Ready for Halloween

It was a hot day in September but we decided to get our Halloween decor out. Addison was pretty excited. She is really into holiday decor this year, it's been fun! She was ready to put our Christmas tree out in September. She was continually asking us if we could set our tree up and it was driving Ryan crazy :) 

It took a lot of work, but finally this kid is going down the 'big' slide at our park by herself! It took quite a bit of coaxing, and Ryan reaching over the slide to try to hold her hand.

I often times will take Addison for a run with me and we take a pit stop at the park. Then I text Ryan and he runs to the park to pick her up and then I finish my run by myself. Either I'm getting weaker or she's getting harder to run with in the stroller! The most I could go was about 2 miles. 

She is all about eating snacks outside. Looks like she might have been eating carrots this day. So we sit in the driveway, eat a snack, and wave at cars going by. Notice her little chair even has a cup holder - fancy! 

Apple Orchard - part 2

The Apple Orchard even had a fake little outhouse - we thought that was strange and a little funny :) 

One of her favorite activities, for some odd reason, is the tractor pull. As you can see, she was an active contributor to her team. The big red tractor on the right was the one she was helping to pull.

We rode the little train for the first time. It goes through the fields where you can see the fields and some of their animals (like pigs). They also have a little "main street" with about 4 buildings that you pass. These buildings are out in the middle of nowhere, it's kind of strange. But the kids enjoy the train and that's all that matters! 

The Apple Orchard

Well we finally made it to September. I bought a season pass this past fall to Center Grove Orchard when they were on a 1/2 off sale. Addison was pretty excited even though I'm not sure she knew exactly what it was. She was so excited she told me to take her picture on this hay bale. 

The Three Little Bears house

They have an old school house. She loved trying out each desk. There was another little girl in the schoolhouse who was up at the chalkboard pretending to be the teacher. As you can see, Addison was listening intently. Ha!

Addy & Nolan

We went out to Hickory Park after our family pictures. For some reason, a server gave Tracey a frisbee. So Tracey gave it to Addison. She was asleep within a few minutes of leaving Hickory Park. 

This girl was in 7th heaven! And we got a cute little smile out of Nolan too. Such a happy happy baby. 

Apparently he's only super happy when it's just him and Addy :) 

And the last of the family photos

Driving the firetruck - it was hard to capture Addison's attention. All she wanted to do was drive the firetruck! 

And Addison just wanted to play at the park. It was SO hard for her to stand still and smile when the park was RIGHT THERE. So we allowed her to play a little while others were getting their family photos taken. 

And the Lents Family

And soon these photos will be out of date - Baby Lents #2 will arrive in May! 

I was so mad I forgot a bow at home - ha! 

And of course - Mom & Dad! Think all the photos we have of these two are church photos. Guess we do have a few from the weddings too. I'm really happy it worked out for everyone to be together and get our photos taken. Then of course we all went to Hickory Park for lunch after :) 

More Family Pictures

Just the grandkids :) And yes I had to bribe my kid with Skittles. 

The Skjeveland Family

The KC Julius Family

The Prescott Family

The whole crew again! This was probably my favorite one. 

Addison carries my mom's Christmas card around the house and loves to count and name everyone. She loves any picture with baby Nolan in it - ha! 

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day Weekend was the first home Cyclone game. I had to work and got to the game late. As I was walking up the up, I spot these two yahoos. Brayden & Conner were playing some football on the hill. We beat UNI that game. 

Addison was picking on Landon, so she had to pay the consequences! 

Landon & Nicole were teasing Makena about the pictures/selfies she takes, so they wanted in on her pictures. 

Addison loves trying to keep up with the boys, though she's often too little for most of their games. I love this picture, if only we had all the cousins in it! 

Since it is rare that ALL of us are together, I scheduled family pictures for Labor Day Weekend. I found a photographer in Ames that actually would do photos for us Sunday morning. 

All 16 of us! 

The 6 grandkids - Makena (13), Conner (12), Nolan (6 months), Addison (3), Parker (11), Brayden (7). It's even hard to get all the grandkids together with everyone's activities so I'm really happy to get these pictures :)

Pour some sugar on me.....

On our way to the outlet mall one day, "Pour Some Sugar on Me" came on the radio. Addison had fun with it :) She kept requesting it after it was over. Explaining the radio is a really hard thing to do with a 3 year old! 

This is one of Addison's favorite videos - Ryan playing with Conner's trike. Her top favorite video though, I will not post. When Ryan got in a go-cart accident Labor day weekend of either 2017 or 2018, his friends took a video of the doctor working on his leg. He had a huge gash, maybe 5 or 6 inches. It was pretty deep. It makes my stomach queasy just thinking about it! Addison loves to watch that video on Ryan's phone - weird kid! 

Annual photo with the Pride Rock in Bondurant (Ryan didn't have to duck behind her this year)

This picture reminds me of Landon growing up. I eat a lot of cereal and one night Addison wanted to have cereal with milk like I do. So I gave her some and she protected her bowl as if I was going to steal it. This is how Landon used to eat cereal - ha! I assure you, neither of them were in danger of me stealing their cereal..... 

Baseball in the yard

Boy I sure hope this kid loves baseball/softball as much as I do :) It was by far my best sport in high school. 

We worked on keeping our eye on the ball and hitting it off the tee. She was still a little short for the tee so hopefully this summer will be better. I was trying to show her how to stand, keep our eye on the ball, and connect the bat to the ball and she was fielding my hits. Apparently I had a little too much power and whizzed a line drive right past her ear and across the street - ha! I think it went so fast she didn't even see it, otherwise there was no chance I was getting her to keep playing!! I would have felt so bad if it hit her in the face......whew. 

Sometimes we just forget the tee and try to pitch to her. One of our favorite memories of Brayden is when he was at our house when he was about 2 years old. Landon was pitching to him in our living room. We thought Landon was crazy, no way this kid could hit the ball. He missed the first couple pitches then Landon sternly said "Brayden. Keep your eye on the ball". Next pitch, Brayden smoked it and it bounced off 2 walls in our living room. Ha!

Riding Bikes

Every time we go to Hickory Park, we have to take a picture for Conner & Landon :) She loves the pork tenderloins there. 

Strengthening our leg muscles on the trike. Riding this trike is hard work!

Then we need to work on the balance bike. She has room for improvement on this one, she's not very fast. We have been getting the bikes out any time this winter that it's nice enough - can't wait for summer! 

The "rocket ship park" as Addison calls it. The rocket ship would be cooler if we could climb in it :) But it is a pretty decent park and it still has a merry go-round so we like it. 

Addison in the bean field

There was a day in August where I was off work, Addison was at school, and my car was at the shop in town. I decided I was going to run to her school with an empty stroller to pick her up. The school is only 2 miles from our house, but it felt like a lot further! Running on terrible sidewalks, with an empty stroller, and the wind.....it was not fun! An empty stroller is really hard to run with! 

So I picked her up and headed home, and then I get the call that my car is done. And they close at 5:30pm. Ryan wouldn't get home in time to drive us there, so I figured we better run there and pick it up. So we went another mile out to the car shop. We have to run past some fields, so we took a pit stop. She may be smiling but she was scared of the bean field (she's scared of most things). I love this picture though - I wish she could be a farm kid but this will be the closest she will probably get! I couldn't get her to take a picture in front of the corn field on the other side of the street. It was one of the hardest runs I did all summer and it wasn't that long, I was really questioning my decision to sign up for a race - haha! 

There was a weekend that Tracey & Hugh were out of town and my parents were watching the kids. So we drove to MN to hang out with them. And of course invited Erin & Reagan to join us. It was great to see them! Addison loves seeing pictures of Reagan on my phone, so she was pretty excited to see her in person :) This was so long ago, Reagan has a baby brother now! 

I was waiting at a stop light on our way home one day and looked back to see this. I really wish I knew what she was thinking about - ha! 

Ryan reading one of our favorite books to Addy - Shoe La La. "Party dresses, party hair, perfect party shoes to wear. Emily, Ashley, Kaitlyn, Clare, let's go find the perfect pair!" It's a super cute book we got from my cousin's wife, we love it!