Fair Week 2025

The kids have always loved coming to the fair. I mean what beats petting all the animals, eating a fair corn dog, drinking a shake-up, and sweating your booty off? But in all honesty, it's always a fun time and a wonderful memory for our summer. This year we made even more sweet memories together at the fair!

Ashley decided this year that she wanted to do the little miss pageant. I had taken her to a princess tea party put on by the fair queens this spring and she told me how much fun it was. When I brought up that she could do something similar this summer at the fair she was all about it. 

She ended up rocking the stage the night of the pageant! I was so proud of how brave she was and how well she handled herself up there. 

When the asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said "a queen", which she told me is because it's even better than a princess. I've also heard her say she wants to be a firefighter, a police man, and a teacher- this girl has a bright future ahead of her. 

When she walked off the stage that night she told me how fun it was and that she wanted to do it again, so watch out for her on the stage next year too!

She was so excited to see some of her biggest fans in the stands, and felt the love of those who were cheering her on at home. 

A few days later we were back, but this time to enjoy all the other things we love about the fair- animals, food, and fun. Our first stop is always a walk through the animal barn where we like to find our favorite pigs, cows, and goats among the bunch.

This year we let the kids get armbands for the carnival and they had an absolute blast! I think we got our money's worth with the number of times they went on the swings, the cars, and through the jungle obstacle course. They tried the dragon rollercoaster one time, and I'll just say that that one time was enough for them ha!

We left the fair tired, sweaty, and full of memories to last us until next year!

Allison: 11 Months

We are one month away from the big O-N-E, and it's hard to believe that our baby is almost not a baby anymore. Allison continues to be a light in our lives and we love watching her grow each and every day. 

Allison is crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything. She will transfer to close objects, but she isn't yet cruising across furniture or trying to stand up on her own. I can also officially say that she is waving to say hello.

She is such a good sleeper- we've been way spoiled with good sleepers in all of our kids. She takes two naps and goes down for naps and for the night without a hitch. We literally just put her in her crib, she pops her thumb in her mouth, rolls over to her belly, and is out. 

Allison likes to be on the move. She will snuggle in close and get comfy with you for 2.5 seconds, but then pops her head up to look around and see what is going on. 

She still loves to eat- green beans and mandarin oranges continue to be favorites for her, but she will eat about anything that is on her tray. She's done much better this month about drinking her water on her own too without me having to offer it to her during meals. 

She stayed away from Eric and I the longest she has since she's been born when we went on vacation with the other three kids. Reports from my parents and Eric's parents say that she had the best time with them and was on her best behavior. We are so thankful that they could help us out while we were away!

Allison still loves her siblings so much (and it's definitely reciprocated by them). If they go into their rooms, she is crawling right behind them to see what they are doing. If they go downstairs, she will crawl to the top of the stairs and sit there to watch and listen to what she can. 

She helped Eric celebrate Father's Day with cuddles, laughs, and smiles. 

Favorites for Allison this month would be bath time, playing with her siblings, being picked up, and being part of all the action. She still enjoys being outside and loves when we go on walks. 

Dislikes this month would be not being part of the action or having to wait to be picked up. 

Allison is in size 9 month clothes and size 3 diapers. She weighs about 21.4 pounds and is about 28.5 inches long. She's taking 30 ounces of milk a day. She also got her four top teeth this month- all at the same time to boot- making a total of 6 teeth. 

It still hasn't sunk in that next month she will be a one year old, but when it does I might shed a tear or two. Our baby is growing up, and while I'm sad that this stage of our life is coming to a close, I'm so excited for all the things to come for both her and our family.

Vacation 2025

It was a week full of fun, laughs, and family- just what we all needed! This year we packed the camper and headed north to Starved Rock State Park and then to the Wisconsin Dells. We left Allison at home this year (huge thank you to our parents for watching her for us while we were gone), but the rest of us had the best time together. 

We started our vacation at Starved Rock State Park. We stayed in the campground at the park and really loved our site that we ended up with. Once the campground was set up, it was off on our first adventure- hiking to La Salle Canyon. 

This was probably my favorite waterfall that we saw. I loved how we could walk behind it, and there was hardly anyone here. 

The kids loved walking around and trying to touch the water. Brayden accidentally fell into the water, which I thought would be the end of the fun.

Thankfully they just decided to go for it and started walking and playing in the pools that the water formed. I'm glad I decided to throw an extra pair of shoes into the camper before we left home- we needed them after this!

The next day we were back at it with another adventure (and another couple hundred stairs) as we hiked the Eagle Cliff Overlook, Wildcat Canyon, and French Canyon Loop trail. 

We were able to see the dam across the Illinois River and pointed out all the boats and little islands we saw. 

There were plenty of rock formations that the kids enjoyed climbing on and into. 

The first waterfall on this hike was Wildcat Canyon, which was just trickling when we were there. The water looked a little grosser here so no playing in the pool at the bottom this time!

We continued our hike to French Canyon. I don't know if it's because this canyon is very close to the visitor center or if there's another reason, but this canyon was packed. Since the water wasn't flowing, you could actually hike into the canyon where the waterfall was, which was really neat. What wasn't neat was the lack of trail etiquette that people had. There was a narrow entry way to get into and out of the canyon, and one would think that you would wait for a group to go out before other people tried to come in, but that definitely wasn't the case. People were squeezing past each other to get in and out and it was a mess. None the less, we made it in and out with only minor scrapes from a fall. 

After lunch, we tackled one more hike (and even more stairs- seriously- there are SO many stairs on all of these trails), and hiked to St. Louis Canyon. I just have to note that Brayden and Ashley did so great on all of our hikes. They didn't complain much about the stairs or all the walking- they were troopers. Katie- well let's just say that she didn't do much walking haha!

The kids really enjoyed this stop because of the huge sand area near the falls. They worked hard on their sand "castle". 

I really wanted to do one more hike- to Ottowa and Kaskaskia Canyons, but rain moved in that night, and I was afraid that the trail would be super muddy the next morning, so we opted to hit up a playground and a tasty little homemade root beer burger joint. 

The root beer was SO yummy, and the kids really enjoyed their ice cream. 

We couldn't pass up a photo op with their big burger guy!

If we would have had time, I would have loved to go over to Matthiessen State Park and check out the trails there. I guess we have to come back some time! We loaded up the camper and hit the road for the Dells. We made it to Mirror Lake State Park, our home for the next three nights. While Eric set up the camper, I took the kids on a hike to Echo Rock. We climbed to the top and looked out on the lake. 

That night we enjoyed a family bike ride. We all agreed that we need to bring all of our bikes on every trip from now on. We had been bringing the kids' bikes, but never brought ours. It took taking off the front wheels of our bikes to get them to fit in the SUV, but it was totally worth it and something we will always do now. 

The next day was our first waterpark adventure to Mt. Olympus. It was a high of like 65 degrees that day, so we chose this park since they had an indoor waterpark and theme park. The indoor waterpark left much to be desired. They had half of it closed- the half that had the indoor slides and more play areas for the kids, so it was cramped in the area they had open, but we made the most of it. 

Eric got the twins to do the one water slide inside that was open- the Medusa's Slidewheel, which is a rotating water slide. I don't think the kids liked it that much because they didn't want to go on it again with me ha!

Since it was way too cold to do anything outside, we made our way to the indoor theme park to finish the day.

The kids had a blast in here. It was a bunch of carnival type rides- spinning tea cups, swings, bumper cars, airplanes, etc. Katie and Brayden loved the air plane ride, and Ashley loved the hot air balloon ride (that we only got to do twice because it was closed for maintenance most of our time there). But there were no lines on anything, so the kids loved it.

That night I was able to take a bike ride with just Brayden and Ashley and sit by the water for a bit with them. 

We ended the night with time around the camp fire, and capturing Ashley and I twinning with our matching bubble braids.

The next day we headed to Noah's Ark Waterpark, which is an outdoor waterpark. It was warmer that day, with a high of 75, but the water was cold. And the sun didn't come out until like 4 o'clock, so the clouds and wind didn't help the cold situation. 

I think the kids would have LOVED this area if the water was warmer. Ashley refused to even get in the water here. 

Katie couldn't hang the whole day. She did get a good second wind after she woke up though. 

We found a kiddie area that had "warm" water that the kids really enjoyed playing at. Ashley went down that pelican slide a hundred times. And Katie ran through those water spouts a thousand times- each time wanting me to film her. She'd run through them and then run back up to me and want to see her video and just laugh and laugh, and then run and do it again. I eventually stopped filming her and just showed her videos I'd already taken since she just repeated the same path every time. 

Brayden and Ashley also found love for the wave pool. 

If it were warmer, I think we would have had more fun and done more of the slides in the park, but the kids said they had fun, so it was a win!

The next day we headed home after breakfast and drove the almost six hour trip straight through. It was pretty quiet in the back seat though- a full vacation wears a kid out I guess. This one was one for the memory books, and we are already thinking about where we want to explore next year!