Michigan Vacation 2011

I went to my grandparents' lake house every year as a tiny tot, and visiting that area (and Lark's Lake specifically) is one thing I would really like to make sure Emmett gets to do. I don't know that we'll go every year, but it would be nice to go at least every other year or every couple of years.

This year my parents rented a cottage about 15 minutes away from my grandparents' cottage. I love my grandparents' place but it's super small and definitely does not have room for all the family expansion that has happened recently with the addition of husbands (and a wife for my brother next month, woohoo!!) and Grace and Emmett.

So without further adieu, here is our vacation in pictures. First up, let's get some shots of the cousins together.
Emmett is very against looking at/smiling at the camera when there is anyone else in the shot. Diva baby.

OK, scratch that. Maybe he just won't do it when the other subjects are smiling/looking at the camera as well. "Let's take turns smiling, Gracie. That way they never get a really good one."
Emmett's Great Grandma and Grandpa Kovacs bought him this shirt in Hawaii and Gracie helped me pick out his outfit that day. I do think he totally rocked it.
Those crazy tufts of hair on the sides of his head are totally the reason why he got a haircut later that week.

On Tuesday of that week we headed over to my grandparents' lake to get in some water time. Here, my Mom (aka "Neemaw") is helping Gracie play in the sand.
My sister Katie poses with Emmett on the dock. He is more interested in her glasses than the camera.
Ok, now, this is probably one of the favorite pictures I've ever shot of the little man. Had to order one for my desk.
That night we headed to the Legg's Inn for a polish feast. Katie got pierogis and I got a pork kotlet and we split both of them. We also got some potato pancakes and a polish sampler that were amazing. Oh and the mozzarella sticks that Mike ordered were pretty fantastic too. Here Emmett is with Great-Grandpa Curley. Grandpa Curley makes all kinds of fun sounds that babies love. :)
Posing for a picture with my Dad and Gracie. Of course the other two are smiling so Emmett had to make a weird face.
Emmett wanted a bottle once we sat down so Mike volunteered for the job. Had to grab a shot of them both with their sunglasses on.
The next day Mike and I headed into Petoskey for a date night. We stayed at the Perry Hotel and ate at Chandler's. I would highly recommend both! Loved that the Perry was historic and close to downtown and we had a balcony with an amazing view of the bay. And Chandler's had a great selection of food and wine. Loved walking over there and the downtown area of Petoskey is so cute!

The next day we had brunch and came back to the cottage. My parents had some friends around who were visiting from Midland, Michigan. They headed off to see my grandparents' cottage and I gave Emmett a haircut.
Let's put the #2 guard on and buzz the sides here, son. You hold the mirror so you can see what you look like.

Then we headed into Mackinaw for dinner at Mama Mia's, a Stratton family tradition. Afterward, Katie picked up some fudge for her husband while we took pics of Emmett outside. Sadly, he is too little for ice cream!
Then we headed over to the bridge to get some shots.
After a drive and getting lost a few times, we ended up at the sand dunes over by Sturgeon Bay. Love this shot of Emmett and Mike both looking down the beach at my Dad and Gracie.
My Pops and Emmett!
And Mike pulled a total Dad Move and put Emmett down in the sand. As a Mom who hates messes, I would never have done this and cringed when it happened. But Emmett loved it so much that I was so glad Mike did it. Dads are so much fun aren't they? I'm glad Emmett has a Dad that sometimes doesn't think about messes and just thinks about how great of a time he'll have doing something.
(This doesn't mean you never have to worry about messes, Hubs! You hear me??) Mike buried Emmett's legs in the sand and Emmett was digging through and found his foot. The look of wonder on his face was so ridiculously awesome - he was like "HOLY COW that THING on the end of my LEG was UNDER HERE THE WHOLE TIME!?!?!" He looked up at Mike with this incredulous face I wish I'd gotten on video.

On Friday it was time to go home. But first we headed over to the cottage to get a little more lake time. Milly LOVED it there. Check out a beagle action shot....
Can you just leave me here with Grandma and Grandpa? I swear I won't howl anymore.
There is a tree in front of my Grandparents' cottage that used to grow out over the lake, but actually fell into the lake this winter. The root bulb the resulted was our playhouse in the summer. Here, Gracie and my Dad play on the roots.
Emmett got some more Aunt Katie snuggles and hung out on the shore.
Here is a pic of Gracie with that tree that goes over the water. Love this shot. I am totally submitting this in the photo contest at work!
So that's our vacation in pictures. It was so great. Maybe a tad too short and not enough time at the grandparents' lake but I loved seeing the family. Emmett was very sad to see us all part ways, he misses his fan club.

For more photos from the week click here

Easter!

Usually we head to Mike's family festivities in northern Indiana for Easter, but this year he really needed to stay home and study. I was sad I didn't get to see Gracie in her Easter finery last year, so I conned my brother and his girlfriend Kim into heading to Evansville! And I am so glad we all went, because I had a great time!

On Saturday we held our own little private Easter Egg hunt for Gracie. I am a little pissed at myself because I forgot to adjust my ISO for these pics so they're not as crisp as they could have been. Oh well.

Look how thrilled she looks. Haha... maybe we should have let her have a little more time after the nap to wake up before tossing her in her Easter dress and out into the back yard?

She didn't like that one of the eggs was on top of this bronze turtle my parents have in the backyard. So she signed for one of us to help her. So cute, a little kid signing "help."
I loved how her dress billowed out when she sat down. So cute! She really got the egg thing too, she was a pro.
More egg-hunting! The weather was so nice in the 'ville. It was amazing.
That basket got pretty darn full!
Grandpa had to show her what was inside a few. Yummy chocolate!
Jay took some videos too. I'm sure I looked like junk - Kim and I just got in from a run. That's the great thing about being the cameraman, though, you don't have to be in the pics!

Oink Oink

I don't think Gracie likes her pig costume!

Gracie!

This weekend was so fun! I still need to recap it, b.c we have tons of fun pictures from Katie's bachelorette party, but let's just summarize it by saying I can totally not hang with the 24 year olds. I had fun, but I think I am still recovering. My 29 year old liver called Uncle about halfway through the party.... regardless, it was one of the most fun nights/parties ever!

On Sunday we got to visit with Baby Gracie and my sis and her fiance Drew a bit. Gracie is getting to be SUCH a big girl. We got her to say Jay-Jay, which made Uncle Jay very very happy.

She's a Mama's girl

She can feed herself Tater Tots (yum, Sonic!)

Holy crap, she can stand up unassisted (and can crawl like lightning!) Katie, your days are numbered!

She can smack you in the face with her bear

She's already loving the mardi gras beads. Watch out!

She loves her little rocking chair

This is my favorite shot, though. OMGWTHBBQ! So freaking cute!

I got some good shots even though I'd left my Uber-low-light lens at home. Shouldn't do that!

More on the bachelorette festivities to come! I've been busy trying to clean/get the condo in order after the carpeting guys did their thing. After all the dog hair the vacuum got off the couch last night, I'm surprised Milly isn't bald.

Hey all!

Back from a fun weekend of Stratton family reunioning! I got to see a ton of my favorite peeps, including that silly booboohead Gracie

And after being terrified of it the first day, Gracie liked her pink tricycle OK the second day. I think watching the bigger kids play with it was a good influence!
After some AWFUL traffic on the way home, we are finally home to that beagle dog. I love this dog!

Monday, Monday.....

Oy, I SO did not get any of my picture-sorting and uploading done this weekend!

This weekend we're heading to the Stratton Family Reunion to hang out, eat mediocre buffet food, wear teal Stratton Famly tshirts, and play with Gracie!! I can't wait to see the little booboohead, it's been WAY too long!
Just look how big she is!

Weekend Recap

Another busy weekend!

Luckily I was able to leave a bit early from work on Friday and headed to Purdue to meet my cousin Zach for dinner. We got some Hot Box pizza and breadsticks (LOVE) and then continued on my merry way to Indy.

I think my sister is lying about that baby sleeping, because everytime I see her and Gracie she totally does not sleep through the night. I think she's in for another bad bout of teething, because she had one on the top front that popped through the gums on Saturday. Poor little booboohead. She definitely felt under the weather, as is evidenced by this picture I took at lunch on Saturday.

Gracie and Grandma snuggle at lunch

The point of the weekend was not only for visiting but to ACCOMPLISH on the Katie-wedding-front. And accomplish we did. We found Katie's wedding gown, bridesmaid dresses, invitations, agreed on bachelorette and shower festivities and figured out what weekend would be good, and made to-do lists on top of to-do lists. I don't know about Katie but I feel like the whole thing is actually coming together now!

Gracie and Katie get a fun shot in at David's bridal

I gotta tell you, we went to this Posie Patch Bridal Superstore after David's Bridal, and it was a bit hell-ish. We had to wait about an hour and a half after our appointment to be helped by a bridal consultant which was crazy ridiculous. And there were about a million rude people there. We had so much time before she was helped for bridal gowns that we full-on picked out a bridesmaid dress.

Then her name was called and she started trying on dresses. I was so happy when she found "the dress"... she had tried on many dresses that would do and were gorgeous, but I kept telling her that she would know when she found The One. And she did! She came out of the dressing room with tears in her eyes proclaiming "This is THE ONE!!!" I was so happy for her that she truly felt that when finding her gown instead of being lukewarm about it and saying "Oh, this will do." Once she decided on a gown I realized with a jolt that the bridesmaid dress we had decided on just would not go with the wedding dress AT ALL. I turned to Katie and the other bridesmaid, Melanie, that we had with us and said "JUST ONE MINUTE. I'll be right back"

I must have looked slightly like a mad woman, tearing through the bridesmaid dress section, pulling dresses off the racks quickly and tossing them on my pile. I picked out 5 I thought would look good, we narrowed it down to three on the spot and then tried on those. Out of those three, the other bridesmaid and I wholeheartedly agreed on one and Katie liked it, so we were golden! It was so funny, we waited around for like an hour and a half at that place and the action went down in 10 solid minutes!

Once we were back at Katie's place and Gracie got some Tylenol in her system to sooth those gums, I decided to take some pics. No wonder I am in love with this little nugget, check her out!

Man, I love that baby.

On Sunday I drove home in a monsoon and Mike and I decided to go see "He's Just Not That Into You" At the theater we ran into Jay and Kim, who were seeing the same thing! So we ended up going to a movie with them totally without meaning to! Pequod's pizza for dinner was a nice way to end the weekend.... if you haven't been there you just have to try it - it's our FAVORITE!

Hope your weekends were great! Is the monsoon season around here crazy or what? I am thanking my lucky stars I purchased wellies.

found a good place to nap

found a good place to nap, originally uploaded by agstratt.

I know I say this everytime, but how is it possible to miss the snuggles already?

Babies are so cute!

DSC_0019.JPG, originally uploaded by agstratt.

I am still loving these photos I took of little Grace last weekend. I am missing my Gracie snuggles already.

flirting

DSC_0060.JPG, originally uploaded by agstratt.

they say that babies and animals know really good people when they see them, right? Maybe that's why baby Gracie loved Mike so much. Seems that I've picked out a good one, and i just loved how enamored he was with Gracie and how much she loved being held by him. I already knew he would be a good Dad whenever we get around to having kids, but that was just another great confirmation of that fact.

I am in love...

DSC_0211.JPG, originally uploaded by agstratt.

with my new little niece!

oh hai!

DSC_0347.JPG, originally uploaded by agstratt.

put your hands in the ayer, if you just don't ca-yer....

More Gracie!

I think I've got Katie talked into sending me a daily Gracie pic.... it totally brightens my day!

so tired, Mom. Can't you just chill out?

always halfway between food and sleep... the life of a newborn