Fairies!!!

This year's halloween costumes were seriously the easiest. Both girls wanted to be some sort of a fairy however the "type" of fairy they wanted to be kept changing but with we have enough wands, wings, etc to accommodate almost all types of fairies. I believe they settled on a purple butterfly fairy and a rainbow fairly. We had a great Halloween trick-or-treating with some other families in Lawrence!

Art for Baby

The girls had a blast making custom art for their new cousin's room!!! And it took me so long to post these that said cousin is already but here but we will save that for another post :). I don't think it will surprise anyone how Juliet chose to paint. Obviously staying within the lines is not a motto Juliet follows....

Pumpkin Patch

A colleague of Mark's lives on a beautiful piece of land north of Kansas City and happens to have a pumpkin patch as a "next door" neighbor. Her family hosts a party each fall that starts with a hay ride to the neighbor's pumpkin patch and then returns to their land for a campfire cookout. It was an awesome way to spend a picture perfect fall Sunday!

Well she has been a Kansas resident for  coming up on a year so it was time she learned to jump hay bales. Amelia was slightly unsure at first. Many of the other kids at the party have been in the past years so they all could hardly wait for the hay ride to start before they were jumping off and onto the hay bales.

Juliet was NOT unsure.

With the land being north of Kansas City they get plenty of airplanes flying over to/from MCI. The kids were all in heaven with the wide open space, hay to run on and watching planes fly over.

We were able to get the girls off the hay bales and over to the pumpkin patch.

Thank goodness Juliet was there to pull our pumpkins. Yes, she desperately needs a hair cut which I took care of tonight. Her bangs are by no means straight but at least we can stop calling her shaggy.

Happy 70th Poppy

We spent a weekend in Galena, Illinois to celebrate Poppy's 70th birthday. Of course since Mark and Tom share a birthday it was also Mark's birthday but the big 70 overshadowed Mark's big 35...

getting ready for the alpine slide

mission: beat Georgia and Uncle Tomme

Amelia's first chair lift ride!

Sadly, all the iPad's may have been the cousin's favorite part of their weekend together.....

a quick trip into Chicagoland for a much missed Sunday Super with my Chicago/Kansas Girls! The guest of honor was Ms. Bernadette!!!!

Amelia's darling drawing from the car ride home! She said the top pink triangle is her bedroom and the bottom one is my kitchen. 

End of Summer

scenes from the end of summer

We really took advantage of the pool at our rental complex! We spent many nights having takeout pizza by the pool. The big news in the pool was that towards the end of the summer Amelia started swimming on her own! She told Mark one day that she didn't want her floatie and low and behold she swam on her own!

Juliet leading the way to the pool. On one of our last pool outings Juliet decided that she needed to see what would happen if she dumped an ENTIRE bag of tortilla chips into the pool. It is a black bottom pool. It was a total mess. Thanks to the Cates family who attempted to fish out soggy chips with us... The rest of the chips sunk to the bottom and covered the black bottom pool. Oops.

balloon animals with Norah

Picking fresh green beans at Pendleton's farm. As for the haze in the picture that is called Kansas in August. For those not familiar with Kansas in August that is what we call insane humidity. I adore Amelia's face in this picture as she is looking at the train like she has never seen one before. I wonder if she was trying to figure out why there were not people on the train and where the train stop is OR wondering what in the world is wrong with the weather in Kansas.

Juliet and her beloved summer hat

 the girl can't use a fork but thank goodness she can eat edamame with chop sticks.

Colorado 2013 (forgot a photo)

I forgot to download the photos on my phone before doing the cabin blog post.. How could I have forgotten what may be my favorite picture from the trip! Amelia learned that when making the drive from Lawrence to Colorado you have to manage your liquid intake as there are many stretches of highway with no conventional restroom stops... Thanks to a potty training little sister, Amelia wasn't totally out of luck....

Colorado 2013

A summer isn't complete without a trip to the cabin! This year instead of lugging two car seats in a taxi to Midway, dealing with two little ones on an airplane, etc we were able to drive. We hadn't had a real family vacation in over a year so we really enjoyed our week together! Papa of course was at the cabin and Vivian joined us for a few days. Viv was such a trooper and played many rounds of dominos with Amelia! I am fairly certain the highlight of the trip for the girls were the new swings Papa bought them. I personally was super excited to see the cabin renovations as the cabin had not been renovated in 30+ years and man did it need it!

Amelia not so patient waiting for the new swings to be put up.

Of course what do you think Juliet will do when there is an open ladder and no adult watching?

and the swings are up! It couldn't have been planned more perfectly. We found pairs of trees that are at just the right angle that the girls can swing towards each other but don't hit. Needless to say they could not have been happier each with their own swing, the fresh mountain air and amazing view for swinging.

Juliet still loves baby swings as she just sits back and enjoys the ride.

After a summer at Raintree, Amelia is a pro at pumping her legs!

walking back from the swings. She the swings make them so happy that they  can even make it from the swings to the cabin without arguing. 

loving the deck comes naturally to all of us!

Amelia and Papa worked very hard putting in a new stone path, flower bed and planting wild mountain flowers.

we attempted a hike. It was a mile walk around a flat lake :). Juliet would walk five steps, stop, eat some crackers, mess with the stuff in her backpack, maybe sit down and then be talked into getting up and walking another five steps before repeating.

This was the first summer it seemed the girls were old enough to enjoy some of the finer activities in Estes Park.

By the end our very brave four year old had to ride by herself...

Anyone who has met Amelia knows that she is a bit of an observer. Amelia likes to watch other kiddos do something new before she tries it. Also, she will only do new things on her terms. She actually can be a bit adventurous but the idea has to come from her. Well when walking up to slides she spotted kids on the trampolines and said she wanted to try. We went got her ticket, waited in line and Mark/dad/myself all expected her to decide she didn't want to try once we got to the front of the line. All the kiddos she wanted do it were quite a bit older. Brave Amelia just hopped right on up when it was her turn.

As they started raising her up I kept waiting for her to want to get back down. Or at a minimum I thought she would want to be done before her four minutes was up. I guess she showed us!!!

She really had a great time and told us that next year she will do flips like the big girls were doing! So once again we were reminded that Amelia really does like to try new things but on her terms and certainly not when forced to.

and this year's obligatory family photo had a bit of a spin to it :).