halloween 2013

Elise LOVED Halloween this year.  These are all the pictures I got before she trick-or-treated.  It was raining.   But she's the cutest little cupcake I ever saw. 

Nick took her out while I stayed home and passed out candy.   He said she would hold his hand between every driveway and run to the door and back after saying "trick-or-treat" and "thank you!". 

I basically sat on the steps and played candy crush.  While handing out candy.  And maybe eating just a little.  

She was super happy with her stash.  

She said she wouldn't smile for me and this is her "crabby face". 

pumpkin carving

Not totally sure why this is a childhood tradition considering it involves sharp knives and scooping out pumpkin guts - which are both totally "daddy jobs".   We had fun though.   

She would only touch it with her spoon.

The farthest her had got in the pumpkin. 

"But then my hand would get dirty!" she would say. 

She spent a lot of time with the spoon moving it closer and farther from her face saying "small, medium, large!"

It's looking like freezing rain is in our Halloween forcast. 
I'm volunteering to stay home and hand out candy.

the children's museum

Today we met some friends at the GR Children's Museum.

That is the cutest place.  I need to go there more.  

A few recent quotes:

driving home yesterday:

Me:   "Elise, I'm so happy I get to be your mommy."

Elise:  "I'm so happy to be your girl."

nick just got home from work:

Elise:  Daddy did you have fun at work today? 

eating dinner:

Elise:  I'm so happy to be home. 

I told her we had to stop at the store before we could go home:

Elise:  Oh, that makes sense. 

I am constantly cracking up at her.

How sweet is my girl?

She took these dogs and food back here by herself.  I asked her what their names were and she told me "Elise Lynn Goote" and "puppy with white paws and white face".   She's so creative. 

a couple new things

Lauren says I need to post some new stuff - I have a few pictures and a couple phone videos.  So here ya go Auntie Lauren.  :-)

Our friends came over to play today.  Krissy and I were talking in the kitchen while baby Riella was on her play mat.  We see Elise JUMP over her like a bunny.   After we told her not to do that again ("but that was so silly mommy!") she just started talking to her.   It was adorable. 

We went to a pumpkin decorating Halloween party last Saturday. 
Elise got to wear her cupcake costume. 

The child talks and sings constantly. 
This is in the car on the way home from the pumpkin party at Nicolynn's house.



Whenever we go to Hobby Lobby we have to stop at PetSmart.  Elise knows they're right next to each other.  And she's so sweet. 

fall fun week

Nick and I are spending our Friday night drinking wine and watching Netflix. While uploading some pictures of our fun week.  Elise and I packed in the fall fun this week while the weather is still gorgeous. 

On Tuesday we had a fun day with our MOPS group to Post Family Farms. 

We love this place.  And I love that it's 5 minutes from my house.  

Lots of kitties around this place.

The BEST pumpkin donuts.  Except there were TONS of bees so we ate ours on the run. 

Brave girl tried the zipline!

We headed to Robinettes the next day.  A Grand Rapids fall staple.

I've been trying to get in more pictures with my sweetheart girl these days. 

All of the fun activities are mostly limited to the weekends, so we just had lunch and played a little.   Also she did this pose herself. 

This week has been absolutely perfect.

while we were away...

Elise was very busy while we were gone.

We were sent pictures and videos all week - we loved see what she was up to.  The first part she stayed with the Gootes who took her to the farm, school, church...we tried to FaceTime with them and we caught Elise sleeping in the car.  Busy girl!

Then she stayed with my mom and dad and was very lucky to go to the zoo with their neighbors Ava and Vivian.  These girls are so cute together.

I had a lot of video clips too - she had so much fun!

Thanks again Grandparents.  :-)

the gootes go to mexico

Nick and I spent the last week in beautiful Tulum, Mexico. 

This was our view everyday.

I only have like three pictures of us the whole week. One because I was mostly in my bathing suit and I don't enjoy those types of pictures.  And two because I know we're not that interesting.  Elise is way cuter in pictures than we are. 

These guys were everywhere.  This one was pretty huge.

We took a one day excursion to the Tulum ruins - only about a 20 minute bus ride from our resort. It was VERY cool to see, but it was literally 100 degrees and we were sweating though our clothes.  We were glad the ruins part of the day was only about two hours. 

It was SO beautiful.

Nick was so hot he actually jumped in the ocean. 

We were all in our bathing suits anyways for the next part of the day...

These are all pictures I pulled off the internet - but this is Xel-Ha, where we spent the rest of the day.  It was all inclusive just like our resort.  Food, drinks, whatever you want.   We tubed down this river into the beautiful lagoon, where we ditched our tubes for jumping off cliffs, zip-lining, and snorkeling.   It was SO fun. 

We jumped off this cliff!  It's really high, like 30 feet.  I did a weird scream. 

 One more picture from dinner.  This is a picture from the first night we were there (I think) where we got pulled (literally) out of the audience to participate in the "Perfect Couple" show.  It involved dancing (we failed miserably), push-ups (Nick dominated), identifying belly buttons blind-folded (super gross and I was too freaked out to pick right), and a balloon popping relay race which for double the points make us WIN the whole thing.  Embarrassing and totally awesome at the same time.  The whole week the staff referred to us as the perfect couple.  So funny.

We are SO happy to be home and to see Sweet Elise again. 
A HUGE thank you to our parents who took such good care of her while we were gone.  It's probably weird for her to hear the word "no" again. 

Elise was very busy while we were gone too. 
Maybe I'll get to those pictures tomorrow.  :-)