Conversations with Isabelle: Part 9

Curt: Do you know where milk comes from?
Isa: The fridge.

***

Me: "When I was a little girl, who was my mommy?"
Isa: "You."
Me: "No, sho is my mommy, Isabelle?"
Isa: "Natalie Whitworf"
Me: "No, that's my name. Do you know who my mommy is?"
Isa: Blank stare.
Me: "Grammie is my mommy!"
Isa: "Grammie is Grammie! Not a mommy Grammie!"

***

Me: "Oh, Isabelle! You're going to love the present I got you!"
Isa: "What is it? Is it Merida and candy?"
Me: "No. That's what you asked Santa for."
Isa: "Is it toothpaste?"

Huh? Really?

***

Isabelle: "I the mommy. I Natalie."
Ella: "No. Tha the mommy." (Pointing to me.)
Isabelle: "I the mommy. Come say prayers. Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ Amen. Go lay on your pillow pad Ella Boo. It's dark."
Isabelle: "Come on Ella Boo, it's time to say prayers!"
Ella: "Yeah!"
Isabelle: "Come on Ella. It's time to say prayers and read scriptures!"
Ella: "Mickey Mouse!"
Isabelle: "Come say prayers! It's dark outside. Hurry before Mordu comes! Ella are you listening to me?!"
Ella: "No."
Isabelle: "Emery do you wanna come say prayers?"
Emery: "Uh huh." She proceeds to go over and kneel down and say prayers with Isabelle."

Melt my heart...

***

Me: "Isabelle. Can we go buy you some pants?"

Isabelle: "No. I no like pants. I like skirts!"

Me: "But your skirts aren't warm enough!"

Isabelle: "I like skirts."

***

Conversations with Ella and Emery: Part 1

While fighting over who was going to get up into my lap, even though I wasn't letting either one of them up, Ella turned around and very sternly said, "Corner" and pointed directly to the time out corner. Emery immediately said, "NO!" just like she always does. I had a hard time not laughing it was so cute.

***

While riding in the car, looking at Christmas lights, Emery (who is all the way in the back with Isabelle) wanted to make sure Ella was seeing everything she was.
Emery: "See Santa, Ella? See Santa, Ella?"
Ella: no response.
Emery: "See Santa, Ella?!"

***

On the day before their 2nd birthday, we were trying to teach them that they are two.
Daddy: "How old are you?"
Emery: "I don't know. I Emery!"

***

One day while Emery and Ella were fighting:
Emery: "No ma'am!"
Ella: "No ma'am!"

Emery: "No ma'am!"
Ella: "No ma'am!"

Emery: "No ma'am!"
Ella: "No ma'am!"

Emery: "No ma'am!"
Ella: "No ma'am!"
*lots of laughter*

***

Any time I wear anything of Curt's clothing...for example his athletic shorts or his suit jacket...the girls freak out. They hound me with:

"That's Daddy's!"

over and over and over again. They don't like me to wear Daddy's clothes.

***

Two Years!

It's official! I have two 2-year-olds. I've been dreading this day for several months now. The girls have already, definitely, hit their terrible twos...and I guess that's when I started dreading the actual turning of two. The actual day was one of THOSE days that I wished it was possible to divorce your kids. I guess it's a good thing that we pushed the celebrating of their birthdays back a week. Ella and Emery both are growing up so quickly. It doesn't even seem gradual. Over the course of one week you can notice big differences in their speech.

Ella:

• When ever she is unhappy, but not crying unhappy, she screams at the top of her lungs for one full breath.
• She loves to transfer one item (like cereal or ice or small toys) from any type of cup or bowl to another cup or bowl. 
• She adores blankets. Loves them. It's totally imperative for her to have one of her two favorite in bed with her. 
• It is absolutely adorable how she says, "Yes." Think Sebastian in The Little Mermaid. It isn't always that high and short, but she is very good at saying yes whenever she means it. While Emery can say yes and while she mostly nods her head to communicate the word, she doesn't very often. 
• She loves to have her hair done because it took so much longer for her to get hair. She loves that she gets a turn now.
• She taught herself how to do children's puzzles and does them with ease. She rarely has to even fiddle with a piece. She's now learning how to do real puzzles with puzzle pieces. On her own, she totally struggles, but with help she does get a 12 piece puzzle done. 
• Loves to color...but gravitates towards the walls...
• Super daring and doesn't seem to have the fear gene...until it comes to people. She has big stranger danger.
• She doesn't really like nursery. The only way she'll go is if Heather is there (she is a nursery leader, but sometimes she's not there due to her or Levi being sick or thinks like a pipe bursting in their home...I HATE those days.)
• Her favorite toy is Legos. However she also loves princesses. She is starting to play them like Isabelle does...meaning talking for them and actually playing with them and her imagination.
• She doesn't really seem to have a favorite princess. She prefers Ariel, Rapunzel, Merida, Cinderella and Snow White, but she really likes any of them. 
• She would sleep in every morning if Emery would let her. Even though she wakes up, most of the time, she stays in her bed until I open the door. (Which is usually at least 30 minutes after they wake up...depending on the time.)
• She no longer picks at her diaper! Hallelujah!!! 
• Loves to sing the songs she learns in Nursery or from the princess movies. 
• She's starting to be picky about the things she'll wear. She has to want to wear what we put on her and she'll throw a fit.
• When she cries and gets upset, she puts her fingers over her eyes. It totally breaks my heart.
• Doesn't like to give kisses. 
• She LOVES clementines and can peel the whole thing herself. 

Emery:

• She loves characters like Snow White, Dora, Woody and Jesse, any of the Backyardigans, Blue and the Sesame Street gang, but she doesn't really watch TV shows. It's a success if she watches a whole five minutes of a show. 
• She never ever ever stops moving. Okay...when she's asleep she does. BUT she still moves a lot in her sleep. She's a pain to hold. She is never still for more than 30 seconds...and that would be pushing it.
• She talks sentences so very very well.
• While there are days she does sleep in till 8:15ish or so, she's mostly up between 7:15-7:45. She's always the first to rise in the morning of my girls.
• She begs us to let her go to the bathroom on the potty.
• She still bites some, but not a lot.
• She's my best eater. She's pretty much a bottomless pit. 
• She hates when pillow cases cover the corner of the pillow. She needs to be able to play with the corner of the pillow. She's worn holes into several pillows.
• Because Isabelle always wants a hug and a kiss from whomever is leaving our house, she now does too. 
• Loves to color.
• Emery loves backpacks and purses. 
• She calls Ella, Ella Boo and Isabelle, Isa Boo. 
• If she doesn't know where her sisters are, she always asks, "Where Ella Boo?" or "Where Isa Boo?"
• She will almost never tell you she's poopy, even if you ask her. She also fights every single diaper change. It's horrible. Trust me, she's worse than any child you've even changed. If Curt is home, I NEVER change her diaper because it's getting to the point where I'm not strong enough. 
• Loves showers.
• Every time we leave the house she calls out, "Bye Christmas lights." or "Bye house."
• She loves to give kisses and hugs. 
• She loves to sing...but most of the time it's just notes to la la la or some random syllable.
• She likes to open her own string cheese after you start it and insists on doing it herself.

We Love Christmas: Christmas Eve

For as far back as I can remember, our Christmas Eves have been full of family and fun and partying. While what we have done and where has changed, our Christmas Eve 

The first thing we did was eat. That's the most important part, right? :) Afterwards Heather made reindeer food with the kids. She combines the ingredients with the help of the kids and explains why each ingredient is important. Such as the glitter is the pixie dust that helps to make them fly and the oats are the food to keep them full and flying their fastest. The kids get super in to it and love to help. Then they go outside and sprinkle it on the ground for the reindeer to eat while Santa is inside delivering the presents. 

Since Aimee's family had to leave early to go to the Goodrich party, we did the White Elephant exchange first. It was fun and I think it will make it's way into our traditions now. Curt and I forgot to get our presents...we were totally overwhelmed with pulling everything else together. But we have at least one idea for next year now. 

Then we sang Christmas carols, complete with the instruments. All three of my girls participated well this year. We laugh a lot during this part as we don't do so well with the words half the time...

After singing the kids headed up the stairs to play in the toy room, but they weren't there for long cause an unexpected visitor came and rang our door bell...a lot. They came "running" down as fast as they could manage to see who was at the door. They were surprised and excited to see that the culprit was no longer there, but instead a box was there for them. There was a letter explaining that PJ the elf hurriedly stopped by to deliver some fun pajamas. They were special pajamas to help the kids go to sleep and stay asleep so that they wouldn't be awakened by Santa delivering presents. Of course they were thrilled. We love seeing the magic in their eyes! These were the first presents they opened too, so they were excited about that.  All three of them loved their jammies.

Heather and Andrew received a email from the big guy himself for Isabelle. She and Ella watched that video and got so excited when Isabelle's pictures were featured on the video. Once again...the magic! 

Heidi couldn't wait anymore to give the girls their presents. So we let them open those. Isabelle got a picture of her and Heidi and a small Ariel doll. Ella also got a picture of her and Heidi and a soft Rapunzel doll. Emery got a picture of her and Heidi too and a soft Snow White doll. They love them. Thank you Heidi!

We finished our night with some tidying up, playing a round of Wits and Wagers and enjoying each other's company a little more until we had to run home before the girls fell asleep. We wanted to give them our present to them that night too. I made pillow pads for each of them and we set them out in the babies' room for all three of them to try and sleep together. It didn't end up working and Isabelle wanted her "pink room" within about 15 minutes. Regardless though, their pillow pads are already loved and used frequently. 

We Love Christmas: Live Nativity 2

During the first half of the month, we went to a Live Nativity at a church by my mom. While we were super excited to find a close Live Nativity, we didn't have the best experience with our kid's behavior and the Nativity itself was fine, but nothing awesome. On the weekend before Christmas, we were driving home from Curt's parent's house and we were stopped at a light. I was commenting about how much I love to look out over the lake and see as far as the eye and the roundness of the earth will let you and see how flat Texas is (even though we were on the edge of a hill). Curt was commenting on how the church right in front of us looked like it had a Live Nativity as there was huge scenic displays out. We went home and googled it and Curt was right. There was a Live Nativity five minutes from our house and we had no clue. We didn't go that night since our girls were all sick, but we went the next day, Sunday. Our girls were still all sick, but it was the last night they were doing it, so I talked Curt into bundling everyone up and going out and then driving around and looking at Christmas lights.

It was so very very worth it! Curt as pretty grumpy that we were going, but even he was really happy that we went. They have it set up that the first thing you do is drive through Candy Cane Lane. They give you a CD to listen to and then you drive through their cone-made lane. They had huge paintings depicting the night Christ was born with accompanying boards with scriptures on them. We were quite impressed from the beginning with how well everything was put together, planned out and executed.

At the end of the 5 minute drive, you return the CD and park to go see the Live Nativity. Once again, we were incredibly impressed. While there were a decent amount of people there, and it wasn't so reverent that you couldn't take pictures, it was much more reverent that the first one we went to. The scenery was amazing. The costumes were even more amazing and intricate! Then the animals! There were three camels! How fun is that?! There were goats, sheep, camel, a baby cow and donkeys. The girls (mostly Isabelle) would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't chilly outside. Of course if she had wore the jacket we brought her or if she would wear pants, that probably would have helped...

 Ella loved the goats. She really took to them, and only them.

Another thing about this set up...they only let one family at a time go up and see Joseph, Mary and the real baby. It was nice to not be crowded or rushed when you went up there. It also helped with the reverence of it all. Everyone was extremely nice and once again, their costumes were amazingly detailed and well done!!

Some one was nice enough to take a family picture of us. A fellow mom of twins...we all have a soft spot in our hearts full of sympathy for each other. :) Too bad our girls are not very cooperative. It's still nice to have though. Man we love our family!! We will definitely be returning to this Nativity for years, as long as it is something they continue down the road. Not only is it super close to us, but it was a wonderful experience.

We Love Christmas: Coloring the Nativity

Another project we did around here was a Nativity coloring sheet. We had a few for each of the girls since we made enough copies for their cousins too since they were supposed to come for dinner that night and didn't. All three of the girls love to color, so it was easily a big hit...especially for the younger two.

We Love Christmas: Paper Trees

For one of our Christmas projects, we let the girls make trees out of construction paper. They really enjoyed it and I enjoyed how easy it was. Isabelle is really precise with her art projects where Ella was super impatient and just wanted to get one step done so she could make onto the next one. Emery was content to be helped and even let us do parts of it for her. Until the end, then she just ripped her's up.

We Love Christmas: Our Christmas Card

We Love Christmas: Gingerbread Houses/Trains

Normally...we take our gingerbread house decorating/creating very seriously. Curt just doesn't have it in him to create a boring house. During our first year, in 2010, we didn't start out with a plan at all. Curt and I (mostly Curt) just make an awesome team. In 2011, he stepped it up significantly. This year he had grand plans too...but we've been so so busy that we've barely had time to get the important things on our to-do list done. Since this wasn't on the important list, but on the if-we-have-time list...the grand plans didn't happen. Curt was not very happy and therefore wasn't even in to doing much on the purchased ones we did. The girls however, loved it. This year Isabelle had a blast decorating her train. Emery consumed her weight in candy. You know it's pretty bad when she stops eating it on her own accord. Ella enjoyed about eating and playing...she wasn't really into the decorating or making herself sick on candy.

There you have it. Curt was so ashamed of it, it isn't even on display in our house...but at the local dump grounds. :( The girls love looking at their's though. I guess there is next year. 

Sorry, honey, I'll get started at Santa's workshop earlier next year. ;)

We Love Christmas: Ward Party

There is one thing that I like about our new ward...they do ward parties/activities very well. Since my sister has been in this ward for 3+ years now, we have gone to several of their activities because they are so good. 

This year, for the Christmas party, they started out with kids' crafts. All of the kids made reindeer hats. Emery and Ella had a really hard time not being patient. They just wanted to color. Isabelle and Levi loved it.  Ella's was a little small...

Following the craft, we had dinner and then following the dinner we had the primary kids sing us some songs and then we all sang. For forever... It was really long, but mostly just because my kids were getting past their bed time and we still had Santa to wait for.

After several attempt in her life, Isabelle has finally sat on Santa's knee! She told him she wants Merida and candy. She talked to him about how old she is too. We were very proud! She is and was very proud of herself and often reminds me that she sat on Santa's knee and didn't cry. Emery and Ella looked at him without crying, and that is considered a success in our book too. Yay for no tears and yay for finally having pictures with Santa!!

We Love Christmas: The Gaylord Texan

It's a big tradition in our little family to go to the Gaylord Texan Hotel at Christmas time. (2009 Post, 2011 Post) It's a special place for Curt and me going back to our dating months. Now it's turned into a family affair and we all end up going. This year, even in the middle of the day on a Saturday, it was super busy. They've really stepped it up there. I love that they change themes and decorations from year to year. Plus they've added different things to do too. They have a whole gingerbread workshop where you can pay lots of money to decorate houses. They also had an elf there doing free balloon animal/shapes. He was exceptionally talented and super fast, so the line moved decently quickly too. Then there are the normal life size gingerbread house, trains, gingerbread house, Santa Claus (we've never sat on his lap or paid for pictures with him). It's a fun day trip and the girls enjoy it. Curt and I love to reminisce about where we each fell in love and decided we were done looking for a spouse. :) Overall, it's worth the trip.

Checking out the gingerbread houses. The life size one smelled so good this year!

Someday I'll get good pictures of the three of them together. Nowadays, this is the best we can get:

Getting her purple heart balloon. To make this it took about 30 seconds. Just long enough for me to snap a couple of pictures. Emery and Ella learned that their skirts twirled. Emery taught Ella to stand on her tip toes and shake her hips to make it twirl. They loved it. 

Ella and Emery were jealous of Isa's balloon, so when the line was shorter and while Levi and Isabelle were looking at Santa (who the girls are scared of), we stood in line for their balloons. Once again, he was so fast I barely had time to get any pictures. 

They were in love...until the popped soon after we left. :)

With balloons in hand, there was no chance of good pictures in the sleigh...

One random tidbit of information....Emery is wearing the same shoes that Ella wore last year to the Gaylord. Their feet are very much different sizes...

Dance Class Show Off Day

Remember how Isabelle started going to Dance Class in September? She started by going on a four-time Groupon. During that time she loved it, she was unsure, she hated it and then I started taking her and she became obsessed with it...and we didn't have the heart to pull her out of the class when the Groupon ended. She love dancing, the little girl in her class and her teacher so much. So, this whole semester she has been going to her ballet/tap/tumbling class. This month they had their in-class Christmas show off recital.

Her Tap routine:

Her Ballet routine:

Afterwards they listened to the music that they will be performing to at their Spring formal recital and they also got to see a picture of their costumes for the first time too. Isabelle is very excited about that. Isabelle and her classmate did a little freestyle dancing to the music. Isabelle's favorite thing about dancing class is the mirrors...and you can definitely tell that in this video. :)

We Love Christmas: Rice Krispies

On Sundays we go to my parent's house for dinner...well that or everyone comes to our house. This past month, though, we have been going over there. My mom made the girls some rice krispie treats for the girls to use cookie cutters on and cut out Christmas shapes. At first they were pretty clueless, but once Heidi showed them how it worked, they had a wonderful time. Plus, my mom makes the best rice krispie treats, we we all reaped the benefits of this project for the girls!

We Love Christmas: Live Nativity

Last year at Christmas time, I felt like we had such a busy and fun Christmas full of adventures and projects/crafts for Isabelle. However, at the end of the season, I didn't feel like I focused enough on Christ and the true reason for the season. This year when I was pondering what our to-do list would be as far as activities for the kids, the top thing on my list was a live nativity. Growing up, I remember going to a live nativity at Harvest Baptist Church on Christmas Eve. It was very reverent and you stood in line and walked in front of the scene. I very much wanted to take my kids to something similar. However, the church we went to growing up stopped doing it a very long time ago. 

In our search for a replacement Nativity, we found one over an hour away. Coupled with recovering from surgery and wearing out easily and being so busy with all the projects and stuff I have to do before Christmas Eve, we weren't thrilled with the idea of going out that far. However, while Heather was running a quick errand, she drove past the church we used to go to as kids to see that they had started doing their Nativity again! We were so happy! 

We went the following night. I was expecting huge crowds, so we went early. We got their about 10 minutes before it was scheduled to start and it was nearly empty. The nativity hadn't been set up yet, so we wandered around to the other section of the "Christmas Town" as they called it to see some youth groups performing their dance routines (boring and annoying) and then we went to see Santa Claus. BIG mistake! After standing in line for 5 minutes, when it was our turn, all three of the girls flipped out and started throwing fits. None of them got close to Santa and we ended up just walking away and not sitting on his lap or getting pictures. Everyone was super nice and patient with our girls, it was just not meant to be. I wasn't surprised, but I wasn't planning on what happened next. For the next 30-45 minutes, all three of them became major grumps. Isabelle cried and cried and grumped and pouted cause she didn't get a candy cane from Santa. The babies wouldn't let us put them down, which wasn't really an option since I could barely lift and carry them from the surgery. It was horrible. We ended up in the car and just gave up. I was super upset about it and the zero pictures that were taken and the non-interest in any of the nativity. Curt was a grump cause they were grumps and the girls were still crying. Then everyone else in my family showed up and got to the nativity just as we turned on the car and were calling us telling us to come meet them. Out of desperation to not have to go back the following week and the need for good pictures to document this activity, we unloaded the kids once again and took them to Grammie and Heidi. Of course that did the trick. They weren't immediately better, but they be much better than before and they did warm up to everything. They even, eventually, went in and saw baby Jesus, gave him a kiss and took pictures for me. 

We Love Christmas: Decorating the Tree

Back to being excited about having our own house...here is reason number two!! For the very first time, we have a Christmas tree! Our own tree! While I've not liked not having a tree, Curt has hated it. He's begged me each year to just go buy one, but for a couple of different reasons, we never did. Since this was our first tree, we didn't have any ornaments to put on it either, so I decided to make our own. It isn't a really full tree, which I love, so it doesn't need a lot of ornaments. I made ornaments with pictures on them and I love how they turned out. I think over the years, it could be a fun addition and fun way to look back on the kids growing up. 

The girls loved decorating the tree. All the ornaments ended up on the bottom branches, and bunched together. Decorating the tree is really not my thing. I don't enjoy doing it, so I was the photographer and since I was still recovering from surgery, it worked out well for me not to be stretching up high anyways. 

 Ella and Isabelle, both, were in very huggy moods. All of these girls melt my heart...you know....when they are happy.

Isabelle's favorite ornament is, of course, her ballerina outfit picture. Doesn't she look so big in this picture?!

The finished tree:

 My mom made me a quilt for the tree skirt. I love it! I originally bought the fabric in Utah when we were there a year and a half ago and it's so fun to see it done! Thanks mom!!

We Love Christmas: Welcome Home Heidi!

On Friday the 7th, we welcomed Heidi home from college. A week before I had told Isabelle that Heidi would be coming soon, but didn't mention it again. On the day of her arrival, I woke the girls up from their nap and told them all we were going on a surprise adventure. I packed them into the car and off we went to the airport. When we got there, Isabelle got really excited when she saw all the planes taking off. Since I didn't really know what to tell her we were doing there, I told her the planes were actually the surprise, just to keep Heidi a secret. We made it there a little late, but it all worked out. Here's a video of them seeing Heidi for the first time. I have to admit, the lack of reaction, especially from Ella, who I thought would be screaming, did surprise me some.

After picking her up, we headed to my parent's house. The girls went in the backyard to play with Heidi. They love her so much. Emery did not love the leaves, but she loved playing with Heidi. We are very excited to have her home for a whole month!

We Love Christmas: Letters to Santa

The first project for my girls this Christmas was writing letters to Santa, of course! We didn't really plan ahead, so Curt just wrote up a fill in the blank letter for the girls to "fill out." Emery and Ella immediately started coloring on theirs with no regard to what it was all about. Isabelle though was so funny. We told her what was going on and I read her the first fill in the blank. "I've been ___." I gave her the options of nice and bad. She said that she had been nice, so I told her to draw a happy face. I was so surprised that she followed my directions perfectly. I can't believe how big she is getting! It was so so cute! 

We proceeded to go though each of the girls telling me what they wanted to ask for from Santa. Isabelle asked for purple, Merida and Firestar. (Last year the only thing she asked for was purple and pink. I think it's hilarious that purple made the list again this year, without prompting.) Ella and Emery had no answers really. Since she heard Isa mention purple, Emery asked for pink. BUT...she could have just been requesting the pink colored pencil. When prompted she asked for toys and did mention a book. Getting Ella to respond was just about like pulling teeth. It took her forever to respond to any of my suggestions. The thing that caught her attention though was candy. She also repeated toys and she suggested Elmo. Once candy was mentioned, Isabelle wanted to add that to her list too. 

The finished product: 

I know it's hard to see, but Isabelle drew a picture for Santa of himself, including the beard. All the lines in the middle is her signing her name. Notice in the middle of all those lines is a self portrait. :)

We Love Christmas: Lights on Our House

I have to say...as much as we loved our house pre-holiday season and pre-Christmas season, it doesn't compare to how we feel about and LOVE our house now. This Christmas has been a very different one than the past five we have shared together and before. We have very much enjoyed being in a stable place and decorating. We have very much been looking forward to Christmas in a house for as long as we have been together ..especially Curt. Which is why one of the first things we did to bring in the Christmas season is put Christmas lights on the house. Curt was very excited to do so. :)

The girls, loved it! The weather on the 1st of December was absolutely and totally perfect. It couldn't have been a better put-your-lights-on-the-house day. The girls loved getting the clips and putting them in piles and handing them to Daddy when the time came. Ella, of course, tried so hard to climb up the ladder too. Emery spent a lot of time reading The Lion King book. She loved sitting under the ladder whenever Curt was on the side walk. She would get up and move after he moved the ladder each time. When Curt had to get on top of the house, we asked Isabelle if she wanted me to throw her up in the air up to Daddy and have him catch her. She was very concerned about the prospect of hitting her head and getting scratched. It was pretty hilarious as she got more and more concerned each time I asked her....thinking I was actually serious. Ella on the other hand, started to try and jump in place as if to try and jump up to Daddy herself or to give me more momentum when I threw her up. When I didn't follow through with my threat, she went around to the front of the house where she had last seen the ladder, knowing that is how Curt had gotten up.

 That evening we had the big reveal for the girls to see the lighting of the house. They would not cooperate or stand still...so these are definitely not the best pictures. I think their excitement and awe is still apparent though.

Now we can't leave the house without the girls saying, "Bye Christmas lights!" or in Ella's case, "Bye Creepy Yights!" I love little kid's mispronunciations. :)

We Love Thanksgiving: Day After Thanksgiving

On our second, and last, day up at the cabins, we went on an adventure. We went down to, I guess you could call it the touristy, area of Beaver Bend National Park. It is such a pretty area. The trees were gorgeous in their fall colors. We loved the scenery there. We found an area that had horseback riding, a little train, a gift shop and a park. Even though we have quite the handful of people that were asking to go on the horses (they even had cool double saddles for the kids to ride on), it was very expensive so we went on the train ride instead. Isabelle was a super grump because she wanted to wear Emery's purple jacket and not her blue one, but being on the blue train that matched her jacket started to turn her mood. By the time the train started she was all happy again. Thank goodness.

I love Emery's face when the train first started. She took a little bit to adjust to that much cool wind in her face. :)

All three of the girls loved every minute of it.

After the train ride we went over to the park. Ella loved proving to us that she was born without the fear gene. That or Emery inherited both of their's. Their personalities are vastly different when it comes to this. Ella will climb anything and has no fear. Emery...well she didn't even attempt to climb the ladders and didn't even go down the slides.

This one, the gap from ladder to ledge was just too big. We didn't even let her attempt that one.

Emery is such a goof. She loves to press her face up against stuff and make scary/silly faces. It started back in May and it still cracks us up!

Then there is Isabelle. She can't get enough of the slides.

They didn't have any baby swings there, but both of the girls wanted to try out the big kid swings. It isn't their first time, but it still makes me a little nervous. Once again, the difference in their personalities is very apparent. Emery is content to just sit on the swing or let it swing very slightly. Ella on the other hand wants to swing normally and figure out how to make it go on her own.

There were so many leaves down there. Ella started playing in the leaves and throwing them in the air to rain down on top of her. Then a huge gust of wind came up and she got so excited and started running with wind and blowing leaves. It was in the wrong direction as the camera though. :( We tried to tell her to run into the wind, but she doesn't even hear us when she's excited like that.  

She went back to playing in the leaves once the wind gust was over though. Until she found her own balance beam. :)

They had this huge tractor there. Maybe it's the farm blood in me, but I loved it and wanted the girls to get on it for pictures. I'm pretty sure they loved it too.

We loaded up again to go find another place to explore. There were a lot of people there fly fishing in the river. We found a no-fishing location so that the kids didn't disturb any fishermen and we went and threw rocks in the water. The water was so clear. You could see down to the bottom. The kids loved it. Ella had quite the hard time staying out of the water. Em on the other hand never got near the edge.

Luke and Curt and Dan a little bit spent the entire time skipping rocks. The two of them are quite good at it...or the rocks and calm water were perfect conditions... :) They both managed to skip rocks clear across the pond to the other shore. There were rocks skipped so many times you couldn't even count. It was fun to watch and the competion between the two of them was funny. I think Curt definitely won too. :)

Abby and Isabelle left the crowd to throw rocks in by themselves. They even counted to three and threw them at the same time.

  And then there's Ella...again. Being King of the Rock wasn't quite enough....she had to figure out how to jump across to the next one. We promptly stopped her since even though she thinks she can jump that far, we know differently. That girl....

After this we went back to the cabins and packed up to go home since I had surgery the next morning. Everyone else, including our three girls stayed up there another day. Fun times!!