Halloween

Digging through the crawl space for costumes this year seemed to be fairly successful. Adde is obsessed with Fancy Nancy right now, and we found a clever way to use a dog costume we already had to become Frenchy - Fancy's dog. For some reason the bee just seemed to fit Eleanor's personality.

We walked around the neighborhood for about an hour with the neighbors, and came home with over 100 pieces of candy and $4. Not too shabby. Adde's candy stash seemed to dwindle rather quickly, and not by her either. I let Eleanor have one piece - a Milky Way. I thought she was going to burn a hole in her shirt when she signed please to get more. I have not seen her little hand move that fast or that hard before.

Birthdays Everywhere!

August and September were birthday months for us!  We celebrated Eleanor's August 24th in Minnesota, a joint celebration for both girls over Labor Day Weekend in Indiana, and Addelynn's September 26th in Minnesota.  We are so blessed to celebrate and remember the births of these two little girls.



And a few movies for fun...









Does anyone have the video of the cake presentation in Indiana? I can't seem to find it and I know it's really funny to see Adde's response to her Dora cake.

State Fair 2011

As I write about the State Fair from August, I really miss the shorts and short sleeved shirts. I am so behind in life, but I've got to start catching up this blog somehow.

This was Adde's third year at the Fair, and Eleanor's first. The girls had a great time. We tried different foods this year - no Sweet Martha's cookies. On my list was a pretzel dog, deep fried pickles with cream cheese inside, and a sweet dream peach. I succeeded in sabatozing the plans to visit each of these stands. I think the peach was my favorite. Aside from food, we saw lots of animals, watched the parade, sat on lots of different farm and yard machinery, went into the campers (one of Adde's favorite things to do), and did some crafts and coloring. Mark was a spotter this year for work, so we looked for other people wearing the bright orange shirts and handing out gift cards. On a side note, this was the first year we took Adde to the cow milking station and she had no questions about this process...hmmm.

Look Who's Driving!

 

We're back...

but I don't know for how long.  Have to be honest, time to blog seems to not exist anymore.  I did find this album I meant to share earlier, but the computer was having problems.  So here's to our own Etsy shop (for those of you who haven't been introduced to the world of Etsy, it's fabulous.  Handmade items to buy or sell.  Even better than Etsy is Heartsy - selected deals for the day on Etsy).  Anyway...

Our next little diva...

who is one today! Happy Birthday sweet baby Eleanor Jane! More to come later on the birthday thoughts...

My First Half Marathon

and I will entice you to read something about me by inserting pictures of my adorable fan club!

I ran my first half marathon this past Sunday. This has been on my bucket list for years. There is always an excuse. This year I got connected with some people from my church who were running with Team World Vision to raise money and awareness for kids in Africa who don't have clean water. I decided to join the cause. Then the famine hit East Africa, and it seemed like there were reminders every day in the paper about the realities across the globe. I cried one morning reading about the babies in Kenya and seeing a picture of a baby boy - so starkly different from my healthy baby girl. God once again softened my heart to the reality of the rest of the world.

I signed up to run this race because it was something I've always wanted to do, but I know now that God wanted to make me more aware and give me an aching heart for His kids. It truly was exhilirating to run. I felt great (until that night...oh boy). Hopefully I can do this again. I finished in 2:02:44. Now my goal is to finish under 2 hours if there is a next time.

(Eleanor just can't seem to focus on the camera for anything:))

Guesses?

Notice the mark on her cheek? Any guesses as to what caused this?

New Wheels

The girls have found new wheels this month...

Eleanor's Dedication

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ." Philippians 1:9-10