Shortly after our trip to Wales we went to Michigan to surprise G's dad for his 70th bday. Boy, was he surprised. We all had a blast and Gpa was happy to have the whole family together. Here's a pic of our family with the Gparents:
We also had a sad passing of G's grandmother Geri. She was his last living grandparent. She always loves to watch the great grandkids play whenever we visited in Michigan. She really loved being around her family. She lived to be almost 93 and we actually got to see her in the summer a few months before she passed. Here is a pic of G & the kids and Great Gma Geri:
We went on an early Fall hike up near Devil's Lake, one of the prettiest areas near Madison to go hiking. The hike was called Palfrey's Glen. The kids were side by side almost the entire time. They were really cute:
The hike used to go up to a waterfall, but the last year's flooding completely wiped out the boardwalk that used to be there so it was a bit difficult for the little ones to finish off the hike. Instead we ate a picnic lunch by the stream leading from the waterfall. Both kids were glad to take a rest:
But on the way back, J was perky and enjoyed walking next to her Papa:
This Fall was also F's first haircut - yes he's over 2 and he finally had enough hair to get it tangled enough that I thought he should get a haircut. I wanted to keep the curls, because I love them, so he just had a trim. Here is the funny boy himself.
Pre haircut:
During haircut:
Post haircut:
We visited a dairy farm with J & F's school earlier this month and we had such a great time...learned a lot about cows and even got to sit in a tractor!
Here's a cute pic of F as we got ready to leave for the farm:
When we got to the farm the kids discovered tractor wheels are good as a cozy seat too:
F in the tractor:
Animal time:
And we even got to take a hay ride and pick our pumpkins:
Onto another topic: Pretend Play. The kids are starting to really play together now. Their 2 favorite games are dressup and mommy/baby. They make up a story and act it out - most of the time F's the baby and J's the mom, of course, though I think J's learned what it's like to have a mouthy 'baby' when she tells him what to do and he says "no!". I think G's and my favorite story recently is 'campout'. That's where they tell us to lay on the couch, they put a blanket over us, then they tell us to go to sleep because we're in a tent and it's nightime and it's time for sleep. Every once in a while one or the other of them comes over to give us a kiss and to tell us to shut our eyes. The hardest thing is trying not to fall asleep during the game!
Here is some dressup fun they had a couple weeks ago, F's outfit is quite the statement:
J is still taking her ballet class, and here are some recent pics from the day they read Aladdin.
And just today we finally had a mostly sunny day. It's been raining for many days and it's our break before the next storm blows in tomorrow. So we raked the leaves from our one tree in our yard and had some fun in the leave pile. Enjoy!
