Life lately

 I guess when you don't post very often, there is a lot of random stuff to catch up on!

New fall table runner:

Ready for book club!

Funny things:

I was laughing so hard at these cake fails

The kiddos watching Bible stories together while mama did her BSF via zoom this morning.

Got a couple new 2 person games. Doug and I are trying to have some "stay at home date nights" after the kids are in bed. Played these last night, pretty fun!

Cold bundled walk last night to check out the Christmas lights in the neighborhood.

Book and snack!

This girl is just sunshine and happiness

Painting fun

Colored turkey masks for Thanksgiving

Popcorn and apples snack while mama made an apple crisp for a small get together at a friends' house.

This blog uploaded all my pics in reverse order and it's a pain to undo it, so things are all in reverse order. But a couple pics from our family walk at the nature preserve over the weekend.

Earlier last week in the nice weather and sunshine, he had great fun jumping off the porch into a leaf pile.

Saved this stacking rings toy for her until she was 18 months, and she did it like a pro! She is meeting most of her milestones, but not much talking. So we had to go to an Early On speech eval, her comprehensive development is at 22+ months (she's 19 months) but her language is 12-14 months. So she will be getting some speech therapy. They think she should catch up quickly. I hope so. My thought is big brother does enough talking for the whole family so there's not much chance for her to practice!

Anyone elses kids beg for radishes at the grocery store??

At a little birthday party last week, maybe will get her one of these little pets for Christmas!

He used to call it da' Buster, but now he says it correctly, growing so fast! 😭

Doug sent me this picture when I was at work, 💓, love them playing together!

Dinner out at Red Robin, so yummy. 

Dishwasher unloading help:

He's getting so fast on his balance bike! Might be ready for a 2-wheeler next summer?!

6 years

Doug and I celebrated 6 years when we were in Sedona. With the kiddos of course :)

When we came back we had a brunch date morning, got the most delicious Michigan pancakes (dried cherries, walnuts, cinnamon apples on top) and Doug got amazing pumpkin ones. We opened our cards and looked over the past year and future year dreams in our anniversary journal. We walked a bit in the sunshine and went to the library to browse books. A nice little morning date. 

That evening we went to an event our church had. We've been working with the college ministry group at our church for a couple months and they had a "Hootenanny Shindig" which was square dancing with a caller. IT WAS THE BEST. I think organized dancing is pretty much one of my favorite things. 

The decor was so cute.

We wore our bandana "masks", danced all night, and had a blast, it was so fun. 

Love being married to this guy.

 

Sedona, AZ

 I'd been seeing lots of people's pictures at Sedona and I've wanted to go for awhile. We planned a 5 day trip over our 6 year anniversary, with the kids of course, lol.

We traveled on August's birthday, we had celebrated a few days before with friends and family. I picked him up a slice of cake from the grocery store and brought our "4" candle, and we sang again :)

The view from our airbnb:

First hike, Cathedral Rock. Gorgeous.

We went up to about that high tree line, then it seemed too dangerous to go further with the kids on our backs. Still beautiful. 

Chapel of the Cross

Bell Rock path, probably our least favorite hike, just long and deserty. We went to the base of the formation, BUT I think if we would've wrapped around it we could've went up a bit? That might have made it more cool, but we were too tired at the time.

Went to Walnut Canyon National Monument and saw the ruins/dwellings in the cliffs

 

I touched that prickly pear and had 2 splinters in my finger!

Delicious salad/sandwich at Wildflower Cafe, but my favorite meal was at Picazzio's Healthy Italian Kitchen.

Slide Rock, looked so neat in the brochures, but that was probably for when Sedona is in the 100s, it was very cold when we visited!

The hike at West Fork was probably our favorite, towering cliffs, fall colors, 13 stream crossings, beautiful.

We tried 3x to do the airport overlook hike, just kept missing it as the sun set at 5:30pm and we'd always be starting out too late. Glad we finally got it. 

Mini-celebration for our 6th year!

Last hike: Boynton Canyon, part forest-part desert, and long and hard

Made it to the end!

All hot, dirty, and sweaty

Seeing these wild Javelina made Doug and August's day

On the way to the airport we stopped at Montezuma's Castle. I wish someone would make a life-size replica that people could actually walk through, how cool would that be!?!

Neat to look at still.

We had our typical run through the airport to our gate, so fun with children on your backs, and masks (not!), but we made it and had no issues at all coming home. Nice. 

Got in late, and now spending the day doing laundry, unpacking, and getting back to life at home :)

Thankful for a good trip, and praying for the future of our country that God will bless and lead whoever gets chosen for the next 4 years!