Is Fall in the Air?

It was such a beautiful warm fall weekend!! But I think for possibly the first time in my life I'm ready for the cooler weather. There were so many bugs around this weekend it was disgusting! We normally don't have any lady bugs, but this weekend they've been stuck on the outside our windows and a few minutes ago one got in the house when I let Elvis inside--yuck! And last week I had an incident trying to kill a fly in our bathroom. I accidentally broke our light fixture above our mirror while swatting at the fly with a towel. I had gotten up at 6am to feed Layla and then do some work from home, but that didn't go as planned since I then had to clean up the shattered glass all over our bathroom! So I will be happy when all the bugs freeze to death. Layla also has some cute cooler weather clothes that I'm excited to put her in:-).

Even though it was hot yesterday, we still got in the fall spirit by wearing orange and black:-)...



Taking a family walk Friday night...


And here is just us after church yesterday...

"Best Deer Day Ever"

Those were the words that came out of Joe's mouth last night when reflecting upon his day. Joe's day began by shooting a deer early in the morning on his first hunt of the season. Not only was it his first deer of the year, but it was also his first deer that he's ever gotten with a bow! He was super excited! And I was excited too because he gave the meat away so we didn't have to try to make room in our freezer for more venison nor did I have to see the deer! And of course I was also excited since I know it makes him happy to kill deer:-).

Then later in the day the four of us (Joe, Layla, Elv and me) went for a drive out by our house to look for deer. It wasn't exactly "deer shining" since we had to work around Layla's schedule and so it was light out for most of our drive. In one spot we saw 7 deer and 2 of the bucks were fighting/wrestling/butting heads/whatever you want to call it. That was the first time that Joe had ever seen that in real life--normally he just sees that in his hunting videos...which brings me to the next part of his deer-filled day. When we returned from our drive, Joe relaxed with Layla and watched his new hunting DVD. Oh, and I even found Layla some cute pink camo pants yesterday too! Oh, deer!!

4 Months Old!

Layla is 4 months old today!! I can't believe how fast the time has gone! She'll be getting married before I know it...haha, hopefully not for a LONG time! She is getting more and more fun every day. She squeals, smiles and cooes like crazy. She's sleeping through the night. She can support her head enough now to sit in her Bumbo. She has come a LONG way from the tiny squirmy baby that slept all day in an isolet. I remember longing for the day when we could take pictures of her without a feeding tube in her mouth or nose. Now that seems so long ago. It seems like just yesterday that my water broke at home and we were faced with the uncertainty of giving birth to a premature baby, yet in some ways pregnancy seems like a distant memory to me (thank goodness or I'd probably never do it again! :-0). God has blessed us with a beautiful healthy little girl and we are so thankful for the joy she has brought into our lives!!

1 month


4 months

3 Month Pics

Layla had her 3 month pictures taken by Tracy VanDermeulen a couple of weeks ago and they turned out great! Tracy did such a great job!! To see a few of them you can visit Tracy's photography blog http://tracyvdmphotography.wordpress.com/. To find out more info about Tracy VanDerMeulen Photography visit http://www.tracyvdmphotography.com/.

This also reminded me of Layla's birth announcements that we sent out awhile ago. Sondra's Ink (http://www.sondrasink.com/) did them and I think they turned out really cute! Thanks to Jill for taking the picture of her for the announcement!! For those that didn't receive one, here's a pic of it...

Perfect Angel

I found this old halloween costume of mine when I was getting my fall decorations out the other day...I thought it suited her well (most of the time anyway!).

Ella Jeanne Koning

We are so excited that our friends Brad and Jill had a beautiful healthy little girl yesterday!! We went to see her today and she's absolutely adorable!! Jill had her at 4:45pm yesterday and she was 22" long and 9 lbs 4 oz.

The happy family...(I forgot to get a family pic of them today so hopefully Daysha doesn't mind that I took hers:-0)










Proud daddies:-)


They're going to be life long friends!!

Fall is in the Air

It sure was a crisp fall day today! We walked around downtown Zeeland during their Pumkinfest.

Alden, Layla and Jonathan posing with their new "friends"...



Layla going for a ride on Elvis...


Layla preparing for Lord of the Dance... (her hands were cold that's why she has socks on them)