(pre-) birthday celebrations

This was my first time making and using marshmallow fondant. It's not perfect,
but it did the trick. 

Last week we had a little birthday celebration with some of Gavin's friends. I didn't get great pictures, but here are a few. His little friends are so adorable, and it was fun for Gavin to have them all here to sing and eat cake.

Food items included this deceptiCORN, energon cubes (sandwiches),
meteorites (clementines) and autobot fuel (beverage).

This concept was maybe never 4-year-old friendly, but I thought it was cute. :)

A favorite gift: Optimus Prime that easily transforms

Halloween 2014

 We had a fun Halloween this year. The above greeting was irresistible with Sophie's 'fangs' having grown in just in time.

Gavin was a firefighter; Sophie was a strawberry. Gavin insisted Jacob and I also dress up, so I was a strawberry farmer and Jacob was a person in a burning building in need of rescue. :)

I made this costume. Mostly I'm grateful I found something warm for her to wear!

At every single house he asked "do you got a fire?" Grammar aside, it was adorable. 

10 months!

 Sophie is 10 months old today! Until now she's been pure sweetness; this month she started showing some attitude. But it's still mixed with a lot of sweetness. :)
She has 2 teeth and drools constantly. Her favorite food is yogurt (Chobani key lime, to be exact). We're still not sure what color her eyes are. Now that she's crawling, she's getting around everywhere she wants to go, and she loves that. Her favorite activities are playing in the pantry, laughing at her brother, and being with Grandpa Garth.

Here's the required picture overload--because she's such a beautiful girl!

Before I realized she could, she got into the sugar and made a huge mess. That's what's all over her face here.

loving autumn

discovering the sandbox

Pumpkin patch

We have an adorable pumpkin patch in the middle of our town called Kleather's. Here's a collection of photos from the several times we went this pumpkin season.

We wore the same shirt one time.

One of our visits was with Grandma and Grandpa and cousins (R-L because it's age-descending) Dean, Isaac and Eli.

Another trip to Kleather's was a field trip for the library's story time. Here Gavin is pictured with his best friend Macey.

It's a caramel apple lollipop. He had shared a lick with her, so she knew she wanted more... :)

Milestones

Sophie recently got her first tooth (about 3 weeks ago it started to break through). It's not the usual first tooth. Or second or third or fourth. You can see it above. If not, here's the detailed view.

The crazy part: her second tooth is coming in, and it's the mirror of this one! She's about to give us a preview of how she'll look as a first-grader with no front teeth.

Sophie also started crawling last week. Here's a video from today. She had just grabbed her Dad's tie off the banister, so I'm not sure if she intended to take it along on her crawl or not. :)

9 months old!

Sophie is 9 months old today! She has 1 tooth, and she crawled for the first time TODAY. She's babbling a lot (ba-ba and da-da, with the occasional ma-ma). She's the sweetest baby--so mellow and happy. 

Chicago girls' weekend

I just spent a wonderful girls' weekend in Chicago with my Mom, Aunt Joye (Mom's sister), Aunt Nancy (Mom's sister-in-law) and Emily, my brother Bob's wife. We had such an incredible time together, and we're all in love with this gorgeous city!

We loved the river tour we took with the Chicago Architecture Foundation. The docent was fun, and the views from the river were great. And the architecture was fascinating. 

view to the north from the top of the Hancock building

At the top of the Hancock building, they have the Tilt. It was just a little more intense than I thought it would be. But fun. I'm glad I did it. :)

a late-night bus ride 

my 4 wonderful travel companions - I love them all!

We got a bit carried away with our photo shoot at the bean (Cloud Gate). It was fun taking photos with these fabulous ladies.

We made it to the top of the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower)--the tallest of the tall. The views were beautiful!

On our last morning we rode the ferris wheel at Navy Pier, which was fun and provided great views of the skyline.