Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you had a good turkey day. Ours was great- my dad and brother came to visit and we had a low-key time in Winter Park (yes, I made Stove Top, I like it better than home-made).  Lauren and I have had colds, and she was not her normal self this week, I feel bad for my dad and Gus that they had to see her so crabby.  It was a great time none-the-less and I have so much to be thankful for. :)

Let's Go Packers!

Gingerbread House

My mom was in town to visit this past weekend, and we made a gingerbread house. My mom was the perfectionist and wanted it to look professional, I just wanted to have fun and Lauren was into eating everything. She ate the chiminey before we could put it on the house, and she kept licking off the frosting and yelling "I tasted it!". It was fun and I think the house is super cute!! I know it is early, but it was a fun craft for the weekend.

You are not going to believe this!

We went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs this weekend and were able to feed and pet giraffes, isn't that incredible??? It was amazing, we are all still talking about it.

Best Buddies



She is obsessed with sitting on the step with Casey and getting their picture taken together. Casey typically turns out too blurry 'cuz my camera doesn't focus on his fluffy fur.



Yeah, my camera stinks and I need a new one. This is awful, but they are too cute I had to post it.

Brusy, Brushy, Brushy

Playground at Jeff's former school

weeee!



She loved the steepest slide the best, I thought it was kinda scary!



Trying to get a family picture at the top of the slides. Kinda hard to coordinate all 3 of us!

Playing at the Ranch

I always hear about how cold and windy it is in North Dakota. I am still waiting to see it.  Once again, it was sunny and beautiful when we were back there and Lauren got a lot of time to play outside (her favorite place to be, it seems!).

WOW! Grandma Grace and Grandpa Elmo have a playground in their yard!

Overdressed as usual. She LOVED the cows. We stood by the fence mooing at them and talking about them for a long time. Lauren and I like the brown ones best. (This isn't WI and they are not black and white, mostly they are pure black... who knew?)

Happy Girl!

Birthday Party... more pictures

So, Lauren isn't actually 2 years old yet, but we had a birthday party for her when we were in North Dakota so she could celebrate with family.  Here are some more pictures of her party (see the ealier post for additional pictures).

Family Shot. May be coming to you in a Christmas card... stay tuned. I love this picture though!

The pickle shot. See last year here.

Blowing out the candle- she did it all by herself (and is very proud and will re-inact on demand)

Red Frosting.... what a mess!

LOVES balloons!

Oh, here is Elmo!! She loves cards.

Elmo Cupcakes

Here they are, the Elmo Cake cups! I know I posted a picture already, but they need more press than that. I am super proud of these, they were a ton of work! I made 4 dozen of them, it took me at least 4 hours to frost them all. In the end it was well worth it to see how excited she was about them, and they were as tasty as they looked.

Lauren & I taught grandma the art of dairy-free, egg-free cooking

Yummy batter

Entertainment for the trip

This went on pretty much the whole trip, we didn't even need the radio!!  This is an unusual rendition of "Where is thumbkin?" I think. :)

Happy ND Birthday Lauren

 More to come later, this is just a taste of our trip. we are sitting in a hotel in Nebraska, thought I would share a few preliminary pics.

North Dakota here we come

Car is loaded. Kid is happy. Weather looks perfect. 12 hour trip to ND, here we go!

(Notice the forward-facing carseat Grandma!)