First of many thanks

Last weekend we celebrated our 8th annual Friendsgiving with friends. We're lucky to have such great people in our lives that we are able to celebrate the holidays with every year. The majority of us have been friends for just about half of our lives and for many more years to come, I'm sure!

Who loves bath time?

These girls do! ❤️

214 days...

Or 7 months, that is how long it's been since Aubrey arrived. We couldn't be more happy with her and the love she has brought into our family. She continues to like to try new food, play with her sister and try new sounds including "da-da-da". I am convinced that she knows Patrick is dada because if he gets up to leave when he's playing with her, she whines da-da after him. 

Aubrey likes to sit and play and is starting to try to pull her way up and over to things she wants. We're looking forward to all of her firsts yet to come! We love you babe!

School photos

2015 School photos. Two girls this year instead of one :)

Halloween - 2015

This year Emily wanted to dress as Milli from Umizoomi. You can't buy a Milli costume anywhere (except Etsy) so I decided to do a little DIY. I'm not very crafty, but it still turned out recognizable and the most important thing is that Emily loves it!

A little backstory about Aubrey's costume: when Emily first met her, she said "oh, she's so cute. She looks just like a baby gorilla". And that wasn't the only time that Emily has likened her sister to a baby gorilla. Flash forward 6 months and I thought we'd just have Aubrey dress up in Emily's baby costume, a pink bunny (which she did for daycare). But one day, a package came in the mail, I opened it and there it was: an infant costume of a baby gorilla. Patrick had ordered it and it's super cute! 

Emily had a lot of fun at her preschool Halloween party and her dance class party. We also enjoyed having pizza dinner, trick or treating and post trick or treating candy sorting/playtime with some new neighbors. 

The trick or treating crew!

Beginning of the night

End of the night with her haul!

The pumpkins! Emily requested a Batman pumpkin and a Caillou pumpkin. Odd combo, but whatever!

West coast

Last weekend I went to Los Angeles for a work conference and was able to get in a lot of fun sightseeing as well. On Friday we went to Manhattan Beach. We had lunch, did some shopping, walked along the beach and the pier and got manicures.

On Saturday we visited Venice Beach and watched the sunset over the ocean.

Sunday was our last day to sight see as we were heading out Monday morning after our conference. We decided to take the bus to Santa Monica to walk the pier, the beach and watch the sunset over the ocean one last time. We followed that up with dinner at a delicious Thai food restaurant and shopping while taking in the street performances.

The weather was beautiful and sightseeing was fun but I was glad to get home to my family :) Thanks for the trip SPPS!

See ya next time, CA!

Windy City visit

Over MEA weekend we packed up the car and headed to Chicago. For the last two years we have made a stop at Wisconsin Dells to break up the drive, spend the night and play in the water.

This year we stayed at the great Wolf Lodge and we all had a great time. It's a perfect family hotel with lots to do for kids. We had lunch at a restaurant remodel train brought us for the food, played at the arcade, went swimming (and on giant water slides!), Trick-or-treating, story time and Emily also got a manicure at the kids before we left in the morning. We will definitely return!

Our visit in Chicago was great. We relaxed and let the kids play on Friday and went to the children's museum and the park on Saturday. To celebrate William's birthday we roasted marshmallows and made Smore's although I think everyone was more excited than the birthday boy - Emily had THREE s'mores! It was also fun to get the babies together, it's fun to have a cousin your same age :) We are looking forward to seeing all of them at Thanksgiving again.

Cousins <3