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!!!

Cute Em Video and Mike/Jeff Birthday Photos!

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

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...

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