Top 3

I was recently informed that Michigan is the 3rd highest apple producing state in the country. I thought that was interesting. The apple orchards are the highlight of fall here. Ok, well, I think we all know it's the donuts AT the orchards, but anyway-

Baby Reese-I thought her eyes looked pretty against the stroller. :)

We met our friends Andrew and Nicole-we had to meet them and play before their first baby was born. (Welcome baby AJ!! We're glad you're here!)
Ava looked up in the sky and said: LOOK! THEY ARE MAKING MY NAME! Got a good chuckle out of that.

This was another reason for chuckling: the two kid clutch.

Cuddly one.
Jump hump for kids....
and adults...
Kaiya all worn out and HOT after a long morning!
Holding hands on the way home. Yay for sisters!

just a bunch of pictures i've been meaning to post but haven't yet.

Love the sister interaction. It's so much fun watching all three of them start to interact.

Sometimes it's less fun than others. At least for Reese.
At the playground: love how happy she looks :)

Doing her fair share. I take help in any capacity at this point! :)

The After Party

The wedding ended BUT being the wild family that we are...the party continued with football, pizza, and lots of people stuffed in our tiny house. In a related story, nothing makes me happier than having lots of people stuffed in my tiny house.

Some people were more into the football than others.
The classic kid on each leg.


All that fun will wear a fella out.
But I let him sleep so he could take morning duty.
The future's pretty bright, but not bad enough that I need these shades on my eyes more than as a hair accessory.
Ava and her cousins. (love that little man! he was such a wonderful baby-and olivia taught ava about naomi and ruth. clearly my sister.in.law is outdoing me in the bible story teaching segment of parenting!)
Saying goodbye at the airport.

The Big Day!

We were all excited to be there to celebrate!

The beautiful couple...
Ava and sweet Lucy...
Oma explaining the whole wedding thing to Ava-
of course Oma didn't have the real secret to success that was in Mom's purse. When in doubt: high fructose corn syrup.
The fabulous family I married into-minus brother.in.law and 2 sweet nephews. We missed you guys! (we missed my other girlies, too...)

Our 16th try at a picture where our hair wasn't messed up or I didn't look pregnant. Notice cropping.

My love and my firstborn. Too bad we have a bunch of other kids or we would have some great Christmas card opps at these last few weddings!

The beautiful flower girl/Ava's idol!
Of course by the end of the day we were kind of done. Three cheers to Ava though for being a good sport through a wedding that started when she normally goes down for a nap! And a big, huge, congratulations to Brian and Lucy. We are so happy for you and love you dearly!

a halt to the hiatus.

{Disclaimer: all good pictures in this post are from my sister.in.law who is the most gifted photographer I know.}

I've been avoiding the blog because I'm so behind I don't know where to start. But our friend Andrew informed me I hadn't blogged since September 26th and so I figure I better start somewhere.

Oh happy day for us because Oma, Opa, Aunt Jess, Olivia, and Baby Luke came to visit us! Mark's cousin Brian got married to Lucy and we loved having lots of people around for the nuptials.

This is Oma wearing butterfly wings. (Not pictured: Oma doing ballet IN the butterfly wings.)

Olivia brought us some fun hand me d0wn dress up clothes.

If you had told me the day I met my father in law that he would EVER play tug of war with a dog, I would never have believed you. The DeKorne's are pretty anti-dog...this is major progress folks!
We headed out to the orchard for the afternoon.

Both girls LOVED feeding the goats...





Mark and his sweet sister with the youngest babies!
That night we had an amazingly fun cousin party. We played Taboo-talked-
and laughed. A lot.
We missed our other DeKorne cousins...but had such a fun night with the ones who could be there!