The Engagement of Adam and Emily

 Adam had been planning this event for quite some time.  It finally came to fruition at the end of September.

Was there a GoPro involved? Does the pope sh*t in the woods? Of course there was a GoPro involved and it captured these awesome images...

 It was a wonderfully sweet, well-planned proposal that ended with the song, "I Wanna Grow Old With You."

 The following day, friends and family drove and flew in from all over the country to celebrate with the happy couple.  And celebrate we did! You can't celebrate without Flip Cup! (Love my dad's face in this one. :)

 It was flip cup game with Boys versus Girls.

The girls came out victorious. We had a couple of ringer grandmas on our team.  We rocked it.

 The kids had an amazing time.  Emily's step sister has 5 kids and two of them match up with Tommy and Charlotte like amazing besties. We didn't even introduce them.  They found their soulmates on their own. Turns out, Tommy's friend has food allergies just like he does!  Charlotte's friend loves horses just like she does.  Seriously, how did that work out so well?  Oh and did I mention we kept them up ridiculously late? I don't know if it's hard to tell from the picture...

 But this is what they looked like on the way home.

 Even Tommy fell asleep.  He never falls asleep in the car.  These kiddos were exhausted after a super fun mega awesome day.  We are soooo excited for Adam and Emily to get married.  What a huge exciting year to come.  AAAHHH! We can't wait! Congrats to Adam and Emily!

Charlotte's First Field Trip!

 Who takes four year olds on field trips?? Charlotte's school does and I got to go too! The pumpkin patch field trip was the only one I've never been on with this school.  I was so excited!

She was soooo excited too! First Bus Ride! Whoo hoo!

 I had just 3 girls in my group and they were all great gals.  I had to chase them down occasionally but they were all well-behaved.

One of my girls hid in this little tunnel for quite a while and I really had to coax her out of there.  It wasn't Charlotte. :)

I tried to keep them playing all together in the same spot so I could keep an eye on them.  This was one of those few times.

We tried to take a group picture with some of the kids. Charlotte took the opportunity to slide off the pumpkin which started the group sliding off the pumpkin and this was the best picture we got. :)

 This section of the pumpkin patch was just a giant group of massive pumpkins.  Nothing is more fun that climbing on giant pumpkins!

 Oh hey! Here's a better group picture!

 We went on a hay ride to pick out our pumpkins.

 Everyone got to pick one out. Even the parents!

Charlotte and I had such a super fun day.  Too bad it had to end kind of badly.  We all got on the bus at the end of the trip and we noticed one of the kids was missing.  Charlotte's teacher and one of the parents ran off the bus and scoured the pumpkin patch trying to find him.  They ran around looking for him for what seemed like an eternity. Charlotte's teacher was bawling. Finally one of the kindergarten moms from the back of the bus said, "Who are they looking for?" I told them the name.  She said, "Um, I think this is him right here."  The little boy had been put on the bus by his mom who was a chaperone.  She left but told one of the other moms from Charlotte's class that he was on the bus.  That mom forgot that she was told that and instead the teachers were running around like crazy people in the pumpkin patch.  YIKES OH YIKES. I didn't think Charlotte's teacher would ever recover.  The poor thing.  But he was safe and they learned to take different precautions and methods of keeping track of the kids so it wasn't all bad.
At least Charlotte and I had a wonderful day.  Happy First Field Trip, Charlee!

Charlotte Turns FOUR!

 Charlotte celebrated her birthday at school.

They took a super cute class picture with Charlotte front and center.

Charlotte chose frosted donuts with sprinkles for her birthday treat.   The class LOVED it.  Charlotte loved being the star of the show.

 I picked Charlotte up early that day.  We went and got our hair done.  Charlotte was so excited.  I actually had to leave her and go around the corner to get my hair done separately.  She did really great though and it got me out of the salon early without being asked to buy products. Whoo hoo!

 I had informed Charlotte of our plans and she was so excited to tell everyone she was going to get her hair done and then go to Chuck E Cheese.  So that is exactly what we did.  She was super excited to ride the horse.

I couldn't believe she wanted to do the roller coaster game.  This game (ride?) was a little rough.  It shakes and turns and you feel like you're on a roller coaster.  It was kind of crazy.  Poor Charlotte's head wasn't quite tall enough to be on the pad so it had to be uncomfortable but she didn't care.  She wanted to ride again.  Not this girl.  I was dunzo.  Barf.  

It is a cool idea though!

 Charlotte rode another one of her favorite rides (?), the mini carousel.  She pretended to be asleep on it.  She is so funny.

Andrew and Tommy met us at Chuck E Cheese.  Then Charlotte and I escaped once again and picked out cupcakes at Gigi's.  YUM!

 The following weekend was Charlotte's party! I did make the invitation but I did NOT mail them out.  I used an app this year.  I am becoming much more of a no muss no fuss mom which is so exciting.  Instead of hand making all the food, cakes, and decorations, I bought decorations online, bought a Target cake, and ordered pizza.  Fantastic!

Here's the beautiful birthday girl in her unicorn shirt!

I took a picture to Meijer of the cake I wanted and they were not very accommodating.  But TARGET on the other hand, basically recreated this fantastic cake from scratch.  Incredible! They even included the paisley design on the side.  Are you kidding me?? (Is it because they practically know who we are because we visit 3 times a week? Maybe. ;)

 Time to blow out the candles!

 I ordered these crazy unicorn horns (yes, people made dirty jokes about them) from Walmart online.  Who would have thought?

 It was time to open presents! Everyone was watching closely. (Just kidding. Cake coma.)

Lovely picture of this trio! :) 

Charlotte loved all her presents.  She got some really fantastic stuff. 

 Uncle Adam had to help put together the Frozen Lego set that she got.  She is so excited to become a master builder like her big bro.

You can bet that as soon as the Frozen castle was made, Tommy jumped in and weaponized it.

She got this amazing mermaid blanket.  Charlotte was a big fan.

She also got a lot of fun books.  I believe this is the exact moment Emily had to read the word FART. :) LOL!

 Hey look, it's Mama and Dada in our unicorn horns and shirts.  We look dashing. :)

The birthday girl and her mama.  

After all the fun, we played outside because of course it was a beautiful September day.

Tommy and many others had fun playing b-ball.

We actually remembered to get a family picture.  Yay!! Another classic!

Happy Birthday to you, Miss Charlotte! We love you so much!

Labor Day at Lake Wawasee

 It was Uncle Adam's idea to go to a lake during Labor Day weekend.  My parents said Ok as long as you do the research.  So Adam found the place and we all showed up for Labor Day Laker Fun!

 This is the only picture you can see our house in the background.  It doesn't look big but it held all 15 of us!

 The first day we got there was a little chilly.

 Can you tell from all the sweatshirts?

 But Tommy didn't care!

The next morning the boys went for a bike ride. 

While the girls and Grandpa and Tommy went for a boat ride.  Our ride was much more fun according to Adam.  Heehee! 

Charlotte was just happy to drive the boat with Grandpa.  You can tell how happy she is but how many of her bottom teeth you can see. :) 

We came back to pick up the boys and make some sandwiches for the boat.  Charlotte was excited to make her own sandwich for once.  Mmm cheezit sandwiches! 

Time to head out on the water again! Uncle Adam was ready!

Sandbar time! Hey look that's me! I made it into a picture or two! :)

We met up with one of Adam's friends and his family and their little boy joined us on the tube.

 Tommy and Dada decided to take the tube for an actual ride at some point during the day.  He loved it! He was smart to wear those goggles.

 Charlotte was by Emily's side the entire weekend I think. :)

 Look at Charlotte's face.  She looks like she's actually riding the tube around.  Turns out, she's just floating gently in the water.  Ha!

The house had a beautiful deck where we spent most of our time.

Photo crew goes to Emily for this one.  So cute. 

 Not sure who took this one but I love it.  Isabel looks to the future of boating. 

Uncle Adam grabbed some GoPro Shots that turned out pretty great as always. 

 Charlotte took a good one too! ;)

This one is especially cute.  #topknot 

Our last night at the house, Brandon got out the karaoke machine.  Many of us sang a tune from Andrew's iPhone.  The kids' greatest hit was "HandClap" by Fitz and the Tantrums.  I was involved in that performance and we had the whole crowd going.  It was so much fun that no one got a video! Boo!! :(  But it was definitely awesome.  Charlotte was a dancing machine! 

 At 10 pm, it was sound DOWN.  No more karaoke.  The kids had to go to bed and everything fell silent.  All except for the game of spoons in the kitchen.  I didn't play this time.  It seemed VERY intense so I'm kind of glad I sat this one out.  I don't think there was any blood or biting so that's a plus.

 Awwww someone wrote Lake Keiper on the steps.  Cute!

 Awwww, someone decided to cross it out and write Thornburg instead.  I wonder who that was... ;)

 We picked up some sweet shirts for the whole family while we were in town.

The weekend getaway was a super success.  So much so that Charlotte crawled into my lap at 4:30 pm on Monday and fell asleep.  It was a big exciting and tiresome weekend.  Definitely a win!  Can't wait to do it again!