be throwing a lot of fits lately and I wish she would start behaving better. We have implemented some new discipline ideas so we're hoping it helps. Everyone keeps telling me that 4 years old can be quite the challenge. She seems to be testing limits again, kind of like she did at 2 - yet she knows better. We love our strong, independent, beautiful little girl and can't wait for her to be back to herself again soon!!!

To my Emily,
Hi sweetheart. You are 4. I can't believe you are 4. Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you. You have learned so many things this past year. You can now write out all your letters, you can tell me what each of the letters are and the sound they make. You can also write your first name all by yourself. You are an amazing artist. You color almost every day and can even stay in the lines!! You have learned to zip your coat, brush your teeth and started brushing your own hair. You even have recently started taking showers!!!

You are a great friend to your friends at school and your cousins. You make me proud. You are sensitive, caring and thoughtful. You love to give gifts. You have a sparkle in your eyes that I hope stays there forever.

You are a strong-willed young lady. You are passionate about what you want and will fight until you get it. You love to snuggle and give hugs. You are funny, hysterically funny. You will do almost anything to get a good laugh out of others.

I could go on for hours, but I just wanted to write you a little note that I will read to you when you get older to tell you how much we love you. You are so special and mean the world to both me and Daddy.

Lots of love and kisses,
Mommy & Daddy

Christmas Day 2011

2011-12-29T19:04:00.002-06:00

Santa came!!!!! Emily got up on Christmas morning and was soooo excited to see that she had been a good girl. Santa came and left lots of presents. One of Santa's tradition's at the Marion household is he leaves each of us a new pair of PJ's and we put those on before opening presents.

Here is Miss Emily fresh out of bed excited to see the jammies Santa left for us

Here she is all changed and ready to open presents - this year was extra special as Santa left matching jammies for her baby doll!!!

Here's mommy and Emily opening our stockings

Emme helping Daddy with his stocking

Em showing off her ornament. Santa brings her one every year and I write the year on the bottom so when Em is old enough we can give her all the ornaments she got from Santa over the years. This one had her name on it and even lit up!!

Emily got the gift she asked for!!! She was so excited to receive her Baby Alive doll. Here she is giving her a bottle with a dish towel to catch the "pee pee"

We had such a Merry Christmas this year. It was wonderful to stay home in our jammies and just relax. Bonnie & Tom came over for a little while and we had lunch. Then that evening we watched the Packers v Bears game and of course the Bears lost :( Oh well. It was still a good game.

Christmas Eve 2011

2011-12-29T18:48:00.004-06:00

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas this past week. We sure did. We are really enjoying how excited Emily is for the holidays this year. She is really into Santa this year. Santa even sent her an email and OMG! She was floored :) It was sooo cute. Pretty sure we watched it about 10x. She also has been very concerned on if she's on Santa's naughty list or Santa's nice list. It seems to work for our advantage sometimes.

All ready for her Christmas party at Gingerbread House (her school)

For Christmas Eve, we went to Kory's mom as soon as he got home from work on Saturday morning. We arrived to delicious cinnamon rolls....yummmmmmmy. It was a really fun time to hang out and watch Em and Zander open presents. They were very good!!!

Bonnie accidentally put her diamond earrings down the garbage disposal a few months ago, so Tom surprised her with new earrings....pretty sure I learned a lesson..put jewelry down the garbage disposal, turn it on, receive even better jewelry!!! LOL! As you can see, she was quite surprised

Here is Zander, Kacey (very pregnant with Maddox) and Emily

Here is Zander opening the gift we got him. It was a giant farm I'm pretty sure Kory bought it so that he could play with it :)

Em felt a need to help Zander open each present he got. This one was a huge garbage truck!!! Kory liked playing with that too :)

Here is Bonnie & Tom opening their gift certificate from all the kids. We got them a gift certificate to a bed & breakfast up in Door County.

Here is Emily with her Barbie gift She LOVED it!!!!! Her very first barbies :)

Family pic - Christmas Eve - 2011

Liz (Kory's step-sister) and her boyfriend, Kevin

Emily and Zander doing stamps that she got from Aunt Liz..such a good job sharing guys!!!!

After nap time we headed home from Bonnie & Tom's to let Otis out. We made our food and then headed to Aunt Cori's house. It's super fun to watch all the girls open presents together. We had a great time!!!

When we got there - we realized Braenna and Emily had gotten the exact same toy earlier in the day! (L to R: Braenna, Mikaiya, Emily)

Here is Kory drawing a smiley face on Mike's thumb bandaid

Cute pic of CeCe and Mike

Emme helping Grammy open her presents

Yay! The Walker girls all got Chicago Bears blankets! Love them mom!!!

Braenna gives the best hugs!!!!

Emme super excited (can't you tell???) for her American Girl llama...yes, she got a llama...bet you didn't!!!!

Jeff super excited to open up his gift from Victoria's Secret

Casey was super duper surprised when Mike had her open a gift and inside were 2 tickets to the Bears v Packers game on Christmas Day. They had an awesome time!! I was soooo jealous!!!

Emily got this cute purse from Aunt Cori, Uncle Jeff and the girls. Yes....she changed into her jammies 1/2 way through opening presents.

Here are the 3 girls all ready to put out their reindeer food

Emily and Braenna putting out their food for Santa's reindeer

Mikaiya got a kareoke machine....oh boy! She loves to sing!

Cori pretending she doesn't see Uncle Mike snuggling with her...oh and Bella the kitty!

We had so much fun on Christmas Eve at both families. Our Christmas Eve is always a long day, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I love being able to spend holidays with my family on both sides.

Thanks to everyone for having us and we already can't wait for next year!!!

Emily's 4th Birthday Party!!!!

2011-12-14T20:39:00.001-06:00

We had Emily's 4th birthday party on Sunday, December 11th. We had her party at The Little Gym
it was sooooo much fun! She had 15 little friends there with her, along with about 10 or so adults. The first hour was ran by the girls that work there and they did a great job playing with the kids. The 2nd hour was in the party room where we had pizza & cake, and then we opened presents. She had a blast and all the kids were so well behaved.

Here is our sweet little angel.

This is the inside of the gym. There was tons for the kids to do. Mikaiya is in the blue top and white pants on the bars, and Isabella is in the purple next to her.

Here is a bunch of the kids and some parents too - doing some stretches!!

Here is Emily with 2 of her school friends - Olivia in pink and Abby in blue.

More friends! My niece Braenna is in the front in the pink dress.

Here is Em being the Simon of "Simon Says". She loved telling all her little friends what they could and couldn't do :)

This was fun when they blew up the slide for the kids to play on. She let them ride on it until it got big!

Lily and Nora are next to each other, baby Cayl over by Nick and next to him is Anika

Nan made Em's cake and it was beautiful! She did such a great job...oh...and it was absolutely delicious too!!!

Blowing out her candles

Then they put her on a donut so she could open her presents. Keira is standing up in the green shirt and skirt.

All the kids "helping" open presents!

We had such a fantastic time at the party! Couldn't have asked for more. Thanks to everyone who came and helped us celebrate her special day!!

So far in December....

2011-12-14T20:24:00.000-06:00

Cori & Jeff hosted a "college friends" get-together at her house the first weekend in December. We had a great time with some old friends.

Here's Emily playing dress-up at Cori's house. I just thought this picture was adorable!!

Katie, Sarah, Cori and Me

Between the 4 of us college friends we have 8 kids!!! The little ones all had a blast playing together. It was sooo much fun to see the kids interact eventhough they don't get to see each other very often.

We've had such a busy month so far! We've been lucky to not have had any snow yet. Feels weird being almost Christmas time and still no snow.

I just thought this pic was cute of Emme and her Daddy!

This past weekend we went out for Cori & Amy's birthday's. My mom was in town so we made Christmas cookies on Saturday and then she babysit the 3 girls while we all went out to dinner and then to see a band afterwards.

Cori & Jeff

Kory and I

First attempt at a nice picture of Casey & Mike

Second attempt....

Uh....third attempt...pretty sure this isn't going to be good.....

Last try! Now you know why there aren't many pics of Casey & Mike - it's nearly impossible to get a good one!! LOL!

Playdates, Thanksgiving, Fire Trucks and Decorating for Christmas...

2011-12-14T19:33:00.002-06:00

Guess I missed posting the entire month of November. I'm not exactly sure what we did, but I found these cute pictures in my 'November 2011' file!! I guess this will do :)

Emily had her first school friend playdate at our house. This is her bestie, Keira. They did pretty well. By the time her parents came to pick her up both girls had cried at least 1x. They are two peas in a pod. I am sooo not ready for all the girl drama :) Kidding aside, Keira is a sweetheart and I'm glad Emily has so much fun with her!

Thanksgiving was a blast! We went to Kory's mom's in the morning and spent most of the day there. Then went to my sister Cori's house for the evening festivities. Emily ended up having a complete meltdown at Bonnie's so we left a little early and got her a nap at home before we had to head to Cori's. It actually worked out quite well. Hopefully she learned her lesson and will sleep on Christmas Eve at Bonnie's since we'll have the same day plans again.

I didn't take many pics for some reason, but thought this one was cute from Thanksgiving. It's Emily and Zander playing Ring Around the Rosey. They were giggling and having a great time!

Cori & Jeff invited us to the annual Sun Prairie Fire Truck Parade. Now...you'd think since I've lived here for 11 years and they've only lived here for 1 year that I would have known about this annual event for years....but I had no idea! So thanks for the invite guys :) It's a really fun parade where all the nearby communities decorate their fire trucks for Christmas. Then they drive them through downtown and everyone waves and cheers. They also have Santa light the Sun Prairie Christmas tree.

Here is Emily - as you can tell she is a truck driver's daughter and does the hand motion for the trunk honking quite well!!! She loved the fire truck parade especially because Daddy remembered her ear plugs!

Here's a pic of just one of the trucks. They are amazing!!!

We even walked and got ice cream afterwards...it wasn't that cold of a night, so we figured why not????

We spent the weekend after Thanksgiving getting the house decorated for the holidays. We don't do a lot, but we have a few traditions that we like to do each year.

Here is Miss Em decorating the tree. We had to be careful with ornament placement as the tree is right by where Otis looks out the window and his tail wags and knocks ornaments off - so we've lost a few ornaments this year - but no biggie!!! Em did a great job decorating. Oh and I've also learned I am not nearly as anal retentive as most people - I let her put ornaments wherever she wanted - even if they were all in the same place :)

Here she is hanging up our stockings :)

and of course Daddy helping her put the angel on the top of the tree!

Here is our buggy in front of our tree. Yes she is only wearing 1 sock. No idea why!

Happy Halloween 2011

2011-11-04T19:49:00.000-05:00

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and as Emily gets older it becomes more and more fun! Lots of pictures in the last week. I tried to pick some of my favorites.

Em got a special gift from her G (kory's mom) for Halloween which included a new shirt, pants and a princess memory game! She loved it all.

For the last 3 years Kory and I have gone to a Halloween party at the Mounds Country Club in Fort Atkinson. Our friend Matt is the General Manager there and he throws the best Halloween and New Years parties. Unfortunately, this year, the party ended up being on Friday night instead of Saturday night so Kory couldn't join us. But I was still able to go!!!

Cori and Jeff in their pirate costumes - so cute!!

Me (cowgirl), Brenda (gnome), Cori (pirate), and Tiffany (cowgirl)

Sisters....mom, aren't you so proud????

Matt and Brenda - and she made these costumes!!! Amazing! I love seeing what they're going to come up with each year.

The flintsones

Tiffy and me - we had no idea each other were dressing up as cowgirls. Pretty funny!

Ellie and Tim as sock monkeys. They always have very creative costumes too!!

Ryan and Nan - so glad they came out for the party even if it was their wedding anniversary too :)

Emily picked out her own costume this year and decided she wanted to be Arial from The Little Mermaid. Funny thing is that she's never seen the movie. So she has no idea what it's all about. Maybe Santa will bring her the movie :)

Here she is all ready to go the party at the PAC

We have a membership at our athletic club in town and every year they throw the kids a halloween party. It's a small party, but the kids love it.

Mikaiya (angel), Emily (little mermaid), Braenna (strawberry shortcake) making their ghost pops at the PAC party

Love this pic of Emmers. She looks sooo grown up! She's making her bracelet out of fruit loops

Pin the nose on the pumpkin :)

Bowling!!

Daddy had to work for trick-or-treating this year, so I took Emily over to my sister's in Sun Prairie and we went trick or treating with her 2 girls and a group from their neighborhood.

Here is Em all ready to go trick or treating!! She was soooo excited!

Emily's best friend from school lives near my sister so we met up with Keira for tric-or-treating. It was so fun to watch Em interact with her. They held hands and were just so darn cute the whole time.

Here's the 4 girls (Emily, Keira, Mikaiya and Braenna) at the first house

.....and they're off!!! Seriously they literally ran from house to house for over an hour. I couldn't believe how well they did!!

We had so much fun trick-or-treating and can't wait until next year!!!

Hope everyone else had a very Happy Halloween too!!!

Smoking, Raking and a Day Off!!

2011-10-27T20:48:00.004-05:00

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!!!

Cute Em Video and Mike/Jeff Birthday Photos!

2011-09-18T17:00:00.001-05:00

Kory took this video of Emily a few weeks ago and we like to watch it over and over. She came home from school one day singing this song. It cracks me up every time I watch it. Enjoy!!

We also had Mike 30th birthday and Jeff's 35th birthday earlier this month. We went out to a nice dinner in Madison and then off to a bar for cake and drinks.

The newlyweds!!

Jeff, Kory and Mike at The Red Shed

Thought this was a half-way decent pic of me and Kory

Thumbs up! Glad Mom was able to join us too!!

My friend Nan made this cake...not only did it look good...but it was delicious!!

Mom and her 3 girls

Cuties!!! Cori & Jeff looking sharp :)

The Birthday Boys

Mike and Amy - super cute pic!!!

August 2011 Update

2011-09-01T20:06:00.001-05:00

Well summer is just about over. It's officially September - but yet it's 90 degrees outside today. Feels really odd in Wisconsin! I know it won't last long, so we're enjoying our last few weeks of nice weather before it gets chilly.

Emily is growing like a weed! Both mentally and physically. She is now in her new class for the fall - Miss Suzie is her teacher. She seems to be enjoying it thus far. She will miss being in Miss Maggie & Miss Mindi's class though. She can now almost write her name. She can spell her name outloud. She can identify almost all the letters in the alphabet if they are written down. She can say her alphabet from start to finish. She can count up to about 16 or so without messing up...although every once in a while she throws in an eleventeen and I can't help but crack up!! She is a big helper. She loves to help with everything that you are doing.

Here is Em helping Daddy wash my new car. We bought a 2012 Ford Fusion a few weeks ago and traded my Trailblazer. I am getting used to being in a little car - but it's lots of fun and I really like it.

Em got bored washing the car and decided she needed to wash her feet instead :)

Daddy's truck. Just thought it was a really neat picture with that giant tree in the background.

I told you she likes to help!!! She loved washing the big truck with daddy. Oh...and doesn't everyone wear their leotard while washing cars in the driveway??

For the 2nd year in a row, we attended the Sun Prairie Sweet Corn Festival parade. Emily LOVES parades. She has now found out the trick to getting candy. Just ask her to show you sometime...she has the moves down :) I swear people flock to her and give her handfuls of candy!!! LOL!

Auntie CeCe joined us this year and we had a great time!

This was Em waiting for the parade to start. It was a HOT day!!

The parade is on Thursday and then on the weekend they have the Sun Prairie Sweet Corn Festival. This year was extra special because The Stampf's live here now!!! So they came along too. It was Cori, Jeff & the girls, Casey & Mike, and Me, Kory and Emily. We had a great day!!

Mikaiya, Braenna and Emily - "Children of the Corn"

The girls on the big swings. You could hear Braenna's happy screams from where we were standing. It was a riot to watch them!!! Oh and to watch Em keep her shoes from flying off. Didn't even think about the flip flops.

The girls played the Lucky Ducky game and each won a tiara

Kory went down this BIG slide with Emily. I don't think he realized how fast you actually go. I've been down them a few times with her before. So Daddy was laughing pretty hard!!!!

Here is Emily and I on the ferris while. It was her first time on one of those. She did great!

My friend Sarah joined us with her little boy Max. It was Max's first carnival ride!!!!

The last weekend in August we decided to make a quick weekend trip up to Hayward. My mom broke her foot just days before we arrived, so we weren't sure if we should go or not. But we decided to go and had a great time. Em's allergy to mosquitos does not seem to be getting any better though and the bugs were terrible. So between Mom's foot and Emily's mosquito bites we spent a lot of time inside just relaxing. It was a nice trip!!!

Peek!!! This was our usual park up north. Em was happily running around and playing with the other kiddos there.

Finally - we've been BUSY BUSY BUSY switching bedrooms. So we have 3 bedrooms in our house and we moved Em from her first bedroom to the playroom. Then we put the playroom in her old room. So Daddy did an awesome job of painting her room a very pretty purple. Then we went out and bought all new furniture for her. We got a full size bed with a twin size trundle underneath. I am sure she will be having plenty of sleepovers as she gets older so we might as well plan ahead.

Here she is all ready for bed!!!

We also had to switch closets so we organized as we moved things. She is VERY proud of her new shoe rack :)

Here is her new bed and new bedding set that she picked out all by herself :)

Here's the bed and dresser view

The other side of the room

So it's a little tight as our house is not huge, but it works for her and for us. She is sound asleep as I type this in her new bed. So it must be comfortable :)

I can't believe August is gone already. Now on to a fun September!!!!

Lots to Blog About...

2011-08-17T20:56:00.000-05:00

We have been super duper busy! I love summer, but it's so crammed full of fun things and it's too short - that's for sure! Thought I'd fill everyone in on what Miss Em has been up to this month.

Emily at Noah's 5th birthday party - she had never bowled before - she had a blast with all the "big" kids!!!

In mid-July we had some of our really good friends over on a Sunday afternoon. We don't get together as often as we used to - but we always have fun catching up.

Here is Em with Lily - she is Nan & Ryan's oldest daughter

Here is Em with Nora - she is Nan and Ryan's youngest daughter.

We also got to see Cayl (Nick & Tiff's little man who just turned 1) and Anika (Matt & Brenda's daughter who is almost 3. I didn't get good pics of them - sorry!! I was too busy chasing Em around :)

Thanks to Ryan & Nan - Emily had her first ever soda...it was a root beer and she was in love!!!!
Check out her outfit....ugh. LOL!

I have no idea what this picture was from, but it was taken in late July/early August and I just love it. It totally shows Miss Em's personality. She's sweet but sassy :)

Nothing wrong with a courderoy skirt in the middle of summer, right???

Our favorite babysitter is Claire. She is going to be a senior here in Sun Prairie this fall. We just love her and so does Emily. We got home one night and this was Claire's piece of artwork on the driveway. I love it!!!!

This summer we had a VERY special event occur in the Marion household....Daddy let Emily go for a semi ride!!! You would not believe smile on both of their faces. I have never seen either so happy. I got to follow in the car - but I can imagine Em was smiling the entire ride to the terminal (all of about 8 minutes).

Here's Em's first semi ride!!! July 2011. She had her carseat strapped in right next to daddy.

In July we went to the Dane County Fair with the Vosberg's. It's our 2nd annual trip with them. We always have a great time. It's even more fun now that Em and Zander can run around and play together.

Here are Em and Z on the Convoy ride at the fair. They LOVED the rides!!!! Luckily they are about the same height so they can pretty much go on all the same rides together.

The first weekend in August, I took Emily to Sassy Cow Creamery's Farm Carnival. Sassy Cow is a local dairy that has the BEST ice cream!!! So I thought I'd take her there for an hour or two to play around.

Here she is all ready to bounce!!!!

Getting her face painted, of course. She HAS to get it done anytime she sees someone doing it.

We went with my friend Sara and her daughter Kendall and son Griffin. Here is Em and Kendall eating their hotdogs.

Playing a throw the ball in the fishbowl game. Thankfully neither of them won a fish!!!

In early August - 2 of Kalli's boys (Kory's oldest sister) came to visit from Portland. We spent a lot of time at Kory's mom's to see AJ and Tyler. For some reason I have like ZERO pics of the them :( I hope Bonnie has some!!! I have been terrible with my camera lately. I need to get back into snapping photos!!

Here is Em and Z watching a movie at G's (Grandma Bonnie) house

Emme and Aunt Kacey making silly faces

Em wearing a suit she found at G's house...all ready to go hot tubbing!! She LOVED it!

My little fishy

The last couple months have been rough around our house in the fact that Em has had these terrible stomach aches. They really take a toll on her and keep her in a lot of pain. She seems to not want to poop regularly. So she will hold it up to 7 or 8 days inbetween going. Not good. So I took her to the Dr just over a week ago and we talked about it. He agreed that a reward system would be a good idea. So I'm happy to report that in the last 8 days - Emme has pooped FIVE...count it...FIVE times.

She is VERY proud of her poop reward :)

I have WAY more things to blog about, but I'm beat. I will try to do another blog this weekend as we are heading to the Sun Prairie Sweet Corn Festival...Yum...one of my favorite things to do!!
Hope everyone is enjoying summer. I know it's going fast for us!
XOXO

2011-07-30T07:47:00.002-05:00

Vote for Emily!!!! You can vote once a day.

Breunig Wedding - July 9th, 2011

2011-07-12T17:47:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was Casey & Mike's wedding. We had such a fabulous time! It was great to see two people so in love with each other tying the knot. We love you guys!!!

Our little family

Kory was an usher and I was a bridesmaid

My little Emily all dressed up! Loved her dress and shoes. She looked sooo cute!!

Rehearsal dinner was at Rossario's where we got to eat spaghetti on a board. They literally throw the spaghetti on the table and we all just eat off the table...no plates! It's delicious and we had a wonderful time!

Christine came up to do our hair. She has done my hair, Cori's hair and Casey's hair for all our weddings. Thank you Christine for always being there for us and for doing such a fantastic job!!

I just love this picture! We were all ready to go to the church to get Casey dressed. Mikaiya made such a beautiful flower girl!

This was at the church and mom was putting Casey's georgous veil on

Awe...the three cousins. Mikaiya, Braenna and Emily...with Papa in the background :)

Here's B and Emme giving snuggles

Dad and Casey just before walking down the aisle

My mom and 2 sisters - I love you ladies more than life itself.

This was at the reception. Since all 4 of us parents were at the head table - Grammy & Papa got the luxury of sitting at dinner with with the 3 little grandkids. Here is Papa hoisting Em on his shoulders so she could see the cake cutting

I just love this picture! Cece and Mike were getting some pictures taken by the photographer out by the lake. Em and I just happened to walk outside and Em made a bee-line for them. This picture is of Emily giving Mike a noonie (rubbing of noses).

Kacey and Tony came out as well!

The bride and groom having their first dance together

Here's Casey talking to Kacey's baby in her belly. Love this one! I can't wait for my new niece or nephew to arrive in January.

This picture was at the end of the night. Kory obviously felt it important that I eat this piece of pizza. I guess I maybe had a little too much to drink. Doesn't he look like he's talking to a 3 year old? We were both laughing at this one.

Thank you Casey & Mike for a fantastic day and night. We had so much fun!!! Love all the memories.
Here is a link to all the pictures we took from rehearsal through the wedding/reception: http://photos1.walmart.com/walmart/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5933334003/a=3242809_3242809/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=walmart/

Hayward June 2011

2011-07-11T20:37:00.000-05:00

We had our Hayward trip early this year because of Casey & Mike's wedding on July 9th. We really missed having them there this year - but understood that wedding details needed to be finalized. So we went ahead with our yearly trip and had a good time. I can't remember the last time we had such fabulous weather!!!

We were there in time for the Musky Festival - here is Emme on one of the carnival rides

My friend Andrea and her son Tyler came up to visit one day and here the 4 of us are going down a HUGE slide. Emme thought it was awesome!!!

Lots of sand box time!!!

Here's my niece Braenna all ready to go fishing!

We fished a ton! The little girls each have their own pole. Mikaiya really got into it this year and wanted to fish constantly!!

One of my favorite pics of Miss Em looking at the beautiful Nelson Lake

This was hysterical! Em's first time catching a fish. She goes "Mommy!!! I don't wanna catch a fish!!!". I died laughing. She was screaming for me to take the pole. HA HA

Grandpa was a big help with fishing. Here Mikaiya is touching one of the many fish she caught.

We also celebrated Grammy and Braenna's birthdays while we were up there.

Here we are going for a boat ride. Me with Emmers and Mikaiya.

Here's Emily giving Braenna a kiss. Such a sweetie pie!

My niece Braenna. I love this picture of her!

The eagle was so close on the bog. Had to get a picture of it. It's amazing how many eagles you see up there.

The 3 little ladies all ready for a bonfire

My Em eating a smores

The girls got in a LOT of swim time. So glad we brought the pool. We did do some lake swimming but swam in the pool a lot more often.

Kory and I took Em to the park. She loves it there.

We had a great trip even if Em was throwing tantrum after tantrum. Thanks to my mom & dad for having us up north. We always have a great time and really appreciate you letting us stay. Thanks also for all the help with Em. Love you both!

June Birthdays!!!

2011-06-23T18:14:00.000-05:00

We had Braenna's 3rd birthday and Zander's 2nd birthday during the month of June. For Braenna's birthday, Cori & Jeff got a 2 bedroom hotel room for all of us to stay together at Great Wolf Lodge in WI Dells. It was such a great time.

The girls all ready to hit the waterpark

The girls sitting on the cupcake. I was cracking up when I saw this picture - check on Mikaiya's hand! LOL! I guess Braenna wasn't looking at the camera so Mikaiya "helped" her :)

I just love this picture of Emme and Mikaiya

Here is Braenna opening her birthday presents

Happy 3rd Birthday Braenna!!!!

We had Kacey, Tony, Zander and Bonnie & Tom over on Sunday to celebrate Z's birthday. We all went to Sassy Cow Creamery (which has the BEST ice cream ever!!) and then came back here to open presents.

Zpants with G and Papa

Emily wanted Uncle Tony to join her in the tent. Tony can never pass up play time with the kiddos! And YES he did make it through the tunnel and out the side door of the tent :)

We wanted a family picture of Tony, Zander and Kacey but Emily would NOT get out of the picture. She couldn't understand why she wasn't part of their family. LOL!

Here is Z opening his semi trucks that Uncle Kory picked out for him. He loved them!!!!

Emme loves her cousin!!!!

Happy Birthday kids!! Love you both!

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-21T19:51:00.000-05:00

Happy Father's Day to one of the best Daddies on the planet!

Kory's New Rig

2011-06-21T19:45:00.000-05:00

Kory got his new truck on Saturday!!! What a great early father's day present. It's shiny, white and all pretty :) It's the exact same truck as he had before. I know it's a Kenworth with a Cummings engine...if you want any other details you'll have to ask him :)

Here's Kory with a big 'ole smile on his face getting in his new truck

Emme and I were just as excited....almost :) This was Em's first actual ride in a semi truck. She has been in his a million times but never actually gone for a ride. We drove it around the Kenworth building :)

I had to take a picture of Kory's new stereo. It fits into the dash and then you push a button and it comes out and the screen flips up...I was like wow...how much did "we" pay for that???? LOL!

Here the trucks are side by side...can you tell which is which?

Here's Em standing in front of the new truck. It was running so she was a little nervous to be standing that close. Doesn't the truck look massive compared to our little bug?

Proud new owner!

The salesman took a nice family shot of us too!

Hey babe! We are really proud of all you've accomplished. Most truck drivers never own their own and you've proudly owned 3 new trucks now. You are amazing!!! Thanks for all you do. I know we don't tell you enough but Emmers and I appreciate you more than you know. XOXO

Water Balloons...

2011-06-13T20:39:00.000-05:00

We've been playing outside a lot the last few weeks. Daddy bought Emily some water balloons early this spring so she's been asking every weekend when we can play with them. So finally about 2 weeks ago we decided to let her play with them...it was finally warm enough!!!
Just wanted to share this adorable video...

ahhhh...to be young again :)

How can it be June already???

2011-06-01T21:24:00.000-05:00

Ok....so I know I haven't blogged in a loooong time. At least for me! I've been really busy losing sleep over the Oprah show going off the air...just kidding :)

Typically it's a sign of "unhappiness" in my life when I haven't blogged in a while but this hasn't been the case. We have been busy and I also had to travel for work which erased a week from my life. I am officially now a certified project manager after having gone through project management bootcamp - it kicked my butt!!! It was worth it though.

So...what else have we been up to? Well let me see.....

I had a girls weekend at Sugarland in Rosemont, IL. Sugarland makes me happy. I used to go once or twice a year in my pre-baby days, but since having Emily it's been more difficult to find time and energy to get away. So when we heard Sugarland was coming nearby we decided to splurge and get 3rd row seats. It was amazing...and everything I remembered it was. I think watching them live is something everyone should do. They just make you smile :) Thanks to my girls for splurging with me!!!

Beth, Amy, Kacey and me at Sugarland

Kacey and I - love you girl!!!!

I had my third mother's day as well. Kory treated me like a queen for the day (oh wait...he treats me like that every day!!! LOL!). Thank you honey! We also got to spend the day with Kory's mom. We went out to dinner at Buckhorn in Edgerton which is one of our favorites.

Emily and her G on Mother's Day

I don't have any idea what day in May this picture was taken but it makes me happy...so I thought it would also make you happy :) Enjoy!

Em playing with my phone...she is officially addicted!!!

The weekend of May 20th I flew in from my PM training in NJ to Madison for Casey's bachelorette party. I arrived on the tarmac at 10:30pm and was downtown Madison dressed and at the bar - drink in hand by 11:30pm. Pretty impressed with myself. After a week of bootcamp which involved getting up at 6am each day and not going to sleep until 11pm I was totally exhausted. I quite proudly made it through the bachelorette party and didn't go to sleep until 4am. I had a blast and was so happy to be able to be there to celebrate with Case.

Me and my sisters!!!! (Casey is the one with the penis's on her head - hee hee)

After the bachelorette party we spent Saturday recovering in Lake Geneva with just the bridesmaids. It was a nice relaxing day. On Sunday we had Casey's bridal shower also in Lake Geneva. The shower was fantastic. We hosted both Casey's side of the family and Mike's side of the family. It was nice to all be together and everything went off without a hitch...other than a few people getting lost...whoops.

Cori, Mom, Casey and me at the bridal shower

This is a shot of the shower...the place we had it was georgous!!!!

Mikaiya helping Casey open gifts

Memorial Day weekend we went up to Hayward. Even though we've been going non-stop all month, I couldn't pass up a day to head up north. So we both took off Friday and went up that morning. We had a wonderful time. Emily even went on her very first REAL four wheeler ride. Kory and I took her out on the trails. She wore her bike helmet :) LOL! She loved it. She was singing the entire time. What a cutie!

Usually I have to think long and hard about captioning pictures (ok...not really!!) but this one was easy "Don't give me that look!" We love to joke around with Em and we give that look back and forth and just keep saying it. Soooo cute!

Our friends Scott and Ali came up with their 2 kids. Morgan who is 6 and Luke who just turned 2. Emily loved having some friends to play with. I'm pretty sure Morgan is in love with my husband though :) She just loves her Uncle Kory!!!!

Kory taking Morgan, Emme and baby doll for a ride on the ATV

Do you think Morgan liked the boat ride?

I think Emmers did too :)

Kory got Emily a new big girl bike this spring and though she's ridden it a few times she really hasn't gotten the hang of it. So we spent a lot of time up north helping her. Mostly Grammy of course :) Thanks mom!!! Em is officially a big girl bike rider! She loves it. One funny thing - Em is a really tiny girl when it comes to clothes and shoes and stuff. She is always on the small side. Kory bought her helmet and kids helmets come in 3+ or 5+ based on age. Well he got her the 3+ one and we couldn't even fit it on her head. So yep...our 3 year old, tiny little girl is in a 5+ helmet....hey - she's got lots of brains to fit in that giant head!!!!

Grammy helping Em (and yes that is a baby seat on the back of her bike...who knew???)

Em up at Nelson Lake

My little sweetheart. I love you sooooooo much Emily.

She asked me to put a pony in her hair so I did the 80's side pony. I think it's a riot!!!

I guess that about sum's up our month of May. Now...on to June and the nice weather finally!!!!

Easter 2011

2011-04-24T20:20:00.000-05:00

We've had a couple of "Easters" this year. So last weekend after Em's recital on Sunday we had Kory's family here for Easter celebration. Bonnie & Tom came by as did Kacey, Tony and Zander. We colored Easter eggs and just had a great time!!

Emme being patient with her egg

Here she is taking her yellow egg out

Zander did such a good job too!! Hopefully we can make this an annual tradition!

I somehow deleted some of our other pictures, but we did have an Easter egg hunt with Em and Zander. They were cute finding their baskets and eggs. We had to do it inside though because the weather was really cold!!

Then yesterday we had Easter here with my family. We had my parents, my sister Casey and her fiance Mike, and my sister Cori, Jeff and their 2 girls.

Here is Emily very excited to see the Easter Bunny left each of the girls a special basket

Here is Em opening her basket

We also did an Easter egg hunt here yesterday. The boys, I mean the Easter Bunny, hid a bunch of eggs in the yard for the girls.

Here's Em with her basket full of eggs

I'm not so sure what the Easter Bunny was thinking - but the boys found it quite hysterical that the girls couldn't reach the egg. They convinced Grammy to help them though!!

Here's Em, Mikaiya and Braenna opening their eggs

Love this pic of the girlies!!!

Another "surprise" picture from our little photographer...Em loves taking pictures of her cousin Braenna. Braenna is quite the poser :)

Happy Easter!! Oh and 1 more thing - on Friday night I took Emily to see her first movie (well...she went when she was about 3 weeks old, but that doesn't count!!!). We went and saw "Hop". Just me and Em. We had a fantastic time. She did super duper well. She got up a few times but she really did good. My little girl is growing up!

Spring Dance Recital

2011-04-24T19:48:00.000-05:00

Emily has been in dance at Madison Dance Academy since September. She absolutely loves it. She had her first dance recital in April. She danced to "Boogie Shoes".

Here's Emily with her cousins Braenna and Mikaiya

I normally hate pictures of myself but I love this one of me and my little angel!

Em is 2nd from left looking like quite the little dancer

Em and her bestie from dance, Kendall

The recital was quite the adventure. It was something like 280 dancers over 3 days at the local High School auditorium. Thankfully we didn't have to dance on Friday - but we did have to do the Sat and Sun 1pm show. On Saturday, Emily was too scared to dance :( But on Sunday she went out like champ and did a fantastic job!

Indiana Trip - April 2011

2011-04-24T19:31:00.000-05:00

We made a trip down to Indiana in April to visit Kory's grandparents. His Grandma Marion and also his Grandma and Grandpa Miiller. It was a really special visit because all of Kory's siblings were able to be there. It's been years since they have all been together. It was unfortunate that all the family couldn't come...but we still had a great time.

Kristen flew in from Montana. Kalli flew in from Portland. Kurt flew in from Portland with his son Rory. Then Kacey, Tony and Zander came down and Kory, me and Emily and Kory's stepsister Liz. Kory's mom and stepdad were there along with Kory's dad and stepmom.

We spent time at both grandparent's houses and had a great time!!!

Here is Grandma Marion helping Kory get the kite ready for flying. It was a beautiful, windy day!!

Here's Emme and Daddy flying a kite and making silly faces

Love this picture of the big kids :) Kurt is holding Kristen so Kory can beat her with a foam bat!!!

We brought the four-wheelers and the boys took them mudding. Here is Kurt (in green) and Kory (in brown) in the creek at Aunt Cheryl and Uncle John's house

Here's a super cute pic of Emily, G and Rory

Here's Kory's dad and stepmom with Emme

Kory's dad went mudding too and had Rory on the back. It looked like a lot of fun!

Here's Em giving her cousin Zander some love :)

Aunt Cheryl and Uncle John drive school bus's so Em got a chance to get "up close and personal" to the bus. She loved climbing on board checking out the seats and running up and down the aisles!!

Here we are with Kory's Grandma & Grandpa Miiller

Here's all the big kids with Gramps and Gram

Em had a blast playing at the park...until some kid (not ours!!!) puked on the play equipment...nasty!

Here's Kurt and Kory in their grandpa's hats. Kurt has on Grandpa Miiller's and Kory has on Grandpa Marion's.

Kory's mom with Aunt Carol

It was a beautiful day! Em just enjoying the sunshine and her ice cubes!

We had such a good time in Indiana. Thanks for everyone coming to visit and spending the weekend with us. Thanks to Kory's mom and Kory's dad for planning such fun days.

Soooo far behind!

2011-04-06T21:08:00.000-05:00

Did I really just skip the entire month of March? Whoops. Sorry about that. We've been busy. Not sure what we've been up to - but we've been busy!!!

Em's been busy teaching her dolly's (just like Miss Maggie!!!):

Getting ready using her new vanity that I got as a hand me down form a coworker (she has to be just like mommy - see me in the background???):

Very busy doing yoga:

Taking pictures using my camera - no idea this picture of Braenna was on there!!! Nice picture Emily!

Learning how to ride a big girl bike!! Daddy picked it out himself. I have a video of it but haven't had time to upload it yet:

Just being beautiful:

Oh and don't forget the sassy too!!!

Just last weekend we were able to attend Mikaiya (my niece) 5th birthday party. It was a ballerina party. It was Soooo much fun! Emily was excited to finally be able to attend one of Mikaiya's party now that they live here in WI. So we got there and all the girls got to put on these beautiful dresses:

As you can see by Emily's face...she isn't too happy. The beautiful dress lasted all of 3 minutes before she took it off.

Here is a picture of the entire group of girls after their impromptu dance recital. You can pretty easily pick out Emily (the ONLY one not wearing the pretty dress!!). You know how most kids want to be like everyone else? Well Emme likes to do the opposite of everyone else...hmmm...wonder where she got that trait? Oh yeah...me!

Em and Braenna or "B" as we like to call her are such good friends. B is 6 months younger than Emily but they just get along great. Here they are hanging out at the birthday party eating their cake....actually Em is eating her cake and B is saying "I WANT CAKE!!!" :)

Here is my beautiful god-daughter on her birthday. Love you to pieces Mikaiya! Auntie Teresa is soooo proud of you. I can't believe you are 5 already. XOXOXOXO

I have lots more pictures and videos to post, but it's time for me to go to bed. We are off to Indiana this weekend to visit Kory's grandparents. Will post pics from the trip. We always have a great time!!!

February Fun Times

2011-02-27T16:16:00.000-06:00

February has been a fun month, although we are all very ready for spring to arrive. Very sick of cold, snow and bad road conditions.

Kory attempted to take a few days off and we decided to stay around Madison and have a little family "staycation". We started off by picking Em up from school on a Thursday afternoon and went over to the Madison Holiday Inn West to Crawdaddy Cove Waterpark. We don't have any pictures because we literally spent the entire time in the water! Emily loved swimming in the pool and going down the waterslides. Daddy loved it because we were the ONLY people in the entire pool area...I am not exaggerating! Daddy's idea of a vacation :)

Then on Friday morning we headed to the mall to Build-a-Bear. Em hasn't done it before, so we wanted to make it a special family occassion. She loved it!

Here is Em wishing on the heart before she puts it inside the monkey

Here she is giving her monkey a bath after it got stuffed

Here's Em picking out her Monkey's outfit - it's a boy, by the way :)

Em is loving her snuggly monkey!

After Build-a-Bear, or in our case, Build-a-Monkey we went to the food court and had lunch. After lunch Daddy took Em to pick out an ice cream cone....well of course she picked Blue Moon!!!

Our staycation ended somewhat abruptly at about 11pm on Friday night. Kory got a call from his driver and good friend, Dan who was running his semi that night. Somehow a piece of ice came off an overpass or a plow truck or something and came flying through Dan's windshield. It was a very scary call to get - but thankgoodness Dan was okay. Kory jumped out of bed and managed to get the parts and tools needed and drove down to Chicago and replaced the windshield. Kory didn't get home until about noon on Saturday.

Saturday night we had a babysitter and went out to dinner with our friends Derek and Kelley. We had a great time. We shared our babysitter that night and they left their 2 kids here too. We got home to their 4 year old little guy not feeling so well. Ended up he had a temp of 104 and Kelley called us the next day to say Elliott had strep throat and scarlet fever...thought for sure Em would catch it - but she hasn't as of yet!!

Sunday we hung out around the house and just had a nice relaxing day. On Monday, Kory was supposed to have the night off but Dan still wasn't feeling all that well with the glass pieces in his eyes so Kory drove. Emily and I both had the day off so we had a mommy/daughter day and went to the madison's children's museum. We both loved it!!!

Her favorite thing by far was painting on the windows. I think we spent about an hour in this area.

Here she is pushing buttons to make lego world move - it was very cool!

It was Valentine's Day weekend so their art craft at the museum was card making - she loved it!

That was the end to our fun staycation. Eventhough Daddy wasn't able to be with us the whole time - we still enjoyed our time together and more than anything -we are thankful Dan wasn't hurt during the ice vs windshield incident!!

A few more pics from the month of February:

Playing at our mall play area - they finally put one in on our side of town!

Our puzzle Queen! This is a 100 pc puzzle and she is pretty darn good at it!

We are working on teaching her to write her name. I wrote Emily in blue and she tried to follow it in brown. I thought she did really good for her first try!

We were trying to boycott winter by riding our bike on the driveway - but she lasted all of 10 minutes!!

Finally thought I would post a sneak peek to Em's dance class recital dance. She's in the black leotard and skirt. My niece Braenna is also in the dance if you count from Emily - Braenna is #5.

Here's to hoping March brings us some warm weatheand sunshine!!!!

Made it through January!

2011-02-02T19:46:00.000-06:00

Winter is not one of my favorite times of the year. The only good things about winter are football and the extra relaxation because our schedule is much less busy!

We barely made it through January 2011. We just got hit by a horrendous blizzard this past weekend. We got 16+ inches of snow in 24 hours and Emily had her first "snow day" as her daycare center was closed.

We've been doing a lot of artwork the last few weeks....it's the only thing that keeps her entertained while we are cooped up in the house.

We've been watching a lot of football...rooting on our Bears...and when they lost now we are rooting on the Packers :) Thanks to Cori & Jeff to having us at their house every weekend!!

I took Emily swimming at the athletic club a few times. She's becoming quite the fish! Mikaiya and Braenna even joined us!

Here's a few shots of all the snow from today:

Oh...and incase you didn't already know...Emme is her father's daughter!

Making sure she gets allllllll the ice cream!

As I'm yelling at her - Daddy is praising her for her good ice cream-drinking skills!

Our adorable alphabet singer!!!

Emily 3 year Checkup

2011-01-09T14:21:00.001-06:00

We had Emily's 3 year check up on Jan 3rd. The Dr was very happy with her progress and she seems to be meeting all her milestones with flying colors. She was 36.5" which is the 30th percentile and she was 27lbs 6oz which is the 16th percentile. She somehow grew 4 inches this year and gained all of 2 lbs. She is small for her age, but the Dr is not concerned. He said she's growing fine and to continue making sure she eats fruits, veggies and meat.

Sometimes, I think back to being pregnant...

Me - 9 months pregnant

...and I think about how difficult my pregnancy was due to a lot of things going on in my life at that time. Yet, deep down, I knew I would be ok. I knew we would be ok. I knew that having a baby was going to make our lives better.

Sometimes, I think back to the day you were born....

Emily Kaslyn Marion - 12/26/07

...and I remember that special day with a big smile on my face. I was surrounded by a lot of love that day and you were brought into this world with so much happiness....and nervousness all at the same time. I love sharing your birth story with other soon-to-be mom's.

Sometimes, I think back to your 1st birthday...

1st birthday party at our house

...and I remember how quickly the first year went by. I remember learning how to be a good mother. I remember the difficult decision daddy and I had debating on whether to get you a helmet or not (we did, good decision!). I remember waiting for you to start walking and talking.

Sometimes, I think back to your 2nd birthday...

2nd birthday party at Rossario's for spaghetti on the board

...and I remember thinking you were growing up too fast. A lot was accomplished that year including walking and talking. You really started to develop a personality and show how your temper comes from Daddy but your independence and stubborness comes from Mommy. We were learning how to discipline our sweet little girl.

And now...here we are at your 3rd birthday...

3rd Birthday party at Bouncy Town USA

...I think a lot about how different my life is now. How your priorities naturally change and being a mother is now the most important thing in the world. You think about the things you've given up to become a mother, and realize, none of that really mattered anyways.

Emily, We are so proud of the little girl you have become. You are smart, funny, caring, appreciative...all the things we hoped for in a daughter. You can be a little spit-fire, but we like to think that will be a positive trait as you grow into a young woman. You have so many people in your life who love you and who will be there for you, no matter what. We can't wait to see what the next year holds for all of us.

Happy 3rd Birthday Miss Em!!!

Barney!!!!!!!!!!

2011-01-05T19:09:00.000-06:00

We took Em to see Barney for her 3rd birthday present from mommy & daddy. We didn't tell her until the day before because we knew it would be difficult to explain. Try telling a 3 year old that you're going to see a concert..huh? what's a concert? Like...live in person? huh? Sitting next to me? No....ummmm...like up on stage in front of you? oh....Barney sit next to me? Um no. So yeah...that conversation was interesting. Pretty sure she had no idea what to expect...but she loved it!!!

Here we were getting ready for the show to start!

Do you think she liked it???

Doing one of the "dance moves"

Pretty sure this one was the itsy bitsy spider

Dancing in the aisle

While we were in the Dells we stayed at the Polynesian hotel and waterpark. She loved the quiet and small atmosphere. It was perfect for our little buggy!

We even got a video of Emily dancing during Barney. It starts out a little slow and dark, but keep watching. OMG! You will be laughing hysterically by the end. I have no idea where she got these dance moves from......

Christmas Day 2010

2011-01-04T21:10:00.000-06:00

Christmas Day was really special this year because we got to stay home in our jammies all day :) We had Tom and Bonnie (Kory's mom and stepdad) over for a delicious prime rib meal. I am not a big prime rib fan, but Kory, Bonnie and Tom all said it was one of the best one's they've ever had. Yay!! Anyways, Christmas day was super fun and I am glad we got to relax and spend it with Bonnie & Tom!!!

We woke up Christmas morning to the "TV being covered up" as Em put it :)

First she took the sheet of her baby station. It has a basinett, sink and high chair for her dollies.

Then it was Daddy's turn..he opened his refractometer...huh? Yeah...that's what I said! He was obviously excited though.

Next was on to the doll house. It was a riot because she uncovered the sheet and stood infront of it for a few seconds and then said "Where are all the kids?". LOL! So then she had to find the package with the people in it!

Here's Emme and Daddy arranging the furniture. Santa did good on the doll house!

Here's Emmers emptying her stocking. She had fun going through all the little things Santa got her. Hello Kitty was big this year!

Our cat Bea also enjoyed the doll house. You should have seen Em's face when she saw Bea in the house...that didn't last long!!! Emily is not exactly an animal lover!

Later in the morning, Bonnie and Tom came by.

Emily helping G open a present from her.

Em and G looking at her special book together. Emily did a photo book of 2010 photos of herself :)

This was one of her favorite gifts. She kept calling it a "ten-o" and I said, "No Emily, it's a tent". It took me about 3 days to figure out she was saying "tunnel". So yes...she's right. It's a tent with a tunnel attached! Whoops mommy!!

So happy with her new doll from G. Just don't call it a baby doll. It's a "little gurl" doll. She walks around asking here here "little gurl" is...LOL!

Snug as a bug, in a rug....errr...tent.

We hope everyone had as nice of a holiday as we did. This year was extra special that my sister and her family were here. Emily loves having cousins close by to play with. It was also extra special to see the smile and surprise on Em's face with all the presents. She was very thankful and had a great time opening her presents.
Hugs to all!!!

Christmas Eve 2010

2011-01-04T20:43:00.000-06:00

We had a wonderful holiday season this year. I have lots of blogs to do, so I won't write too much - check out the pics from Christmas Eve 2010.

We stopped over at Kory's mom and stepdad's house to give little Zander his xmas present. Snapped this cute pic of Emme and Zpants.

We spent Christmas Eve evening at Cori & Jeff's new house. They hosted a wonderful holiday with my entire family and our good family friends - Mary & Ray.

There was quite the array of new Wisconsin attire considering the Stampf's relocation to WI and my parents moving to WI too!!

Here's Em showing Grammy the book we made for her of Em's pics from 2010.

Love this pic of Casey & Mike

This was Casey and Mike fighting over who had the better team...is it WI (mike's shirt) or IA (casey's shirt)...looks to me like Iowa won out in this photo!!!

We got this cute sweatshirt for Braenna. She loves Elmo! She immediately had her mommy put it over her adorable Christmas dress!

Here is Em using her new hair salon kit to fix Grammy's hair. Also Mikaiya, Mary and Ray looking on as someone is opening another present!

Here's Em very excited to open the Dora doll that CeCe and Mike got her!!!

Look at that death stare---"Do NOT touch my Dora doll, Braenna". LOL!

Here's the 3 girls with the puppets that Mary and Ray got them.

More WI attire!!!

Here's Ray (a nurse) showing Emily how the knee hammer works out of her Dr's kit. Thanks Ray! Now she walks around banging it on my knee!!!

Braenna loves her Papa!!!!

Here's the girls sprinkling the reindeer food :)

Oh wait...Dad got a WI shirt too :)

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas everyone.

Emme's 3rd Birthday Party

2010-12-20T19:54:00.000-06:00

Kory and I hosted Emily's 3rd birthday party at Bouncy Town. We had 12 kids show up, ages ranged from 8 weeks old to 4 years old! We had a great time.

Em coming down the slide

Uhh...Em coming down a little too fast...and upside down!

Parents watching their kids play

Here's my niece Mikaiya having a blast!

This is little Olivia...she is the fastest crawler I have ever seen :)

Little Noah jumping in the bouncy house

Here's the kids eating their pizza and sandwiches

Here's a pic after Em had blown out her 3 candles. She was such a good girl!

Andrea and Tyler eating their cupcakes

Anika and Kendall eating their ice cream and cupcakes!

A cute family shot! We all had such a great time.

Zander hates cupcakes...can you tell? LOL!

Em was the most graceful present opener I have ever seen! She opened each card, Kory told her who the gift was from - she would look around the room to find the person, then gently open each present and thank each person individually. By the end of present opening I think there were about 5 people left in the entire room...BORING! Hey - at least she appreciated each gift and the people who gave it to her!

Here she is opening up her crayola art kid. She has already used it plenty!!

Carefully opening a present

Getting ready to dive into a big gift bag!

Emme and Ani opening their favor bags - everyone loved the silly bands, of course!

We wanted to thank all our friends and family for coming out to celebrate Emme's 3rd birthday. We had such a good time and hope you all did too. We can't believe our sweet little baby girl is going to be THREE in just a few days!!

Christmas Cookie Baking in WI

2010-12-20T18:24:00.000-06:00

For then first time in over 10 years, I was together with my mom and both my sisters to bake cookies. Here we are figuring out who is going to make what...it was quite the scene....

Casey, Mom and Cori getting ready to start baking

While cooking, the girls played nicely. Here Mikaiya is teaching Emily something...not sure what! I think Em just wanted a turn with the marker :)

Braenna happily eating the cookie she picked out!

Mikaiya wondering how many cookies she can sneak away from the table :)

Emme with her special cookie!

Here's a shot of the cut-out sugar cookies we made that day.

Here's the shot of the other cookies/candies we made which include: spritz, reeses pb cup cookies, fudge, peppermint bark, peanut brittle, buckeye balls, peanut butter balls and I'm sure a few other ones I am forgetting!!!

Thanks to Cori for hosting us. We had a great time! It helped that she has 2 full kitchens in her house so we were able to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Thankfully the 3 little ones entertained themselves...for the most part :)
Looking forward to next year already!

Early December Festivities

2010-12-15T21:01:00.000-06:00

Well incase you haven't heard Mrs. Kacey Vosberg graduated with her Bachelor's degree from college in December...therefore a gigantic party was in order! Kacey and Tony hosted a paparazzi style red-carpet bash at their house. We had so much fun! Here's some photos to prove it....

Georgous ladies! Me, Cori, Kacey, Amy and Tiffy

Brother and Sisterly love :)

Me and my honey

Me and the new college grad! Congrats Kacey! We are soooo proud of you!

Jeff and Cori got to come!! Yay to moving to WI :)

End of party photo! Still quite the group left.

The rest of the pics are just random December pics I've taken so far this month. Many more to come with Christmas and Emily's 3rd birthday!! It's a busy month for us!

Love this one of Emmers

I babysat my niece's this past weekend - it's never too cold or too snowy to play on the swingset!!!

Here's Uncle Kory helping all 3 girls build a snowman

Em is absolutely loving having her cousins here in WI. Her and Braenna are the two trouble-makers. We are sooo in for it!!

Here is Emme helping me decorate the Christmas tree. We don't go all out for the holidays, but we like to put up a few things to make our house look special.

My snow angel :)

Just thought this was an amazing pic! Like Otis's tail on the edge of the photo? Forgot to crop it before I posted it...whoops!

Here's to wishing everyone a very happy upcoming Christmas! We have Em's birthday party at Bouncy Town this weekend, so I'll try to do a blog after that. Should be a great time!

Way Behind...Thanksgiving!

2010-12-15T20:35:00.000-06:00

We have been soooo incredibly busy the last month. Thanksgiving flew by. We had Kory's family visiting from out of state for the entire week, so we were busy spending quality time with our nephews and their families. It was so much fun! Emily shared G (that's what she calls Grandma Bonnie!) well.

Uncle Kory showing Zander, Owen and Emily how to properly play with the train table

We had basketball competitions at Kacey's. Here is Kristen kicking Parker's butt!

The little Z man. He is the sweetest kid ever. I can't believe how big he's getting!

Emily's godfather is Nathan (Kalli's oldest) and he loves to play guitar. So here he is playing for all of us. He's sooo good!

Great family shot!

Owen (in the gray) and Zander (in the black) sharing nicely! Now just if Emme could learn that trait!

Tom planned a surprise 60th bday party for Bonnie. Here we all are surprising her!

Kalli, Kacey, Bonnie and Kristen - Love this picture!!!

We even had some time to go to my sister Cori's for our first family holiday all together in 1 place in a LONG time. It was great! Wish I could have spent more time there, but I was exhausted! Thanks for hosting Cori!!

Casey, Teresa & Cori

My mom managed to get a picture of all 6 girls! Casey holding Mikaiya (4 1/2), Me holding Emily (3), Cori holding Braenna (2 1/2)

After our busy week of Thanksgiving, we had my friend Beth & Luke's wedding. They thanked their guests by paying for weekend at the Wilderness Resort in Wi, Dells. OMG! Em was in love. We didn't take a lot of pics, but here is one of her posing in the pool.

Forgot to include this pic earlier - Bonnie had a friend come over and take family pics. Here is one of the best ones!

2010-11-15T19:58:00.000-06:00

Kory and I took off a Friday a few weeks ago and made a road trip up to visit some of my college friends in Minnesota. We left early Fri morning and went up to Waverly, MN. It was about a 5 hour drive. Emily was quite the busy 3 year old, but actually did pretty good in the car.

We got up to my friend Jen's farm and got to spend a lot of time with her and her kids. We had a blast...here are some pics from our visit:

Here's Em and Shayne visiting the cows. Em was not a fan!!!!

They even got up in a tractor. Daddy was in heaven!

Here's Halle (left), Emily and Dani (right). Em loved the girls!!!

I had to get a pic of me and Jen! I hadn't seen her since my senior year of college. We were roomates my Sophomore year. Thanks for having us Jen!!!

After dinner in Waverly we drove down to one of my best friends in the whole world house. She and her family live in Burnsville, MN - just outside the Twin Cities.

Here's baby Luke. He's sooooo cute! He is 18 months old and loved following the girls around.

And here's Miss Morgan. She is the sweetest little girl ever. She is 5 1/2 and in kindergarten right now. Such a sweetie!

Here's me and Ali. Love her more than life itself! We met freshmen year in college and have never left each other's side...no matter how far apart we live!

I like to think I'm a photographer...got this adorable one of Lukie.

I guess Ali is quite the photographer too! She got this family shot of us. Love it!

This is the only picture (out of about 100) that had all 3 kids in it. Funny, huh?

I have not been very good about posting pictures, but I do still upload them and make prints for myself. So if you ever need pictures - just let me know. Here are all my Sept and Oct pictures. Sorry there are so many :)

Link to September 2010 pictures: http://photos1.walmart.com/walmart/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4386247003/a=3242809_3242809/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=walmart/

Link to October 2010 pictures: http://photos1.walmart.com/walmart/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4386590003/a=3242809_3242809/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=walmart/

Halloween 2010

2010-10-31T20:57:00.000-05:00

Emme and our family of pumpkins. Mommy did the 2 big ones and Em did the 3 little ones.

Here is Em painting one of her pumpkins.

She got to wear her costume for the first time at dance class on Tuesday night. She's the one in the blue dress - Alice in Wonderland

Here's Em on Saturday - all ready for the party at the athletic club

Daddy is taking a sneak peek at Em's costume on our way to the party

I just thought this picture was adorable!!!

Here she is picking out her temporary tattoo at the PAC (prairie athletic club) party

Playing ring toss on the spider legs

Here is Grammy helping Emme make a fruit loop bracelet

Em playing bags at the PAC party. She did good!!

Em working with the tumbling girl at the PAC party. She loved it! Might just have to sign her up for a class there.

We went to the annual Halloween Party at the Mounds Golf Course in Fort Atkinson. I was dressed up as a Flapper. Kory was dressed up as himself...scary, huh?

Here's Emme getting lots of use out of her costume! This is trick-or treating on Sunday evening. She was all anxious to go, but it wasn't time yet, so she rode her bike around for a while first.

Here she is being silly! It wasn't THAT cold outside!

Here's daddy pulling Em on the way to the next house.

Happy Halloween everyone! We had lots of pictures to share this week! Emily got to wear her costume to her dance class on Tuesday, her school party on Wednesday, the PAC party on Saturday an Trick-or-Treating on Sunday....so needless to say we got a lot of good use out of it! She enjoyed being Alice in Wonderland...or "Alison" if you asked her. When we went to each house he would excitedly ring the doorbell and then when they opened the door she'd say "trick or treating". It cracked me up! We hit probably about 10 houses...not too bad. It was pretty darn chilly, so we didn't want to stay out too long.
Hope everyone else had a great halloween as well. Love to you all!

Over a month since my last blog!!!! whoops!

2010-10-21T20:15:00.000-05:00

Ok....I have no excuse for not blogging. Let's see...what has happened since the last time I blogged...uh...let's see...now you see why I haven't blogged? I don't even know where to start!!

Ok, here goes. So a few weeks ago my sister from Texas came to WI for a job interview, within 2 weeks she got the job at Trek Bicycles in Waterloo, WI and then her and her hubby came back to house hunt. They not only found a house in 3 days, but they also put in an offer, got the offer accepted and got the house inspected all in the same weekend! Amazing. I am super duper excited that my sister Cori, her husband Jeff and their 2 girls (Mikaiya 4 1/2 and Braenna 2 1/2) will be moving to WI in the next few weeks.

Now onto a photo collage of everything we've been up to in the last 4 weeks.

This is a pic of Em in her grown up outfit. Doesn't she look old??? I can not believe she's almost 3!!

This face is post-popsicle. What a cutie pie!!

Em is in a dance class at Madison Dance Academy in Sun Prairie. We've been going about 5 weeks now and she absolutely loves it! She loves her teacher Miss Amanda and all her little dancer friends. She is getting really good at listening to the teacher and following directions. Ask her to sing "I'm a little tea pot". It's sooo cute!

I got to get away for a girl's weekend. It was our 2nd annual trip to Galena, IL. There were 9 of us that went and we had such a fantastic time. It's a beautiful place to visit and there is lots to do. This is a picture of all of us from the Fried Green Tomatoes restaurant there. Yum!

We had a few friends over for a little get together a few weeks ago. These are all the kiddos of Kory's best friends from high School. Left to Right is Lily and Nora (Nan & Ryan's kids), Lily is holding baby Cayl (Nick & Tiff's little man), Emily and Anika (Matt & Brenda's little girl). The kids all had such a good time together!

Emme and I went to America's Best Flowers in Cottage Grove and built a scarecrow. It was so much fun! She was such a good helper. The scarecrow is up in our front yard. Come check it out!!!!

I just love this one. Emmers cheesing it :)

We went to the pumpkin patch at Schuster's Farm recently with Grammy (my mom) and G (Kory's mom). Here is a cute pic of Grammy and Emme.

Here is daddy and G helping Emme pick out her pumpkin.

Last weekend I went bridesmaides dress shopping for Casey's wedding. It will be here before we know it (July 9th, 2011). After dress shopping a few of us girls went tailgating. We had a great time!!!

Later that night of tailgating we met up with a bunch of friends including Amy (Tony's sister), Brenda, Katie, Kacey, and Libby. We had SO MUCH FUN! Thankfully I was in bed at home by 10pm :) My kind of night out!!!

Ok...I think I've now caught you up on the last month. Sorry for cramming so much into 1 blog. I will try to be better next time. Watch for Em in her halloween costume soon!!!!

Our smart girl

2010-09-19T07:27:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we went to Old World Wisconsin with Kory's mom. A tornado went through there back in April and it was amazing to see all the trees laying sideways still! If you've never been there, you should go. It was really neat to see all the historical farms and how people used to live back in the late 1800's.

On our way home Em was quite entertaining....

She can sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider song:

She can count AND sing parts of the alphabet:

Mini-me

2010-09-18T19:42:00.000-05:00

I had taken the picture of Emily on Tuesday before her first dance class and Kory saw it and said - "Don't you have a picture with that same face"....Sure enough!

So anyways, I think she is my mini-me even if we actually don't look much alike at all. I think our personalities are soooo similar!

Parades, Festivals and Oodles of Summer Fun!

2010-08-21T20:24:00.000-05:00

We've had so much fun this summer already. Hard to believe it's almost the end of August. Emily is such a joy, even if she does test us constantly! That girl can remember anything and everything, so there is no sneaking anything in around her. Her new favorite thing is to call people knuckle-heads. I have no idea where she heard it from, but it's hard to tell her that isn't nice when you're cracking up!

This week at school she went on her first field trip. She talked constantly about the bus ride and sitting next to Owen. LOL! She went to this bouncy house place and had a blast. We even had to take her earrings out for the first time, so we talked about it all week prior just so that she wouldn't be scared. She did great and she even let me put them back in after school.

Emily is LOVING her new school. She talks about her teachers all the time and seems to be playing with the kids more. She does special art projects every day which is her favorite. She loves loves loves to do anything art-related.

Her bug bite issues are hopefully almost over for the year. She is now on Zyrtec daily until the first freeze. Her Dr said she has the classic signs/symptoms of a mosquito allergy. They aren't real common, so there isn't much we can do about it - but he did say that typically the allergy goes away. So for now, she's on Zyrtec - but in the spring we will let her get bit a few times before put her on any meds.

Here's just a cute pic of Emmers. She is really into dressing herself, but hasn't quite figured out what matches and what doesn't:

This weekend is the Sun Prairie Sweet Corn Festival and this is Emily and her buddy Tyler all ready for the parade. They loved it! It was Em's first real parade and she had so much fun--again, check out the lovely outfit, I was actually embarrased that is how she was dressed! LOL! :

Here she is waving at Mickey Mouse:

She loves to play with her dolly's. Each one has their own blanket and spot she makes for them in her room. She had quite the mess going on here:

We also went to the carnival at Sweet Corn Fest. Daddy watched while me and Em rode the carousel. She loved it. She kept saying "do it again mommy!":

Here are a few videos of Em - this one is of her singing the itsy bitsy spider song:

This one is of her sooo excited at the parade:

Kory's New Truck

2010-08-21T20:07:00.001-05:00

I mentioned a few posts back that Kory got a new pick up. I wanted to put up a picture. We all love it. The best thing about it (if you ask me!) is the seats are heated AND cooled!!!! So we can actually have a normal temperature in the truck and if he's hot he can turn on his cooled seats. Kory's favorite thing (besides the cooled seats!!!) is the longer bed for his tool box. It's awesome!

It's a Ford F-150, silver outside, black leather inside. Sharp!!

Random July Post

2010-07-31T13:10:00.000-05:00

We have been so busy and I haven't had much time to post a blog. So I'm post a bunch of random things.

These pics are from a few weeks ago when we went with the Vosberg's to the Dane County Fair. We went early in the am to avoid the crowd and the heat, but it was still hotter than heck.

Kristen and Owen are here visiting from Montana, so we've been spending a lot of time with Kory's family.
I have lots of pictures so far, but here are just a few--

Here's Emme, Zander and Owen all playing so nicely together:

Owen doesn't have baby dolls at his house, so everytime we hang out with them he has to come and take Em's dolls. It's sooo cute and of course Kory keeps giving Kristen a hard time about her little boy playing with dolls.

This was SOOO funny. Zander is just about ready to walk on his own, he takes steps and everything. Here he is using his activity table as a walker and Em is racing him with a push cart and Owen is running after them. It was a riot!!

This is Em standing out in Kacey & Tony's porch and Z standing in the kitchen. I just love Em's sunglasses up on her head and everything. What a rock star!!!

Kacey and Tony even got their swimming pool out for everyone. Em actually swam! Usually she just plays on the edges. She was quite the fish that day!

This is from an activity project I did with Em last weekend. I saw it on Cullen's ABC's. I LOVE her ideas!!!! Anyways, we put letters and shapes in that yellow bag and she'd pick one out and then try to mimic it in the shaving cream. She didn't quite get it, but still had a lot of fun!

This is Em riding in Daddy's brand new Ford F-150!! It's quite the nice truck and Em was proud to be riding in it.

I just thought this pic was cute. Emme and Owen just lounging around at G's house.

This is one of my fave's. Em and Aunt Kristen!!!

This is a picture of the three FAVORITE grandkids on Kory's mom's side of the family. Zander (13 months), Owen (16 months), and Emily (2 1/2 years).

We've had quite a busy month of July since arriving home from Hayward. Casey and Mike are busy planning the wedding, they are getting all the big details sorted out. We are so happy to be a part of their big day!
Kory got a brand new pick-up truck which I'll post pics of next time. I haven't taken any yet!!
Em got another bad bug bite last Sunday and was into the Dr this week for another infection from the bite. We are just worrying like crazy about her. The antibiotics made her really sick this week, so we've stopped giving them to her. Waiting for more details from or Dr about what to do next. Poor girl needs to walk around in a net!!!
Kory got a pretty nasty owie this week too. He was washing his semi-truck and went to jump down and his wedding ring got caught on the hood. Not good. He ripped his finger really bad. Thankfully my friend was here and took him to the ER since I was on my way to work already. I met them at the ER and Kory ended up with stiches and a cut-off wedding ring :( Poor guy. He's pretty sore, but doing better each day. Just say some prayers that all heals well. It was exposed down to the tendons and ligaments, and the Dr's say he's very lucky to not have worse damage to his hand.

Hope everyone else is having a fantastic summer!!! Will write more soon.

Hayward 4th of July Trip 2010

2010-07-13T19:17:00.000-05:00

Every year my immediate family gets together for a week up at the lake house in Hayward. My parents are always so happy to have us there, and we always have a great time.

I have a gazillion pics that I uploaded to a link, you can check them out here.

Mikaiya helping Emme up the hill-

My sunshine-

Look at those baby blues - lovely Braenna-

Grammy pulling 2 of the girls-

Papa taking Emme up in the neighbor's tree stand-

Mikaiya and Jeff out on the tube. This was Mikaiya's first time and she absolutely loved it-

A picture of all 3 girls looking at the camera...it's a miracle-

Us-

Casey and Mike-

Cori & Jeff-

Check out that ROCK!! Yep-Mike proposed to Casey while we were all out one night. We are sooooo happy for the two of them-

Here's a group shot of us big kids. Thanks to Grammy for watching all 3 girls so we could 'live it up' for a night :)-

Here's Emme trying on Auntie CeCe's ring - I think she likes it!!!! -

A family picture!!!!! We haven't had a new one of these in ages. I love it!!!

Grammy made the girls matching dresses. Aren't they so cute?

We had a great time up north. We did get to visit the ER unfortunately. Emily got bit by a bug on Tuesday and by the middle of the night her arm was incredibly swollen. So we took her to the ER at 1am, and they said she had cellulitis which is basically a bacterial infection. They put her on antibiotics and benadryl, but wanted us to go to the clinic in the morning. So the next day we woke up and her hand/arm were worse!!!! So we took her to the clinic and it was quite the adventurous day - poor little girl! She had to have her blood drawn, which didn't work - so then they got blood via finger pricks. Then she had to have one of her bug bites lanced so they could get some of the ickies out of it and grow it in a culture. Then the worst part was they had to hold her down and give her an antibiotic injection in each thigh. That was awful. Em did soooo good! Thankfully the injections helped and by Thurs morning she was finally doing better. She went back to the clinic 1 more time and they did a finger prick again and the blood draw showed the infection was going down. Ends up she got a staph infection from the bug bite. Very scary!!!

Other than that, the trip was fantastic. I got to waterski - which I hadn't done since before I was pregnant. Got up my first try! Yay me! Got to spend some time with our friends Bruce & Kate and their 2 kiddos. Got to see my little sissy get engaged...how special for all of us!

Can't wait for next year :)

Vegas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-06-24T20:12:00.001-05:00

Kory and I went to Las Vegas on June 17th - 21st, it was a total last minute decision and we ended up having such a nice time. Kory had an idea on Tues (June 15th!!!) that since we already had a long weekend off work to head up north...maybe....we could go to Vegas instead for the Great West Truck Show. So we asked Bonnie if she could watch Em for us, and everything just fell into place. We got a decent last minute deal staying at Harrah's and flying out of Milwaukee. We left Thursday after I got done with work and got back on the red eye Monday morning.

We didn't take a ton of pictures, but I've posted a few of the good ones.

We aren't huge gamblers, but did enjoy a little time in the casino. Here's a pic of my winnings at the NY NY casino. LOL! Thought that was really funny!!!

We even went out of our box and played one of the tables. We played Black Jack by ourselves with the dealer and had a great time. It was a $10 table and we each put in $20. We played for a good 45 min. We were very proud of ourselves and learned a ton! Our dealer was so sweet and she really helped us to learn the game.

Here we are happy to be enjoying our spontaneous vacation:

One of our favorite things at Harrah's was the outside bar, called Carnavale Court they had with live music all day long and the best flair bartenders around! Flippy was one of the bartenders and was 3rd in the world for flair bartending (his mom must be proud...LOL!). Anyways, we LOVED going and watching them do all their tricks. This is one of him balancing all those bottles and drinks on his forehead. He did this trick every day!!!

While we were at Carnavle Court the lead singer from the Ramone's showed up. So he got up on stage and sang a few songs with the band 'The Spazmatics'. It was a riot!!!

If you cheer loud enough during his trick, he walks around the bar and pours free shots in your mouth...yum! This was the lady next to us getting her free shot:

This was another one of their tricks. They put all these cups together and then pour it into shot glasses. Kory watched them enough times to figure out that it was dependant on how much ice was in each cup. Crazy!!

When we were sitting at the bar this guy showed up with this girl. Kory was like - I think that's someone famous. I was like uhh...no clue. So I took a picture of him. Supposedly he's famous - or at least we think he LOOKS like he's famous :)

One of our other favorite places at Harrah's was Toby Keith's bar - I Love this Bar! It was super fun. Here's Kory drinking his beer out of a jar-

Here we are at Toby's bar getting ready for lunch.

We went to the truck show both days (Friday and Saturday). It was a really small show, but Kory got to talk to all the vendors he wanted to and we even got to see some of the show trucks.

This is one that has an amazing tile floor in it:

This was one of my favorites. It has a mural of the firefighters raising the US flag in front of the 9/11 towers. It was georgous!!!

This one caught my eye. I said "Hey honey, can they really lease onto FedEx AND UPS?"...LOL! He was like uh....no idea! I just thought that was really bizarre.

We ended up having a fantastic trip and we are so glad we decided to go at the last minute. We got home at 5am on Monday morning to a very sick little girl. Poor Em had woken up on Monday with a fever. So I stayed home with her Monday and most of Tuesday. On Monday night her fever was at 104.5. It was incredibly scary. She woke up hallucinating. It was very hard to see my little nut bug so sick. She was better by Tuesday and now she's back to 100%.