Fall Y'all

I guess the good thing about sick days with Charley is that I can update the blog while snuggling.  Our has been just like every other fall.  Same activities but a year older.  It's fun to watch us grow:)

The first weekend we went camping with friends and had a blast trick-or-treating there!

We went to the apple orchard again for the fifth time!  So fun to have these photos.

Fall seems to be the worst for our sweet Bear.  We are already on round two of sickness with asthma flare ups.

But then there's this.  I LOVE this photo of her at Sonny Acres sporting the shirt Nana made her!

And the traditional How Talll This Fall.  The answers is TOO BIG!  My babies!  Where did they go?

I took a personal day to go to Johansens Farm with friends. JJ loved getting this pumpkin that was grossly overpriced.  Whatever.

We have some wonderful friends here in Chicago.  The Davises hosted a pumpkin party for the adults to watch baseball, the kids paint pumpkins and all of us eat!

Speaking of eating, I got the Halloween Villages for the kids to decorate.  They did that for about ten minutes and then this happened.  Oh well.

And that's a pretty good wrap up of our fall!

What Weekends Are Made Of!

***my Blogger app wasn't posting.  This was written October 1st.

Weekends have been great lately.  And they usually are in the Fall!  We took the kids to Kuipers for the fifth time a couple weeks ago! 5 years of family pictures in the orchard is so fun!

This is the first year both kids really understood what was going on!  Jackson was on the hunt for the perfect Apple and Charley was happy to munch on her's.

The best part about these photos is that Bryan has had the SAME glasses all five years.  The guy's in need of an upgrade!

Isn't he awesome? He's the nostalgic softie who made this family collage.  I chose a good one, for sure!

This sweet girls knows a good doughnut when she sees one! We all just had one...and a half.

I kinda freaked out a bit while the kids were on the tracktor and I saw how big they are now.  Where did my babies go???

This past weekend was a mini mommy vacation.  My friend Julie and her sister, mom, and friend were in the city to visit from Kansas City!  I happily tagged along as the fifth wheel and had an absolute blast!

We stayed busy but we could have done anything and it would have been perfect.

This photo captures it all.  Our friendship is 18 years old and is as good as new!

This weekend we are headed back to Jellystone for camping with Yogi Bear.  We upgraded to a site with electricity so hopefully we stay plenty warm! We'll post soon when we return!

WHOA!!!

I had no intentions of a blog break.  July 12th?  I was so happy to have recorded our camping trip on the way home and then I just stopped.  Whoops.  Clearly we've been busy the last 6 weeks!

I kept the kids with me all summer and we had a great time.  This was a fun morning after my Bar Method class.  The kids loved the different cars.

Mid July we headed to Nebraska for a weekend at John and Ella's lake house.  The kids have improved so much with swimming lessons and we all had a blast.

After the lake we drove to Kansas City. We were able to stay for a whole week and were able to see a lot of family and friends.  We went to Diana Rose, a Royals game and Oceans of Fun!

After we left KC we had one more stop in Columbia for Mikes graduation.  He has worked so hard and my mom is so proud of him.

Vacation was great but it was back to reality as soon as we got home.  Charley had her tonsils out and the next week was rough!

Luckily she was pretty much healed she. Nana arrived to watch the kids.  We were able to sneak away to Lake Tahoe for a wedding.

Now that we're back to school things are pretty normal again.  We're rushing all over do this activity and that.  Bryan is still keeping busy with obstacle races.

Jackson has been in Kindergarten for two weeks and loves it!  He loves doing homework...for now.

It's been a great 6 weeks but we're happy to be back in a routine!

Camping with the Kids

I grew up camping and I knew I wanted my kids to love it as well.  It's good for them to get dirty, experience camp fires, and become one with the bugs.  This summer I finally felt like the kids were old enough so we tried out Yogi Bear's Jessystone campground. It was 30 minutes away and oh so hokey but it was a perfect first experience.  Saturday morning we loaded everything up and we were at our campsite by 10:30.

I was so nervous our kids would be a disruption to others so I was thrilled when our camping neighbors had a 4 year old and 1 year old. Not only that, the dad had run multiple Spartan races and marathons and the mom was a teacher and sign language interpreter. What?!?!  How cool is that! They live in Naperville so we exchanged info for an upcoming play date.

This was our sins camp set up.  The kids were much more excited about setting it up than taking it down.

We were checking the radar since theee was a threat of severe storms.  After camp was set up, we headed off to the pool!

Lunch was at our site and was just sandwiches, chips, and strawberries.  Then I got too hopeful and thought we'd all try to lie down and rest. 

Well...only one person napped and it was daddy!!  While he napped I took the kids to the general store for a treat. They picked ice cream, a bomb pop, and popcorn for daddy.  Jackson was excited about his bomb pop and explained the colors to me.  Red was cherry, white was EGG, and blue was blueberry. 😀 he said he liked the egg flavor best.

After we woke daddy we played frisbee and bubbles at our site for a bit with our neighbors.

And Claire rubbed her face in the mud every time she got a chance.

The great thing about Jellystone is there was always an activity we could do.  While the staff left a lot to be desired in the area of musical performance, the kids enjoyed warchng the Dancing Through the Decades show.

After the show was mini golf and the play ground.

We ended the day back at our site for toasted hot dogs, pasta salad, and s'mores!  And more bug spray and dirt.

As always, Charley got her way and was carried a lot because "her legs hurted."  She doesn't make a very good passenger.

There was only one time that Jackson got a little weepy about not sleeping at home but after we convinced him we would be in the tent too, he was fine.  The kids did really well and awoke with the birds at 6am.

We had cold cereal and frosted doughnuts for breakfast before packing up and heading home.  Now, just 23 hours later, we are all clean, including g Claire, with lots of fun stories to share!

A City Escape

We had a blast in the city yesterday!  Our morning started with a 7am photo shoot with Mimi at the beach in Evanston.  Our friend Julie is an awesome photographer and she found a great location.

After the photos, Julie rushed of to shoot a wedding and we stayed to play a bit.

Just like always, Daddy played a lot too.

Before heading to breakfast we found a fun park and Jackson was thrilled to see a sign language alphabet chart.

Bryan was excited to try the Walker Bros. Pancake House that is referenced in Mean Girls. The food was delicious!

After breakfast we took a scenic drive down Lake Shore to try out Maggie Daley park. What a cool place!  It's a huge industrial style park with a city backdrop.

Jackson was so brave and went down this big slide!

After we worked up a sweat we took Mimi to the Bean where Charley through a huge fit because, you know, she's three  now and such fits are required to maintain your THREEnager status.

The highlight of the day was Crown Fountain.  The kids loved running around in the water.

We headed home and heard snoring from both car seats within just a few minutes.

After a stop for groceries and a fancy Costco lunch, we pulled in to the garage at 3pm, NINE hours after we left!

It was an exciting and exhausting day!