a long visit with grandma crowfoot

having ellen here was a blast. seriously. it was one long week of partying! grandma ellen was so helpful and took the kids to school and picked them up, which allowed me to sleep in and keep the house nice and tidy. ;) she was an amazing help keeping makayah and isaiah entertained. there were lots of pente game playing, crafts, knitting, and cuddling. 

while ellen was here, we also had a week long office marathon. we could not stop laughing. it was the first time she had watched most episodes, and at times we were in tears laughing so hard. we ordered pizza from glass nickel and watched movies. we knitted hats and scarves and talked until midnight...well, that's when i finally went to bed, but sam and ellen stayed up much later chitchatting. ;) ellen and i also watched a movie called, "the stoning of sorayah m." heartbreaking film. and after watching that, i was so incredibly thankful for my two beautiful daughters. they are extremely precious. we cried our eyes out watching while sam was out playing basketball. it really was quite disturbing how people treat other people. 

then we started up the office marathon again, because we needed to laugh. and we did. a lot. 

since isaiah didn't have school on thursday, we decided to take a trip out to new glarus. this was ellen's first trip out to madison and we wanted to show her around. the drive was beautiful and the little swiss town was so fun. we went from shop to shop, taste testing this goodie and that one. we bought treats from the bakery for the drive home. and we stopped and ate dinner at the pizzeria. dinner was delicious!

the painted cow picture. there are actually tons of these cows in switzerland. they would have them inside the malls, on the streets downtown, in town squares....all over! so, it was fun to see that new glarus had them too. 

lovely grandma and the lovely bell tower. that day when the chimes would go off, it was quite eerie. i don't know if they did it especially for halloween coming up, but, it was spooky to listen to. 

mother and son. eating at the pizzeria. super duper yummy food.

mama and baby mims. she is such a good sport about everything! :)