Autumn is here...

On October 12th, 2008 I took Nolan outside our house to capture some of the beautiful leaves and took this photo of him which I love and we've had it up in our dining room for the last two years.

October 12, 2008 2 years old

So this year I decided that I had better get them out and take a few pictures since the colors were changing quicker this year, and I wanted a picture of both of my kids in this same spot since it will be the last time we'll be watching our gorgeous leaves change this year, at least in this house.

October 7, 2010 4 years old

This is our little boy 2 years later. Look how big he is! Funny though, same adorable boy, just finally grew out of the Lightning McQueen shoes!

I have to admit I did do a quick shoot with Audrey first. On October 1st, Nolan was in preschool and it was so warm and nice. So we took our little walk outside. She knows how to work the camera and knew exactly what I was trying to do.

Here are a few more from October 7th with them both together. I love watching my kids explore together, and discover the wonder of something as simple as millions of autumn leaves.

The much anticipated GeoTrax set

Nolan's big gift this year was something that he first set eyes and hands upon while we were staying in Rochester, MN when Kenny was doing his away rotation there in August. The family that we house sat for had a little boy a just a bit older than Nolan-who obviously had a serious love of trains, and Nolan quickly become enamored with the large GeoTrax set that was in a huge storage bin in the closet. Nolan loved Rochester, loved all of the friends he made, loved the big house and big back yard, and he especially loved discovering new toys to play with. So of course when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday he recited "A great big set of GeoTrax" every time. Which I was a bit uncomfortable with, I mean if you look it up on Amazon, GeoTrax are kind of a pricey investment-at least for us at the time being! Thank heavens for craigslist. I was browsing a couple weeks before his big day and found a lady who was selling quite the impressive set for a pretty decent price-still quite pricey for a birthday, but after enlisting the Grandparents donations, Kenny and I took a date night and drove the 30 mins to buy it, and then we had to distract from the strange train noises coming from the back of the van after we picked the kids up from our date night group! So now that you know the story, here are the fun photos of the big surprise!

So excited...

Trains!!

One very happy boy!

I'm going to need a bigger house...

Phew! Look at these two ruggedly handsome guys!

Audrey and I hugging on our birthday boy.

ROBOT NOLAN'S 4TH BIRTHDAY!!

Hello All! I do realize that my last post was 3 months ago and I do intend to update the blog with the gobs of pictures so that we can share them with our families and friends.

However today I have a different mission!

MY BABY BOY TURNED 4 TODAY!!

This year he has learned so much and has become such an independent little person with and imagination that is going constantly. He LOVES the color green and chooses it always when coloring or picking something out. He has also developed a love of robots and often asks if he can get a "robot something". So it was no surprise when I asked what kind of cake and party he wanted for his birthday...A GREEN ROBOT PARTY!

So that's what we did! Easy Peasy. We invited the whole playgroup and had ourselves some Robot fun today.

First the cake though...

My awesome Mom sent me a blog link that gave me the idea for this guy. He turned out pretty cute! Gave me some serious wrist cramps with all of that piping, but it was worth every one!

I wrapped him in foil last night and let Nolan unwrap him this morning-he was very pleased, but reminded me that I forgot his lollipop ears! So we definitely added those.

We were busy setting up the food for our party when I was greated by a green faced Audrey in the kitchen.

Apparently she thought that the robot cake needed a little alteration herself.

Little stinker.

Next our friends showed up and we got busy decorating our robot chest panels,

and making our antanae.

Then we played "Pin the Sprocket on the Robot"

(Thanks Kenny for being the artist in the family, and the robot panel creator, and the crepe paper decorator-this party was right down his ally! I was busy with Mr. Robot Cake.)

After that we were ready to re-fuel, so we hit the snack table for some "Fuel Cells",

"Nuts & Bolts" and "Robot Fuel"

Then we sang Happy Birthday, and ate ourselves some robot legs...guess all of that other stuff filled us up so the robot was spared...for now!

We are so blessed with such great friends-Thanks for coming everyone!!

Wow- Nolan's birthday has been pretty fun so far...and that was only until noon!

To be continued...

'Drey's Birthday Part 2

Audrey woke up to some pretty fun decorations for her big day and spent most of the morning pointing to them and making the "Ooh" face. We had cupcakes for breakfast...and then later experienced green spit up...yeah a real duh moment for me!

We had some errands to run and Nolan wanted to buy Audrey balloons for her birthday so a trip to the dollar store was also in order. So later that night after pizza for dinner we had our friends Todd, Jessica and Malia Pitts over to celebrate with some presents and some yummy strawberry trifle.

Audrey needed some help with the unwrapping...

She was too busy trying to eat the paper rather than see what was inside!

But once she did she was pleased! (So was Nolan)

She knew right what to do with this one too!

This gorgeous skirt was made by Jessica and we LOVE it. I have one that has a similar pattern and I was so excited to wear them together, which we did this last weekend to church, yay! Thanks Jessica for helping me play dress up!

I love the reaction to baby's first birthday candle, and hers was quite adorable I must say.

So was her approach to attacking her first birthday trifle!

Then there was Nolan's reaction to her eating that trifle-he thought it was hilarious!

Here's the rest of the gang ready to dig in also.

"Burp...now I think I've had too much."

'Drey's birthday weekend!! Part 1

Just about a month ago we celebrated Audrey's first birthday!

I know I'm late posting it-there is just something about big events that come with lots of pictures, I just have a hard time sorting through them!

We had a busy and exciting weekend planned out so this will be a three part post most likely!

On Thursday the 29th we went with our City Branch play-group to the Boerner Botanical Gardens and celebrated the day before her big day with bubbles for everyone and some sunflower cupcakes! I was up late the night before making them to ensure only my fingers would be the ones that created them, and I was pleased with the results. Thanks Mom for the "Hello Cupcake" book for Easter-it was a great inspiration.

Here are a few pictures from that day. But on a side note, as we have yet again come to this time of year when friends graduate and move away these pictures become special reminders of the sweet children and mommies that we've become friends with over the last three years and it makes it bittersweet to see how much each of these kids have grown and changed...sigh. Ok-sorry on to the photos:

Last time Audrey saw this giant butterfly she was only 4 months old and couldn't take a ride,

but this time she was right up there with her big brother!

Here is Amy, Isabel, Nolan, Grace & Zerrin testing out the flight capacity of our butterfly friend.

We stopped at the top of this big green hill, and before we knew it most of our kids had run straight to the bottom of it before we could catch up and drag them back. This is what we envision our backyard to be someday...well maybe not THAT big.

Aww, dandelions. They always make the best gifts.

These two are just about the cutest pair of little princess friends I've ever seen. We adore them and are so glad that Nolan has been able to spend his last 3 years growing up with them.

Happy windblown birthday Audrey!