Our first camping trip in Wisconsin!

Which is really quite sad when we think about it. We've been meaning to go camping at least twice each season...and it's never happened until Kenny pretty much forced us to on Friday, October 9th. He'd been suggesting it all week and I just had too many other things that had to be taken care of before I could even commit to getting us packed up and ready to go camping. So I guess he just got tired of all of my excuses because the night before he announced that he would have us all ready to go by the 2:00 PM Friday, and to my disbelief he did! We were headed out the door to pick Nolan up from preschool, hit the kids well child checkups and then onto Camp Maude in the Kettle Moraine National Forest.

I'm so glad he did to, because it was beautiful. Nice warm weather, beautiful camp site, yummy brats and s'mores roasted on the fire, and it was Audrey's first experience with an actual campfire! I don't have much to say that was nice about the night's sleeping events, migraine on my part, plus multiple vaccinations on the kids part equaled all of us very thankful for the one little bottle of infant motrin that I had remembered to pack in my makeup case. But it was nice being snuggled up in a giant pile of blankets and sleeping bags, and I did watch a lot of stars moving by all night.

We didn't take many pictures of the actual camping site-just too busy trying to set up camp, get our dinner made and us all tucked in to bed I guess. I do wish that I would have taken a photo of the yummy breakfast spread that Kenny provided: 1lb bacon, fried eggs, pancakes and some fancy O.J.-definitely not a breakfast that we normally indulge in-but quite tasty when you're camping!

The next day was gorgeous too. We played at the playground, took a walk along the lake and then later took a nature hike that ended up providing myself and the kids with a nice little sunburn on our faces.

If nothing else, the little overnight camp trip provided some much needed Daddy time for the kids and if a night of little sleep and some some firewood bark left over in the car is what we've got to do to enjoy it...we'll take it!

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."