Heres to 2 years with the family!

 So Elise ignored all of my advice and turned 2 on Saturday. We had spaghetti and cake, two of Elise's favorite things.. Not one of her favorite things? The candles. Drew had to blow them out for her.

 

 When we asked Elise what she would like for her birthday, she quickly replied shoes, that's my girl! I went online and now all of us girls have matching shoes. You cannot get much cooler than that my friends! Unfortunately, they do not make these in a men's shoe, so Drew was left out.

Elise is a very special girl and has brought great joy into our family. Most of you know that it took 22 months to finally get pregnant with her, and I must say, it was worth the wait! Here are a few fun things about Elise:

 

LOVES: babies, her sisters, cookies, shoes, movies, and bedtime

 

Elise also has quite the vocabulary, some of her more memorable sayings are:

 

"I don't like football" " I love my Mommy/Lily/kate/.Daddy/Grandma/Papa"

 

"Lily/Kate hit me (yes, she can tattle with finesse)"  "Its time to eat!" " Where Daddy?"

 

" I want pancakes." " Daddy going to work out." and "Lets go to the gym!"

 

As you can see, with this lady life is always exciting!!!

October

 Elise, wearing the essentials, jewelry and a diaper.

 Finding a new spot to play in.

 Every Fall the girls' school does the Vogel Olympics where each grade must run a certain distance in a certain amount of time in order to be on the Olympic team. Both Kate and Lily worked hard and made it!

 Halloween this year was so so so fun! (Not that you can tell from the picture) The girls went as the three little pigs, and they were so cute. Elise insisted on walking to each house with Kate and Lily and had to hold her candy basket the whole time.After trick or treating, we went home and watched a movie and enjoyed our candy. 

soccer

 The girls started soccer this year and have been loving it. Because they were not able to be on the same team this year, Drew coached Lily's team.

 Lily's first goal!

 Cuddling with Mommy on the sidelines.

 Run Kate Run!

It has been so fun to watch them play and learn. I had the best time cheering them on and I can't wait until next season.

Birthdays and the First day of school

Just a cute picture of my lovely lady bugs
Lily's birthday party was so much fun! She invited over some friends and they all played outside in wonderful weather.

Everyone showing off their pinata goodies.

August 15th was the first day of school for Kate and Lily. Both were so excited to get into their new classrooms.

Lily outside of her locker.

It was hard for me to see my big girls go off to school, but they love it. Elise was all ready to join them in all their adventures and was not happy to learn that she had to stay home with Mommy. Sorry Elise, you have a few more years before Kindergarten!

The rest of our trip

 My favorite thing we did while in Switzerland was take a cable car up to the top of Grindlwald. It took about 25 minutes to get to the stop, and we had a spectacular view the whole way. The weather was perfect!

 Even way up high the mountains are green, it is just breathtaking.

 We even had time to eat at the restaurant at the top, and the food was surprisingly delicious!

 On our last day we went to the french part of Switzerland to a town called Gruyere. Yes, where the cheese comes from. 

 A hotel

 Inside a very old church

The town is surrounded by old castle walls, which gave it a very romantic feel. The weather was beautiful also. All in all, our trip was a perfect stress-relief! We were very blessed to have been able to send this week together!

Bern: The Capitol

 On Saturday we went to Bern, the capitol of Switzerland. 

 Our first stop was the Rose Garden, which gave us excellent views.

 I think Switzerland has the most beautiful grass I have ever seen. It is perfect! 

 I loved the architecture of Bern.

 Bears are the symbol of Bern. The most ironic part of this is that the Swiss shot the last wild bear in the country during the 1980s. I guess they like the idea of bears more then the bears themselves. Along the river in Bern they have built a habitat for a family of bears.

 The old town of Bern has a pedestrian street, making for a great people watch. 

 Saturday morning market.

 Beautiful old clock.

 The coolest thing about Bern was the Einstein House; The historically preserved apartment that Albert Einstein lived in while he worked for the Swiss Patent office. Of course, the day we were there it was closed due to water damage. Boo! 

 After returning from Bern we took a train up to " The Harder" Mountain (all the names sound way cool in a German accent.) The track was literally straight up the mountain, it was a little scary going up.

 But totally worth it!

 Our hotel is right next to the bridge in the middle.

The track.

Day 2: Schilthorn and Trummelbach Falls

 View outside our hotel window. The snow-covered mountain is called the Jungfrau or "maiden".

Almost any time of the day in Interlaken you can look up and see para-gliders. Crazy people! 

 On our second day in Switzerland we went up to the Schilthorn, a famous peak where a James Bond movie was filmed, called "In her Majesty's Secret Service." As you can see in the above picture, the cloud line was really really low, so we really couldn't see anything.

 Pretty waterfall at the base of the mountain.

 To get us to the top of the mountain, they squeezed us all into a cable car and carted us up on a cable line. It was a little nerve-racking. 

 This is were we got out, as you can see, we were up pretty high.

 On the top of the Schilthorn they had restaurant with a balcony, but as you can see with this picture, the clouds were so thick all you could see was white.

 After the mountain top, we headed to Trummelbach falls.

 Trummelbach falls are waterfalls inside caves in a mountain.

 A view from the falls

The falls were beautiful and made up for not being able to see anything on the Schilthorn.