Welcome to the world Leila Faith!

My newest niece, Leila Faith, was born November 12th at 2:53pm. She was 7 lbs, 1 oz and 21 inches long. We are so happy for my brother and sister-in-law...they are going to be great parents! Future family get-togethers should be lots of fun...between my siblings, we have girls ages 3, 2, 1, and newborn. Sarah and I went to visit them a few hours after she was born. She's absolutely gorgeous and we can't wait to see her again!

I think she was tired of the flash already

Annaliese holding her new cousin

Sarah loved holding Leila!

Uncle Josh and Leila

Aunt Ashley and Leila

The proud papa!

I forgot to have anyone take a picture of me holding my niece, but we'll see her again soon!

Fun fall weekend

Grandma Diane and Aunt Lisa (Mark's mom and sister) drove in from St. Louis for a visit this weekend. It was a beautiful fall weekend and we had a great time. We ate lots of bbq, played lots of cards and even helped Mark clean up the leaves in the yard...or maybe we just made a bigger mess :) Sarah had lots of fun playing in the leaves and even the puppies got in on the action.

She thought it was fun to bury daddy in the leaves

Mollie and Lucy decided to get daddy too

We even tried to get a picture for our Christmas card this year. We got a couple of good ones. I'll save those for later, but here are a couple I thought were cute.

I love how Sarah is leaning on Mark...so cute!

Apparently Lucy was done with picture taking...

Sarah trying to run over grandma with her big wheel

Picking some flowers for grandma and aunt Lisa

Snuggling on the bed with grandma

Playing kitchen with aunt Lisa

Isn't that the sweetest!

Playing cards with grandma and aunt Lisa

Soccer, hockey and a haircut

Looks who's sporting a sassy new haircut! Sarah's hair was getting a little on the shaggy side and since she won't let me do anything except put a bow in, she was due for a little trim.





A new hockey season has started which means daddy has lots of smelly hockey gear stinking up the garage :) Mark had an early game a few weeks ago, so Sarah and I got to go watch. We had gone to something else that afternoon and Sarah had to catch a nap in the car. There's nothing sweeter than a sleeping little one!

Sarah loved seeing daddy in his hockey uniform

Our Parents as Teachers group had a free soccer session for toddlers last week and we actually remembered to sign-up for it :) It was kind of mass chaos, but lots of fun!

Scoring a goal!

Jumping over the noodle

All the kids under the parachute

Checking out her soccer ball stamp on her belly

They also gave us a tattoo with their logo on it, which is two little dinosaurs in soccer uniforms. Sarah insisted on putting the tattoo on her belly, just like the stamp...and you can still see it a week later :)

Halloween 2010

We had a fun, busy Halloween weekend! This was the first year Sarah was old enough to really understand what candy is and how to get it, and it only took her a house or two to get the whole trick-or-treating thing down. Though I had to keep her from walking in the first couple houses.

We carved a couple of pumpkins last weekend...next year we will have to do it a little closer to Halloween. They were pretty shriveled up by the time Sunday rolled around, but we had fun doing them. Though Sarah didn't want anything to do with the pumpkin guts.










Last week, our library had a Halloween party for all the two-year-olds in our story time group. Talk about a little chaotic...30 toddlers in costume, but very cute!

Sarah's friend Lucy as an adorable Elmo

Ready for the cake walk

Miss Vicki...the librarian that does story time. Sarah LOVES her!!

Checking out her goody bag

Sarah and Lucy

In a chocolate induced daze...

Miss Vicki and her green witch

On Saturday, we went to the KC zoo for the Boo at the Zoo. They had stations set up to get candy and other goodies, including ice cream and chocolate milk!

Daddy and Sarah on the carousel

Walking the pirate plank

Giving a five to Sizzle, mascot of the T-Bones, our local minor league baseball league

Sizzle on the carousel

Adam, Angela and their kids stopped by to visit before going trick-or-treating. Their whole family was dressed as pirates.

All bundled up and ready to go!

She was very excited about getting candy!