Trick or Treat

Love

Ahhh...love. Five years ago I made the best decision of my life (albeit rashly and OK I should have invited my parents to the wedding), but I decided to marry this guy named Matt (who opened doors for me and tried to buy me a microwave) and we've been ridiculously happy ever since. Matt surprised me with flowers at work today and I surprised him with this:



Five years later and we finally got a wedding cake :)

Tickets, Please

In a recent need/panic/anxiety to "turn off the TV and spend time with the family", I convinced Matt to turn an old box into a ticket booth. So we spent time after dinner last Sunday exchanging tickets through the window until bedtime:

Halloween Crafts

Here are the pumpkins Ally and I decorated:



She did the one on the left all by herself.

Climber Part 2

Another favorite climbing spot...the bookshelf. Where she gets stuck at least twice a day. Silly Lily.

Climber

Ally was never much of a climber. In fact, she never ventured out of her crib. We only ever got her a big girl bed because we needed the crib for Lily, not because she ever made the leap out on her own. But that's Ally's personality. She's content to be where she is.

Lily is my climber. She climbs on EVERYTHING! For the longest time, we had a barricade from the living room to the kitchen to keep her out of the cat food and away from the stairs, but we had to take it down when she started throwing herself over it. The other day I left a storage bin next to her high chair and when I turned around, she had climbed up INTO the high chair. I have this fear in the back of my mind that she'll end up in a body cast like my little brother (also a climber, who fell out of a tree when he was 4 and broke his femur).


Here she is, 15 months, climbing inside our boxes of winter gloves.

Fall

Ally was assigned to give the opening prayer in primary today. A first for us. I wasn't sure if she would get a case of stage fright at the podium or if anyone would be able to understand her. Turns out I think she thought she was assigned to sing a solo as she sweetly SANG her little prayer into the microphone without any help from me.

Pumpkin Patch

I never knew the joy of pumpkin patches as a child (did they not exist in Katy, TX??) Anyway, they pop-up like weeds in Wisconsin autumn-time. It's great fun for everyone, especially the ones that go all out with hay mazes, petting zoos, play houses...and it's mostly free! You only pay for the pumpkins.

Unwanted Guest

We found this guy on our back porch. Don't worry. He has since been eradicated.