October 21st already...

October sure is getting away from us, so before it's completely gone I had to remind myself to grab the camera even if the light isn't just right or her hair is all astray. Today we're playing catch up with the chimney sweep cleaning our fireplace, mama editing pictures, and laundry catch up. I even remembered to fill in the second year birthday pages of her "birthday book"! (an amazing first birthday gift idea, fyi...) I've had an exceptional number of photo shoots this fall for lots of new families, and finding time to take some of my own family has proven challenging. So I bumped up that ISO as high as it would go and rolled on the floor a little bit this morning...

In other happenings... we have the cutest family of kittens living on our front and back porch. Every morning we get up to see if mommy kitty is out there with her 4 babies. They're warming up to us slowly but surely... hope they find our house a nice warm spot going into fall, we like having them around.

And just this morning, if you didn't know Josie was a genius child already, she read (that's a stretch, more like memorized back to me...) several pages of the Bernstein Bears Spooky Tree. "Up a ladder, through the floor, down a slide, and out the door... " Yep, an astronaut or first female president FOR SURE :)

Birthday Getaway

Our weekend getaway came courtesy of Ed's birthday. Seems like a tradition of sorts to get outta town and do something fun for his day - so off we went. We're in love with Indy and try to make a trip back there as often as possible. There's something about Indy that feels like a special place for us as a family. Our adoption agency is in Indy and Ed and I have fond memories of the time we spent down there getting things in order with the adoption. Not to mention we get to visit my favorite cousin too!





There are so many great family things to do in and around Indy, and again this year we went down to McCormicks Creek to do some hiking. Josie is still too little to really tackle these rugged trails, so luckily she still fits in her carrier. Although, I'm no longer strong enough to manage, so Ed did all the hard work on this hike. Does it count that my elbow got a good workout from holding the camera the whole trip?

I know I've mentioned a few times how amazing the Indy zoo is, so of course we stopped there again. We couldn't get Josie to look, but seems the giraffe was entertained!


We were disheartened to learn the Children's Museum was closed, as I was really looking forward to taking JJ for the first time... but we had a full day anyhow. Not too far from home, we have an organic dairy farm that is open to the public. I've always wanted to stop, and upon learning their "cheese store" was open, it was a MUST STOP on our way home. The grilled cheese was TO DIE FOR and the ice cream was pretty amazing too. There is of course a big tour you could take to see 3000+ dairy cows, but we just did the mini interactive tour all about milk cows, and stopped in the birthing barn where you could see a live calf birth every hour or so. Crazy and cool at the same time.

Home Again

Home and recovering. We're back from a weekend getaway and with Ed on vacation this whole week we're definitely off our normal schedule and loving it. It's always fun but exhausting to leave for the weekend.... lots to catch up on! Including lots of photos.