Sarah & Santa

I'm happy to say this year's picture went much better than year's past. :-)

Sarah's New Look

Pretty cool, huh? Sarah recently found these glasses at her Grammy's house and LOVES wearing them around. They give everything a rainbow tint which she insists she can only see it if she's moving her head back and forth. She's like a little Stevie Wonder! :-)

Sarah's Nail Salon

Looks like our little girl is growing up! Here she is playing with her first manicure set complete with lip gloss, pink & purple nail polish, and of course Dora the Explorer press on nails! Daddy was a good sport and volunteered to be her first client! :-)


A little lip gloss for Daddy!

Painting Daddy's nails

The press on nails didn't last long, but they were still cute!

Here's a cute video of Sarah & Daddy "in action." There are a couple of "firsts" going on here! Enjoy!

Some Afternoon Fun

Who knew yard work could be so much fun?

Halloween 2009

Sarah had a great time trick or treating on Saturday and has been having an even better time sifting through her loot...daily! :-) She was "Spot the Dog" this year which turned out to be a great costume idea since we didn't have to worry about bundling her up to keep her warm. She did a great job saying "trick or treat," but she was a bit reluctant to offer up any "thank you's"... at least until she made sure the candy she had just received was safely inside her bucket. :-)

A special thank you to Grammy for the costume and Grams for decorating her plastic pumpkin to look like a dog bone! We got a lot of compliments on both!

Below are a few pictures from our trip around the neighborhood. Be sure to check out the slideshow on the right hand side for more pics of Halloween 2009! Enjoy!


Starting out...


This bucket is starting to get a bit heavy.


Yep, it's all in there!


Lazy man's trick or treating!


Taking a break with Daddy

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

We recently joined Sarah's preschool for a trip to a local pumpkin farm for an evening of face painting, pumpkin decorating, & Sarah's first corn maze. It got to be pretty cold as the evening wore on, but everyone had a great time. Sarah really enjoyed herself and it was nice to spend some time with her teachers and friends outside of school. :-)


Here is Ms. Megan giving Sarah her spider web tattoo...temporary of course! :-)


Decorating her pumpkin...


The finished product.


So cute!

We all had a great time doing the corn maze too. The maze was really neat and was cut out in the shape of the USA. There were 20 stations along the way with a trivia question for you to answer. Sarah loved trying to find each station and then trying her best to get the hole punch for her answer sheet to work. :-) Here's a quick video of one of our stops.

See-Saw Horsey

See-Saw Horsey...Sarah's new favorite game!

Finally, a Beautiful Fall Day

We've finally had a couple of beautiful fall days here so Sarah & I headed over to the zoo & playground this morning to take advantage. We had a good time with our friends Heather & Audrey and got a couple cute pics in the process. :-)

Meow!

Happy Early Halloween!

Who Needs Oven Mitts?

I was going through some pictures on my camera and came across this video of Sarah from our trip to Chicago last month. I know I'm a little biased, but I thought it was cute so of course I wanted to share. :-)

Sarah's New Favorite Thing

Sarah has recently become infatuated with the "car buggies" at Martin's, our local grocery store. She loves to take her friends, usually Froggie & Rainbow Bear, with her and will spend the entire trip buckling and unbuckling everyone. It's amazing how cooperative she is about getting her shoes on, getting in the car, etc. when she knows we're headed to Martin's! Too funny!


A cheesy grin for the camera


Click it or Ticket!

Sarah Playing Dress Up

How cute is this?

Steve visits the Big House

As an early birthday present, Steve made his first trip to The Big House on Saturday to watch Notre Dame take on Michigan. The outcome certainly made for a long car ride home, but he had a good time regardless and enjoyed seeing a good game.



Steve & Garett at The Big House

Happy Birthday Steve!

Steve turned the big 36 yesterday and while I'm a day late with this post, I wanted to be sure to say Happy Birthday to the best husband in the world! Sarah & I are so lucky to have you in our lives! We love you!!


The Birthday Boy!


Helping Daddy blow out the candles!

Happy Mother's Day

Last Sunday, Steve & Sarah surprised me with a two day trip to Chicago. It was actually a belated Mother's Day gift complete with gift cards to a few of my favorite stores! What a wonderful surprise! Our friends Sam & Kathy got married over Mother's Day weekend this year so Steve had been saving this trip as a way for the three of us to get away for some time together. I had so much fun shopping, eating out, and spending a fun couple of days with my two favorite people! :-) I'm so lucky to have such an incredibly thoughtful husband and an adorable little girl! I love you both so much!

Here are a few pictures from our weekend. We took Sarah to the Rain Forest Cafe for dinner on Sunday and she did great! We sat at a table right by the elephants and had the best time!






How cute is this?

Football Saturday...Go Hokies!

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Happy Football Saturday!

Go Hokies!

At the Playground

Here are a couple quick pictures from our outing to the playground yesterday. Sarah usually tries to hide when I take out the camera, but I was able to get a few pictures nonetheless. :-)


A forced smile for mom.


Pouting Sarah


There's the smile I love! :-)


With her friend Audrey.

Bristol 2009

Many of you probably don't know this, but Steve is a pretty big NASCAR fan and has had the night race at Bristol on his "bucket list" for awhile now. This love of racing has intensified lately too with NIBCO's recent sponsorship of the Menard's racing car. Needless to say, Steve was very excited when my mom gave him tickets to the Sharpie 500 at the Bristol Motor Speedway as an early birthday present.

Our good fortune continued as we were able to secure some pit passes through NIBCO that gave us unlimited access to the pits for the entire weekend. It was so much fun to go "behind the scenes" and see so many of the cars & drivers up close. We both had a great time and I even think I might have been bitten by the racing bug. :-)

I should also explain quickly about our "lodging" for the weekend. My original plan was that we would simply drive from Blacksburg the day of the race since it's not too far. The pit passes however through a little monkey wrench into our plans since we wanted to be there for the entire weekend. Finding a hotel in Bristol a month before the race was impossible so we turned to the next best option...Camping!! You know what they say...when in Rome! :-) Camping is apparently big at Bristol so we ended up staying at a campground right across the street from the track complete with a shuttle that would take you back & forth all weekend. It was great!

Here are a couple pics of our weekend, but you can check out the slideshow on the right for more! Enjoy!




In the pits during the race

No, Sarah didn't make the trip with us, but she had a great weekend too. She had her first weekend long sleep over with Grams & Grandpa (Steve's mom & dad) and had a ball. In fact, whenever we would call to check on her, she was always too busy to come to the phone. :-) A big THANK YOU to Grams & Grandpa for taking her for us so we could enjoy our weekend. Here are a couple pictures of their time together. More pictures of Sarah's weekend can be found in the August 2009 slideshow.


Playing dress-up for Grandma


Her first roller coaster...Winkie the Whale

At the Beach

It's finally warmed up a bit here and we've been able to spend a few days at the beach. We've been spending most of our time at Silver Beach in St. Joe so yesterday we decided to head up to New Buffalo for a change of scenery. We had a great time playing in the waves and even stopped off at Redamak's for dinner and our first taste of the famous burgers. Definitely worth the trip! :-)

Here are just a couple pictures of Sarah & Steve playing in the water. Enjoy!

A Little Indoor Fun

Due in part to the rain we woke up to on Saturday morning, we decided to take Sarah bowling for the first time. Sarah really seemed to enjoy herself and I'm happy to report that no balls were dropped on toes in the process! :-)

Here are a few pics of our day at Strikes & Spares! Enjoy!


Getting ready to bowl!






This was how Sarah passed the time when she wasn't bowling. Too funny! :-)

Singing in the Rain

We finally had a little bit of rain here Saturday morning and Sarah couldn't wait to get outside in her new rain gear. She's been wearing everything in the house the past couple of weeks so you can only imagine how excited she was to head outside. She loves everything, but the umbrella is definitely her favorite. A big thank you to Grammy for her new look! :-)