Introducing Bella Dog!

This is Bella!!! Isn't she super, duper cute? She is my parent's new pup. She is a shitzu-poodle mix and is an absolute love! Bella is playful and give lots of kisses. Rachel just adores her and thinks it's great fun to play chase with her around the house. Best of all, Bella does not shed, so Rich's allergies aren't bothered a bit! One of the cutest things about her is that her nose has cute pink spots speckled over the black base. Plus, she kinda looks like a miniature Bailey - which takes Rich and I back to the days when we first got him... Speaking of Bailey, he seemed to really enjoy Bella once he got over his initial excitement. I think that the two of them will be friends for years to come!

Below are some pictures. (OK, several - you can tell we're in love with her!)

Klackle Farms

Well, Fall is certainly here and what a great time we had at Klackle Farms with our play group a couple weeks ago! We decided to take the kids apple and pumpkin picking, despite the chilly, rainy weather. It was the only time we could all do it, so we decided to make it happen. And boy are we glad that we did. The weather didn't seem to phase any of us! When we arrived, we put all the kids in this wooden wagon - that made transportation quite easy.

One advantage of the rain was that we got take the enchanted pumpkin ride, which usually only runs on the weekends! What fun it was to all pile into the pumpkin and ride out to pick apples and pumpkins!

When we arrived in the orchard, Rachel was excited to see all the trees and apples. She thought it was neat that some had fallen on the ground. She decided to pick one and began to eat it. As you will see from the rest of the pictures, that apple went with us the rest of the day. She was not about to give it up - it was too yummy! And funniest of all was that she had never eaten an apple that it wasn't cut up into slices. I was amazed at how well she ate her apple without ever having practiced before. Actually, come to think of it, I was astounded that she even knew what to do with that apple!

When we were finished picking our bag of apples we headed over to the pumpkin patch to pick a pumpkin. Rachel and Carolyn were both much more interested in their apples, but still enjoyed the pumpkins.

Rachel picked this pumpkin out, so it had to come home with us!

You can see the damage Rachel made on her apple. Great work!
Rachel posed for a fall picture... Inside, she still held on to that apple!

She's all done for the day, laying in the hay!!!

The Zoo goes Boo!

Rich and I took Rachel to the Zoo Boo at our local zoo and we met up with all our friends from our play group. It was so much fun to see all of Rachel's little friends in their costumes! Aidan was an elephant, Caimon was a kitty cat, and Rachel and Carolyn were ladybugs. Rachel really enjoyed the trick-or-treating at the zoo while looking at all of the animals. Plus getting to go in the petting zoo area was pretty neat, even though Rachel thought that all the animals were "dogggies"! And we could not have asked for more perfect weather! It was a fabulous morning adventure and we truly had a blast!!!

Play Date with Brayden

Rachel's friend Brayden came over for a play date and the two of them had a good time playing with Rachel's little ride-on truck, balls and other toys. It's kind of funny because they are now getting to the age where sometimes they don't want to share their toys - so a couple little fights broke out! It's truly comical to watch and Brayden's Mommy (Nicki) and I had a few good laughs!!! Despite that, Brayden allowed Rachel to push him on the truck and they really enjoyed themselves. We're lucky to have such wonderful friends!

Play World

We went to Play World with our play group last Friday. We had a lot of fun playing in the balls and bouncing on the inflatable trampoline. That day we were down by two, Christi and Aidan were missing because Christi was away in Las Vegas for business. (I'm sure Vegas was much more fun for her than Play World... ) But the kids really enjoyed themselves and Rachel loved bouncing on the inflatable with her friends!

Rachel Cheers Her Teams On!

Go Patroits and go Red Sox!!!

Rachel was sporting some of her favorite team's ball caps. = )

At the Park

Rachel and I had a fun day visiting with our friend Chelsea. She is in the vet program at MSU and she is a really sweet, uplifting friend of ours - just like her mom! She came down from Lansing to spend a Sunday with us and one of the highlights of Rachel's day was going to play at the park.

Visiting Friends

We went to visit my friend Jenny and her two kids, Nathan and Lainey. Here are some pictures of our fun time with them. Rachel really liked meeting baby Lainey and playing around with Nathan. She also loved their doggies. Her favorite is pictured below.

A Day at the Gardens

I'm playing a bit of catch up because these pictures were taken the first weekend in October at the Frederick Meijer Gardens. We went there with our play group and the kids had a ton of fun playing there. The weather was unseasonably warm, as you can see they are dressed in shorts and t-shirts. Rachel really got a kick out of running away from me - kind of her way of playing hide and seek! It's amazing to watch her doing all these fun activities... I can hardly believe that my little girl is no longer a baby. I watch her toddle around and remember that it wasn't long ago that she was just learning to sit up by herself. Look how much she's learned and how big she has gotten!

Here the little ones enjoy a little "tea party" of their own!

Aren't they such cute little friends?