Parties, pacifiers, picking up and pictures

This past Sunday our newest niece, Claire, was baptized ... hooray! The Needham family traveled from South Dakota on Saturday and spent Saturday night with us, then we all headed over to Milwaukee for the worship service, baptism, and celebration. It was wonderful to be able to see Matt's sisters and their families again. We hadn't all been together in almost a year and a half! And the newest cousins (Julia and Claire) finally got to meet the rest of their cousins :)

Here's a few snapshots of the crazy cousins.


What a crew, huh?


Besides having the opportunity to see the aunts and uncles and cousins, this weekend was big for our little Kate because she gave her pacifiers to her baby cousins on Sunday. Hip, hip, hooray! We've been planning this for awhile, but didn't mention it to her until this past Thursday or Friday. Then, through subtle suggestioning techniques, we got her to volunteer to give them to the babies when we saw them all on Sunday. She willingly handed them over right when she met Claire and things have gone amazingly smoothly since then.

We had prepared ourselves (okay, it was mostly me) for lots of tears and missed naps because of the transition, but Kate's done great. On the way home from Milwaukee on Sunday, she said about a dozen times that Aunt Michal gave us one of the pacifiers back. But finally realized that it just wasn't true and so she slept some on the way home. Sunday night she said "The babies have the pacifiers" with a sad look on her face, but never cried or asked for them. It took her awhile to get to sleep that first night and then she was up early yesterday and skipped a nap yesterday, too. But last night she was out like a light and today she is napping peacefully without pacifiers. Yeah! Kate was definitely ready for this transition.

Now if only it were this easy to take a thumb away from a thumb-sucker ...

Before the weekend began, we had the chance to take care of some our final yard work this fall. We finally pulled up the tomatoes plants after harvesting 3 or 4 dozen partially ripe tomatoes and a huge bowl full of almost ripe cherry tomatoes. We've had three good months of lots and lots of fresh tomatoes. It will be sad when these final ones are gone :(


With the tomatoes done, I tilled the garden, we cleaned out flower beds, trimmed the raspberries, raked a few more leaves, and putzed in the farmer's field collecting lots of ears of corn with the kernels still on. The girls LOVE playing out there!

And lastly, I finally remembered to take some pictures of the house when it was still light out! So here's a few before and after shots.

The perspective is a little off for these first two, but you at least get a sense of how much more open things are now.




In these last two it's hard to get a feel for the new space, but at least it gives an idea.



We love, love, love our new kitchen and dining room :)