Beauty...

And the Beast.

Finally.

3rd year is a charm, right?

I guess this means Rachel has to finally move on

and be something else for Halloween next year.

Carving Pumpkins

Perhaps one of these days I will post pictures of the current holiday.

Until then, here are a couple pictures of the kids during the fall.

Maybe I'll even post Halloween pictures before Christmas!

The Gardens at Cantigny

We decided that after we took Elliot to Cantigny we needed to go again as a family. Here are some pictures we took. We were amazed at how many wedding parties we saw that day. I'll bet there were at least 8 or 10 different weddings. It was such a fun day.

A Visit From Elliot

We were lucky enough to get a visit from my brother Elliot in September.

We were able to do a few fun things with him while he was here. Of course we had to take him to the city and see a few things there. This is us at The Bean.

The river walk in Naperville is so fun. These pictures were taken under one of the covered bridges. Can you tell how much Toby loves his uncle Elliot. Yesterday Toby saw a picture of Elliot and was trying so hard to say his name. It came out like this "L E."

I love this picture of my sweet Rachel.

One of the days we took him to a war memorial called Cantigny.

The Tank Park was a big hit. There are 11 tanks that were used in different wars. They let you climb on them which my kids thought was great.

My favorite part of the day was walking through the amazing gardens. Wouldn't you know that the batteries in my camera were dead by that point!

Chicago

We finally got a chance to go downtown with Adam so that he could show us around. Our first stop: Adam's office. This is his view. 

Of course Rachel wanted in on the picture taking. I'm pretty impressed that she took a picture of Toby actually looking at the camera, and smiling.

Not far from Adam's office is Millennium Park. That was our next stop.

Here is a fun view of the city from the park. 

The Bean. Random, but fun.

Also random.

The kids had the best time playing in the water in between the two spitting water faces. 

Fun comes with a price. Toby slipped and hit his head. Can you see the bump on his eyebrow?

We walked part of the Magnificent Mile on our way to see Lake Michigan. Fun place but I think I'll enjoy it some time without my children! We didn't go in any of the stores this time, although I am actually considering taking Rachel to the American Girl store someday. Call me crazy, but I think she would love it!

We stopped to play in the sand by the lake but I decided that needed a post of its own. Our final stop was Navy Pier. By this point we were all tired and overwhelmed by everything going on at Navy Pier, so we decided to take that all in another day. 

Lake Michigan

Cousins

 

One of the most exciting things about living in Illinois is that we are closer to family than we have been in several years. My brother and his family live in Ohio and they came to visit us the second week we were here. We had a very low key weekend with them and we had the best time. The kids had such a fun time together. We can't wait to go visit them in Ohio. 

 

Preschool

 

Rachel started Preschool two days after we got here. She was so excited to go and has loved every day of it. At first I will admit that I was a little concerned. One day during the first week of school she told me about some of the kids in her class. I remember she started by telling me that there was a girl named Autumn and that there was a boy named Jeffery. At that point I thought it was just coincidence, but she went on to tell me that there was also a boy in her class named Caden, (I started to wonder...) and a boy named Aiden. Yep, Denial! That can't be coincidence. I knew she was making it up. For the next week she would not tell me the real names of any of the kids in her class. She would only talk about her friends from Texas. Then one day we were leaving her school and a little girl called out, "Bye Rachel!" Her dad turned around to look at us and said, "Oh, that's Rachel?" Then he said to me, "We've heard a lot about Rachel." I found out that his daughter's name was Senali, and as you might have guessed Rachel had not once told me about her little friend. After that I finally got Rachel to start talking about the kids in her class and she would only occasionally throw in a friend from Texas. For instance, she told me that during circle time she sat by Senali. When I asked if there was someone sitting on her other side she said "Yes, his name is Hyrum. He's new in our class." As you can imagine, this make-believe world of hers has brought many opportunities for talks about honesty! Things are going better now and she will actually tell me the names of her friends at school. 

 

The Big Move

Here is a little peek into our journey from Texas to Illinois. 

This first picture was taken just before we left Texas. 

The first day of driving took us all the way through Oklahoma. 

This next picture was taken sometime during a long 10 hour day. 

We made it to Arkansas that night and stopped for a couple of days to stay with Shea and Jessica. We had a great visit and were lucky enough to get to see their baby. This is us at the hospital the day before they brought Tanner home. 

Luckily we had plenty of time before our moving truck was scheduled to deliver our stuff, so we were able to stay an extra day and enjoy baby Tanner at home too. Rachel loved this baby and I had to really fight for time to hold him!

When Rachel saw these rocks she was amazed at their greatness. She said "Wow! Those rocks are BIG! They go from the ground up to there!" As you can see these are no mountains. You know your daughter has grown up in a flat place when something like this is impressive. 

This next one is also in Arkansas. It was about this time that Rachel said, "Look at the rocks and trees and grass." Adam replied, "It looks a lot different than it does in Texas." Rachel's response was classic. "Yes - it's very prettier."

Shortly after we left Shea and Jessica's house we also left Arkansas. We continued on through Missouri for a great deal of our day. Missouri was surprisingly entertaining. We kept passing signs that claimed to have the world's largest _____. So we decided to write them down just for fun. (Because what else do you do on a road trip?) Here is our list of random things that Missouri claims to have the world's largest of. 

1. The world's largest fireworks store

2. The world's largest gift shop

3. The world's largest jigsaw puzzle selection

4. The world's largest rocking chair

5. The world's rarest cave formation

6. The greatest show under the earth (Meramec Caverns)

This next picture of St. Louis is the last thing that we saw of Missouri. 

Welcome to Illinois!

It is amazing how long a fruit and yogurt parfait kept Toby happy. 

The bib did help...a little.

I have to say that these two kids were troopers this trip. Thanks to a lot of snacks, dvds and a couple of toys from the dollar store. 

We enjoyed a lot of beautiful scenery on this trip. It was fun to see parts of the country that I had never seen before. This next picture is a very typical scene in Illinios. 

       The sun set just before the drive came to an end. I like that you 

can see the sillouette of our car in this picture. 

This post is dedicated to all of my friends who had lost hope in my ability to blog. I am going to give you all a promise to change my ways! I know that it took me a month to blog our trip, but I have a lot of fun pictures of what we have done this month and they will give me motivation to blog. So stay tuned!