Family Pictures (More!)

Family Pictures

We took family pictures on Saturday - this is the only one I have for now but I'll share more when I get them. I'm so lucky so have this beautiful family...

Peek A Boo

Too cute!

Smile for the camera

This is the smile I've been getting recently when I ask Paeton to say cheese for the camera. I'm getting a little nervous because we have family pictures tomorrow.

She's trying so hard to smile - it's actually pretty cute.

On a side note, the pink top Paeton is wearing says 'ESPN Princess' on it - it's covered by her cardigan. Jodi made this purchase for Paeton on his own while shopping at Downtown Disney 2 weeks ago. Jodi loves when Paeton watches anything on ESPN with him including Sports Center. He's even teaching her the signature sound that show makes - it's driving me nuts! But I guess I'd rather him teach her that over picking her nose or something gross like that.

Future Ballerina

Paeton has started to express that she likes dancing and tumbling so we're on the hunt for a class to get her involved in soon. She enjoys doing forward rolls and can do them on her own even though we try to intervene as much as possible because she doesn't always pick the best places to do it. She also always sits down to play with a toy and opens her legs up into almost a split to place the toy in the middle. It is absolutely adorable. My goal is to capture these amazing feats on camera this week. But for now you'll have to settle for her wearing her ballerina t-shirt and eating breakfast this morning. Waffles, blueberries and bananas are key staples for her - we're always stocked with them :)

The Ulrich Jack O' Lantern

There it is - that's our creation after diligently working Sunday afternoon on making a scary face for the front porch.

Jodi ran outside last night before Paeton's bedtime and lit the candle in our pumpkin. We bundled Paeton up and took her out there to see the Jack O' Lantern. She loved it!

This is Paeton jumping up and down with excitement for Halloween!

Super Scary!

Other decor on our front porch.

This was from earlier in the day - Paeton wanted nothing to do with baking the pumpkin seeds.

More Pumpkins

On Saturday, we ventured out in the freezing cold to pick out a pumpkin for carving. We had previously gone to Grandpa Ulrich's pumpkin patch and received lots of pumpkins for decorating. But it was so warm that day and early in the season - we knew we needed to give Paeton the full Wisconsin experience of picking a pumpkin in the brisk fall weather :)

Here she is picking out a white pumpkin and desperately trying to lift it. We learned on Saturday at the farm that white pumpkins are grown with different seeds than the orange pumpkins however, when you cut a white pumpkin open, it is orange inside. Interesting.

Paeton and Jodi walking up and down the aisles of pumpkins looking for the perfect one.

Paeton got distracted soon after we arrived to hop on one of the John Deere tricycles that were all over the farm.

She was not amused when we asked her to take pictures with the pumpkins. That's her dramatic face.

This is Paeton not wanting to touch the hay.

If she could have lifted her arms and legs up at the same time to avoid the hay, she would have.

We ended up getting one white pumpkin and one big orange pumpkin. When we were checking out, the lady farmer person (not sure what they're called) found a hole in the back of our pumpkin so she gave it to us for $3. What a steal. We figure the pumpkin won't rot because it'll freeze first in this tremendous weather we've been having. If you live in WI and check my blog, you understand.

On another note, we had all our firewood for the winter delivered to our house on Saturday while Paeton was napping. I came outside to see the truck dump all the wood in our driveway (because for some reason that's really cool even for a 28 year old to watch) and it was snowing. I just shut the door and went back to look at my Disney pictures to remember when I was complaining about being too hot last week. Sigh...

Disneyworld!

So...for those of you we haven't talked to recently, we just got back from 8 days in Disneyworld. Yes, we are exhausted and still recovering, but YES, we had a great time! What a fabulous way to spend our family vacation. I could recap this trip in a million blog entries but I'll spare you all the details and just show you a few of my favorite pictures. If you want the extended version, you can come over to our house to view all our video footage and turn the pages of the huge scrapbook I'm crafting :)

9 pieces of luggage, 8 camera memory cards, 7 dwarfs :), 6 maps, 5 people (Grandma and Grandpa Marx, Jodi, Paeton and myself), 4 swimsuits, 3 bags of snacks, 2 carry-ons and 1 sprinkle of pixie dust!

SeaWorld was incredible and we all fell in love with Shamu and his friends.

Paeton became quite the confident swimmer on this trip.


Our first character experience - she didn't like Pinocchio.

Her first ride - the carousel. A little timid.

She started warming up to the characters when we met Pooh and Tigger.

So much family fun! Here we are resting from the heat outside of the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse in the Magic Kingdom.

Meeting Peter Pan and Wendy Bird. Paeton got SO MANY autographs!

Dad helping me haul Paeton around in the backpack carrier. This is actually the only time I think I wore this thing - Jodi should get all the credit for carrying our 25 pounder!

Bracing myself....

Paeton fell asleep on our way to meet Jiminy Cricket - he kept things quiet for her though :)

We all did our share of sweating throughout the week - here's Paeton climbing the stairs as fast as she could to get in line for the slide. The playgrounds in Disney were fantastic!

We LOVE Mickey Mouse!

Family dinner at the Olive Garden to celebrate Grandpa's birthday!

Paeton and I really bonded on this trip - I couldn't resist picking up my soaking wet little girl to grab a hug and a kiss.

Paeton riding the carousel all by herself - 'all by herself' meaning no one was physically on the horse with her. I ducked to the side to give the impression she was SO BIG :)

Daddy bought a cool hat at Animal Kingdom and shared it with Paeton.

We will never forget Paeton and Jodi's FIRST trip to Disneyworld. Thanks Mom and Dad for helping us out so much on this trip and enduring 8 long, sweaty but wonderful days in the most magical place on earth! We love you!