Between Then and Now: More Florida

Somehow this post never made it to the website back in August. Whoops. Here it is about 5 months late...

These two were attached at the hip all week. I love their friendship and love for each other.

It was a tie between the kayak & the boogie boards for the favorite water toy!

All the grandkids:

I love this one of Poppy & Oskar:

The food all week was great! This night we made kabobs & corn on the cob all on the grill. So good!

Iris looks just like my brother when he was a baby. The similarity is unbelieveable! It was great to have some time with the entire family all week! Such an amazing vacation!

Last Day of Summer

Today is the last day of summer. Back to the grind tomorrow. :(

To make the most of it, we met up with Lauren & McKinley at the zoo. Such a beautiful morning with a break from the heat! The girls had a great time!

Sophie climbing the wall to the go down the slide in the Children's Zoo:


Walking along the rope balance beam all by herself:
On the carousel. It was McKinley's first time and she was a brave girl to get on that hippo!
Sophie, on the other hand, has ridden the carousel many times, but was not so brave today. She wanted to ride on the bench and wasn't really happy about the whole experience in general.
She liked the children's area much better. Houses to play in and space to run around.



This is the face we get every time we ask Sophie to smile:

The Jeep was a big hit. This was the best shot I could get:
An altogether excellent visit to the zoo with great friends! A wonderful way to end the summer!

Between Then and Now: Wisconsin

I'm going to tell you the story of Wisconsin backwards. I always forget that blogger does this to me and I'm too lazy to fix it.

On the way home, we stopped back in Milwaukee to have lunch with Cousin Becky. We went to a really cool & trendy area down town. It was a beautiful day and we ate overlooking the river and got to see part of the air show taking place for the state fair.

The last night there we took the boat into Sheboygan and trolled on the river/harbor. We docked at a fun little restaurant to eat and enjoyed the views.

On the boat:
A view of the lighthouse taken from the river out into Lake Michigan.
"Cheese!"

We enjoyed our time on the beach while we were there. The first few days the water was pretty cold, but on Saturday it was nice and warm and we played in the water and on the beach all morning.
"Shhhh. You have to be quiet so they can sleep." (I forget what/who was sleeping at this point, but this is a common phrase around our house...and apparently on the beach, too.)


I checked out a ton of books from the library before we left home. This one was her favorite. It was about dancing and had glitter on the cover, so she was sold. We read several times a day, every day.
Driving the boat with P-Pa.

I love this picture. It captures Sophie so well.


We got to the cottage late Monday evening. On Tuesday we headed back to Milwaukee for a bbq with Matt's grandparents, cousins, and aunt & uncle. Sophie loved Becky's doggies.

Sophie cracking up with Aunt Patty:

Shooting some hoops with Daddy:
Tossing the ball with Great-Grandpa:
It was a great trip! Sophie did great in the car and we had a nice time with family! And the break from the St. Louis heat was especially nice!

Between Then and Now: Everyday Life

More of the "inbetweens" of summer:

My grandparents took the entire family out to dinner to celebrate their anniversary. PF Chang's...yum! Here's Sophie with a lettuce wrap:

Kelsy was in from California and Sophie warmed up immediately!

The family clockwise around the table: Aunt Linda (my mom's sister), me, Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Neil (Mom's brother), Cousin Brian (Linda's son...one of 3). Not shown: A lot of family members also sitting at the table. It was a big group!

At the park with Izzy in early August.

This next one is Sophie's first drawing that is "legible." (She drew this on Aug. 8th...for my own record keeping.) She said, "I'm going to draw Mommy & Sophie." She drew the heads and then I said, "I think we need eyes." Then she drew the eyes, noses, smiles, legs, and feet with a little bit of prompting. I was pretty impressed. I'm the one with blue eyes. She demanded that her eyes should be pink. She's been a little obsessed lately with pink.

At Tower Grove Park with Weston:

The kids struck this pose on their own. It was so cute! I was wishing our friend Erin was there to capture these pics, b/c I just couldn't get that "perfect" shot with my point-and-shoot. This is the cutest one I got:

I'm sorry, they are just too cute together. Sophie has started calling Westie her "boyfriend." She told me that they like to hold hands a lot.

Earlier in the summer we went to Purina Farms with Weston, Lily, and Abigail. It was a beautiful day to be at the farm!

This summer has been all about hair bows & dresses. She likes these hair-bands the best and she demands to put them in herself. They are meant for infants, but whatever. Be sure to check out the bracelet/pajama combo, too.

We also took a trip to the Magic House back in June. Got this shot downloaded before we lost our camera in Florida. The other ones may have made it to Facebook...I'm not sure.

More to come...