Trimming the Tree

Tis the season to head to Home Depot for a fresh cut Christmas tree :)

Evelyn decided that the star had to go on first. Why not?

She enjoyed choosing her favorites to hang (i.e. anything sparkly or fragile looking). 

Annalie helped, too!

Is she supposed to be a tree? I don't know either. 

Look, it's *almost* a family picture! 

A Very Thankful Weekend!

(Also known as a Very Hadleigh weekend!)

Our favorite Minnasoters were in town...

We also saw Stella! These big girls had a lot of fun together. 

Family shot...

 The November birthday crowd

The day after Thanksgiving, the party moved to our house! 

And on Saturday, we were back at Grandma and Papa's house, after a visit to Cosley Zoo 

Monkey Biker!

Here are a few of Evelyn's recent accomplishments....

Halloween Recap

The girls had several opportunities to celebrate Halloween!

First, the Fall Festival at Evelyn's school...

Getting a few more pumpkins to carve at the Farm

The town parade--thankfully on a beautiful day! This is Evelyn's mermaid pose (?).

 With good friends Obi Wan and Mr. Monopoly

Dance class was parent observation week and costume week!

Another festival, this time at the high school--here's listening to "princesses" read Disney stories :)

And finally--Halloween! Cold and rainy, of course. But we were able to make it out for about an hour in just a bit of drizzle. The big kids went crazy--running from house to house! We even had a fun pizza party for dinner. 

Trying to teach Evelyn the merits of graphing her Halloween candy--here's just some of the chocolate section. 

We hope you had a very Happy Halloween too!

Another Year, Another Leaf Pile

We've arrived at that time of year when we have a seemingly endless supply of fallen leaves. So before they get mulched, a leaf pile is in order! 

The veteran...

The rookie... Not very interested in this whole leaf pile business. 

Evelyn requested to be "buried so that you can only see my eyes and I can surprise you."

 Happy Fall!

One and a Half

Little Miss is 18 months old! 

We had her checkup today--she's now 24.5lbs and 32.5".

Besides being all over the place (up and down the stairs, on all the furniture, climbing everything at the park etc), she's working on her vocabulary. So far, her words include yes, no, hi, buh-bye, dog, ball, bird, uh-oh, steps, baby, car, all done/all gone, and da (for dad--no mama yet). 

Annalie can point to her ears, eyes, nose, hair, and belly button. She also loves going to get her shoes to go outside! Her favorite destination is any park, where she loves to swing and slide. 

Favorite toys include any stuffed dog, baby dolls, and play doh. And the roomba--she'd have it running all day if the battery would last that long! She's getting very interested in books, especially lift the flap ones. 

I may be biased, but I think she's just about as cute as ever :)

It's Pumpkin Time!

Today we met Grandma Jean at the church pumpkin patch! It was a perfect fall day.

So many pumpkins to choose from!

 We also brought home a bouquet of zinnias.

Annalie took the task of filling the wagon with small pumpkins very seriously. 

Wheelbarrow ride (or Grandma's workout?)

And two pictures, since they couldn't manage to get their faces into the sunflower cutouts at the same time :)