Birthdays Galore!

The last couple weeks have been FILLED with birthdays!  We got to celebrate Pops's 70th and Uncle Mike's 35th birthdays (strangely enough, they are on the same day) with them, which was tons of crazy kid fun.  We put together a fun little video for Pops since this was such a milestone, and I've put it down there with the pics for you to enjoy.  What a legacy that man has!

Aunt Sarah brought all kinds of fun stuff for the kids!

Pops's favorite chocolate cake!

Figgy and her big girls

John getting some Aunt Sarah time

Playing in the tent

Mike with his favorite chocolate cake

Pops's Video:

Then, Susannah's BFF Asher had his 2-year birthday (1 week before Susannah's to the day), and Sus got on her first bounce house ever at his party.  But that was child's play to the girl who jumps with Daddy on a 12-foot trampoline on the regular.

The look of determination.

THEN, our Susannah Girl herself had her 2-year birthday party this past Saturday!  We were so excited to have Figgy, Pops, Dizzy, and PopPop all in town for the festivities, and some of Susannah's local favorites were even able to come.  We had a great time playing and eating and opening sweet presents.  And now our sweet baby girl is 2. (Well, we've been pretending she's already 2 since Saturday so that she doesn't expect a reenactment tomorrow.)  I'm trying to avoid saying all the things that every parent says with each birthday, but gracious, how has it been 2 years?  Susannah brings SO much joy to our life, and we adore her more with each day and milestone!

Sweet, stoic babe! 

That finger is about to dive right in.

BIG smiles for her Elmo card!

Opening presents might be one of her favorite activities now, second only to eating birthday cake (that her Daddy has let her have for breakfast the past couple days, too...)

Family pic and hilarious expressions!

And to cap off the birthday weekend, we had John dedicated at church on Sunday.  And I just need to go ahead and post a picture from that right now before I say anything else:

One of the ladies from church said she couldn't help but pull out her camera and try to capture this sweet moment of Susannah and John holding hands during his dedication.  Sus reached out to hold his hand first for a little while, and then when she dropped his hand, he reached back over toward to to hold hands again!  I really almost cried watching that sweet interaction.  I know it won't always be like that between those two, so I'm glad someone grabbed that moment with a camera! (Even if Susannah does look ticked...but that's not exactly abnormal.)

More funny expressions

The fam after John's dedication

And last but not least, we'll share some Halloween pics.  This costume might have been my greatest idea ever:

No captions necessary.

Denver and More!

Yep, that's about right.

I just uploaded the 229 pictures I've taken since the last time I posted. TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE.  And y'all, that's just on my fancy camera.  That's not including the 50ish from my phone.  I'd say I need to chill, but I just can't NOT attempt to capture every moment of these days with our babies!

Since my last post, we made a family trip out to Denver to see Aunt KK and Uncle Bear, had some great weather at home, and even hosted a pretty huge-for-the-country Ackertoberfest (our hopefully-annual shindig).  So here are some pics!

Susannah or Daddy?

The men with Dizzy before they headed off to catch and feast on trout in the mountains.

We brought Dad along with us to secretly celebrate their anniversary!

Brunch before heading to...

...Tiny Town!  This place is a toddle paradise.

On the train at Tiny Town.

Susannah got to have her way with an ice cream cone for the first time ever.

These two... Susannah is 100% obsessed with Aunt KK!

Of course Baby Girl closed her eyes for the only group pic we took amongst the Aspens!

Once the men were back, we left the kids with them and promptly went to happy hour, toasting our amazing time in Denver.

Silly faces on the big girl bed

Reading with Daddy

Daddy -- er, Susannah -- got a trampoline!

Yes, it's so obviously Susannah's, right?

Matching my girl with our boots
 

We had our pastor's little girl with us for a few days while they welcomed their new baby into the world.

And her visit led to the most hilarious picture I have ever taken EVER...

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LOOK AT HER FACE.

You're welcome!

Our Week in Kiptopeke

This past week we were able to go on vacation with Pops, Figgy, and the whole Gilbert clan.  Our time together could not have been more fun!  Watching all the little cousins running around and playing together was the best.  And Susannah wasn't afraid of the water at all!

I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves:

This is the life...

Seriously, BEST friends!

First s'mores experience.  This face is not a good representation of her extreme enjoyment of the s'more!

This boy is SO cute and smiley! Nathanael fell and scraped up his nose pretty bad on our second day, but even that didn't keep him from smiling!

Figgy had the boys absolutely cackling!

The two dimple boys

Surprise birthday party for Pete and Figgy!

John is definitely a Pops fan

We head to Denver on Wednesday this week to visit Katie and Brian!!  September has already been so great, and there's still more fun to come!

(Also, John turns 4 months tomorrow! What a big boy!)