Happy Halloween 2011

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!!

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!!!!