Thanksgiving

Hi!
Long time no post! Happy Thanksgiving. What a great Thanksgiving we had. We went to St. Louis to celebrate. We got to see all of my family and my friends and Nathan's sister Amy and Gabe and Lincoln. We truly have much to be thankful for this year. My kids and my daycare kids had a theme song that we listened to everyday this month called Thankfulness and the main line is "Because a thankful heart is a happy heart" I loved hearing the kids sing it, and I loved thinking of all the things we are so thankful for everyday. We are thankful for our families and friends and all of our needs being met up here in Madison, and of course for smaller things like pumpkinpie and turkey and scented candles, warm sweatshirts and getting to cuddle with our "magic blanket" (my old college comforter that is so soft and worn) and not get too hot!

Here are a few updated pics. We are so excited for this new month and Christmas, which we celebrate all month at the Artz house!














My grandma with all her grandchildren and great grandchildren, minus my sister who for some reason is not in the picture!

Halloween

It was a happy Halloween in Madison. We went trick or treating with Grace's best friend Owen and his little sister in their neighborhood. Grace carried her little pumpkin around like a pro and was happy to run around with Owen and get candy and talk to the people at the door! Sophia enjoyed her stroller ride, but her cold came back after our trick or treating experience. Bummer! Here are a few pics.
Katie

Sisterly Love

Hello,
Have not posted an update in awhile. I need to be taking more pictures around here! As fall is coming to an end up here, we are getting ready for the long winter. However, instead of letting this make us sad and bummed out, we have made a list of all the things we are looking forward to about winter! So, hold us to it for the next five or six months:)
Here are a few pics of the girls loving each other. My main quote each day is "sisters are for loving".
We recently attempted to try to potty train Grace, however, we soon discovered that this was a task we were not willing to undertake at this time! We feel it may be easier when Grace is closer to three years old. Instead, we are doing other "big girl" things like sitting to eat with no booster seat, getting a big girl bed, and drinking out of a big girl cup!
Sophia is doing well. Can you even believe she will be one in two months, what?! She is crawling all over and starting to try to pull herself up to things. She says mama and dada, and she loves to eat anything. She will even eat crumbs off of the floor that she finds crawling around! Hilarious.

Nathan and I are also doing well. We are getting excited for the upcoming holiday season.
Here are some pics. I will post some Halloween adventures later. Grace is going to be a pink bunny and Sophia is going to be a pumpkin.



































Talk soon,
Katie

5K Run and the Weekend of Fall!

Hi,
So the big news is..... Katie finished her 5K run that she had been training for. If you know me at all, you know how much I loathe exercise and try to avoid it at all costs. Well, after turning 30, I decided I needed to try to take better care of my aging body, so I started training for a 5K. My one goal was to finish it without walking. It turned out better than I even expected. All my training paid off because I met the goal and finished in 37 minutes and beat all the walkers and even some runners! Yea! I was number 13 and got a chip on my shoe to time me, WOW.

Here I am at the finish line where Nathan and the kids were cheering.

The weekend of fall fun consisted of our family taking a spur of the moment trip to a sweet, little apple orchard where we picked apples and pet black sheep. Then, my friend Rachel came over, and we ate chili and cider. At the run, which was at the zoo, Grace and I found some beautiful and very big orange leaves. The first orange leaves we have found since the leaves started to change colors here! Of course, this was extremely exciting for us (well, it was for me at least!)


I know, you are all wanting to see pictures of the kids. Here are a few from our apple picking trip.







Notice the fall foliage I tried to get in the background!



















Sophia really likes this backpack. One of Nathan's professors just gave it to us. She said she did not need it anymore. How nice!














That's it for now. I tried to post this great video of Sophia scooting/trying to crawl to get pieces of food, but it was taking too long to upload!

First Videos

Good Bye Summer

Fall comes early in Madison. I am not complaining, it is my all time favorite season. I love everything about it, apples, pumpkins, changing leaves, football, new TV shows, great weather, beautiful trees, pumpkin candles, apple cider, the list goes on. We will soon be breaking out all of our pumpkin decor here at the Artz house. This is our own family holiday that we made up called "Kickoff to Pumpkin Season."

Now, back to summer.... We celebrated my 30th birthday in St. Louis. It was very fun. Grace got to stay at Grandma and Paw Paw's house for three days by herself before Nathan and Sophia and I met her there. She loved it, could not care less we were there when she saw us.

Grace and Sophia have a friend they get to play with five days a week now.... Linnea has started daycare with us and it is going very well so far. Grace was not extremely happy about the whole thing for the first couple days, but today Linnea got the invite by Grace to "come play in my room Linnea!" Big times over here!

Grace learned how to drink out of a big girl cup, which she does only when she wants to.


Sophia made some new boyfriends when we visited St. Louis! These are my friend Lori's new twin boys, they are absolutely adorable.

I got to swing on my favorite childhood swing with Grace during our trip to St. Louis. She loved it just as much as I did. Glad I can still fit on that swing with my thirty year old self!

Sophia found a new play pen to entertain her. She enjoys the laundry basket play sessions.




We have had a great summer up here! I need to take some pictures of Nathan so you can see him too. He is doing very well. He is happy with his research right now and feels like it is moving along, which is a praise. That's all of our news for now
Katie

Yea, I took a bath! This is classic Grace.

Hi ParentShack Fans

We have decided that we are not going to renew our parentshack and are going to keep friends and family updated using this family blog. So, feel free to check in often if you want to know what the Artz's are doing on their adventure in Madison. The email address is www.artzfamily.blogspot.com

Stay tuned for a more in depth post, I am just learning how to use this!

Katie