Labor Day camping trip with the Jenkins and the Princes

 Ellie's first time camping- aside from a 2 minute panic attack the first night
(when we closed the tent) she ADORED it.

 We are VERY thankful to the Princes for allowing us to borrow their tent-- even though I teased them that it might be a demo-- you know, those mini ones that are the models at stores~ our family actually slept very comfortably in this little structure-- thank heavens for friends who have everything!

 I love this pic--everyone is doing their own thing-- but check out Evie watching Ellie being swung around by Jason.

 She liked the idea and wanted to join in-- you're welcome LIZ.

 It was so cute how they were little fun friends.

 Jason was the entertainer-- and here he is swinging EVERY kid!

 I love this one of all of them begging for more

 best friend braidy girls!!

The BEST part of the weekend-- though many fabulous memories were made-- is that our kids got to spend time together and be best friends too-- I love it!

35 weeks!

Here I am at 35 weeks- and at 31 years old-- wow! that's all I can say ;)

more goings on!

 Fishing fishing and more fishing!-- I've been wondering how Jason can be gone for hours at a time-- then one day we went to find them and saw only J in the canoe... I then scanned the area and saw a LARGE splash- Ems has been having the time of her life swimming-- LOVE it.

 A package from Booky! Emmy was over the moon-- and then she squeezed the package and it QUACKED!!!! Elles became interested at that point ;)

 We played with Liz, Ben and Evie Prince-- it was a lake PARTY!! a frog was caught, the girls got their first real fast fun boat ride and just as we were breaking out the skies-- the boat ran out of gas... the top left pic is when the boys had to tow it swimming all the way back across the lake- it was VERY funny.

We went to a Halloween Store-- a FAVORITE FREE pastime~ here is just a taste of the awesomeness!

My little Ellie Belly Boo Boo

 a few little things about Miss Ellerson.

 She LOVES to be nakey.

 She is a Pete and repeat---

 She says cheese  and poses like this--

 She is obsessed with ducks

 and DIRT.

She either sits like this-- or like this but with the left leg straight out in front of her--and just in case you were wondering...
~she is a crazy cuddler
~she says "me me" for excuse me-- just like her sister did
~her favorite phrase is "ach meeeee!" which means "watch me"== and she really wants you to
~she says any name in her family and then "where are ya?" and then when she finds you she says "boo!"
~she LOVES princess dresses-- and sings and dances when she sees any princess or girlie thing
~she always says "pretty!"
~she thinks she is VERY funny-- especially when she puts things in her toes
~she calls any belly button a "no no" and loves them
~she can gallop
~she can hop with both feet off the ground
~she tries to do everything that Emmy does
~she says "no" a LOT- but doesn't seem to acknowledge it's meaning when it's directed at her
~she loves to dance
~her hair is very long-- especially the mullet part
~she says "upee" just like her Uncle Josh did
~she is a scaredy cat and often gets nervous
~she is VERY sensitive and gets her feelings hurt more than I would prefer
~when in doubt-- wave~ might just be her motto
~she is not a picky-- but a very particular eater-- like she won't eat blue fruit loops-- she'll literally spit just            that color out...
~whenever someone is asleep or crying she always has to report it to me with this one little face she makes every time-- kind of like the cheese pose in the pic above
~she is a DELIGHT to be around--- always.

The Chelsea Parade and Fair!!!

 We drove to Chelsea and saw the parade and the fair-- it was a PARTY!!!! It was Americana at it's finest== here are some present and past beauty queens.

 the Jiffy Mix factory is in Chelsea-- so they passed out boxes of the stuff to the parade watchers-- yes please!!!!

 and then there was the line of farmers on there tractors-- I loved this! Between these fabulous weathered men and the veterans-- I spent a lot of time almost crying.

 waving to the farmers-- LOVE.

 The floats threw 1000000 pieces of candy-- it was better than Halloween!!

 Chelsea is Liz's hometown-- thanks to her this day was possible!

 The FAIR!!! Animals are Emmy's favorite thing in the world-- she was in heaven!

 The other kids liked the animals-- but weren't quite as in love as Jesse was with them...

 "unusual eggplant"

 Oh the glorious midwestern produce!

 The bunny Emmy wants for her birthday. (it was the smallest)

 a funny sign.

 Emmy with her whole top half in a friendly (luckily) bunny's cage-- of course she's in there with it.

 Ellie wasn't tall enough for the rides-- but isn't she just so cute?!

 Emmy remains 38"-- will she never grow?! because of the height constrains her ride options were limited-- we told her she could only go on one anyways-- fairs are so pricey.

 sadly-- we bought the perfect amount of tickets needed for the ferris wheel-- and as they got on-- it broke!

Don't worry- Emmy wasn't too crushed because she got 2 rides out of the deal (why the ferris wheel was more I'll never know)

the death of friend/pet moth~

 It was so sad-- Emmy had this moth for a week-- (who knew they even lived that long in the wild?) she fed him grass and would talk to him and made sure he had water-- in her mind they were best friends-- then one day- he was dead-- this was her first experience with death-- it was really sad-- it didn't sink in at first-- but then she just realized it and started to cry--

she gave his little body some little last loving and a car ride before he was laid to rest-- she even said some nice things about him-- and so another sad life lesson learned-- at least it was a moth.

Homemade Tootsie Rolls!

 When I was Emmy's age-- a missionary- Elder- from our church made these with us-- ever since I've thought that I wanted to make some from time to time--

 thanks to pinterest- I found a recipe and MADE them with the girls-- hooray!

 they were delish-- and so fun!

 we do NOTHING without the binkie joining us ;)

lets just say that Em was delighted-- as you can tell- she had been sampling the dough at every phase-- the sugar is for SURE kicking in at this point!