Ella's photo shoot

We decided to make a photo invitation for Ella's fourth birthday party, so we needed to do a photoshoot on a beautiful sunny day. It's much easier to work with a four year old than with a an 18 month old...that's for sure :)

I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee

We came across this bumblebee costume that was given to us from Aunt Colette a while back and Taylor wanted it on...she still loves to play dress up! She put it on and didn't want to take it off the rest of the night.

A visit from The Great Pumpkin!

A few weeks ago we got a visit from The Great Pumpkin! While we were inside cleaning up and putting dishes away, we heard that a special visitor had left us a surprise on our front porch. Each girl got their own pumpkin, so stayed tuned for a later post in which we actually do some carving!

Lincoln park zoo and cupcakes too!!!

On Saturday September 11th, we packed up the girls and drove into the city for a visit to the Lincoln Park Zoo. We first went to Nick and Fisher's place to park our van, see their apartment and also let Ella and Taylor visit with Octavia. From their apartment, we all walked the mile to the Lincoln Park Zoo and saw all the animals. The morning started off a bit rainy, but quickly turned to a beautiful day with minimal crowds!

Thanks for being the photographer Fisher!!

After the zoo and a quick lunch, we needed to get the girls home for nap. But first we stopped at
Molly's Cupcakes in the city b/c of their awesome reviews and b/c one of the women that work there recently won a cupcake contest on the Food Network...so it had to be good! Good is an extreme understatement. The cupcakes were amazing and we all enjoyed after dinner that night.

One of the cupcakes didn't make it home...we had to eat it in the car :)

Labor Day 2010 in Michigan

This year we were invited to go up to the Chuck and Sharon Lamz's house near Muskegon, Michigan. Once we found out it was only a 3 1/2 hour drive and since the girls had never been to beach, we knew right away that we would take our first family vacation. We drove up on Saturday morning and stayed until Monday morning. Of course traffic, construction and lunch breaks caused the drive there and back to be more like 5 hours, but both Ella and Taylor were incredibly well behaved the entire drive!

While in Michigan we went to a festival in Muskegon and watched dogs do tricks (Taylor loved that), had ice cream every night we were there, played outside and spent time at the beach building a sand castle. Of course the weather was a bit chilly and it rained a few times, but we still had a great time!