wonderful fall day

natalie loved jumping in the leaves!

look at that smile!

pure joy!

she enthusiastically buried herself!

happy birthday, ozzy!

independence

i love when natalie dresses herself. i would never put this outfit together but she looks totally cute!
don't get me wrong, sometimes i dictate what she wears but most days i lose that battle let her win that battle.

first day funnies

so we missed natalie's first day of school. it was over a month ago!

everyone was blogging their kiddos' first days and we were missing ours. but time with family is priceless and it's *only* preschool!

i asked her what things she thought she would get to do at school.
she said, "puzzles. and watch a movie.
on the tv's that are on the walls. yeah, wall tv's."   ????
she insisted on a picture of her riding her bike!

i told her to go potty before we left and she said, 
"why? they have bathrooms there."
her adorable classroom!

me: "did you have a good first day?"
nat: "sure did. i suuuuure did!"

her first craft was a painting of pumpkins on a fence. the pumpkins were perfect circles.

me: "how did you make the pumpkins?"

nat: "like they told me to."

she said her favorite part of the day was playing with babies...

...and the playground!

"mom! it's the hugest playground in the whole wide world!"

overall, it was a great first day. it was a bit anti-climactic since it was no one else's first day and everyone just came and went and already knew what to do. at the same time, it was great because there weren't two parents for every child and no tears since all the kiddos already knew the routine. nat shed no tears and just wanted to make sure she got a hug and a kiss. perfect!
here's last year's first day:

just too cute! and she's changed so much! so sad!

baby elise

before:

 after:

planes, trains and automobiles

the main reason i detoured to kc was so i could work at my ex-job. i worked there full-time for two weeks training the new hire. it was great! not to boast, but i'm good at what i do did, i'm needed and appreciated. so i'll take it! but i didn't take a picture of the office *should have* so let's move on to things i do have pictures of!
homemade caramel apples with bev and aaron!

we met b & a when we were living in our loft in the river market. one of the first things i remember bev saying was, "i never wear shorter than a four-inch heel!" and it hurt my feet just hearing it. but she always looked smashing!

but then they got charlie who chewed all her heels.

so now she cooks!

natalie was in a food coma after all that yummy goodness.

back at the in-laws, natalie said she was pregnant.

i sure married into a fantastic family!
i don't know if this is the appropriate place to record this but natalie told nana her skin was wiggly.

this is natalie taking our picture:

natty and 90 year-old-granny

natty and 90 year-old-sammy (seriously he's like 17 or something crazy)

nat and evie. her kc bestie

FINALLY i am reunited with my hottie hubby for a date night!

five weeks is too gol dang long!

oysters at mccormick and schmick's!

we only ordered six but the executive chef hooked it up and we got the full platter - thanks nathan!

then the main course at capital grille - no offense, nathan!

and then all together, as a family of four (tinsley!), we drove back to minneapolis.
thus ending my days as a vagabond...

back to where i left off

i took hundreds of pictures over the course of my five week vagabonding...but i also missed a ton of things i did and people i saw. bummer. sorry to not represent y'all.
saturday: the reunion breakfast. sarah got an award for being the best alumni ever! i didn't take a picture of our cute table (meaning the peeps at it) or sarah giving her speech.
then i ditched the block party and went to my old place of employment, STATE FARM, to hang with my gal pal araceli. then she ditched work so we could go for sushi and saporros!

i just love seeing stuff like this:

dinner with the humanitarians and hubbies!

it was a byob mexican restaurant. so, couldn't order a margarita but could drink 5 bottles of wine and 2 twelve packs. okay.

melissa, karley, dave & grant

me, rach & kate

don't mind my silly pose. i didn't intentionally stick out the booty or cock the shoulders. i felt awkward bc i ran into the  middle of the picture.

we're still missing hojo, tracy & melissa! no good!

i miss my girls. we have a million billion crazy stories of our late teens and early twenties. i love thinking back on my college days. i'm so glad that the chicago girls still see each other monthly for dinner. and now that i'm in mpls i'm actually in the vicinity of two of the ten and i love it!

the next day i took the amtrak back to kc. it was $60 and *only* took 7 hours.
til next time, chicago!
stay awesome!

to be honest, i liked the bus better.

1. it was cheaper

2. i didn't mind that it took longer

3. the amtrak stopped at least every hour

4. and made announcements about every 15 minutes over the loud speaker

but i still liked my window seat.

our country is beautiful!

God bless the farmers!

Ain't Nothing Wrong With That

i interrupt my chicago blog posts to bring you robert randolph and the family band:


i'm surprised he didn't personally recruit me to dance in this video. surely i impressed him AT LEAST one of the times i danced on stage with him.

my kind of town

chicago!
my ten year college reunion was this weekend.
originally i was going to drive there from mpls with natalie. but this way, the detour to kc worked out and i got to leave natalie with nana and papa so i could enjoy a girls' weekend with my humanitarians! (yes, all my groups of friends have names. funny!) i was bummed that natalie couldn't play with all the other kiddos but i had a great time!

but first- my bff courtney took friday off so we could hang out. amazing, isn't she?!

 i've been retaining a lot of water lately... ;)

i really miss chicago!

 when we were dating, JR lived in one of these corn cob buildings (aka marina towers). it was so fun!

 i highly recommend the architecture boat tour.

 aren't they soooo cute?!

 i LOOOOOOVE this mediterranean bread from chicago pizza and oven grinder. this restaurant is one of my all-time faves! and i LOVE that courtney will always go with me! :)

 i am silly and use my hands to show how big stuff is. back in the day, i was at an ostrich farm in south africa. i took a picture of the ostrich eggs which were huge but my dad said that since i didn't put anything else in the picture to show the scaling they just looked like regular eggs. sooo...now i do quirky stuff like this:

the pizza really deserves at least two thumbs up.
 cheers-ing to courtney drinking water! yaaahoo!

 and then surprising her lil sis with the news!

 me posing in my boy robert randolph's hat.

oh wait, you don't know who robert randolph is?

oh, now you do? okay, great!