The Search for the Great Pumpkin

I LOVE Fall. I love the crsip clean air and beautiful autumn colors. I also love doing fun fall activities like going on hayrides and visiting pumpik patches. We kicked off the fall season at Young's Dairy's Fall Pumpkin Festival. We had such a good time. Young's Dairy is a working dairy farm complete with homemade ice cream, tractors and a barn full of animals. They throw the coolest pumpkin festival at the end of September. We picked a pumpkin, rode the barrel train ride and ate pumpkin doughnut holes.

We had the opportunity of watching this little guy take his first steps. This baby calf was born about two minutes before we walked into the barn. I caught this sweet moment where tired Momma said hello to her new baby calf for the first time. How amazing.

This is truly the wildest pumpkin patch I've ever seen. We chopped our pumpkin right off the vine.

Bye-bye Summer

Dear Summer,

Goodbye good friend. We'll miss your warm lazy mornings sitting out on the porch in our jammies drinking chocolate milk, afternoons digging in the dirt and playing pretend in the fort, and cool evenings filled with hotdog grilling and penty of firefly chasing. We can't wait to see you again next year.

Your friends,
Matt-matt & Jordi

Over the river and through the woods...

To Grandma's house we go! We were lucky enough to spend a week in Utah with Jeremy's parents. The boys love being with "Grandma Bickie" and "Grandpa Mac". :-) We did as much as we could squeeze into a few days, but Matt and Jordi loved the dinosaur museum and the swimming pool the most. Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for such a great trip!!

Little Matthew just comes alive in the water. He is an animal in the swimming pool. Like father, like son - he's more at home in the water than he is on land!

Summer Getaway

In August, we went to Utah to visit Jeremy's family. While we were there, Jeremy's parents were nice enough to take care of the boys so we could take off for a few days to the family cabin in Island Park, ID for a little romantic getway. We had so much fun cozying up in the cabin, whitewater rafting in Jackson Hole, and viewing the scenery and wildlife of Yellowstone.

Jackson Hole

We went rafting with Jeremy's brother, Robbie, and Rob's fiance, Jalise. What a fun, cute girl. :-) We're SO excited for her to join the family in January!! Love you guys!


Yellowstone National Park

Lazy Summer Days

What better way to spend a summer afternoon than chasing bubbles?

Hilarious that I got a shot of a bubble on his tongue. :-)

Growing Our Family

6 years of marriage, 2 dogs and 2 kids later, we have decided that it's time again to add to our family.

































...Goldfish that is. ;-)

The boys named their new fish "Shark" and "Nemo" (how original). Actually, we bought the goldfish back in July and now we're on our third Nemo. Poor Nemo 1 and Nemo 2 didn't last too long. Nemo 3 is on his 4th day of living with us, which is a record for the gold ones (and that's 4 days of little tots "petting" him, and then spending a few minutes the other day flopping around on the playroom floor after the boys knocked over the fishbowl). I'm sure the poor thing is totally traumatized.

Summer Zoo Trips

What an incredibly fun, busy, amazing summer we've had! I LOVE the age the boys are - they're still so sweet, cute and cuddly, but are also totally enthralled in discovering new-found independence and are growing their wild imaginations every day. I just can't get enough of them! We've had so many fun adventures over the past few months which I'll continue to attempt to document in these next few posts. :-)

SO many trips to the zoo! We enjoyed countless visits to the Indianapolis, Columbus and Cincinnati Zoos.

Indianapolis Zoo

Petting the sharks, watching the polar bears & donkeys, and looking down a storm drain for...who knows what. Cute Matthew just had to find out what lies down that sewer. :-)

Checking out the giraffes and elephants (or, as the boys call them

"elf-a-nents").

The Indy Zoo has the coolest butterfly gardens. They had so much

fun "petting" the butterflies (poor butterflies!).

Columbus Zoo

Riding the zoo train

Watching the new baby elephant, looking for sharks and posing with Grandma. Oh, and I love little Rachel's face in this picture. Ha!

Feeding the Lorakeets. Way to go, Vickie, for not totally freaking out! ;-)

The boys thought the boat ride through the Monkey Islands with their cousins was so much fun!

For some reason I don't have pictures of the Cincinnati zoo (only video), but it's also tons of fun. It's HUGE, and among other things, they have a brand new giraffe area where you can feed the giraffes!