Longest Post Ever--More to come!

These last few months have beens super busy as we have enjoyed the great weather and savored every monment before winter hits. These pictures are just from out camera from the last few months. In the next few days (hopefully) I will post Halloween and pictures from my mom's trip. This is the only picture I have of my mom's trip on my camera, we mostly used hers, I have the pictures that I will post later. The girls had so much fun with my mom and so did I it was a great trip.

Natalie and Rebecca in their matching dresses from Grandma Leiter, we never got a picture together, but you get the idea.

Random Sunday picture- I think this is from when Rebecca turned 6 months old. So cute. She weighed 12 lbs. 13 oz. and was 26 1/2 inches long. She gained weight, but is still a runt.

Enjoying her highchair, Natalie is always so nice to bring her lots of toys.

I caughted Natalie one day unrolling a roll of toilet paper so I asked why on earth she was doing that and told her to stop. She said, "Mom, I just want to know how long it is." So the next day for out FHE activity we unrolled a roll of toilet paper and played with it, I don't know who had more fun, Natalie or Patrick.

Patrick got off early one day and we were able to go on a fun family hike to see the fall leaves. Natalie loved finding walking sticks.

She finally made it to the top, she was so done about halfway to the observation tower, but she still had fun.

Rebecca's first ride in the hiking pack, she did great and even took a nap for about half of the hike. She kept leaning to one side though, but smiled and talked when she was awake.

Dad and his girls loving the outdoors.

Also at the beginning of October we got to go to Barthel's Fruit Farm twice, once with preschool and once with our family. With preschool we got to pick both pumpkins and apples, but when we took Patrick back just a few days later, the apples were all picked, we were bummed. We even stopped on the way home to buy apples so we could make apple pie.

Here are the pictures from the preschool adventure.

Natalie wanted a huge pumpkin and successfully found a giant one.

After pumpkin picking it was off to the apples. The girls had so much fun picking apples here they are putting them in the bag and admiring them.

Enjoying the shade from the apple trees, cute sisters.

I didn't end up with a picture of the preschool girls, but here is a picture of the next group of kids, they are all so cute.

Before we went out to the farm again, Patrick and I ran an 8 k together, it was a fun race and even though I trained I only beat Patrick by 3 minutes, it was a fun race to run, hopefully we will do it again next year. Picture taken by Natalie.

After getting the girls we headed off to the pumpkin patch again. It was a beautiful day and we had so much fun exploring the pumpkins and finding the best one to bring home. The sun was too bright for Natalie, but a cute picture of the girls.

Rebecca loved being on Patrick's shoulders, and they looked so cute.

Another favorite activity in the fall is raking leaves and playing in them of course, it has been so warm that Natalie actually didn't freeze while playing in them.

Sisterly tourture, Becca was not so thrilled with the leave picture idea.

Becca has recently discovered dolls and will talk to them like they are real, it is so cute to watch her do it.

We had been shopping and I checked out then looked down and saw that Becca was asleep like this, sound asleep.

Tony Hawk

Tony Hawk is the one with the helmet behind me for those who don't know.

I got home from school early today and checked my twitter account and saw the following on tony hawk's twitter:"

4 Seasons Skatepark, Milwaukee, 4pm, ta-ta-ta-today Junior!" So I grabbed Natalie and we took off to 4 seasons and watched tony and friends skate the bowl. Natalie's favorite was Kevin Staab

because he had purple hair and purple leopard skin shin pads.

We were right on the edge of the bowl and got to stand next to many of the pros as they waited to drop in; including Tony.

Natalie also got two mini tony hawk skateboards and loved playing with them on the mini skate park.

Tony Hawk Skating

Natalie mini-skating

Fall is Coming

Fall is definitely in the air here in Wisconsin. School has started, activities are in full swing, the weather is cooling off, and I swear I saw some leaves beginning to change. We're excited for fall, but not Winter, so we hope we have a long, long fall ahead of us. With the beginning of September Natalie has started many new activities. She is loving life and getting way too big. This is a massive post so sorry if you get bored halfway through.

One day while I was getting ready Natalie decided to organize her books and bring way too many of them downstairs to organize them on the shelves in the living room. So cute, but it definitely took us awhile to carry them up the stairs to put them away again.

Natalie had her first trip to the dentist and it was a success! No cavities and she was a brave girl. She wasn't necessarily scared of the dentist, she is just way shy with new people so this was a definite success.

Natalie also started dance a couple of weeks ago and really looks forward to it. I think she is still shy in class, but is loving it.

One day Myleigh and Natalie we playing and I found them in Natalie's room, they made a "fort" and were having so much fun reading books in it. After I took these pictures I forgot to put the camera away and they found it and took great pictures of each other. I have never heard two girls have so much fun with a camera before, they were so cute.

Thanks to our good friends Shawn and Bird Patrick and I were able to escape to Chicago over Labor Day weekend by ourselves for the night. It was so wonderful. I know the picture below is a little weird, but I was messing with it and accidentally saved the changes, and Patrick had already deleted the original. Also I am sporting the windblown look. Chicago definitely earned the name Windy City while we were there, it was crazy I almsost got blown away a few times. We had a great time, stayed in a hotel on Lake Michigan, shopped went out to dinner, walked Navy Pier and braved the "L" and the bus system to get around. It was a fun break and we were excited to see our girls when we got home. Thanks again Ostlers.

Natalie started preschool this last week with her friends, us moms are teaching them. She was so excited to go with her backpack and loves it. She actually has come home and talked all about it and told us all of the fun things she did. I hope that she keeps telling me what she did all year,

I love hearing her tell about it.

For those of you who have seen the picture of Natalie at the St. George Marathon when she was this age you can definitely see the resemblence of sisters. Natalie was wearing this same outfit, minus the bow and they look so similar. Rebecca looks more like me and Natalie is a better mix of the two of us we have decided.

REBBIE

NATALIE

Cute Rebecca all ready for the day, she is getting way too big, I finally had to pull out some warmer/bigger clothes for her, I can't believe she is almost 6 months old.

There was a kite festival along Lake Michigan this weekend. We have been so excited to go for awhile now, and woke up this morning to rain, of course. The last 6 or 7 times Patrick has been off and ready to go on a bike ride it has rained, we have to stop planning for him to go on a ride so we don't have anymore rainy weekends. The rain did clear up though and we were able to go and enjoy the festival. Taylor and Eliza braved the clouds and joined us too. The girls loved the stroller like always, I think we should write our stroller company and tell them to market this stroller as a triple stroller instead of a double. Whenever we use it I am either pushing 3 kids or 1, I think I have only pushed 2 kids once. They love it though.

Can you tell we woke Becca up from her nap to go to the festival? She did fall back asleep eventually while we were there she is such a good girl.

These cut outs to take pictures in provided the girls with lots of entertainment. Natalie enjoyed teasing me while I was trying to take a picture and playing peek a boo with Eliza. They finally posed for Taylor in the end.

Natalie and Elize spinning the wheel. The girls had so much fun running around and watching the kites.

Family picture by Lake Michigan, the lake is so beautiful and fun to live by. The kits flying by the lake looked so neat.

They had some of the kids help hold down the netting over the balloons while they were waiting to launch them. Natalie took her job very seriously and did not move until they told her to.

The launch of the balloons and kits, Natalie was so excited.

My Girls

Here are some snapshots of our summer, sorry the most recent ones are first, going all of the way back to 4th of July. These first pictures are taken of Rebecca when she was 5 months yesterday! Crazy how time flies. We are loving having our two girls and they sure love each other.

Eating rice ceral-kind of, she is not sold on the idea yet as you can see.
Getting upset when I'm hungry and I don't think mom is fast enough getting my food.

Natalie feeding Rebecca a bottle.

5 Month Pictures

Stretching and growing (finally-We took her for a weight check on Monday 11 lb 8 oz at 5 months)

Tummy time- I'm liking it more and more, mostly because I know how to roll over now to get off my tummy when I get mad.

Having water fights in the backyard with Myleigh.

Sitting in the Bumbo and thinking I am so big!

Brewer's Games- They definitely have not won as much as last year though.

4th of July- We loved the parade, ward party and most of us liked the fireworks!