Mommy's Weekend Away

 

The first weekend in October was my Mother-in-law's 60th birthday. In celebration, all of her daughters (and daughter-in-law) got together to surprise Jan with a weekend quilting retreat. We invited a bunch of her friends to join us to quilt all weekend long! Jan was so surprised and we all had a wonderful time together sewing, talking, laughing and of course eating lots of yummy food :) And Natalie and I even got some good shopping in at the outlets close to where we were staying!

My mom is friends with Jan from when they lived in Houston, so she joined me for the weekend! We flew into Chicago, met up with Natalie at the airport, and drove out to a small town in central Illinois, called Arcola, Illinois. We got to our bed and breakfast late that night and met up with a lot of the ladies still up quilting. The bed and breakfast was in a neat older home. Saturday morning, we woke-up to a yummy 7-course breakfast with  a lot of yummy dishes and freshly grown veggies from their garden. The best part was the delicious pumpkin pancakes at the end of the meal!

Arcola, Illinois is right in the middle of Amish country. So we got a chance to drive out to an amish town and walk around in their shops. It was really neat and fun to see the Amish people. We even drove by a few horse drawn carriages on the road. This is the picture my mom got, not the best picture but you get the idea :)

Natalie's flight left Chicago a little earlier in the day than my Mom's and mine, so we got a few hours to spend in Chicago. We drove to down town and walked around and got to see some neat things! We ate lunch at a cafe in downtown, then walked over to the Bean. We then did some souvenir shopping, of course! Then we had to head back to the airport to catch our flights.

One of the funniest parts of the trips is when we stopped at a gas station to fill our rental car up before we turned it in. The airport is not in the nicest part of Chicago. My Mom wanted to go into the gas station to change into the "I Heart Chicago" shirt she had got. I got this picture of her walking out of the gas station in her shirt, along with some friends she met inside the gas station. It was hilarious! Me and Travis and my sisters got some good laughs out of these pictures! 

Daddy and McKinley did well at home with me gone! They had a lot of fun together and McKinley was a good girl for Daddy! Daddy kept me posted and sent me a lot of cute pictures of what they did!

Daddy fixed McKinley's hair :)

They walked over to the park, then went to the pet store. After nap, they went to the mall rode on the carousel, the coin operated rides, and even got some yummy cookies :)

 

 I really missed them and was so happy to see them when they picked me up at the airport! McKinley ran up to me once I walked out and gave me a big hug! It was so good to be home and see them again! We all had a great weekend, but it was great to be together again!

They even had a few surprises for me when I got home! Travis had hung up a few pictures around the house that I've meant to have hung up a while ago! He also made this pots and pans hanger for me above the kitchen sink! It's so nice and helps to organize my small kitchen a little better! He designed it and made it himself! It was so sweet to come home to all of these fun surprises and not to mention a spotless house! What a good husband I have :)

Fall Leaves and Meme visits!

As I've mentioned before, we love fall! One of my favorite parts of fall is the beautiful leaves and fall colors! Lincoln has had some beautiful colors this fall! My Mom came to visit for a week and while she was here we drove around and took pictures of the leaves (must be where I get my love of fall leaves).

We also went to Pioneers Park and let McKinley play and take pictures of some of the pretty trees there! And I got a couple cute ones of McKinley too :)

One of McKinley's favorite fall activities is playing in all of the fallen leaves! She likes to throw them in the air and jump around in them!

We had fun while my Mom was here visiting! McKinley liked having Meme around! She was so excited to have her here, she even helped carry her bags in :)

My Mom and I even got to have a girls afternoon and get pedicures while McKinley was at her Toddler Play Group :)

Another fun fall activity we've been able to enjoy is more football games! We went to the Nebraska vs. Wisconsin game and had a great time! It was so much fun to be there! It was a night game, which created a fun atmosphere for a football game, and it was a big win for Nebraska! We had a great time!

October is also Mya's birthday month, so we had fun celebrating Mya's birthday a few times! We had fun at her Hello Kitty party at the park, and we also went out to dinner at Valentinos while my mom was in town to celebrate Mya's birthday with her, who Mya calls "Grandma Meme".

We've also enjoyed some yummy spider cookies in honor of Halloween for Family Movie Night one night. We checked out Jungle Book from the library and McKinley loved it! She loved "man cub" and watched it many times throughout the 2 weeks we had it on loan from the library :)

2 year photo shoot!

 

I'm lucky to have a lot of friends as photographers, who are amazing at what they do! My friend Jesicah took McKinley's 2-year old pictures for me last week! I LOVE how they turned out! She did an amazing job, and I must admit the outfit I picked out for her to wear turned out pretty cute too :) With out further adieu, here they are...

My friend Heather had been wanting to take pictures of her 2 year old Dane too, so we decided to make it easier of Jesicah and do them together in one night. So we got these 2 super cute pictures of the 2 of them together. They're good friends! Heather had a hat for Dane to wear in the pictures, and of course McKinley thought his hat was pretty neat and wanted to wear it. So Dane put it on for her, then he decided he wanted to put her headband on. It was really funny and had us all laughing at the cute little 2 year olds!