Halloween 2012

In August, I decided to back to work that the Academy for daycare, and Leah went back to school! She's been doing very well with the transition, and is so happy about getting to see her new friends and Annabel everyday.

The first thing at school that we were excited about was Halloween. Leah has never been in school for a holiday, so we were pretty excited to get to be a part of it. Leah decided early on that she wanted to be Tinkerbell. I was so ready, so I made her an outfit out of two shades of green tulle. Leah took one look at the costume and said, "that's nice, Mom. I want to be Cinderella". Great. I wasn't going to do it, but I stumbled into Joann Fabrics one day to find their tulle was on sale for .79 cents per yard. How could I turn that deal down? So I decided Cinderella would just be a nice blue tutu.

She wore it to school and was all excited about it. Actually, she was probably more excited about the cupcakes and treats that the other parents brought it but who knows:)

 

Cupcakes!

 

Rocco and Leah, AKA Iron Man and Cinderella

 

 

Half of Leah's Class

 

 

And the other half

 



 

 After school, we kept with our current tradition of going over to Aunt Kelly's house for Halloween, Ryan and I have been going there to hand out candy for 8 years. 8 years, yes that's right. And the past 3 we have given up our post of candy passer-outers and opted for the more fun job of taking Leah trick or treating. Last year, she made it up to the end of one street and back down to Kelly's-this year we anticipated a few more houses.

We never go anyplace without our Aunt Kelly!

Or cousin Aaron!

Or the dogs, let's be honest:)

 

 

 

 

Leah loves to take the dogs for walks, and she decided that she wanted to take them trick or treating too. She would have Ryan carry her candy while she walked Izzy, then when we would get to the house she would give Izzy to Ryan, take her candy and run up to the house, then come back and give Ryan the candy and take Izzy. Needless to say, this was the longest trick or treating we've ever had. It got cold so Kelly took the dogs in and we did the last block with Uncle Brian. Other Uncle Brian as he is known to Leah:) She made it up the next street and back down-a whole 3-4 blocks farther than last year. Oh, my baby's growing up so fast:)

And no Halloween would be complete without a dance party. Leah is obsessed with the song "Call me Maybe" so we had to dance to that song. Not once, but twice. Kelly and Aaron all had a good time dancing with her, while I stayed out of the pictures and just took them :)

"Call Me Maybe"

 

 

 

 

We had another awesome Halloween! Better start planning Leah's costume for next year!

Love,
Amy

Final Wedding of the season-#4

Ah weddings. Who doesn't love them? Well, I do! We've had our fair share this summer, and in September we were off to our last one of the year. Brad and Michelle.

Their wedding was to take place in Racine, so we decided to take Leah to the wedding and then let her spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa Siebert's house since she would have more fun there.

It was nice to get our family together one more time this year, as not everybody comes to Thanksgiving and Christmas. We Bahler's love our family time;)

Sadly, I don't have many pictures of this wedding, so I'm going to steal them from Michelle's facebook page:)

 The church was GORGEOUS! Probably the most beautiful church we had been in, and Michelle looked so pretty in her dress.

Getting ready

 

Their bridal party and view of the church

 

After the wedding, the whole Bahler family cousins and kids! This group hasn't been together with everybody since I don't know when! It was so nice to have everybody together!

Back-Greg, Dan, Adrienne, Sarah, Joe, Brian Ben, Zack and Brynn

Front-Rachel, Me and Leah, Michelle, Brad, Jenn, Steph and Gwen. Only one missing is little Evan:)

 

 



 

Receptions are usually the best part of any wedding-food, dancing, cake and drinks-that's a pretty tough combo to mess up:) The food was amazing-it was served family style, which I've never really seen. I've heard of it but never experienced it myself, so I was pretty darn excited! I don't even remember what all we ate, but I know there was a pasta course, and a chicken-fried if I do remember right-and it was all amazing.

I love little added details at weddings-centerpieces, favors, decorations. And Michelle did a great job!

Favor boxes

Cake Cutting

Cake Topper. So cute!

Most of these pictures are from Michelle's photographer-Big Day Productions.

We had a great time at this one and we couldn't be happier for Brad and Michelle! Congrats guys, we love you!!

Love,
Amy

Family Pictures

So we haven't done family pictures since Leah was 9 months old. Who has time to take pictures when there are so many other things going on? But in October, we decided that it would be a perfect time to get some new shots.

I contacted an old co-worker who has been doing some photography on the side, and we decided to do it. Molly is an amazing photographer, so I knew it would be great, and boy was I right.

Molly is amazing at posing people, unique shots and getting Leah to make some of the best facial expressions ever. Like, ever.

A few examples:

All photos courtesy of Molly VanDamme, and Molly VanDamme Photography. Find her on facebook! I'm also so excited that Molly will taking the pictures for my brothers wedding in the Spring!


Thanks Molly, you're the best!

Amy

Nebraska Trip

Back in August, we had our second family reunion of the year. Ryan's family doesn't do a yearly reunion like our family, so this year we decided to travel to Lincoln, Nebraska for the first time.

We are never sure how Leah's going to travel-as of May she was horrible and we would rather stay home than have to sit in a car with our toddler for a long time. So we packed a ton of things-movies, books, toys, sleeping things, snacks-you name it. We even packed a few surprise presents that she would get when we took a break from the road. We had nothing to worry about though as Leah was a true champ and had no issues what so ever. We really seem to be developing a good traveler!

We left on Thursday morning and our first stop was in Iowa at a winery. I love some good wine, and Leah loved running around outside and chasing the little puppies that they had on the property. She also got her first present on this trip-a little Cinderella doll. Her interest in the doll lasted about 4 seconds and then she went back to watching Dora on the DVD player.

Second stop was for lunch at Arby's. Nothing special to report here other than the fact that Leah loves curly fries:)

Third stop was another winery which had a super cute little shop in it. I didn't buy anything, but I sure could have :) Leah again liked running around outside, this time chasing cats. She really loves her animals.

We drove the rest of the way to Lincoln, which wasn't a bad drive-just long. Leah didn't nap at all on the way out there-all 8 hours of the trip-but both Ryan and I got to sneak in a little nap.

After checking into the hotel and having dinner with some of Grandma's friends it was time for Leah's favorite part of any hotel-the pool. She jumped in with Daddy and played until it was bed time. She really is a true water baby!

The next day we went to meet up with Great Grandpa Alford, Aunt Peggy, and cousins Carley and Sam, affectionately known to us as "The Canadian Cousins". We played for a bit before getting ready to head to the Omaha Zoo.

Leah, like any 2 year old, loves the zoo. The zoo we have here in Madison is free, so while it's nice to see the animals, we don't have many animals here. So Leah, and I, were very excited to see more animals!

For some reason we took her stroller in, and I don't know why because 2 year olds don't need strollers. But we figured she'd want to be pushed. Nope. I pushed the whole thing around without Leah sitting in it once. Oh well.

A Pygmy Hippo

Leah sitting in the Hippo mouth

Grandma and Grandpa

Her favorite-penguins!

Chilling on a Sea Turtle

Looking at the Bears with Grandpa

Sam and Leah

Parrots

I didn't actually take a picture of the snake, but I loved the Harry Potter reference to the Basilisk and that was enough for me!

The train that Leah was terrified of-it was super loud.

 



 

The only left on this trip was the family reunion. We had a good time-and the food was great! We spent some quality time with family we don't see very often, so it was nice. Leah had enough after a while and decided we needed to go find the hotel pool of course!

 

Our family!



We had a great time in Nebraska! We can't wait until we get to for the next family reunion, whenever that may be!

Love,
Amy

Grandpa Curt's Birthday, Family Reunion #1

Hello, August! (Yes, I'm writing this in December, I know). We started August in Monroe celebrating Grandpa Curts birthday. The first night there we went to Freeport, IL and took Leah to Krape Park. We used to go there all the time as kids with Rachel, Brad and Steph so I was very excited to have Leah return to the same beautiful park. Ryan and I also took our engagement pictures at that park a few years earlier.

At the park, we went on the swings

Saw some ducks

 

Got to drive a big fire truck

 

Got to go down a fireman's pole

 

And use the monkey bars

She had a lot of fun, and so did we! The next day we celebrated Grandpa's Bday with a cake that Leah helped to decorate. She also helped sing to Grandpa and blow out the candles.

 



 And while I didn't get any pictures of the family reunion, we spent the first Sunday in August at the Rygh family reunion. We go every year and spend time with our family. It was so hot this year so we didn't let Leah play at the park much, but we still had a fun time !

 

 

Amy