family pictures.

The second title for this post is "our baby loves a camera tripod". :)

Since our Christmas cards have been out for a little while now, I figured we could go ahead and post a few of the family pictures we took recently.

This was us on a November Sunday evening, a tripod set up for the camera, and in the field in our backyard.  We stuck with a black and white clothing theme, with the gorgeous gold fields behind us.
We got lucky and captured what we wanted in just 10 minutes, and then figured we were all dressed nice we should go out to eat.

the fall 2015.

This morning we had the most perfect picturesque snowfall ever.  The trees were frosted and looked painted. Roofs and grass were covered.  And not a single drop of snow was on a driveway, road or sidewalk.  Perfect.  It was gorgeous and no one needed to shovel.  I would like to order this every single day for December and January please - it was beautiful.

Snow is definitely a sign that Fall is over.  I wanted to post a little compilation video of some of our Fall happenings.  We love Fall around here.  Pumpkin farms, apple donuts, apple cider slushies (and now someone else in our family loves them too and steals mine!), decorating pumpkins, costumes, playing in leaves.... on and on.

Turn up the volume - enjoy.

winter wonderland.

I have discovered that if you hang your Christmas decorations early you are far more prepared if you get an early snowfall. :)
It's actually true.  In our house that has been decorated for Christmas for a little while, the snowfall just added right to it.  And when you have a four year old in your house, it's hard not to be excited about snow!  It is beautiful and white and lights up the world - and our house. :)  Somehow I forget each year how pretty it is when snow lights up the night sky.

So snow - somehow I fall a little more in love with it each year.  Now, I fall into the category that doesn't have to drive in it everyday, and I'm officially 5 years removed from the drive to work in it mode.  From our cozy house it is always pretty and white and looks freshly fallen.  And I truthfully love an excuse for a little hibernation.  Snuggled with my family, a blanket, cat on my lap and a cup of hot cocoa in my cozy warm clothes is welcomed each year.  I just like the transition and new things each season brings.

Today Quinn dove right into the snow!

Every time I see of picture of her lately, I just let out a big sigh in disbelief that she is this big.
Wasn't she just this little snow baby?

Andie will be wearing that snowsuit this winter.
Why does time go so quickly?!

Well that little girl just brought home a stellar progress report from school.  More important than all the plus marks was that "Quinn is a good friend to all."  Our hearts are so happy.
Quinn is an amazing little girl.  We love watching her grow and this year in dance she is really blossoming - it's amazing to see.  She is pretty excited about her upcoming dance recital!  She has also officially passed mommy in our sign language learning.

November has not been a good blogging month - but I intend to get a Fall Video post and Andie post up soon.  Now that I think we can consider Fall to be over, and Andie is a big walking everywhere 17 months now!

If it doesn't happen before Thursday - HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone!
We are so very grateful for all the love in our lives - from all of you.

halloween 2015.

We had a wonderful couple weeks full of Halloween festivities.  And I must admit the girls costume combo this year is a favorite for sure. :)

The Big Bad Wolf chasing little Red Riding Hood - OR just trying to take her furry hat off ;).

Our town has a fall Pumpkin Festival - and it's a big deal around here - we all love it!  The kids even get a day off of school for it. :)  It's classic small town cuteness.  The fact that we chose a town that has a fall festival as opposed to a hot summer festival is absolute perfection.

Each year everyone decorates pumpkins that fill the courthouse lawn for a contest.  This year Quinn chose PJ Masks (a new Disney show) - which meant 3 pumpkins!  Here she is with her 3 pumpkins.  (the ones in front of her - not the ones behind her :))

So one of the cons to some of the time surrounding Halloween was that Todd hurt is back.  Fortunately he is on the mend and doing much better, and thankfully it was kind of between festivities.  In between taking care of Daddy, Quinn and I would sneak away each day during Andie's long afternoon nap for Pumpkinfest festivities - craft shows, carnivals, parade, pumpkins...etc.

One of the benefits of Pumpkinfest is that by the time Halloween gets here the pressure is off, not great weather - no big deal- the girls have already been trick or treating downtown and worn their costumes on several occasions.  And that seems to be how it works most years - beautiful weather for pumpkinfest, chilly and rainy for Halloween.  Fortunately Halloween night wasn't too bad this year so we did go trick or treating with the girls and they loved it!

 I mean...so stinkin cute!

Costume info:  Quinn's awesome little red riding hood attire is off of Amazon, and Andie's little Wolf is from Pottery Barn.

 That is Quinn acting scared of the Big ferocious wolf - or maybe singing on Broadway? :)

Quinn also enjoyed a Halloween party at school with a cute costume parade and a Halloween sing.  It was so cute!  Grandma and Grandpa from Florida were in for a few days and were able to catch the cuteness.

A wonderful October full of pumpkins, parties, festival festivities, many trips to pumpkin farms, apple donuts and apple cider slushies, adorable costumes and beautiful weather.

little red and her wolf.

A little sneak peek of our little loves in their Halloween duds. 

It was a beautiful day for some Halloween festivities.
More pics of the most beautiful Little Red Riding Hood and cutest and sweetest big bad wolf around :) to come.

the day we had three cats.

Lucy had no idea, but for a day she had an adopted brother and sister.

Let's start from the beginning.
One lazy Sunday morning the four of us snuggled on the couch and watched the movie Turbo.  After the movie was over Todd headed outside to do some lawn work.  He came to the door and told me to come and then said "all of you come".  So I immediately thought - oh, he must have found a snail or slug or something.
Well when we got outside we found something much furrier and way cuter.
A little black and brown kitten just laying in the driveway.

So we immediately started asking around the neighbors and the farm behind us, no one had cats or a cat that would have had kittens.
I remembered that we had occasionally seen a cat in our yard bordering the tree line, and lightbulb - "Todd, I think we need to check the rest of the bushes.  This kitten didn't come far on it's own, that cat had kittens and there may be more".

It took about 5 seconds of looking before Todd said "Yup, there's another one!" and saw two tiny blue eyes peeking out from the bush.

We didn't find anymore kittens.  As the day went on, and we were playing outside they become a little more comfortable with us and ate some food too.

About 5 seconds after we found them they were each named.
Columbus and Bella.

After the girls were tucked in their beds that night, I came back outside to check on the kitties.  And very quickly I heard a big meow and saw mama cat.  Yay!  I was so excited she was back with her babies.

We kind of hoped they would stick around or visit occasionally to be little mousers for us, but that night mama cat took them somewhere else.

But it was a fun day with three cats...that Lucy will never really know about. :)

a new trick.

the new disappearing food trick :)



More to come from this girl...
Lots of catching up to do as she now is a day shy of 16 months and I haven't posted much!  Like her first steps!...a month ago. oops.

andie time.

Somebody is getting to be such a big girl!

So this year Quinn is going to Preschool 3 days a week for about 3 hours each day.  That means 3 mornings a week it is just me and this little sweetie.  I am cherishing every moment and always recognizing what a special time this is for the two of us.  Quinn and I had more than 3 years of just us time not running around to places and uninterrupted - just time at home, so I very much cherish this time with Andie and try to make sure we have at least one or two mornings a week that we are just that - at home and just playing.  And I give her as many snuggles, squeezes and smooches as I can. :)

twinsies.

It's Thursday so I guess a throwback is appropriate. :)

just dance.

Dance has started up for this girl again.
It is her 4th session.  It's hard to imagine that she started as a tiny two year old.
We always take the summer off with daddy home so much and it's a nice break.
When we got ready for the fall and looked at activities, Quinn said she wanted to keep dancing - I think she loves the recitals the most!

This time getting her dressed for dance felt so different.  We have a different girl, a different dancer.  She has just grown so much.  She feels so tall now with these long dancing legs.  I can't get over how much she has grown since that very first class when she still had a diaper under that tutu.

We love what dance has taught her - which extends far behind just the motion of dancing.  She has become a confident girl - a girl who is out dancing on the volleyball court during every single timeout when the music plays, a girl excited to tackle new things, be herself in front of others.

So proud of our little dancer.

matching set.

Because sometimes I just have to dress our little matching brown eyed babies in matching outfits.

kite fest.

We spent a gorgeous day flying kites yesterday.
Kite fest is such a fun local activity on a beautiful September day.

Rainbow Bear enjoyed watching the kites too.

The kite Quinn picked out (on our last minute kite shopping run on the way there :).

back to school dinner recipes.

Since it was back to school week for Quinn this week and Fall is here, I thought I would post some of our favorite dinner recipes.  We start doing a little less grilling and little more home cookin' this time of year.  I love that the seasons constantly change things up.
One thing we have done in our house is cut back on meat - a lot!  One it's much healthier for you, and two it keeps our grocery budget down.  I could go meatless 5 nights a week easy, but my husband probably wouldn't like it. :)  So many recipes we do now tend to incorporate a smaller portion of meat. It's pretty rare that it is ever the star of the plate I guess I would say.

So if you are looking for a different idea to add to your dinner menu maybe this will inspire you.
I also like the idea of putting this down for the girls to look back on one day, and for me when I need to remember other dinner ideas we used to do. :)

My girls eat all of these, or at least a modified version so we aren't cooking two meals!

First up -

Cheesy Sausage Tortellini
My favorite thing about this meal (other than that it's delicious and my kids eat it) is that it is a ONE pan meal!  I love preparing a one pan meal.  This recipe requires few ingredients so it's budget friendly too.  We always use Butterball's Turkey Sausage and Buitoni Tortellini.  Often we add broccoli on the side and sometimes breadsticks. :)
The recipe can be found HERE @kevinandamanda.com

I will try any recipe from Kevinandamada.com because all the ones we have tried have been delicious!  I also love the step by step directions and pictures.

Cheesy Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole
There is nothing more comforting than a warm casserole dish on a cool fall day.  We LOVE this one!  So good, and gets in lots of veggies too.
The only bad thing about this one - is that it is definitely not a one pan meal, it requires lots of pans.  BUT it is so worth it and makes a huge pan that we eat up all week.  It makes for incredible leftovers - I love when we have this leftover for my lunch!

This one comes from HERE @Pickypalate.com.

Picky Palate is another one that I would trust trying any recipe.  We've made quite a few and they are all delicious.  She has a ton of great desserts!

Lettuce Wraps
We are big fan of both lettuce wraps and stir-fry.  One because it is so easy and you can vary it up constantly.  You can use as much or as little as you like and it's still delicious.  Two, lots of veggies is always a good thing.
I don't have a picture for our lettuce wraps, and really they aren't very pretty.  It's kind of a messy dinner night.
Sometimes we keep it simple with just tiny diced chicken, peas, onions, water chestnuts and any kind of sauce we have on hand - other times we load it up with any kind of veggie you can imagine.  We have used both butter leaf and iceberg lettuce - both are good.  Iceberg lettuce doesn't support it the greatest - BUT it has a great crunch and is much more cost friendly.

We LOVE lettuce wraps.  I'm kind of obsessed with water chestnuts.

Fancy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Definitely easy, definitely budget friendly.
Who doesn't love a good Grilled Cheese?
Keys to good grilled cheese - good cheese, good bread, real butter.
We love our grilled cheese on sourdough bread so we tend to have it on hand often.
It's also worth buying the good cheese, any kind to your preference, but default to a good colby jack/monterey jack if in doubt.

So Grilled Cheese can get fancied up in so many different ways.
One of my favorites - Pesto Chicken Grilled Cheese.
It's so easy, and cafe worthy.
Just some shredded chicken(with a little pesto on it), pesto, butter, colby jack cheese, butter, sourdough bread - sooooo yummy!  Add a little spinach too - or tomato if you'd like!

Avocado Quesadillas
One of Todd's favorites, and always a favorite for those we make them for.
We once again got this recipe from kevinandamanda.com

Kevin and Amanda Chicken Bacon Avocado Quesadillas

You can vary this one up however you'd like, but sticking to their original recipe is definitely worth a try.  So delicious!
Tip for this meal:  It is not great for a sit-down all together family meal, more of a casual meal.  The quesadillas are made to order one at a time so you tend to be cooking while everyone starts eating.
We do love these.

Croissant French Toast
With Todd's busy schedule there are usually nights he won't be home for dinner.  On those nights I take advantage of two things: 1- making something super simple 2. eating fish (I eat fish most nights Todd isn't home for dinner - since he isn't a fan.)
But back to the something super simple - we eat breakfast a lot in our house - like any meal of the day.  Scrambled eggs - breakfast, lunch or dinner :)  We tend to stick to the traditional stuff, but I had to share this super yummy french toast recipe.  It is delicious!  My kids love it too.  Must serve with bananas, strawberries and a little powdered sugar for the best treat.  And it is a special treat.

This one is from the The Pioneer Woman - Croissant French Toast.
We love the Pioneer Woman - Quinn even enjoys to watch her show.
Another great site with tons of great recipes - we made some of her freezer recipes to have on hand when Andie was born.  Try the Garlic Cheese bread!

Cream of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
I have to include a soup and this one is awesome.
In the cooler months I make a huge pot of this and store it in the fridge or freezer to eat all week.  It is a copycat Panera recipe, and it is the best soup.  I love this soup.  So, if you are in the need for a good soup recipe this fall/winter, this is the one!
Cream of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup Recipe

Alright, time to start eating!

I had to incorporate some of our current favorites.
I'm always looking for good new recipes.

back to preschool.

The first day of school is a magical day.
I love everything about it.  And a beautiful fall day - cherry on top.

Quinn had her first day of Preschool today.
Pre-K to be in fact - as in one more year before Kindergarten - yikes!

This year the preparation was very calm.  We knew what to expect.  She knew what to expect.
She was ready and excited.  How much she has grown up in the last year is amazing.
Quinn attends the same preschool as last year.  New classroom, new teacher, some new classmates.  She lucked out and has the same Assistant Teacher - Miss Marita - she is excited about that!

Here are the pictures...
drumroll...

Quinn Avery's first day of Pre-K.

Oh geez, this picture... pretty sure my baby looks like a 2 year old and my preschooler looks like a 14 year old!  Thank you camera for today of all days making my babies look even older than they are.

I do remember last year toting in a little newborn Andie on Quinn's first day of school. :)

Preschool friends...

Miss Vicki - Quinn's teacher this year.

And...look at how much our girl has grown!
I sat and stared at this picture forever today.  How much she has grown, how far she has come, how stunning she is.  Our sweet little Quinn - attached at my hip little baby girl - such a little lady now.

Thank you Pinterest for inspiring our back to school teacher gifts this year.

Quinn had SOOO much fun finding all the pink things in the store!

She is off on another amazing school journey.  We are so excited for all the fun we know she is going to have.  Before school my words to Quinn were "Be kind to everyone no matter what, help others, listen carefully, ask the kid who isn't playing with anyone to join playing with you, and MOST importantly HAVE FUN!"  followed by some big tickles. :)

I barely got a smooch as I dropped her off at the classroom door - she was off and ready!

everything is more fun with a manicure.

...and your daughter.

It's true.
A set of pretty nails makes everything more fun - typing, folding clothes, reading a book.
Always better.
- and even better a manicure with your daughter. :)

Quinn and I had a Mommy/Quinny date night.
A new preschool year is starting this week and it seemed like a good opportunity for some quality time.  It is not far from my mind that this will be my last year of time at home with Quinn. - and don't get me started because I can't handle it - BUT I'm also super excited about all the things to come for this girl.  Because I know this girl is going to do amazing things...SHE is an amazing.

I'm not sure when my baby turned into this gorgeous little lady...seriously.  Time - slow down!

Quinn's first professional manicure!  Such a special treat for the two of us.
It was so fun to see Quinn handle herself with in this setting, as sweet as pie :)  She LOVED the massage, and asked many questions each time the nail technician grabbed a new tool or started something new "What is that for?"  "What are we going to do now?"  So glad she felt she could speak up though and was very polite, instead of sitting back and being nervous about a new experience.  So proud of my girl!  She picked out a pinky/purple color and got a flower design on both of her thumbs.  She will be all set for the first day of school!

After our manicure, she selected Noodles & Co. for our dinner.  If you haven't tried their garlic bread, do - NOW!
Loved that it was just the two of us at dinner and we could spend so much time just about Quinny.

After dinner, we headed to Kohl's with a giftcard for back to school shopping and Quinn picked out a couple outfits (with a little guidance :).  We also had fun not rushing and wandering the store, and letting quinn push the cart!

After shopping - it was time for a treat!  Our local favorite ice cream shop it was.

After ice cream, I asked Quinn "Do you want to go anywhere else honey?"
To which she replied "Yes"  paused for a moment and said "Hobby Lobby".
Be still my heart - this girl loves her mama and is the sweetest thing in the world to think of others favorites too. And we have just a little in common with our love for crafting and decorating. :)

So - to Hobby Lobby it was!  We just wandered and Quinn was excited to sit in the shopping cart (since Andie always takes that spot) so that worked out perfectly.  We had fun looking at all the new things.  We are regular visitors and it had been over a month!  That is a loooooong time for us.  A couple weeks of vacation will do that.
We tried hard not to buy anything - and we did good.  But I did let Quinn pick out a new hairbow for her first day of school!

Quinny - I love our dates so much!  They are the best!
Thank you for being you my love.

summer vacay - part three - atlanta/nashville/illinois.

It's time to wrap up this long vacay. :)

After a full 5 eventful days in Florida we started to make our journey back home.  Thankfully we had planned to break up the drive home into three sections so we would not be facing another LONG travel day like we had from TN to FL - phew!  Obviously breaking it up means more $ for hotel stays - but it was well worth it!  It gave us the opportunity to see a little more on our roadtrip and made it feel like a roadtrip, not just endless hours getting from point A to point B.  I think in the future I will always side with the breaking up the driving more and doing more - seems more purposeful.  On that note...here was the scoop on the last little bit of our trip.

Day One:  We drove from Florida to Atlanta, GA.
I am SO glad we decided to stay in Atlanta, and it is definitely on the list of places to spend more time at next time.  I have traveled through Atlanta so many times and never stopped and enjoyed this city.  If you were like me and it's always been a passthrough - Stop!  Atlanta is a beautiful city.  In the little time we were there we had the chance to see different areas and I was amazed at how beautiful it was and SO many great unique restaurants - I need to prep better next time to take in the good food!

We arrived in Atlanta on Friday afternoon and settled into our Embassy Suites hotel in the Buckhead neighborhood.  Our suite was amazing with a gorgeous city view and the Buckhead neighborhood is very trendy and pretty.
When traveling I am a big fan of trying to only eat things you can't get at home and trying new restaurants.  I had planned on hitting up a fun Food Truck park for dinner but it was a little distance from us and lots of time in the car didn't seem like something I wanted to add, so we hit up a Shake Shack which we have never had before and was only a mile from our hotel.  Burgers, fries, shakes, we can all handle that. :)

Oh, my girl, she just seems so big.

Another great thing about Atlanta, we got to spend some time with one of Todd's closest friends from college, Jamie.  We love us some Jamie time.  We have been lucky to catch him both in Illinois and Georgia within a month.  Jamie joined us at the Shake Shack and took us on a little driving tour through the city as we made our way over to Piedmont Park.

Sidenote:  Overall Atlanta does not seem a city too difficult to navigate if you follow your natural sense of direction and ignore all the street names!  There are about a hundred different roads called PeachTree and another hundred called Piedmont - no joke.  I'm sure it makes sense to those that live there, but who came up with that idea?!?

We headed over to Piedmont Park and enjoyed a GORGEOUS evening playing in the park and on the playground near the uber sophisticated pool by the city, beautiful.  Thank you Jamie for hanging out with us!

We loved you Atlanta and will definitely be back.

A little video with some random from our travel home.



Day Two - We took our time in the morning and enjoyed our beautiful Atlanta hotel for a while before later heading out and traveling up to Nashville.
In Nashville we stopped and spent the rest of the day with Courtney (Todd's cousin's wife).  Unfortunately, we didn't get to catch Paul (Uncle Paul - they are Uncle Paul and Aunt Courtney to the girls) he was off on another music tour adventure.
There was swimming and hanging out and dinner with Courtney.  We loved that we were able to catch Courtney and spend time with her.  We just don't get to see them nearly enough.

When the girls were ready for bed we put them in their jammies and got back in the car for just a little more driving and headed to Paducah, KY (to keep our final day of driving a little less).  Our hotel - La Quinta Inn in Paducah was a great hotel, super clean, very modern, best hotel bathrooom!, and a huge room - we would recommend it.
The next day we just wanted to GET HOME!  So after breakfast we loaded up the van one final time and drove the last 6 hours home.
Highlight of the last day - Monical's Pizza - because it is so delicious.

Finally - we were home - and I was deadset on not getting back into the van for a while. :)
I love to travel, but I do love being home so much.

We had a fantastic and memorable trip, and are so grateful for a safe journey.
I'm so glad we broke it up on the way home.
The only thing that I would not want to do again was the number of times I had to keep repacking the suitcases, rearranging them - 8 times!  That was too tiring for a vacation. :)

We are home.
And our first two weeks home has teased us with Fall weather, and I couldn't be happier about it.
Bring on the Fall, oh I am so ready for it.

summer vacay - part two - florida.

After a week stay in the Great Smoky Mountains, we loaded back up into the van and while everyone else departed back to their homes we were only part of the way done with our journey.  We were on our way to Florida.  This day of driving was the longest day of driving ever, probably too long for our little family, but we pushed through.  We left about 7:45am and arrived about 9:30pm in The Villages, Florida...long day.
Thus started our next adventure - 3 days at Walt Disney World and 2 days in The Villages.

Off to Disney!
We stayed on grounds at the All Star Sports Resort.
We did an evening at Downtown Disney, one day was a morning of Magic Kingdom (breakfast with the princesses) and afternoon at Hollywood Studios, the next day was a full day of the Magic Kingdom.
Our sweet girls ready for some magic. :)  This is Andie's first trip and Quinn's second.

Each picking out a Disney souvenir.

Princess Aurora (aka - Sleeping Beauty) - Quinn's FAVORITE.  And in all our dancing Quinn will say that Sleeping Beauty danced with her the longest!  and she did. :)

Quinn's reaction with Elsa was just priceless and it's my favorite part of the dance video.

It rained on us a little the morning of the first day, but we will take that.  We got lucky and the first day was almost a record low temp for Florida in August.  Our second day was hot but not horrible, it was just a really busy crowd that day.

Disney Highlights:

Quinn's Favorite Princesses - Princess Aurora and Princess Elsa

Quinn's Favorite Ride - Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (Splash Mountain was second choice)

Quinn's Favorite Show - Disney Junior Show

Andie's Favorite Characters - Mickey and Princess Ana

Andie's Favorite Ride - Ariel's Undersea Adventure

Andie's Favorite Show - Fantasmic

We took Quinn when she was two and we loved that, taking her at age 4 was so much fun.  Each trip at different ages is so different and wonderful.

Quinn age two Disney Trip - click here.

Andie was fantastic at Disney, she is a trooper and she was a little princess. :)

We rented a double stroller that we had delivered to our resort, it worked out perfectly and provided lots of shade and both girls took naps in it too.

After 3 nights at Disney, we headed up to Grandpa and Grandma's in the Villages.

Quinn was able to participate in one of the Camp Villages activities - Decorating Cupcakes.

She was very precise and thoughtful in her decorating, I think we may have a future baker.

Time at the pool.

Thank you so much to Grandpa and Grandma for our time with them in Florida and our amazing days at Disney World!

I've already posted this, but I'll post it again so it's with our Disney portion - Our Disney Dance video!
All of the princesses and characters that joined the fun and danced with us. :)



Up next - our roadtrip home.