Grandma came to visit!

Zack was in Utah for a few weeks in September so I convinced my mom to come out and play with us!  Even though she was just out here a few months ago when James was born, it was nice to have her here again because this time I hadn't just given birth so we could get out and go do fun things!

My mom always comes bearing gifts (like any awesome Grandma does!) and brought a book for each of the kids.  Elise loves hers and anytime we get it out she says, "Grandma go that for me!".  I love walking in and seeing them reading.

 My mom and James were good buddies on the trip.  It was really nice to have an extra hand with the kids after doing it solo for two weeks.

 We did awesome things like going to the zoo and having staring contests with the lions.

 Letting Elise play on the footsie wootsie.  I'm hoping that she'll never learn that it will turn on if you put money it in.

 Said hello to Molly the cow.

 Played on the tractor.

 And slid down an elephant's ear!  Grandma also paid to take her on a ride on the carousel too.  So spoiled!

 We also went to the children's museum.  I had actually never been before and we all had a very fun time.  I was so impressed with all the cool exhibits.  Elise could have stayed there all day. Here she is playing with the puppet show.

 There was another one that was a farm so naturally Elise was in heaven.  She wasted no time in grabbing the wheel barrel and getting to work!

 Harley-Davidson has a big presence here in Milwaukee and they had a fun area with a bunch of bikes and helmets and such. It was cool.

 One of the favorite exhibits for both of us was the grocery store.  No detail was left out and she had such a blast shopping, working in the deli and the bakery too.

 Capturing sweet story time with Grandma.

 One of the days we made our way out to Cedarburg!  We had both been before but my mom found out that there was a quilt museum there so we had to go again.

We had a fun time wandering the streets and shopping in their stores.  We had pizza from Tomaso's and then had dessert from the Creme and Crepe Cafe.   

 As you can see, it was delicious.

 The next day we went to Madison.  Neither one of us had been there before so it was fun to go someplace new. Madison is about an hour and a half away from Milwaukee. I love this picture because James is being so cute and smiling and Elise is so mad that I'm taking another picture.  Ha!

One of the biggest reasons we wanted to go to Madison was to check out the farmers market.  They have it rain or shine from April-November.  It is along the perimeter of the capital building and is really big!  Elise saw these girls "sliding" down the steps and had to get in on it.  She loved it. 

 One of the booths was selling honey and brought some of their hive along with them.  It was pretty cool to look in and see!  We got lots of fun things from the market like cookies, jam, tomatoes and some cute tote bags!

 When we were finished with the market we went inside the capital and looked around.  It is very beautiful on the inside and we had a fun time exploring. 

 After the capital we were all hungry so we went to a place called Ella's Deli.  It was recommended to us by some friends.  They told us it's great for kids and it was!  There was lots of these fun things hanging from the ceiling. 

 I so rarely get a photo of Elise looking at me and if I do, she is usually smiling like this.  I'll take what I can get, I guess.

 The best part about Ella's is that they have a carousel!  Elise was spoiled by Grandma and the ride attendant and got to go three times!

 Everyone was very sad to see the baby whisperer go.  Here she is rocking little James to sleep.  So sweet. 

It was a great visit!  As always, it was too short for me.  We had so much fun and got to do lots of really cool things.  My mom has now done more things in Wisconsin than Zack has.  Poor guy- med school takes up a lot of time!!  While she was here we also worked on some fun craft projects that I'll show you in another post.  Thanks for coming out mom!  We love you so much!