Fall Travel Wrap Up

Days Traveling: 8/10

States Visited: 4

Miles Traveled: >1,223

Beds Slept In: 6

Birthdays Celebrated: 4

Family Members Visited: 20

Wow! The numbers make me feel tired all over again. Our fall worked out that we visited my family and E's family consecutive weekends. Mix in work travel for E, and we haven't spent much time at home recently. I don't do a lot of weekend updates, but the past two weekends have been busy and full of family, so I wanted to record some of our adventures. 

Our first weekend was spent visiting my family in Wisconsin. We left for Wisconsin Saturday morning and got up early Monday morning to leave. My brother, SIL and little niece were there when we got to my mom's house. All 4 cousins together for the first time! 

Baby JR is only 2.5 months older than Baby C, but 2.5 months makes such a big difference in the first year. Playing with Baby JR just made me want time to slow down even more, because I know it's going to feel like 2 days before Baby C is that big.

Next fall these two will probably be causing trouble with the older two. It's going to be so fun to watch them grow up together!

Baby C also got to meet Papa (my stepdad), and great grandparents while we were at my mom's house.

On Sunday we visited with a high school friend of mine and her kids. It was so much fun to catch up. I hadn't seen her in over 2 years and we had SO much to catch up on. Around lunch we headed to my dad's house. Baby C got to take a little nap on Daddy. So sweet!

My stepmom fosters kittens for the Humane Society, and being my little animal lover, Little J was super excited to get to play with the eight kittens currently living there. She LOVED the kitties!

On Monday morning we woke up and took E to a work meeting in Rochester, Minnesota. The girls and I played at the library while he worked. We got home late Monday, got three nights in our own beds, then headed back on the road Thursday afternoon.

I picked up Miss A from preschool, E from work and we started our trip to Watertown, South Dakota, for work meetings for E. The girls and I played in the hotel pool while E worked. After he wrapped up on Friday, we went to Larchwood, Iowa. We had a free night hotel stay at the casino hotel, so we took advantage. The casino is just across the border from where E's family lives, so his dad, brother, SIL and kids came to hang out with us and take advantage of the hotel pool. 

On Saturday morning E, the girls and I spent a little more time in the pool, then packed up to visit E's grandma. She was happy to see the girls, and get to meet Baby C.

Later on Saturday we met up with E's oldest brother, Uncle M. E grew up on a farm, and Uncle M still farms. He took the girls for a couple of rounds in the combine. I think E really enjoyed showing the girls things he used to do when he was growing up.

Baby C didn't get to ride in the combine just yet, but she was happy to hang out in the car with

Miss A and Little J both thought the combine and semi were pretty cool. Especially when Daddy put them up in the semi full of soybeans.

Miss A thought the soybeans were tasty, even eating some out of her shoe when we got back in the car (weird). Little J and I were not so sure.

The air horn was also a big hit with Miss A. Little J was cold and tired by this point.

We spent Saturday and Sunday nights with E's other brother, Uncle JD. On Sunday morning we went to church with Uncle JD and family, then headed back to Sioux Falls to play at Falls Park. I remember visiting the park with my grandma when I was younger, and I've been a few times with E, but I think this was the first visit for Miss A and Little J.

Climbing on the rocks was their favorite part of the park. The girls and I ended up back at the part Monday morning while E was in court, and that's all they wanted to do. They followed each other around singing the Buttercups song from Sofia the First, jumping from rock to rock. Such cuties!

So much fun, so much family, so much driving. We really enjoyed our visits, but I'm also really excited to be home!

Little Ones and Little Things

One of the things I planned to do this fall was some sort of thankful project with the girls.  I thought about a few different project to do, but hadn't gotten anything ready yet.  Then Miss A came home from Sunday School last week with a November project, and I saw Savvy Julie's 30 Days of the Little Things Challenge, so I decided we'll do those this month.  One for Miss A and one for me.

Miss A's Sunday School teacher sent home a big November Calendar (it takes up most of the top of our refrigerator) and some guidelines for what the kids should do.  Each day, the kids pick one person, pet or thing to pray for.  Miss A tells me what she wants to pray for that day, and I write it in the box on the calendar.  Then Miss A colors around the name in the box.  She also decided her boxes need some stickers.  The instruction sheet gives Praying in Color by Sybil MacBeth (there's an edition for adults and another for kids) as a good source for other ideas.

And I have to share a quick, sweet story about Miss A.  As E was getting to Sunday School to pick Miss A up last week, all the kids were meeting together in a big group.  E could hear what was going on, but Miss A couldn't see him.  The teacher asked everyone to say one thing they were thankful for, and of course Miss A said her Daddy.  You can see Daddy was her first choice on her calendar too.  She is a Daddy's girl, no doubt about it.

Happy Halloween!

About a month ago, Miss A informed me that she was going to be a bad witch for Halloween.  I wasn't fully prepared for her to start choosing her own costume so soon.  And it really surprised me when she said witch (I would have guessed princess, though there was an episode of Sofia with a witch).  Miss A already had a black tutu, shirt and sweatshirt, and we bought tights, a hat and a broom to go with it.  I wanted to make some part of her costume, so we picked out some cute Halloween fabric together and I made her a cape.   

As I've mentioned before, I have no sewing skills.  Learning to sew is consistently on my to do list, but it seems like every time I get the sewing machine out, it ends in a fight that the sewing machine wins.  But I do like to make the girls their Halloween costumes.  So I've gotten really good at figuring out no-sew versions.  For Miss A's cape I used the sewing tape that you iron.  I folded the fabric over a few inches at the top, and put a ribbon in so I would have a way to tie it.  She loved her costume.  She was happy to fly around on her broom and put hexes on people.  

I still got to pick Little J's costume, and when I saw this cute lion costume on Pinterest, I decided that would be a fun costume for her.  I loved the idea even more after we taught Little J to roar.  So cute!  For the lion mane, I tied pieces of yarn around a headband and for the arm and leg bands I used hair bands.  I picked 3 colors of thick yarn and tied pieces on two at a time so it would be a thicker mane.  I intended for Little J to wear the headband up on her head, like in the top pictures, but around her neck worked too (and she left it on that way).  Little J thought trick-or-treating was awesome this year, and ran from house to house.  At the door she would say, "or treat" and then "thank you" when she got her candy.  As soon as we got home she dumped out her bag, picked out a sucker, unwrapped it and stuck it in her mouth.  She really is getting big!

Also, thought I'm not normally a fan of the scary side of Halloween (I'm really a baby) some of these attractions look pretty interesting!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Nature Walk

A couple of weeks ago the girls and I made a trip down to the Dodge Nature Center.  I tracked our walk on my phone, and both girls managed a mile and a half walking!  It was great leaving the stroller behind to explore.

Free to Breathe 5K

Last weekend I ran the Free to Breathe 5K in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  About a year and a half ago my grandma died of lung cancer.  She came to visit me in early December of 2011, just after Little J was born to help out while E was out of town for work.  She died just over 3 months later.  Everything progressed very quickly, and needless to say, it was really hard on my family.  My mom found this event in Milwaukee that happened to fall close to her little sister's 50th birthday.  My Aunt Kecka is a runner, so this seemed like a great way for our family to both celebrate her birthday and honor her mom.  In total there were 19 of us who were able to participate including E, the girls and me.

The full group!

Both E and I had planned to run the 5K, but he wasn't feeling the best and has a big week coming up at work, so he decided to do the walk.  I talked to Kecka on Friday night about what pace she was planning to run.  She said 9 minute miles.  I told her I was hoping to run closer to 8:30, so she said we could try to run it together.

I'll back up a bit here, and say I had a minor melt down on Wednesday night when I ran a 29:30 5K time, much slower than I had been running.  Luckily I have an amazing husband and friends who supported and encouraged me that Saturday would be better.

Back to the race.  Kecka and I started out together, and fought our way through the crowd at the start.  At the first half mile we were around 8:45, which felt pretty good.  Each half mile, Kecka ran a little faster, and at 1.5 miles she had the pace down to 8:18.  After a rough week training, and knowing that was faster than I'd ever finished 3.1, I let her go ahead.  My uncle Mike was standing around the 2 mile mark cheering us on, which was a big boost for me.  The last 1.1 miles were right along Lake Michigan.  It was really pretty, even though it was a little cold and windy.  I was still running at a good pace at 2.5 miles, so I picked up my speed a little, and when the finish line was in sight I ran as fast as I could.

3 Generations: My mom, Miss and and me!

The official time for the race had my at 26:38, a personal best itself, but the timing started everyone at the same time, not when I actually crossed the start line.  My timing of the race was 25:59!  When E asked me what time would make me ecstatic on Friday I said low 26s, so breaking 26 was absolutely amazing for me. I guess all those early mornings this summer paid off!  Kecka finished well in front of me, and finished 2nd in her age group!  

Overall I was really happy that we did this event as a family, and I ended up with a PR too!

Apple! Apple!

We woke up Saturday to a cool, crisp fall morning.  A perfect time to get started on our fall fun list!  First up, a trip to the apple orchard.  We enjoyed our morning checking out the orchard, going for a wagon ride and using the great setting for a few cute kid pictures.  

The girls loved seeing all of the apples on the trees.  On our wagon ride Little J kept yelling, "Apple! Apple!"  She still has that babyish sounding, adorably cute little voice (not that she can't also squeal with the best of them).   I should have done a little more research before our trip though, because I didn't realize we wouldn't be able to actually pick any apples.  Kind of a let down.  We also probably would have waited until later in the day when more activities started.  Luckily I found an invitation to an apple picking party at a neighbor's house in our mailbox this morning, so it looks like we'll get to pick some apples after all.