October - Hayward, Nana and Pop and Halloween

We had a fun October! We started off the month with a visit to Hayward to see the fall foliage. We were a little late for peak up there, but the drive was beautiful. And late for peak means there were LOTS of leaves on the ground. Braenna was terrified, Mikaiya however had a blast jumping and playing in the leaves!

We also had a new milestone with Braenna. She finally got over her fear of the Ranger! She has been terrified of anything "loud" for quite some time, so this was a great thing for her to get over. Hopefully it sticks into next year!

October also brings the fun of Halloween. This year was our first Halloween in our new neighborhood. The girls went to the Halloween party at our gym on the Saturday before Halloween. Here is our little angel and Strawberry shortcake:

We carved pumpkins and the girls also painted pumpkins this year. They had a lot of fun and lucky for us, the weather cooperated and we were able to keep the paint mess outside!

We also had the fun of Nana and Pop coming to visit. It was a little chilly, but we wanted to give them a little bit of a taste of Madison, so we went downtown and visited Monona Terrace...it was COLD!! But, we still got a picture!! We also saw the capitol and ate at a good old fashioned WI restaurant where we introduced them to cheese curds! Yum!!

They also got to stay for Halloween. Nana walked with us and the girls while Pop helped with candy duty at the house...Pop was quite busy with the over 150 trick or treater's we had!! Quite the change from our old neighborhood where we were literally begging the kids to take our candy!!

Here are the rest of our October photos: Click here for photos!

Apple Picking

Now that we are back in the north again, we get the joy of apple picking in the fall! This was the first time the girls got to go and they really enjoyed it! This is my favorite picture from the day...my girls waiting to go picking and just being silly!
Braenna was super proud of the first apple she picked...we had to help her a little bit with the technique after this one!

Mikaiya jumped right in too! She was a pro from the start!

I love this picture...my artsy one! This is Mikaiya, Emily and Braenna all venturing out into the apple trees. I just think it's cute and fun since they are all in age order and disappearing into the trees.

We even got a nice family picture!

And of course, a cute one of the three kids (who were all eating an apple!):

Aunt Teresa and Aunt Cece also joined us. It was a lot of fun and the apples were delicious! I was amazed how fast we were able to go through 20 pounds of apples, but they were so good that we all ate them like crazy!! This is definitely going to become a yearly tradition!

Camping

We took the kids on their first "camping" experience a few weeks back. One of our new friends invited us to come up to their campground for the day to experience the early Halloween festivities at the campgrounds. We decided at the last minute to go, so we just reused an old costume of Mikaiya's and created one for Braenna. Here is Mikaiya and her little friend all ready to head out for some trick or treating:
This is a cute one of all the kids ready to go. As you can see in the background, everyone at the sites really gets into it...kids and adults!

There was a contest for who had the best decorated campsite. Braenna was not phased by any of the decorations...she even picked up a fake bloody hand at one point...NICE!! Mikaiya however did not like them...she wouldn't go near this one because of the fake spiders!

This is one of the best coordinated campsites. They did a clown horror theme and everyone at the site dressed up like clowns. It's unbelievable how much these people went through to get their site ready!!

We had just planned to go up for the day, but the kids (and us!) had so much fun between the trick or treating, playing at the parks and the costume contest/dance that we ended up staying the night. Luckily there was plenty of space for all in the camper!

Jeff's Birthday

September brings us Jeff's birthday! Always a great reason to blog. Here is daddy and his two favorite little girls celebrating his birthday:
He got to get one present early this year. I'm pretty proud of myself because he was out doing the yard and commented that he really needed a leaf blower...guess who had thought of that for his birthday all on her own?? Yay me!We got a yummy Dairy Queen ice cream cake for the birthday celebration.

And had Casey, Mike, Teresa and Emily over to help blow out the candles. Funny that no matter whose birthday it is, the kids are ALWAYS blowing out the candles!!

This year Jeff even got a night out on the town for his birthday. We celebrated Mike's big 3-0 and Jeff's big 3-5 with a nice steak dinner followed by a party with friends at a local bar. A good time was had by all. And of course, the cake was beer themed

Mikaiya Starts Kindergarten!

Our baby girl officially started Kindergarten on Sept 1. We are so proud of her! She was so excited for her first day and especially excited that both mommy and daddy were going to walk her to school! Here she is waiting for it to be time to go:

It was a gorgeous day, so we had to do a few outdoor shots. Here she is looking cute on the deck:

And all ready to go with her new Tinkerbell back pack:

We don't have bus service since we are 3 blocks from the school, so this is the closest shot I get to her getting on the bus for the first time...she is RUNNING to school...as fast as she can! We could barely catch up!

And of course, what would the first day of school be without the standard shot outside the front of the school?

Here she is in her classroom, coloring in her name tag:

We are so incredibly proud of our little Mikaiya and the wonderful little girl she has turned into. She loves Kindergarten and is learning so much on a daily basis. She has made a lot of new friends too! I got the sweetest note from her teacher last week, telling me how she "adores" Mikaiya, that she is "sweet and kind" and "always wants to help others". These are some of the best qualities I could ever imagine being told that my child possesses. I consider it my responsibility that she keeps these qualities all through the rest of her life! What lucky parents we are to have such a great child in our lives!

A Stampf Family Visit

Wow, how did I get soooo far behind?? I came in to post about September and discovered...I somehow missed August!! Life has just been CRAZY!!

We took a trip to see our family in NY in August. It was a lot of fun. The girls swam and swam (and swam!!) despite a couple of rainy days. Mikaiya even went in off the diving board and swam all the way to the other side of the pool!! Braenna also turned into a fish...more of the sunning sort though as she floated around in her princess tube:

The girls got to spend some time with their cousins. I love this one of Max and the girls hanging out by the pool. They really seemed to enjoy each others company!

The girls really enjoyed their time with Nana and Pop. This is a pretty cute picture of them:

And we even managed to get a picture of Nana and Pop with ALL of their grandkids. And one where someone is not crying!!

We also got a cute one of the 4 kids together. They are so sweet!

It was really great to get to see everyone! Max and Ethan are growing so fast! We really wish we could see them more than just the once a year. Here is the link to the rest of our pics from our visit to NY: Click Here!

My Little Flower Girl

It was brought to my attention that I never blogged about my beautiful little flower girl...and you know what? I should!! So here goes!!

Mikaiya was such a great little flower girl for Aunt Cece and Uncle Mike's wedding in July. She spent the whole morning getting ready with the bridal party. Here she is getting even more beautiful than usual with her hot rollers in:
This is one of my favorites from the day. She could not WAIT to put on her dress!! She was soooo excited. I held her off until about 11 AM (we weren't going to the church until 1!!), but that was the best I could do. She looked so pretty!

It was very sweet to watch her when all of the action was going on. Right before this picture she had whispered to me that Aunt Cece was becoming a "princess". She was so in awe of every moment and so proud to be part of Aunt Cece's big day!

Here is a picture of me with my sweet little girl. I am so lucky to be her mommy!

Mikaiya did an AWESOME job at the ceremony! We were quite worried after the rehearsal the day before, but we had worked hard with her on prepping her for what was going go happen and she did great. She walked straight down the aisle and stood up front for almost the whole ceremony. She did so well!

She really enjoyed the reception too. One of the guests sent me this picture and it is definitely my favorite! She sure does love her Aunt Cece and was having a blast dancing with her!!

Thank you to Casey and Mike for letting Mikaiya be a part of your special day. I know this is something she will remember for the rest of her life and always look back fondly on!

Just in case anyone wants to see the rest of my pics, click here!

July Photos

July was a very fun and exciting month for us! We had a trip to Hayward, Aunt Cece and Uncle Mike's wedding, a visit from the Brown family and then another weekend in Hayward! We had a really great month. Here are the remaining pictures that we haven't already posted:

Click Here for Pictures

The Brown Family Visits WI!

We were so fortunate to get to have some of our best friends from TX come visit us this weekend!! Danny, Jodi, Aiden and Alina were up in the UP on vacay and stopped in to visit us on their way back home to TX. They came in Friday evening and left on Sunday morning. It was a short visit, but so worth it to get to see them all!! The girls were so excited to see their little friends, and one of the first things they all enjoyed was the big screen in the media room and some popcorn for movie night:
On Saturday, we took them to downtown Madison to see the capitol and Monona Terrace on Lake Menona. It was a beautiful day and Monona Terrace was the perfect location to catch up on some photos. Here are the 4 kids:

We got a nice family shot:

And Jodi and I got a new photo together...since we've both lost quite a bit of weight, our old photos together don't even look like us anymore!!

Of course I had to get one of Jeff and I also:

After Monona Terrace we walked through the square to a restaurant called The Old Fahioned where we enjoyed some yummy Wisconsin cheese curds and several Wisconsin brewed beers. It was fun and the food/drinks were yummy!!

We got home and the kids had some downtime watching a movie while the adults hung out. Then the kids swam while the adults enjoyed some games of bean bags. We had a great time! This is my absolute favorite new picture of Mikaiya and her little "boyfriend" Aiden...it totally caprtures their little personalities:

We also got a cute one of Braenna and her BFF Alina...they are so cute!

We also got a nice pic of all of us when we were at Monona Terrace... We had such a great time and are so happy that the Brown's were able to stop in and visit us! We look forward to the next time we all get to be together!!

Hayward Vacation 2011

Seems to be a common theme on this blog...I'm behind again!! I uploaded Hayward photos when we got back, but realized I never blogged or sent out the link...whoops!! We had a really nice time up north...the best part was it didn't involve an 18 hour drive each way this year!!

We were really busy while we were up this year. We actually were up on "Musky Fest" weekend this year, so we got to go to the carnival and all the Musky Fest activities. Here are Mikaiya, Braenna and Emily on the swings at the carnival....they all loved them!!

The girls really enjoyed fishing this year (Mikaiya especially). I love this pic of the girls all fishing with Grammy, Grampa and Aunt Teresa on the dock:

Here is Mikaiya so very proud of her catch!! She hasn't put two and two together just yet on what happens to the fish after she catches them. It hasn't occurred to her that they are the same fish on the dinner table on fish fry night yet ;) We'll see how much she enjoys fishing when she figures that one out!!

We did get one rainy day this year, so we decided to take the kids mini golfing. Overall, considering we had two 3 year old's and a 5 year old, it went pretty well. They actually paid attention almost the whole time and really seemed to enjoy it. Here the girls are posing for a quick photo op:

We even got to have a couple of campfires while we were there. This is my favorite campfire pic...notice my girls covering their faces from the smoke, and Emily looking at them like they are nuts! I don't think they get the "fun" in a campfire quite yet!!

We rented a pontoon boat this year and it was really fun. It was perfect for the kids because they could safely wander around the boat while we were moving. It was also great because we were finally able to check out one of the natural sand beaches on Nelson Lake. It was a definite hit and somewhere we plan to return to next time!!

I love this picture of my girls and their daddy out on the pontoon! They are all so cute!!

Katie, Bruce, Andrew, Jenna and baby Mikey came to visit us also. I love this pic of the kiddos. They are all pretty close in age, so it's great to see them play and interact and each year they enjoy each other's company more and more!!

Overall, we had a great trip! There are always interesting moments with 3 little ones all in one house, but I think everyone did pretty well in general and we all had a great time!! We are fortunate to be close enough now to go up more than once a year and are looking forward to at least one more weekend trip up to the lake!!

There are a TON more pics...you can view them all here: Click here for pictures!