We visited Curt's family in Cadillac on Ben's fall break weekend. I went to Ben's conference with his teacher Friday morning and started the drive right after that! It was nice to be able to arrive in the afternoon instead of past bedtimes. This weekend, we celebrated the birthdays of Ben and my nephews Jacob & Brady.     Lucy and Ben enjoyed reading books with their grandma before party time on Saturday.  Brady opening some presents.    Ben has really enjoyed his new nerf gun!  Lucy played with Brady's new Princess Peach car. Ben has the same one at home and he lets her play with that one a lot.  The birthday boys posing for a picture. (Jacob looks so little :)...he's just on his knees).  The yummy birthday cupcakes. I made the little toppers...it is really hard to find Mario/Luigi stuff in the store.  Ben and Peyton  Lucy never met a cupcake she didn't want to eat. I wish I could say the s...

October whizzed by and now we are already on to November. Last month was filled with lots of fun things, finishing up soccer, birthday parties, visiting family, and Halloween. It also had it's share of not so fun things...colds, the flu (for me-ugh), and lots of errands/appts/busy stuff I didn't feel like doing. :)   The best part of October every year is celebrating Ben's birthday. This year he turned 6! Since our families both live in Michigan (and not even in the same city), we usually make a weekend trip to each family to celebrate. Traveling two weekends in a row, with Ben in school now really wiped me out! The first weekend was spent with my family. We decided to take some family pictures that weekend too, so we had the party at my brother Matt & sister-in-law Ashley's house. They have a nice wooded setting for photos. It was our first attempt at using the tripod. I think they turned out great!      Ben with his birthday cake. It was the fi...

I can't believe that it is already October! This month is crazy busy with two family visits planned and Ben's 6th birthday party. I hope to enjoy it all and not be too stressed about everything that needs to get done this month.   In Sept, Curt's sister Molly and family made the trip down from Cadillac. Ben was excited to have his cousins to play with all weekend! They went to Ben's Saturday morning soccer game and then we spent the afternoon at the zoo.    Lucy, Katie, Ben, Abby, and Brady before the soccer game.  Me, Molly, and Abby Checking out the safari car.  Ben, Tim, Brady, Abby, Molly, and Katie  Not the best picture, but I thought it was really cool to see Bill the lion up-close on our zoo visit!  Curt and Ben hanging out in the rainforest part of the zoo. A zoo trip is not complete without a picture on the zoo sign. :)   The following weekend the Bairds came for a visit. Ben had so much fu...

I haven't done the best job keeping up with my blog, but I will try to add some pictures more often. I can't believe that we are already in the middle of September. The next few months are pretty busy for us so I'm sure they will go by fast. Ben is excited to almost be 6 at the end of October and have a "Luigi" birthday party. Ben has been in school now since August 14th. Lucy and I have adjusted to him being gone a big chunk of the day. I think she enjoys her "mommy time." Ben has loved school so far and going the whole day hasn't worn him out too much!  We went to a TinCaps baseball game in August. It was through Curt's work and they had face painters there for the kids. Ben really wanted the lady to paint Luigi on his face, but she wasn't sure that she could do that. Then, she said she could paint a Luigi mustache. It ended up more like Mario's mustache, but Ben still thought it was cool and walked around telling everyone that he ...

The next weekend after our Chicago trip, we headed to Cadillac to see Curt's family. July was a pretty busy/tiring month. We had lots of things to fit in before Ben started school and soccer in August!  Curt's friend Maike, from Germany, was visiting Cadillac at the same time as us. Curt was able to plan a time to catch up with her and for the kids and myself to meet her. She was an exchange student at Curt's high school. It was nice to finally meet her!  I really did not get very many pics from this weekend at all! This is one of Ben and his cousins doing a little art/book project at the art fair that was going on downtown.  We got to meet more of the animals at the Nickel farm.  They have some funky chickens! :)  Lucy liked the baby goats.  Pointing to herself in the camera. Hanging out while the grown-ups talked. This picture is deceptive because she sat for like a minute and then just kept going and going around the farm...