Dan, Erin, Rylie, Reagan, & Rory: October Pictures

With October came our annual trip to Jim's pumpkin farm with the Maio family. This time there were four kiddos big enough to run around through the maze and pick out their pumpkins and just one tiny one. Last year it was Reagan asleep in the stroller. We had a great time as always. The big girls were too cool for the tractors this year, but they ran through the maze and had fun on the hay ride to pick out their pumpkins. We followed it with lunch at our house where the girls got to play even more!

The Fall also brought the Fall session of gymnastics for both girls. Once Reagan turns three she'll be able to be in class on her own. She's getting much better at know what she's supposed to do at each station. She's not the best jumper yet, but will fly off the vault to daddy.

At the end of October, I made one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. I decided to leave United Heartland where I have worked since the 2nd day I moved to the Milwaukee area. It was an extremely tough decision and I couldn't imagine not working with these people every day. I truly enjoyed going to work because of the people that I worked with. I'm blessed to call them all friends. As always as companies grow they change and it just wasn't the same company that I started working for. I was presented with an opportunity to work with some of the people that worked at United Heartland my first couple of years there, including the person that hired me. They had left in 2010 to start a new work comp company called Argent, which is a branch of West Bend Mutual Insurance. It was a great opportunity and as difficult as it was to leave it was time for me to move on and try something new. I don't handle change easily but I felt the need to challenge myself and saw an opportunity for further growth for me personally so I made the move. The picture below is that night...thank goodness for hugs from these two after a tough day!

I took advantage of the change to take two weeks off in between and this is how I spent the first morning. I took Rylie to school and Reagan to Beth's and sat on the couch with my coffee watching Live. I did keep Reagan home with me 3 days each of the weeks and took her to Beth's 2 days so it allowed me to spend some time with just her and I, but also let me get a few things done at home.

Spending time in the leaves...and trying to get them all over to the fire pit before it snows! I had the cutest little helper. She even raked out her play house. But we all had a little fun in them too. The girls had a great time running and jumping in the piles! (which by the way, did not make it over to the fire pit- it will be a fun project when the snow melts)

We went to carve our pumpkins only to discover a rotten one. So we went ahead with our one pumpkin and then Grr and Grr Mom stopped over another night and brought an extra they had for us to carve, so each of the girls had one. Given that Reagan doesn't like to have much of anything on her hands, the pumpkin goo was no exception. She wasn't a fan.