Pam, Brett, Maddison, Cade and Emalyn McDonald

Visit #3

2012-01-31T08:01:00.006-06:00

Our final visitor in January was Grammy. It was a nice and relaxing visit and we all really enjoyed having her here. Emma and Grammy played a lot of making food and playing with babies and puppies and kitties. Emma is not going to know what to do without her grandparents around. She's been a spoiled little girl with lots of playmates lately. Miss Thing is wearing her leotard and new princess dress again. Ugh, she loves that combo!

While Grammy was here, she got to see Cade's basketball game, we went to church and to a yummy lunch at Weber Grill, she got to watch Emma at gymnastics and we had fun at home goofing around and playing games. I wanted a picture of Cade with Grammy and little one jumped in the picture, as usual. She is wearing her socks as gloves, she loves to do that.

Cade is catching up to Grammy in height. It won't be long, I'm sure.

Emalyn loves to have people hold her things for her. She loaded up Grammy with all kinds of animals and babies.

Emma was looking for a book to read before bed but decided she wanted to play doctor instead.

She gave us all a check up and we were all sick and needed a bottle for medicine.

Maddi had dance and then homework. After her shower, she got in some snuggle time with Grammy. Maddi is a little snuggle bug. Such a sweet little girl.

Thanks for coming to visit us Grammy! We hope to see you in Texas soon.

Daddy Daughter Dance

2012-01-30T21:16:00.007-06:00

Saturday was a very special day. It was the Daddy Daughter Dance! This was the first year the kids school offered this dance. The day the paper came home to sign up for it, I asked Maddi if she wanted to go to the dance. She immediately answered "yes!", like of course mom. I asked if her friends were going and she said she didn't care, she wanted to go with Daddy. I love that even though she's in fifth grade, she was so excited to spend a special night with her Daddy. Here's the pretty girl all ready for her special night.

Daddy with his daughters. I love that Emalyn gets in every picture these days. If she sees the camera come out, she's posing for a picture. So fun!

Daddy and Daughter, ready to dance the night away!

Kisses!

Brett and me with our girls. Cade was sleeping over at his friend Jack's house for the night.

The great thing was that Grammy had just arrived in town that morning, so she got to see her son take his daughter to the dance. We tried to get pictures outside, but they weren't good and everyone was too cold for more pictures so we came inside.

Cade was at a sleepover, Brett and Maddi went to the dance, so Emma, Grammy and I went to dinner together. We went to Chili's and had a great time together.

The funny thing is that Brett asked Maddi where she wanted to go for dinner and she said "what do you want?" in true Maddi fashion. She is so selfless and wants to make everyone else happy, forget what she wants. She said maybe she'd like Panda Express. We told her they could go there, but they were dressed nice and a sit down place might be better so she chose Olive Garden. Apparently everyone else in Oswego was at Olive Garden at 5:00 on Saturday and there was a 40 minute wait, so they ate at Panda Express! There was another dad with his daughters all dressed up there too. They had really good fortunes in their cookies and enjoyed their dinner together.

They had a great time and spent most of the night dancing together, but Maddi did take some time to hang out with some friends too. Brett sent this picture to me of her and Emily at the dance. I am so thankful that Brett is such a good father and that Maddi adores him. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall watching all the fathers and daughters dancing together.

Visit #2

2012-01-29T16:29:00.018-06:00

Joel, Sara, Sara's mom Sharon, Grace, Will and Todd all arrived Saturday morning! Grace and Will were so excited to play in the snow and lucky for them, we had about 8 inches of snow the day before they got here. When they got here, we ate lunch and then Cade had a basketball game so by the time they played in the snow, the sun was going down. Emma and Maddi were the first ones to get all their gear on and had the snow to themselves for a bit.

Emma let Maddi bury her in the snow.

SNOW!

Uncle Todd! The kids all love him because he's like a 38 year old kid.

Big smiles!

Girls Rule! Grace has followed Maddi around for years and this time it was cute to see Emma follow Grace around too, especially when Maddi was at school or dance.

Trying to sled.

Snow angels.

After a little snow time, it was Chili time!

Sunday, Cade had a swim meet and we all went to support Cade man. Everyone enjoyed hanging out and snacking between events.

After the meet, we went to eat lunch at Culver's. Miss Emalyn slept through the whole lunch all snuggled up on Daddy.

After lunch the kids played in the snow for a long time. The snow was very powdery when it snowed, but after the temperatures rose, it got nice and sticky.

Great snow for snow balls.

The snow balls were so big they couldn't move them any more!

Fun times with cousins.

I thought this was so funny. Emma's face looks like she's hanging on for dear life.

All the cousins got along very well, until Will had a melt down and had to come in for a nap. Then Emma got too cold and Cade got bored.

Grace and Maddi stayed out and made a snowgirl!

Aunt Sara gave Emma a princess dress and Emma wore it for 4 days straight! I think she liked it. She had to wear it with her leotard too. Not so convenient for changing diapers. Everyone but Todd went to the city Monday and stayed the night. Joel was there for work and they went to see the city and visit with Joel. We enjoyed a quiet day/night with Todd. Emma, Cade and Todd played Connect Four.

Uncle Todd is fun!

Emma, Grace and Will had some fun together at the Museum of Science and Industry on Tuesday and then we all went for a fun dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. Here are some fun pictures from my phone at the museum.

The McDonald clan left early Friday morning so we tried to do as much as we could Thursday. The little ones had some fun in the basement.

Will and Grace are wearing I'm the Big Brother/Sister tshirts because Sara found out on Monday she was pregnant. It just so happened that I had some shirts that were sent to Maddi and Cade when Emma was born but they were too small for them. I kept them all this time and they were perfect for Will and Grace. Sara used these shirts to tell Joel she was pregnant. I'm excited for them, but a little scared too. Will and Grace are sweet kids, but Will is really a handful. He'll be 4 by the time the baby comes, and hopefully a little less strong willed. Joel and Sara will be very busy with 3 kids, but I'm sure they'll do a great job.

We took Maddi and Cade out of school for lunch and went to Red Robin. This is our crew at lunch (minus Sara and me)...

After lunch we rushed the kids back to school. Maddi didn't want to miss her reading class. I'm so glad for that. After school, Maddi had dance, but Cade had a blast running around with Will and Grace.

I think Grace and Will had a blast too!

Before Maddi left for dance, we tried to get a few shots of the 5 cousins together.

Don't be fooled, it wasn't really warm enough to go without a coat in Chicago in Janurary, they are just crazy kids that didn't want to put a coat on for a few minutes on the trampoline.

Grace is all girl but she's definitely got a rough side to her.

Here she is trying to beat up the snow ball. Silly girl! She's got to be tough having Wild Will for a brother.

We had some fun playing games, like Flipping Frogs.

The little girls had fun dressing up together.

It's always so fun to get the extended family together. We are thankful for the memories and that they made the trip up here to visit us. The week went by quickly and we all loved every minute of it!

Swimming

2012-01-23T21:11:00.006-06:00

We have spent a few weekends at swim meets lately. This little girl ate this donut for a long time at a meet a few weeks ago. It was freaking Brett out because the pink icing was basically melting off the donut and he was holding her the whole time and he was afraid him/Emma would get all messy. Love my OCD neat freak husband!

Cade continues to do very well with swimming. It's such great exercise and he is dropping times off his races at the meets. He's moved up to the 10 and under age group since he's 9 now, but he still is finishing in the top 10 and 20 out of 50 and 60 kids in his races. His strongest stroke is the breast stroke. Here he is doing the freestyle. He does ok with free, but it's not his strongest stroke.

Here is the butterfly. He really struggled with this last year because his arms wouldn't be simultaneous as he tired out and he'd get DQd. Now he doesn't get DQd and he actually does pretty well with his times. We are still learning more and more about swimming as he continues since Brett and I were never on swim team. It's a great sport and I hope he continues to swim.

The nice thing about swim meets is even though they can last a few hours, we get to spend time together between events. I felt like a papparazi taking pictures and seceretly watching my sweet little family hanging out together. I love how they're sitting on the stairs in front of the sign that says "Please stay off the stairs". Rule Breakers!

Visit #1

2012-01-23T20:20:00.006-06:00

We had the whole McDonald Family come visit us in January, except for Rebecca. Visit #1 was from Grampa and Texas Grammy. They have retired and were driving from Baltimore to their house in Texas and they stopped to visit us for a few days. They arrived with a snow storm and left with a snow storm. Good times in Chicago in January. We had a great visit with them, as usual. The exciting thing is that this visit Emalyn decided she liked having visitors and warmed up to them right away. I was gone when Emma woke up from her nap and she went right to Grampa and Texas Grammy!

Here is Miss Thing spending some time with Texas Grammy (while wearing her backpack, I might add) reading books.

Cade had his first basketball game while Grampa was here. Brett is a coach and it was fun to watch. I think they even won, even though nobody officially keeps score. Cade's #52, running down the court.

Dribbling down playing point guard.

Miss Maddi girl. She is so supportive of Cade and is his best cheerleader. She never complains about going to his events and she roots for him the whole time. Love that girl.

Some special fans.

Good game, good game...

Unfortunately, we didn't take many pictures while they were visiting. The kids were out of school Monday for MLK day and we had a nice relaxed weekend just hanging out with family. We played a lot of Apples to Apples, dominoes, crafts and watching movies. We finished off the visit with a trip for ice cream at Oberweiss. Cade's friend, Jack, joined us and we all enjoyed our ice cream and time together.

We are looking forward to spending more time with them now that they are back in the states and retired.

Two Can Be Fun

2012-01-07T19:33:00.004-06:00

Although two year olds can test your patience, they can make you smile too. Last night before bed, I was reading Emma books in her room. She found her backpack in the closet as she was picking out books. She pointed out the E for Emma and I told her it said Emalyn and it was a backpack from Santa. She was excited it was from Santa and wanted to put some things in the back pack. She put her purple kitty cat (it's a racoon, but she calls it a Kitty) and Puppy (it's Maddi's dog, Bob, but she calls it Puppy) and a book in the backpack and zipped it up. I helped her put it on her back and told her Bubba and Sissy wear backpacks to school. She said "Emma school too. Bye bye" and walked down the stairs and then came back up to her room telling me she had fun at school. She did that a few times and then I told her it was time for bed. She insisted on wearing her backpack to bed, so I let her. About an hour later, Brett and Cade came home from basketball practice and I told them they had to come see Emma. We went in her room and took this picture. She had snuggled up in the corner of her crib wearing her back pack! We were all cracking up! Brett and I decided she shouldn't sleep in it all night so we took it off of her while she was sleeping, but I left it in her crib for her so she could play with it when she woke up. I thought she'd be attached to it all day today, but surprisingly, she wasn't.

The next pictures were taken on my phone during the week. Emma loves riding the horse, Sandy, when we go shopping at Meijer. She knows when we are at Meijer as opposed to Target or Dominicks and will ask if she can ride the horsie when we are all done. Speaking of stores, she knows the names of many stores. When we drive up to them, she'll say "We go shopping at Old Navy" or Michael's, Target, etc. She will also say "we go Bubba's swimming" or whatever I told her that we were doing that day. I can tell her, "we are going to Rush Copley and then church and then Meijer" and she'll ask after Rush Copley if we are going to church or whatever. Such a smart little girl. Reminds me of her brother, Cade, who loves him a schedule. She also makes me laugh because as soon as we get in the car and she says "we going ..." she'll say "almost there". I always say we're almost there, even if it's not even close to almost there, just to make her happy. She enjoys going in the car and will often want to go with Brett or I on the weekend if we are leaving for an errand.

Friday was a very rare, beautiful day in Chicago. It was January 6th and it was in the 50s and sunny. We took advantage of the great weather and walked to school to get the kids. Emalyn pushed her new shopping cart the entire way there. She walked the whole way home too, but she made Sissy push the shopping cart most of the way home. If Maddi would try to hold the cart instead of pushing it, Emma would yell at her "Sissy PUSH shopping cart!"

After school, we stayed and played on the playground for a while. Everyone was outside enjoying the unusually warm weather yesterday. This has been a winter I can handle so far this year.

Gymnastics!

2012-01-02T15:04:00.007-06:00

Emalyn was all excited for her first day of gymnastics! The kids were still on winter break and Brett was off for New Years, so the whole family got to go watch Emma at her first class. She got a pink leotard from Omie for Christmas and she had refused to put it on before today. She would always say "I don't like leotard". Today she put it on and was ready for gymnastics.

I must say she looked so stinking cute with her diaper butt and big round belly in her leotard.

We looked in the gym and she thought it looked so fun.

We were all excited to see how she would like the class. Cade was so cute. Before gymnastics, we went to the gym because I had to teach a class. He asked about 3 times if I had remembered to bring her leotard. He couldn't wait to see her in it. I love that he thinks his little sister is so cute. He's a good brother for his sisters.

When the teacher came to get the kids, she immediately held the teachers hand, but also had a death grip on my hand. Poor baby had no idea I was leaving her. She spent a good amount of time being held by the teacher as she screamed "I want Mommy" over and over. Eventually she stopped crying and actually did some stretches...in the teacher's lap.

She even let the teacher put her down and held her hand without crying. Her favorite part was playing with the blocks in the foam pit. She even got out of the teacher's lap and got in the foam pit a few times to get some blocks. Yeah!

This is where the teacher was asking her if she wanted a turn to jump in the foam pit. She said no and jumped in the teacher's lap. Maybe one day...

Blurry pictures, but baby girl finally decided this might be kind of fun. When it was over, she ran out and gave me a hug and said "that was fun". Her teacher said she thinks she'll do great, she just needs some time to warm up. Reminds me of Miss Maddi girl. I knew if we did Mommy and Me, she'd never warm up and would cling to me the whole time which is why I put her in a class without a parent. She has asked about gymnastics again today and remembers her teachers name is Miss Brenda. We'll see how next week goes...

Before Emma ever took her first gymnastics class, Maddi has been "teaching" her gymnastics. She loves her time with sissy and will do whatever she says.

Flexible girls!

Kisses! I'm not sure who enjoys their time together more, Maddi or Emma. They both adore each other.

No wonder Emma does whatever Maddi tells her to do, she bribes her with Nerds!

After a few Nerds, it's back to business.

I should note that when Emma was crying at the beginning of class, Maddi kept asking me if she could go in class with her to make her stop crying. Cade kept demanding that I go get her out of class and rescue her. Emalyn sure is loved!

Family Fun

2012-01-02T14:40:00.006-06:00

We have enjoyed having some family time while the kids are on Winter Break. Brett has had some days off and even the days he's worked, he has gotten home earlier because traffic is much lighter. We've gone to movies, played with friends, played games together as a family, and just enjoyed a more laid back style. It all ends tomorrow as the kids go back to school. Part of me is ready to get back to our normal routine of craziness, but it's been nice having some down time together. I put Emma's hair in a pony tail at dinner one night, but Emma was being silly and wouldn't let me get a picture.

Here's the back of the pony. Her little curls are so cute. Sometimes I feel bad for her that her hair is curly because she'll probably want straight hair, but for now it's so cute.

These two girls are bffs. They are lucky to have each other.

Maddi put Emma in dress up clothes one night and I couldn't believe she's old/big enough to wear some of them. It seems like yesterday that Miss Maddi was just wearing those dresses. I am so glad that I hung on to them over the years. Cade's just being Cade in this picture.

We've had quite a few games of ping pong over the break. Maddi and Cade are getting pretty good.

Maddi was practicing being a photographer and took a ton of pictures of us. Right now Maddi wants to be a special education teacher, photographer and front desk person when she grows up.

Princess Emalyn's picture taken by Maddi the Photographer.

Cade put Elmo on the pipe by the ping pong table. Kind of creepy.

Goodbye lazy days of winter break. Thanks for the memories.

Friends and a New Year

2012-01-02T13:59:00.009-06:00

The Ball Family came for a visit and we were all very happy to see them. Sadly, Emma and Ellie didn't totally remember each other right away. However, they became fast friends. Emma called Ellie "Emily" quite a few times because she is used to the new neighbor "Emily" coming over to play. She would just get so excited and go over to Ellie and touch her and say "Ellie!". Ellie got annoyed with it and told her mom "Emma keeps pushing me and saying my name." I should have counted how many times Emma said "Ellie!" on the first night. They had a lot of fun together.

Grace spent the night at another friends house the first night, so Maddi spent a lot of time with the little girls. Maddi was upset Grace wasn't here, but I reminded her what it's like to try and spend time with everyone when we are visiting Texas.

Brett and Brendan spent a lot of time playing ping pong. Cade and Jack would occasionally get to be their dad's partner for ping pong.

Sweet girls.

Andrew and Cade shooting some hoops.

More ping pong. I hate the look of our unfinished basement, but it gives a lot of space for different things.

Time for some dinner. Chili and cornbread.

Maddi helped the little girls dress up. Maddi put Emma in dress up clothes a few nights before and I couldn't believe that she was big enough for some of the dresses.

Ellie came up with this look with some help from Maddi putting it on. An apron for a dress complete with a cat tail on the backside.

Emalyn spent a lot of time running around the coffee table singing her happy song. Andrew and Ellie thought it was fun too. At one point in the night Emma let out a loud shreek. She was hopped up on sugar and also so happy to have her friends at her house.

The kids and adults played Apple to Apples and then it was time for bed and they got the sillies with their pjs pulled into their arm pits. It's just not a good look, no matter the age.

The next morning, the girls were laying down playing games on Ellie's parents iphone. The kids played, we ate lunch and napped and then we drove over to Downer's Grove to the Heimbuch's house. We had a great time hanging out there and then we all spent the night there. We watched the ball drop in New York and then were putting kids to bed. The parents ended up going to bed with the kids after the ball drop. Lame and old, we are. We didn't see midnight, but we did hear fireworks at midnight so we somewhat saw the new year come in.

The girls were hanging out on New Year's morning after eating some donuts.

It was a fun way to ring in the new year, with some of our favorite friends. After all that has happened with friends and family this past year, we are thankful to put 2011 behind us and look forward to 2012. We are hopeful that it will be a year of change, but either way, we are going to count our blessings and enjoy making more memories.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-28T14:42:00.013-06:00

Christmas Eve we went to a friend's house and went to church with them. We had a really great time, but we didn't get home until after 11:00 p.m. We put Emma to bed in a pack and play there and she slept like a champ until we woke her up to come home to sleep in her bed. I am so thankful that she'll sleep anywhere at anytime. We had a great time with a white elephant gift exchange and a Chinese gift exchange. Since we were out so late, we didn't do any of the traditional cookies and milk for Santa, etc. Cade still woke up at 6:00 a.m. and was excited to open presents. We sent him downstairs to watch t.v. until Emma and Maddi were awake about an hour later. Here they are coming down the stairs.

Checking out the presents!

Stockings! Emma has a big gash in her nose from slipping on the kitchen rug and crashing into a chair the day before.

Emma was really excited about the presents and enjoyed opening them. She wanted to play with each gift after opening and I had to encourage her keep opening more gifts.

Cade with one of his favorite gifts, a hunting game for the Wii.

After all the gifts were opened, there was an envelope that said "open last". It was a note from Cody, our elf. He helped Santa with the last gift and left clues ALL over the house to find the last gift. It was upstairs, downstairs, upstairs, etc. The kids were worn out after 14 clues making them go up and down the stairs!

Even clues in the freezer! Silly elf!

The last clue led them to the basement where they found a ping pong table!

That made them all smiles!

Then we opened our gifts from family. Maddi girl learned how to make scarves with a neighbor and she made me one. She is the sweetest little girl. She helped Emma make us all a handmade gift too. Love that Maddi.

Yeah, Aggie dress!

Cowboys gear! Hopefully soon we will be back in Texas where we can buy our own Texas team gear whenever we want.

Emma was so happy all day! She was running around and singing and just so happy.

Time to play with the new loot.

It was a wonderful Christmas day. Maddi and Cade both said it was their best ever. We spent a lot of time hanging out together and playing games together and stayed in our pjs most of the day. Happy Birthday baby Jesus!

Things to Remember

2011-12-28T14:07:00.002-06:00

There are so many things that have happened lately and I know I'll never remember them if I don't write them down. So here goes:

1. Emalyn has officially been off the bottle for a few weeks. Poor baby. She took it really well, actually, but on occasion she'll ask for a bottle. We told her we were giving her bottles to a baby and she said "otay". Then she would randomly ask "Baby all done ba-ba?" She wanted her bottles back. I would tell her no, the baby still needed the bottle but she was a big girl so she didn't need it. She never cried or anything, she'd just ask for it so sweetly. From the day we "gave" her bottles to the baby, she has not had a sip of milk. She refuses to drink it. I even bought her a special Hello Kitty cup that was "from the baby" since she was a big girl now. It was a gift from the baby to drink her milk in. She said "I don't like it." Now, she has had a few random bottles here and there (maybe 3 times) in the middle of the night or when she was sick and just wouldn't drink anything all day. She had one Christmas morning because she woke up at 5:00 a.m. and we were too exhausted to let her get up that early. Gave her a bottle and she went back to bed until almost 7:00. She saw the bottle later in the day and said "Memma's ba-ba" and I said "no, that's for the baby" and she said "otay". She is offically all grown up and we are all a little sad about that.

2. Cade got "attacked" by a bunny. He was outside playing football with friends. (thank goodness it's still warm enough to play outside even at the end of December) He was by the bushes and a ball was thrown into the bush and a bunny ran out and scratched Cade's leg. He was wearing shorts, not warm enough for shorts to me (but whatever), so he got some pretty deep scratches. When it first happened, I was concerned he could get rabies but then realized it was only a scratch, not a bite, so he wasn't at risk for rabies. It freaked Cade out a bit. Brett was teasing him that his ears were getting pointy and his teeth were getting really long and then he has been eating so many carrotts since it happened. That freaked Cade out too. We told him he for sure wouldn't get rabies but he could turn into a rabbit. It's so funny because rabbits are usually so timid so it's not often that a human has contact with a wild rabbit. I think it was so afraid of the ball in the bush that he ran out and accidentally ran into Cade. I'm thinking that bunny might have had a heart attack later that day.

3. Funny things Emma says/does.
"I don't like it" or "I don't want it"-She says this in one breath and then is asking for said item in the next breath. She is just trying to assert her opinions.

"Memma's otay"-When she's crying about something and we redirect her to something else and she stops crying she'll say this. As if we were really worried about her fake crying. Silly girl.

"I wanna say hi Cocoa"-She says this several times a day and she wants us to make Cocoa sit by her so she can pet (beat) her. She always puts her head down to hug Cocoa and says "Cocoa haircut", "Cocoa's tail". It's been a few weeks since Cocoa got a haircut but Emma talks about it every day.

"Sissy/Bubba run"-She is really loving having her brother and sister home from school. She likes to chase them and have them chase her.

4. Somehow I have been blessed with 2 kids that love to go to sleep. I have also been blessed with a child who doesn't love to go to sleep, but will sleep forever if you let her. Maddi is the one who will sleep forever. Cade and Emma love to go to sleep. Emma will even tell me she wants to take a nap or go ni-night. I don't know many kids that do that. She has even clapped a few times "yeah, ni-night". The down side is that Emma and Cade are morning people and are up at the crack of dawn. Cade wakes up the earliest, and on occasion, Emma will sleep in. However, the are both usually super happy to wake up and start their day.

Chicago Christmas

2011-12-23T20:28:00.021-06:00

We made our annual over night trip to downtown this week. I went with the kids and did some shopping and ate lunch and things and then Brett met us after work. It was so much fun with plenty of pictures for us to remember it by.
The Lego store moved from its old location and is now right next to American Girl. This is the new display of the Chicago skyline. The kids were less than thrilled that I made them get a picture with it. Ha!

Cade doesn't play with Legos much anyomre, but he decided he needed to buy some new Legos while he was there. He won $25 on lottery tickets and the money has been burning a hole in his pocket. The girls enjoyed playing with the Legos while Cade shopped.

We had a yummy lunch at Cheesecake Factory and then watched the trains at the Hancock for a while. Emma LOVED it. She especially loved the "Shoesta" (how she says Santa) climbing up and down the ladder. Then she found the candy store...

...and then had a meltdown when I wouldn't buy her any candy. It was way past nap time so we headed back to the hotel where she took a nice nap and woke up super happy.

We went to the pool for a while and the kids had a blast. I didn't bring a swimsuit for myself because I was thinking we'd swim when Brett was with us. We ended up going before Brett got off work so the kids helped out with Emma in the water. They are such great big brothers and sisters. Emalyn is one lucky little girl.

After swimming, Brett made it to the hotel and we were off to dinner. Emalyn LOVED the halls and would run up and down them.

The kids had fun running with Emma too!

This is exhibit A of why Emma doesn't usually enjoy Cade holding her!

After dinner, we went for a family horse and carriage ride to see the Christmas lights.

Emalyn is munching on some Twizzlers that Daddy bought while we were waiting for our horse.

The kids were all smiles!

These pictures were taken from our carriage ride. This is the tree at the plaza at the Hancock.

Emalyn's chubby little hand reaching for the ornaments on our carriage.

Water tower.

The city is especially pretty at Christmas.

The family with our horse, Fiona.

Then it was back to the room for some popcorn and to warm up from the cold carriage ride.

The next morning, we made our way to Navy Pier for Winter Wonderfest.

Three kids who were very excited and ready for Winter Wonderfest to open.

Emma riding horsies.

Cade on the hangglider, one of the kids favorite rides.

When it first opened, the kids had the rides to themselves, but soon after, it was quite crowded and they had to wait in some lines.

I love this picture. The kids reactions to watching Emma and Brett getting on the ferris wheel.

Brett's camera phone picture of Emma on the ferris wheel. I'm not sure that she loved it, but she didn't cry.

Brett's camera phone picture of the kids above him.

Brett and Emma on top and Maddi and Cade below. Ferris wheels are pretty boring if you ask me.

Next stop was ice skating. Emma's ice skates were ADORABLE!

She was pretty excited to do this ice skating thing.

She walked in them really well.

She even did great on the ice for about...20 seconds. Then she said "I don't like ice skating." She became spaghetti legs.

And just like that, Emma's ice skating debut was over.

She wanted nothing to do with a picture either and kept looking away from the camera. Gotta love 2 year olds. Ha!

Maddi was done ice skating too because she wasn't doing as well as she would have liked to. She was grumpy, Emma was grumpy. Daddy made them happy by letting them decorate a cookie. Cade and I continued to skate and Cade did great.

Everyone is happy again and back to riding rides.

Even Emma was happy and was running around with Daddy. She ran over the jail and took Daddy with her.

Love this picture!

Emma's running fast! Then we left Wonderfett and headed to the Navy Pier food court for some lunch.

After lunch, Maddi took Emma to see Santa. This is Emma checking out Santa while they were in the short line. I had been asking Emma for weeks if she wanted to see Santa. She always wanted to see him, but never wanted to sit with him. Maddi asked Emma if she wanted to sit with Santa and she said "yes". I was shocked, so they got in line to sit with him. Cade refused to sit with them because I told him Santa wasn't real.

This elf asked if we wanted him to smile or look goofy. Maddi said smile and this was his smile. I'd hate to see his goofy look.

This is Emma first sitting with Shoesta, checking each other out.

No smile, but no tears either. Woo hoo!

This is where Shoesta was asking Emma what she wanted for Christmas. Her response "yellow dink".

Maddi translated Emma's response to Shoesta that she likes yellow and pink. Emma has been saying all month that she wants "yellow dink" everytime we ask her what she wants. Sweet Maddi girl, such a good big sister. She said it was kind of embarrasing that she had to sit with Santa. I guess she's all grown up. Sad! That Maddi girl, as usual, doesn't have anything she's really asking for. She says Christmas isn't about the presents. A girl who gets it and is so thankful for everything in her life. The sweetest little girl I could ever imagine.

We were all exhausted and Cade and Emma fell asleep in minutes after getting on the road back home. I am so thankful we are able to do such fun things together as a family.

Christmas Bells

2011-12-22T14:52:00.007-06:00

The Sunday before Christmas, the little kids sang songs during church. It was so much fun to watch, especially since Miss Emalyn is now in the 2 year old class and was part of the singing! We were all very excited to watch Emalyn's debut.

It seems like yesterday that Maddi was part of the little kids singing at church. Now she's part of the audience.

We had no idea how Emalyn would do, especially if she saw us in the audience. This is her class walking in and getting set up on stage. She looked so big following along doing what all the other kids were doing.

She brought her kitty from home but also brought a toy telephone with her on stage. Her nose was snotty and it drove me nuts, because I'm the snot police. I can't stand snotty noses, especially on my own kids. Anyway, she did see us in the audience and she smiled for us. Cuteness!

This was her "I'm not so sure about this" face she had most of the time she was on stage.

All the other kids rang their bells for the Christmas Bells song, but Emma had no part of that. She didn't sing either!

All done!

Walking off stage. Even though she didn't sing or do much, we were so proud of our little Emma at her first choir performance. Little ones are cute just doing nothing. It was so fun for Brett and I to see the joy and happiness in Maddi and Cade's faces when they watched her on stage. They were so proud and it was so fun to watch them watch their baby sister.

After church, we went to lunch at Olive Garden. Emalyn was hyper and was jumping around in the booth and singing her songs from church.

My "baby" boy looking so grown up as a nine year old.

My crazy girl hyped up and entertaining us.

After her hyperness wore off, she was grumpy and tired and didn't want to eat, so she played games on my new iphone 4s.

Zoo Lights

2011-12-22T14:34:00.006-06:00

Thankfully the weather hasn't been brutally cold yet this winter so we took advantage of the nice weather and went to Brookfield Zoo for the zoo lights. We had a great time, along with the rest of Chicago. We couldn't believe how many people were there. It wasn't so bad while we were there but as we were leaving, it got more and more crowded and the line of cars waiting to get in the zoo was amazing. We had some snow the morning we went, so it was even prettier with everything dusted in a light snow. This leopard was very pretty, but this is exactly why I'm afraid of cats. House cat or zoo cat, they are scary to me.

Miss Emalyn LOVED the zoo! We knew she liked it, but for days after, she kept asking to go to the zoo.

Maddi and Cade had a great time at the zoo too. They were happy to ride the motor safari bus instead of walking for part of the time.

Our little family, with Brett as a gorilla. I had some of Brett with the kids too, but I don't want to be replaced with a gorilla!

We always love the primate house.

This was all of our favorite. This monkey had a baby monkey wrapped around it's waste. You can barely see the babies head stickout out on the right by it's belly. It was adorable!

This guys toe reminds me of Brett's toes. Ha! Amazing how human like gorillas are.

Maddi took a break in the stroller while waiting for the laser light show. Emma is not much of a fan of the stroller, she'd rather walk/run or be held.

The laser light show. It was a great show, we all really enjoyed it.

After the laser show, we went to see the dolphins and then it was time for Miss Emalyn to get to bed. I am thankful the weather was warm enough for us to be able to enjoy some outdoor activities.

First Snow 2011

2011-12-17T09:53:00.011-06:00

We haven't had much snow yet this year. A few days of flurries and one day of a nice dusting, but last night our was our first snow big enough to play in (barely). The kids were all very excited to play in the snow. This little cutie was excited to see what this snow stuff was all about.

Emma adores her big sissy. Maddi has been playing school with her in the basement and when we had a babysitter last night, Emma only wanted her sissy to do things for her.

I told Emma I wanted a picture with her gloves so she put her gloves up for me. I could eat her with a spoon, she's such a cutie!

Maddi made her first snow angel for the winter.

This boy loves the snow!

Emma did not enjoy the snow last year, but this year she thought it was great!

3 very happy kids!

So many smiles.

Cade thought it was perfect that it snowed on the first day of winter break.

Pink Swing...

...pure happiness!

Throwing a snow ball.

Brett took almost as many pictures of the geese as he did the kids. Ha!

Toss the snowball.

I love how Emma is looking at them like, "what are you crazy kids doing?"

The first day in the snow was fun for all!

MIA

2011-12-17T09:18:00.002-06:00

I have been MIA, mainly because our house is decorated for Christmas. We normally keep our camera in the dropleaf table in the foyer but we put our Christmas tree in the foyer, so we moved our dropleaf upstairs. That means the camera is upstairs and I never grab it to take pictures. I have a few from my phone that I'll share. They'll all Miss Emalyn, of course. We have been spending quite a bit of time, 3 hours/week, at physical therapy for Maddi's knee. That's where several of these pictures are from. Maddi is doing really well with the therapy but they still want her to go for 2 weeks without the brace to get her to 100%. Brett and I decided it's best to continue with the therapy now because a.)we've already met our deductible on our insurance, so it will cost less and b.)she's out of school for two weeks, so it's much easier to fit the 3 hours in each week.

Other than getting ready for Christmas, I feel like I've spent most of my time at doctors offices. We are at PT 3 days/week, Maddi was at the doctor on Tuesday for strep throat (first time to have it in 2 years) and Emma was at the doctor Wednesday for breathing issues. She's on the nebulizer now. When I told Emma she was going to the doctor, she said "Bubba's ok, Sissy's ok, Emma's sick". She has spent many hours of her life in tow with various doctor visits for her siblings. Oh yeah, Brett was home Tuesday too with a terrible migraine. Knock on wood, I've stayed healthy to take care of all these sickos! Here's one of my sick kiddos.

We had our neighbors over for a little Christmas get together last weekend. We missed our old neighbors, the Balls, but it was nice having the new family too. Emalyn disappeared to the basement for the night with Emily. Emily will be 4 in May and Emma thinks she is the greatest thing ever. She follows her all over the place. We had a Chinese gift exchange and it was so much fun. Cade ended up with lottery tickets and won $25, lucky boy he is. Cade got some fake lottery tickets this summer and we ended up playing a trick on Debbie with a fake ticket. It was hilarious. Here is the youtube video. She's a good sport about it. It wasn't planned to trick her, the conversation just led to it.

We had a fun little table activity at MOPS this week. We had to pick random things and then use those random things to decorate a gingerbread scene. This was my tables gingerbread. I'm thankful that I have some creative moms at my table.

This was the gingerbread that won the contest. All of them were super cute. I enjoy going to MOTS and spending time with other mommies and hearing some great speakers.

In other news, Cade is accelerating to 5th grade math when the kids go back from Christmas break. We are so proud of him and excited for him to learn new things. He's such a great student and he enjoys learning so much. His teacher has been trying to challenge him beyond the fourth grade curriculum, but he needs more. Since Maddi is also in 5th grade, but goes to a resource class for extra help in math, we've asked that he not go to her class for math. He will go to Mrs. Von Kaenel, which was Maddi's teacher last year. Cade knows a lot of the kids in that class and he's really looking forward to it. Maddi has been a good sport about it and knows that everyone has their own gifts and some things are easier or more difficult for each person. We are proud of Maddi's efforts at school too. She probably tries harder than the average student, but doesn't always have the same success.

It's amazing to me how getting Cade moved up a grade was so much easier than trying to get extra help for Maddi. I'm sure it's because special education is a government thing so there is so much red tape. We have to have meetings with her teacher, the school social worker, the school principal, the special education teachers, the school psychologist and the district special education coordinator to determine what kind of help and how often Maddi gets. Cade is skipping half of the 4the 4th grade curriculum and all we had to do is have the gifted teacher reccomend him and we had to write a few paragraphs about why he should be accelerated and that's it. A clear example to me why the government isn't so great.

Funny

2011-12-04T13:06:00.002-06:00

The kids make us laugh all the time. Some of the funny things from this weekend:

We went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. Cade decided not to have cheesecake because he was really in the mood for lettuce. He wanted a sandwhich with ham, turkey, cheese and lettuce. He also wanted a salad. This is so not Cade. His body must have really been craving some veggies or something, although lettuce isn't much of a veggie. Anyway, as were waiting for our food, he kept thinking he smelled lettuce and would get all excited thinking about eating his lettuce. Today we went to Subway and he opted not to get lettuce because he has had his fill of lettuce. Odd.

Maddi was reading the menu for cheesecake and she thought it was so gross that there was "low crab" cheesecake. It was low "carb" but we agreed that low crab would be pretty nasty. I'm a fan of many flavors of cheesecake, but crab is not one I would want to try.

Emma moved up to the 2 year old class at Sunday School today. When we went to pick her up, they gave us a page with songs for her to practice for the Christmas program at church. In the car, Maddi was singing the songs and told Emma to sing Christmas Bells with her. Emma said "No Christmas Bells" with her grumpy face. We are all very excited to see Emma perform in the Christmas program in a few weeks. We can't wait to see if she will sing the songs or pout, or cry or what. She's getting so Big!

Ten for Tuesday

2011-11-28T22:32:00.012-06:00

1. Funny story about Brett. Cade is/was sick so Brett took Emma and Maddi to church and I stayed home with Cade. Brett dropped Maddi off at her class and then took Emma to her class. He said he was checking in Maddison McDonald. The Sunday School teachers looked for Maddison McDonald's name tag and told Brett they didn't have that name tag. Brett said it's happened before that her name tag wasn't there. Then Emma said "I'm Memma". Then Brett and the teachers realized he had given them the wrong name. They found the Emalyn McDonald name tag and Brett explained that Maddison was his oldest child's name and he got them confused. So funny! I love that little two year old Emalyn solved the name tag problem.

2. Cade man is sick. Poor guy. Took him to the doctor Monday and he has a bronchial and sinus infection. Got him on a steroid and antibiotics and he seems to be feeling much better. Poor guy had a high fever and was just miserable.

3. Crazy Emma with her new bows. A friend of ours used to have a bow business and doesn't do it anymore so she gave Emma a bunch of bows for her birthday. Maddi brought it home from dance one night and we showed Emma the basket of bows in the morning and she was so incredibly excited. She immediately wanted all of the bows in her hair and she was so proud with them on.

Here she is another day with even more bows on her head. What a goofball!

4. Thanksgiving morning Brett had to go into work for a few hours. They had donuts and he brought some home to me and the kids. We all enjoyed them, but I think Emma enjoyed them the most.

I should note her hair was crazy curly on this day for some reason. Super tight curls. Some days it's super curly and other days not so much. Weird.

5. Thanksgiving day was great! We went to the Ford's house for lunch and stayed until the end of the first quarter of the Aggie/UT game. I was thankful to not have to make a turkey and we were happy to get to spend it with friends. I made green bean bundles and twice baked potatoe casserole. I also cooked a frozen apple pie that splattered on the driveway once we opened the car :( Luckily I had bought two pies, so we went home for the other one and baked it as we ate dinner. Emalyn surprised us all when she climbed up in Mr. Ulcrichson's lap and sat with him for a bit. She looks a little afraid in the picture, but she seemed happy to be in his lap when it happened. The Fords and Rachel's parents are all such nice people an we really enjoy being around them.

6. Maddi hurt her knee at dance a few weeks ago. After almost two weeks of icing it and thinking it was going to get better, we took her to the doctor. Turns out she had a pretty bad knee sprain and she as put in the immobilizer brace for 3 weeks. She ended up having her friends at dance and school sign the brace like a cast. She still got around pretty well with the brace, but she didn't enjoy it very much.

7. Maddi got a new knee brace today. She has had the old one for two weeks and was supposed to have it for another week. However, it had fallen apart and she needed a new brace. She ended up seeing the doctor and he checked her out and said we could take her out of the immobilizer and put her in a new brace that allows her to bend her knee. She will start physical therapy today to get her range of motion back. They needed to fit her for the new brace so she had to take her jeans off and put these cool shorts on. She wasn't happy with me when I made her wear those shorts out to the car. Ha ha!

8. A few weeks ago, Cade helped a friend make "fits" to sell at the craft fair at the clubhouse. It's a little yarn guy that you throw when you're angry, so you're "throwing a fit". They sold over 30 of them at $1.00 each and he wanted to make some for his friends and cousins for Christmas. Maddi helped him make them, she was in charge of the typing the little poem that tells about fits and printing them.

9. Although I don't enjoy the fact that it gets dark at about 4:30 here, I do enjoy watching the beautiful sunsets as I drive home from taking Maddi to dance. I snapped this on my phone and it doesn't do it justice at all. Amazing how beautiful they can be.

10. I was out shopping on Friday and Brett took the kids to run some errands and to eat at Culver's. They texted me this picture and said "She's HERE!" This lady in the picture is a stalker, according to Maddi and Cade. You see, Cade and I went to IHOP almost a year ago. We saw this lady with crazy hair, it looked like she had stuck her finger in a light socket. We told Maddi about her later that night. Turns out we saw her the following week at Culvers and then a few weeks later again at IHOP. From that point on, she has showed up at Culver's almost every time we have eaten there. We always talk about how weird it would be if she showed up and then, BAM, there she is! Crazy! It's a funny little family inside joke. I'm sure she's a really nice person, but to be honest, we're all a little afraid of her :)

11-11-11

2011-11-11T12:47:00.003-06:00

Today is 11-11-11 and Maddi is 11 years old. She's pretty excited about being 11 on this day and thinks it might be her lucky day. Perhaps she should play the lottery tonight? It is also Veterans Day. Most kids are out of school today, but not our kids. The fifth grade is having a Veteran's Day production to honor everyone who is serving or has served in the military. Last night the parents were invited to attend. This morning, the whole school will be there as well as any veterans that the students have invited. Here is Maddi with her friends, Abby, Sam and Jane. Emma couldn't really see Maddi where we were sitting, but she could see Jane and she kept pointing and saying "there's Jane, right there". So cute. These are all very sweet girls and I am happy that she has found some good friends who are genuine and kind.

Here is Maddi girl making her entrance with her class.

We had a hard time seeing Maddi because of the people in front of us and where she was standing. I had to crop this picture a lot to cut off the heads of those sitting in front of us. I think this was right before they began.

Maddi had a speaking part that told about Francis Scott Key writing the National Anthem.

She did a great job on saying her lines.

Right after she said her lines, we all sang the national anthem.

This little girl was a great member of the audience. She sat quietly and enjoyed the songs and applauded as everyone else did.

The 5th grade did a great job and it made me proud to be an American. It brought tears to my eyes when they sang each branch of the militaries song and had current and former members of those branches stand up. I am very thankful for those men and women who have served our country to protect our freedoms.

When it was all over, we hung around and chatted with friends. I was very proud to look over and see that Cade was helping the janitor clean up the chairs. Then Maddi and her friends joined in helping as well. We ended up going out for ice cream with Emily (in the picture with Maddi) and her mom and grandmother, and the Hjelles. It was a fun night, but a little sad to think this will be Maddi's last time to do something like this in elementary school.

Miss Em Turns Two!

2011-11-09T12:56:00.001-06:00

Emalyn Faith turned 2 on November 6th. We didn't have a party this year because Maddi's party was the weekend before and Cade had a swim meet in the afternoons on the weekend of Emma's bday. Plus, she's two, and she has no clue if she's having a party or not. However, we did try to make it a special weekend for our special little two year old. Five million pictures follow to tell about the birthday weekend!
Maddi and Cade didn't have school Friday, so we went to Chuck E Cheese. Maddi took Emma to see Chuck E and Maddi said Emma kept saying "see Mommy".

Maddi and Cade helped Emma play some games. They were so cute with her.

Ski Ball! I was playing it with Emma (her hand was just on mine as I rolled the balls) and I got a 10,000 and a 5,000. That was a first for me!

Emalyn very quickly learned how to put the money in the machines. She played this game over and over. Step one, put the token in.

Step 2, pull the handle.

Step 3, hit the red light. She got it down quickly and did it over and over again.

Riding in the car with Chuck E.

She randomly put a coin in this machine and ended up winning 50 tickets!

Two cuties.

Time to count the tickets. Maddi and Emma won the same amount of tickets. Ha!

The birthday girl sporting her signature look of one pink and one purple shoe.

These were her prizes after turning in her tickets. She got an orange slinky, a yellow fish, purple fish, airhead candy and a green crazy straw. She actually looked in the prize case and showed me things she wanted and told me what color.

And the big kids with their prizes. It was a fun lunch celebrating the big girl.

I have been wanting to get pictures of Emma in the bath tub and I finally remembered to do it Saturday morning.

Bubbles are so fun! I wish I had pictures of her the first time she had a bubble bath. She was freaked out that they were stuck on her. I told her to shake them off and kind of made a game out of it to make her ok with them. She's kind of a freak with getting dirty and sensory things so I figure a bubble bath here and there is good for her to get used to different textures.

She was being so goofy with her tongue the whole time we took pictures.

Time to wash the shampoo out.

Little sweetie pie!

The goofy tongue again.

Saturday Cade had a swim meet and I had a baby shower for a friend adopting a baby from China. I was at the baby shower and Brett put Emma down for a nap before he left for the meet. The plan was for Emma to sleep and Maddi to stay home with Emma while she napped. Our neighbor, Abby, was coming over to play with Maddi while Emma napped. Emma never actually went to sleep and was calling for us to change her diaper within 15 minutes of Brett leaving. Maddi changed it and then called Brett to ask what to do. He said put her back in her crib and let her cry. She then called Brett to say there was a wasp in house and he said to ignore it. I got home about an hour after Brett left and got a text from the neighbor saying the girls were all over at her house. I went over and found not only Maddi, Abby and Emma, but also Cocoa was there! Maddi and Abby (mostly Maddi, I think) freaked out about the wasp and called the mom over to get it. She couldn't get it because it was up in the second story of the foyer and told the girls to come back to their house if they wanted to, so they did. Maddi is clearly not ready to be left alone yet. She is so good with playing with Emma, but I don't think she has the maturity to actually babysit yet.

So then I took Emma to the swim meet without a nap, she ended up falling asleep on the way and napped for the first hour we were there. She was a champ all day at the meet. That night Cade had a bday party and Brett and I took the girls to dinner. We got home and Emma was asking for her yellow pjs. We washed all of her pjs in the morning, and since I was gone all day, I forgot to put them in the dryer. She about came unglued that all of her favorite pjs were wet. I remembered that Omie had sent Emma some nightgowns for her birthday. We asked Emma if she wanted to open a Happy Birthday present with nightgown pjs from Omie. She was all excited to open the present.

Still curious and excited about the pjs.

And then tears. She was so mad that the pjs were not the ones she was hoping for.

We laughed and laughed and she cried and cried. Is that wrong that we found it funny?

Brett took her in her room and found a few pjs that were clean.

That didn't satisfy her either, she wanted the ones in the dryer. Poor baby! She ended up wearing a yellow shirt that was wet and was happy as a clam to wear a wet shirt to bed.

She woke up Sunday morning and immediately started asking for her pjs in the dryer. She then started putting on several shirts and pants and all was good in her world again. Then it was time to open presents because Sunday was her birthday!

This stuff is really fun!

I love Maddi and Cade's faces looking and half way laughing at Emma's Dora the Explorer big girl panties!

Emma checking out the Dora panties.

Bubba reading the card to little Emma.

Cade wanted to give her something of his so he went up and got the Animal Planet doggy set.

More presents.

Time to play with the presents.

Grammy sent a singing card that got broken in the mail. Daddy, the engineer, took it apart and found a way to make it work. Love that enginerd! Emma enjoyed singing Happy Birthday with the Minnie Mouse card.

Stylish, no?

Lord help us if this way of clothing herself lasts for several years :)

Maddi and Cade were so excited to play with the play do set. Emma didn't want to touch it. Maddi and Cade have been banned from play do for about 5 years because they made a big mess of it one day and both refused to clean it up. I told them if they didn't clean it up, I'd throw it away, and I did. Ha! They were very responsible with it this time so they can have play do in their lives again. lol

I love these pictures of Maddi helping Emma paint her paint with water book.

Maddi is so good to Emma and is so nurturing. Emma is the baby sister she had wished for for so many years. I hope they are always so sweet with each other.

Emma wanted to put on her big girl panties.

But in true Emma style, she had to have multiple layers of panties.

We all thought she looked so stinking cute in her panties. She tells me everytime she poops and wants to be changed and tells me most of the time after she pees too. I think we'll work on potty training soon.

Since she wasn't wearing her pjs, she decided to carry them around with her. Goofball!

When we asked Emma what she wanted to eat for her Happy Birthday lunch, she said a cheeseburger. We were going to go to McDonald's but decided to go up a notch and went to Culvers. She loved her applesauce, cheeseburger and chocolate ice cream.

We spent the rest of the day with her napping and then at Cade's swim meet. It lasted forever and I ended up picking up Little Ceasers pizza for dinner. We put some candles in her pizza and sang Happy Birthday to her.

She really enjoyed the candles!

This is where Maddi and Cade kept the "happy" in Happy Birthday. Emma tried to grab the flame of the candle and they both immediately stopped her. Look at Maddi and Cade's faces. What a good big brother and sister!

We all helped her blow the candles out. I hope all of her wishes come true.

It was a very busy weekend but we tried to make it as much about the birthday girl as we could. I think she knew she was special. She kept saying "Happy Birthday Memma" and would talk about her presents and eating a cheeseburger. It's hard to believe she is such a big girl and is 2! I remember it like it was yesterday when I found out I was pregnant.

She has her doctor well visit Wednesday, so I'll update stats then. Went to the doctor today. Weight, 29.2 ounces is 75th percentile. Height 35 and 3/4 inches tall 95th percentile. Body Mass Index 50th percentile. Taller than heavier, so good. Some things about Emalyn at 2:
*She knows all of her colors and is a little obsessed with them.
*She can count to ten, but usually skips 6. She even counts objects.
*She talks a lot and puts several words together. However, her articulation isn't great.
*She loves Backyardigans, Wonder Pets and sometimes likes Curious George. She often repeats what they say and sings along with the songs.
*She can sing and do the motions for Itsy Bitsy Spider. She sings part of Happy Birthday. She can sing part of the abc's when we sing with her.
*She can recognize and name the letters E, C, M. She loves books and sits and reads parts of them to herself.
*She loves puzzles and blocks.
*She is wearing size 7 shoes and 2T clothes.

As Brett said, she adds a spice to our lives. She is not like Maddi or Cade at this age and she keeps us on our toes. She makes us laugh all the time and brings so much happiness to all of our lives. Happy Birthday Emalyn Faith!

Trick or Treat

2011-11-05T07:11:00.006-05:00

Monday was one of the kids favorite days of the year, Halloween! Emalyn went to child care while I went to see the kids at their Halloween parade at school and then I was one of the parents who planned and attended Maddi's class party. Here is Cade with some of his friends. He was Josh Hamilton from the Texas Rangers. I was afraid that after the Rangers lost the World Series against the Cardinals that Cade would want to change his costume, but he never mentioned it. Whew!

Maddi had a hard time deciding what to be this year and finally decided on an Oreo. We made her costume in about 30 minutes one night. For her class party, they had dirt cups for snack and then played games. My game was the Pumpkin Bozo Buckets. Brett made those 4 years ago and we have used them at every class party since then. It was kind of sad that it will be the last time that I'm at Maddi's class party. She'll be in middle school next year and they don't have parties. :(

Trick or Treating started at 3:30 this year, that's when the kids get out of school. We did a little trick or treating after we picked up Emma and then Cade took off with a group of friends. Maddi and Emma and I came back and had some dinner and handed out candy before heading out again. Emalyn really enjoyed playing with the candy in the candy bowl.

Candy!

I'm pretty sure they are all thinking, "Enough of the pictures, let's get some candy!"

Our little Oreo. She didn't end up wearing it all night. It was blowing in the wind and choking her so she pinned it to her shirt. When it got too cold and she needed a coat, I didn't want it pinned to her coat in case it ripped, so she put on some pjs and then had her coat over it so you couldn't really see a costume anyway. She helped me hand out candy for a while and I think she enjoyed that as much as trick or treating. Then we went out with some friends and then her and a friend went out by themselves for a while.

Cade went with a big group for a while and then over to a friends for dinner. Then the highlite of his night was working in the haunted house next door to his friends house. He loved everything about working in the haunted house.

This little Queen Bee would never say trick or treat, but she'd always say "thank you" or her version, "tink too". She seemed to have a great night and wasn't afraid of the costumes, etc. as I thought she might be.

Big smiles for trick or treating!

One of my favorite pictures! This diapered bottom and chunky legs of the bumblebee.

Trick or treating at Emily's house. Emily is 3 and Emma loves to play with her. These are the new neighbors that moved into the Ball's house. We missed having the Ball's to hang out with this year. :(

A tired little bumblebee inspecting her loot.

Messy lollipop face!

After some candy, someone was a little wound up and burned off some energy with Daddy.

Happiness!

No treats for Daddy, just a trick! He asked for a kiss and got a lick!

Cocoa was a pumpkin again this year. She looks very afraid of something, probably Emma! It was a fun night for all!

Carving and Laundry

2011-10-31T12:47:00.005-05:00

I snapped this picture looking out the back toward the clubhouse. It is so pretty this time of year. I think we've been gone from Texas too long, I don't remember if the leaves even change there. We definitely enjoy the changing of seasons here.

Sunday was Maddi's actual birthday. We skipped church and had a lazy morning. Then we went out for lunch. She chose Famous Dave's and had ribs. Then we ran a few errands and the kids played with friends while Emma napped. After Emma woke up, we carved our pumpkin and Emma did some laundry! We had put her pjs in the washing machine in the morning and when she woke up from her nap, she was asking for them. I told her they were in the dryer and she said "Memma get pjs in dryer". She thoroughly enjoyed getting her pjs out and putting them back in and never once paid attention to the pumpkin carving.

Since Brett was doing the carving, the kids picked out a stencil to make it fancy. If mom does the carving, it's a boring face.

I'm sure Brett was telling them how important it is to be precise or something along those lines :) Love the Engineer for a dad!

Cade doesn't really enjoy the slimy guts.

Maddi loves the guts!

And Emalyn is still unaware that there is any excitment with the pumpkin, she's too busy doing laundry.

Those are most of her favorite pj parts in her arm and she's showing me her blue pants.

Time to put some of those pjs on!

After the guts were scooped, the kids separated the seeds so we could cook them. Brett did the carving.

Still in pj land.

The more pieces of pjs she has on, the better in Emma's world.

One happy little girl!

After the pumpkin was carved, we had some dinner. The kids and I were jamming to music on Maddi's ipad.

Emma moved on from pjs to shoes. You can find piles of shoes throughout our house. She had spent a lot of time putting socks on and off and shoes on and off earlier in the day before we went to lunch. She is Miss Independent and spends a lot of time mastering things by herself. She does not want our help. "No, Memma do it" is a common phrase in our house.

Had to include this picture. After Maddi's party Saturday, there were a bunch of leftover water bottles with the girls initials on them. I hate to throw out good water and we don't want to drink after them, so we are saving it to give to Cocoa. She's a dog, she doesn't mind drinking after 20 different people. Poor dog.

The finished pumpkin with a candle in it!

Nice work gang!

The rest of the evening was filled with Maddi playing on her ipad. She got some apps for math games. She can play ipad all day long if she's doing schoolwork at the same time :)

Cade spent the evening driving us nuts with his new Nerf Gun. It shoots discs instead of darts and he will tell you all about the pros and cons of each type of gun if you're willing to listen. I told Brett I am so thankful that I have Cade, but I am also so thankful that I only have one boy. Seriously. I think I'd lose my mind if I constantly had two boys running around shooting things or throwing balls or just being a boy.

What 11 Looks Like!

2011-10-30T19:56:00.016-05:00

This is what a very Happy 11 year old looks like!

Maddi girl turned 11 Sunday, but we had her party Saturday and let her open her gifts from us before her party. This is an 11 year old after rolling out of bed ready to open presents.

This is what she looks like after fainting when she realizes how much money she has and what she can buy with it!

This is everybody dressed and ready for Maddi's birthday party. Maddi made sure Cocoa was even dressed for the occasion.

It's hard to believe my baby girl is all grown up. Brett and I are so proud of who she is and are so thankful that she is our daughter. Maddi is honestly one of the sweetest and most kind little girls you will ever know. She has a heart of gold and I can't wait to watch her continue to grow and see what kinds of amazing things she does with her life.

The whole crew with Daddy.

Two sisters that adore each other.

Maddi's party theme was "America's Got Talent". It was her idea and we had fun planning all of the things for her party. When the girls got to our house, they decorated gumball machines and then filled them with candy. It was a big hit.

Cade got to invite one friend (Jack) so Cade wasn't the only boy at the party. The candy for the gumball machines was Gumballs, Peanut M&Ms, M&Ms, Skittles and Mike and Ikes. There were 22 kids total and I was worried I might not have enough candy, but there was plenty.

As they finished their gumball machines, they played Just Dance on Wii. That was Cade's idea to play and it was a great way to fill time (and fun to watch).

Then we broke up into two groups for a scavenger hunt. It was a talent theme, so we were asking neighbors for things like a wig, microphone, fake eyelashes, autograph from famous person, sheet music, etc. Brett's team won. First time that my group has lost a scavenger hunt. Boo. It was fun anyway. We took pictures of the items on our phones instead of having to bring it with us. Then it was back to the house for pizza and birthday cookie cake.

We had kids eating all over the house. At the kitchen table, the bar, a folding table and the dining room. It worked out perfect with enough room for everyone. Maddi had friends from dance and school, so the list got pretty long pretty quick. It's amazing having 22 kids at Maddi's party didn't feel like anymore kids than the 12 or so boys at Cade's party. Girls are just different (and calm). :)

It was cute, Maddi said at her table that they all went around and said how they met Maddi or a favorite story about her. So sweet.

Sweet little brother and sister enjoyed big sisters birthday.

This little girl had a great time at the party. All week as we would go and buy things to prepare for the party she kept telling me it was Emma's Happy Birthday too. So cute.

Happy Birthday to you! I love the sound of a group of little kids singing Happy Birthday to their friend. Brings pure joy to my heart.

Sweet Maddi girl!

Making a wish...

...I hope all your dreams come true big girl.

After lunch, it was time for the talent part of the party. To break the ice, we played the Oreo game. You put an Oreo on your forehead and try to squish your face to get the Oreo in your mouth without touching it.

Clearly they all enjoyed this.

This little girl enjoyed the cookie cake and wore the pink icing well!

Maddi started the talent show with her "are you smart?.....am I touching you?" trick.

Emma's talent was singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider. She started out great...

...but then she got shy. I love how Emma and Cade are looking at each other here. She ran over to Cade right after this and gave him a big hug! Adorable.

Maddi came to help Emma with her talent.

It ended up that everybody sang it and did it and Emma pretty much watched. Ha!

Cade showed off some yo yo tricks.

Abby sang a song.

Olivia hula hooped.

They busted out with a dance party between acts while someone else was preparing for their talent.

Maddie Hjelle did a back flip on the trampoline.

Maddi did some crazy front hand spring on the tramp.

Their dance group did their lyrical dance. Other girls showed art work, did tricks on the tramp or didn't do anything. It was cute to see what all they did for the talent show.

Everyone voted (eyes closed, hands raised) and 3 winners were chosen and won a candy bar. As an example of Maddi's kindness, she was one of the winners and she gave her candy bar to her friend Maddie because it was her birthday and she didn't want to win a prize. She just does these things. Nobody tells her to do that. She's just a sweetheart. After the talent, everyone played outside or in the basement or Just Dance on Wii until their parents came about 15 minutes later. Maddi had a smile on her face the whole time and she said it was her favorite party yet.

She opened gifts after the party and she got lots of cash and gift cards and other fun gifts. With the money she has been saving for almost a year along with the cash and gift cards she got, she was able to buy an ipad and a case for it.

Whoo hoo!

Cade was just as happy as Maddi that she got an ipad. He bought an ipod touch for his birthday and has been letting Maddi use it when she wants. The deal was, if she could use his ipod touch, then he could use her ipad when she got one.

This was Sunday morning, her real birthday. She took a break from playing on her ipad to write her thank you notes.

I remember when she was so little, I'd have her sign her name only for the thank you notes. Now she's old enough to write them on her own and she really understands why a thank you note is important. I hope 11 is the best year yet for Miss Maddi girl. It's pretty cool because this year she'll be 11 on 11/11/11! Having a birthday in the year 2000 is pretty cool. She missed out on 1/1/01, 2/2/02, etc. because she wasn't that age yet on those dates. I think a bit of my mom and her weird number things are wearing off on me. Yikes!

Happy 11th Birthday Maddison Shea! We love you more than you'll ever know.

A Taste of Home in Iowa

2011-10-24T14:23:00.025-05:00

I wrote about all of the pictures earlier today and it got deleted, so this will be short and sweet...Ugh!
This past weekend we went to Iowa for the Texas A&M football game. We stayed with our friends and their parents so it was nice to have the grandparent touch. We've stayed at their house twice before and they are so warm and inviting. We had a taste of family/grandparents and Texas, two things we are missing most right now. Saturday morning, the kids enjoyed playing after a nice, big breakfast.

Big brother and baby sister.

Jack and Cade, friends since they were 4 years old.

Emalyn loved the baby dolls and especially that little wooden box with doors.

Maddi and Liam showing off some dance moves. Maddi and Liam met in kindergarden. It's hard to believe they are in fifth grade now.

I love this picture of these two.

And I also love this one of these three!

Iowa State fans with Aggie fans. They all get along so great, it makes for a fun time together.

Rachel's dad, Dean, was a Chemical Engineering Professor at Iowa State University for many years. Her mom, Ardie, worked in students services. Ardie gave us a quick tour of campus Saturday before lunch. I wouldn't be surprised if Cade or Jack ended up being an engineer one of these days.

The kids had a blast touring campus and thought it was like a big playground.

We learned the first computer was invented by an Iowa State student or faculty (can't remember). Who knew?

The McDonald family and Ford Family.

The kids wanted to go inside the library but since they were acting like monkeys outside the library, we figured they weren't really in the "quiet library voice" kind of mood and didn't go inside.

There are statues/sculptures all over campus. The kids tried being sculptures too.

Reinacting the Shrek sign. Jack is Shrek, Liam is donkey, Cade is the prince and Maddi is Gingy.

Campus was so pretty at this time of year. It made Brett and I realize our kids have never seen the A&M campus. Maybe soon...if it works out for us to move back to Texas!

The beginning of our race. Me against the kids.

Me and Cade are exactly the same. Maddi is on the same foot too. Funny.

Hands up! I won the race kids!

We cut our tour short so we could beat the crowds to a famous bbq place called Hickory Smoke. We lucked out and got seated right away. Food was great and astmosphere was fun. Kids loved the candy station. Maddi couldn't believe that you pay for your candy on the honor system. We explained that it's a true test of ones character. Kids had a blast picking out their 50 cents worth of candy. I have to add that Emalyn's outfit looked ridiculous. Her dress was so short, I should have put jeans on her, but only had leggings so she looked W.T. Oh well...

Next stop...tailgate! My favorite little girls in the world enjoying their juice boxes.

Family photo in front of the stadium. We learned from Ardie that the stadium is named after Jack Trice. He was the first African American on the Iowa State's football team. When they played against Minnesota, they were so hard on him, that he actually died after the game.

A bunch of pictures of Emalyn and Maddi doing their sisterly thing.

Classic Emma face.

Maddi took a bunch of pictures of the boys playing football. It was such a perfect day for a football game.

Emalyn spending some time with Cade. She's enjoying her ring pop that she bought from the candy bar at lunch.

She kept messing with Cade and taking his hat from him. He would try to hide it but she'd get it back. Emalyn is a lucky girl to have such a good big brother and sister.

Pretty much as soon as the game started, Emalyn fell asleep. She only slept about 15 minutes and then woke up saying "fall down." When she watches football she says "uh oh. fall down" when they get tackled. She was such a trooper all day, especially since she barely napped.

She LOVED the popcorn!

Touchdown for the Aggies! They won the game but it wasn't as much of a blowout as expected.

The kids enjoying the game. It was a friendly rivalry, especially between Maddi and Liam, both trash talking each other.

Miss Thing eating more popcorn.

And now enjoying her b bops.

The Aggie yell leaders. People who didn't go to A&M can't quite understand what they are. I know, it's odd. It's funny to hear other peoples comments about them.

We saw some guys in white pants playing football on the field where the boys were playing earlier as we were walking back to our car. We figured they had to be the yell leaders in white pants. Sure enough, it was them. They were nice kids. Holy moly that one guy was tall! After the game, we stopped for some fast Mexican food at Taco Time, one of Rachel's favorite places in town. It was pretty good. My bean burrito had sunflower seeds in it. Odd. You just never know what you'll get for Mexican food in these parts.

Sunday morning, we had a lazy morning before packing up and heading back to Illinois.

Still obsessed with her crazy pjs.

"That was fun." Emalyn always says that when we come out of a store or when I pick her up from child care at church or the gym. That's what we all thought of our time in Iowa.

So many fun things to do at the grandparents house, including a doll house. It was so nice to have a weekend as a family and with friends. I'm not sure that we'll ever go back because Texas A&M is leaving the Big 12 for the SEC next year. We will always have fond memories of Iowa!

Three for Thursday

2011-10-19T21:50:00.002-05:00

Three things that have made me laugh this week:
1. This crazy girl. I could take multiple pictures of her each day with all of her funny things she does and wears. This was taken in the car today as I drove Maddi and 3 other girls to dance. Emalyn refused to put her shirt on and I refused to let her wear pjs (I had to teach a class after the carpool) so she went naked. She wanted to be naked. She's a nut! It was 44 degrees outside and raining but it didn't seem to faze her. A nut, I tell you. And stubborn. And I love her. And she makes us laugh.

2. I was telling the kids they would leave school early Friday for our trip to Iowa. Maddi and Cade's reaction couldn't have been more different. When I told them we were leaving at 2:00, Maddi wanted to know why they couldn't just skip the whole day. Cade was upset that he was going to have to miss library. He wanted to get more books because he's already read all of the books in his class library. Such a nerd, and I love him for that. And that pretty much sums up Maddi and Cade, and I wouldn't change either one of them. I love them both for who they are.

3. I'm making a Milky Way cake later today to take to Iowa with us (we are going for the Aggie football game). It has 11 Milky Way bars in it! It's so good and I can't wait to eat it. I'm going to make a 9 by 13 to take and a smaller square pan for our family to eat before we leave Friday. I thought that would be rude to take a half eaten cake but I also don't have the willpower to wait to eat it until Saturday. And that's sad, but true. No willpower at all here!

Always Exciting Around Here

2011-10-19T12:21:00.012-05:00

It's always exciting around here, never much of a dull moment. Here are some of the most recent things we've been up to:
Maddi went back to the eye doctor and poor thing had her eyes dilated again. She got these cool glasses as a souvenir. I've never had mine dilated and I hope I never do. Her pupils didn't look normal until Sunday afternoon and her appointment was Friday afternoon. The result of the visit is that she's going to try contacts for distance and wear them all the time. She will also get reading glasses and will use them for reading, etc. They want to do a bifocal lens but can get the same effect by doing the contacts and glasses. It might help her to wear contacts because right now she pretty much only wears her glasses for reading, etc. and that's not really what they are for, they are for distance. Her vision hasn't changed and her eyes are healthy, so that's good.

The kids had their Fun Run at school last week. I wasn't planning on going until Cade asked me to come the morning of it. We only got to see Cade run because Maddi's time was during Emma's nap. We watched Cade run his laps and cheered him on and then left before the dance party and popsicles. Emma was not a fan of the fun run. It's hard to take pictures or talk with other parents when she's saying "Mommy hold you" and trying to climb inside of me to avoid contact with strangers.

I found this little angel emptying the forks and dropping them on the floor. I've had her stand on the chair a few times to watch me cook and she decided to use the chair to get into her favorite drawer, the silver ware.

She was not a happy camper when I made her pick up the forks and moved the chair away. I don't mind her playing with the silver ware, but dropping it on the floor, I do mind.

This is the from the first day Emma embarrased Cade (and me too, a bit). She insisted on putting on her pjs when she took a nap. I could not get her to take them off after her nap, so she wore them when we went to the dollar store. At least it was just the dollar store. There are colorful people there most of them time and they aren't 2 year olds.

A closer look at the bottom half. Oh my!

These pictures are from another day and another outfit of pjs. Her signature look is two different shoes/socks.

It should be noted she's wearing 4 pj tops here. That's also becoming a signature look. We thought two shirts was bad, but now it's 4. Really Emma?

And she insisted on carrying all of the puppies and kitties. And we couldn't help her. Stubborn, I tell you.

She finally put down all of the animals and was playing in her kitchen. She's so stinking cute but so stinking rotten too!

This was Sunday at Cade's swim meet. She was so happy and was running around laughing as we were killing time between events.

She was smashing her face on the window and cracking up. It was so funny.

And then there's more pj pictures. These are from last night. She did this all herself. You can see she was having trouble with the arm holes.

And then started crying, but she would not let me help. "No Memma do it", she would say.

She has two yellow shirts and now it' time for the green shirt.

Still trying...

...got it over the head, now how to get the arms in?

She hasn't quite mastered the pants. She doesn't know to pull them up in the back too. If I try to help her pull them up, watch out. That really ticks her off. She'll scream and then take the pants off and start over again.

She was so proud of herself and posed for me to take her picture. This is the child that broke the mold, for sure!

Another day of pjs. Blurry from my phone. She gets giddy with excitement when she can put on her pjs.

Upside down and backwards...that lead to some major frustration!

Taking a break from the pj mess to unwrap some "b bops". She loves to unwrap them and then carry them around. She might take a lick or two and then she throws it in the trash. Another blury phone picture. I should add that she wore her pants around her knees like this, with both legs in one hole, until they finally fell down. I should also add that Cade and I took her to Target like this too for a quick trip. We threw a coat on over her and she added her one pink and one purple shoe. What are we going to do with this goofball?!?

Animals

2011-10-12T14:51:00.015-05:00

Monday the kids didn't have school because it was Columbus Day. Maddi had Maddie spend the night with her Sunday night and Cade spent the night with Jack. Monday we went with the Hjelle's to the Brookfield Zoo. It was a gorgeous day and perfect for the zoo. We took our wild animals and saw some other animals too. For some reason, my kids are always hungry right when we get to the zoo. So, we stopped and had lunch right after we got there. Cade and Gavin...

Maddi and Maddie...

and Miss Emalyn. The Hjelle's are adopting a little girl from China and should get her in then next 8-10 weeks. She turned 2 in May so Emalyn and their baby, Elena, can be friends too one day.

Yummy pbj for this animal.

Whenever we go to the zoo, we really don't see that many animals. Probably because it's so big and we are either too tired to see them all or out of time. Most of the animals were out and very active so it was fun. This hippo was making his way into the mud pool.

There were 5 giraffes out behind the kids here.

A zebra horsey as we explained it to Emalyn. They are so pretty!

Emalyn being held by her Sissy. She made Maddi hold her for quite a while. I kept trying to get her to let me hold her, but she wanted nothing other than Sissy.

Part of the reason we didn't see so many animals was because they played at the park for a while and then we waited in line for ice cream for a while. Oh well, they were having fun and it's what they wanted to do.

Look at that face! I should mention too that Emalyn is wearing her signature look of mismatched socks. I don't really even notice anymore but as I was showing Brett the pictures, he pointed them out.

I love this picture of this sweet girl.

We saw the bears and that was fun because they were all awake. One of the bears even took a big poop for us. Even Emalyn is still talking about it. Then Lynn took the kids to see the penguins while I walked Emma around in her stroller. We saw this random peacock and after I put the camera away, it had mysteriously disappeared. I was glad to see the picture was on my camera because I started thinking I imagined that thing. Weird. Emalyn crashed out in her stroller and Cade fell asleep on the way home in the car. All of the kids were worn out and had a great day. It was nice to be able to catch up with Lynn too. Thanks Columbus for a great day off of school!

A Scarecrow Tradition

2011-10-08T21:48:00.020-05:00

This morning, we drove to St. Charles to continue the fall tradition of going to the Scarecrow Festival. Brett was thrilled to learn that Emalyn will wear headphones on occasion to listen to her movies. That means we get to hear the radio instead of the movie. Maddi pretended to put headphones on so then Emalyn wanted headphones too.

We stopped in a store where they had a clown making balloon animals, cookie decorating and popcorn. Emalyn wasn't so sure about it all, so I decorated her cookie and Brett and I ended up eating it too. Her sweet face shows that she's trying to figure out if it's fun or not.

Talented multi tasking lollipop eating cookie decorators!

Some of our favorite scarecrows from this year:
Emalyn with the crazy hair ladies just like hers.

A larger than life kitchen sink from Colonial Cafe.

Maddi doing a scorpion like the yoga scarecrow.

The smurfs, including Papa Smurf!

ET!

Next stop was the craft stations. Maddi enjoyed the crafts...

...while Emalyn, Cade and Brett sat a table and let Emalyn color. It was such a gorgeous day. It would often "rain leaves" and we all decided fall is one of our favorite parts of living in Chicago. The trees are so beautiful and the weather has been perfect. We know to take time to enjoy it because old man winter will be here before we know it.

The kids picked out a snack. Maddi chose a caramel apple and Cade got shaved ice.

Brett got a corn dog and fries.

Sweetness!

Emalyn sampled everybody's snacks, starting with sissy's apple.

Moving on to sample Daddy's french fries.

She decided Bubba's shaved ice was her favorite.

More please Bubba! I say it all the time, but I am so thankful we had Emalyn for many reasons. One of my favorite things has been watching Cade with her. It's brought out a whole other side of Cade I never saw before. He adores her and would do anything in the world for her. I knew Maddi would be so wonderful with her and she totally is. It's been so fun seeing how great Cade is with her too. We are very blessed to have 3 wonderful children!

Not sure if I mentioned this before or not, but Maddi's PE teacher from the past years is writing a book about childrens interactions with special needs children for his Ph. D. Maddi was one of 10 kids selected from over 1200 kids that the teacher has taught over the years that was especially kind to the special needs children. The teacher, Mr. Rider, came to our house yesterday to interview Maddi, Brett and I. He was here for over 2 hours and asked all kinds of questions about Maddi and how/why she acts the way she does. We basically said that we can't explain it, but it's just a gift that Maddi has. She is an incredibly kind child and has the most tender heart. The teacher said that although the kids that Maddi has been especially kind to might not ever say thank you, he thanked her for acting the way she does. Maddi doesn't act this way hoping to get noticed or rewarded, it's just who she is. However, she was very happy and proud to be comended for her behavior. It was one of those parenting moments when you feel so happy and proud of your child. Maddi is not perfect, none of us are, but she is a very special little girl and I can't wait to see what kind of wonderful things she does in her life!

23 Months!

2011-10-08T21:10:00.006-05:00

Time keeps flying by and this little cutie pie turned 23 months on Thursday! In less than a month, she'll be a 2 year old. She certainly knows how to act like a terrible two year old. Ha ha!

She can also be a little sweet heart, as you can see in this picture. Look how she's holding onto Daddy's finger. She is certainly a fan of her Daddy and enjoys her time with him on the weekends. This is an example of her choice in clothing. Getting her pjs on is one of her favorite things. She opens her drawer and gets so excited coming up with her combinations. Tonights outfit was two shirts and one pair of pants that are too short.

I used my barrell brush to blow dry her hair tonight to try and show how long it is. When she wakes up in the morning, her hair is so crazy. It sticks up all over the place. She burrows herself into the bumper pads when she sleeps so the front part gets esecially crazy. She looks at herself in the mirror and said Emma, crazy hair. I always wet her hair and brush it and put it in a rubberband before we go downstairs for the day. She even has opinions about what color rubberbands we use. Sometimes we have to use 2 or 3 colors too. She will remember what color/colors of rubberbands she's wearing during the day too. I'm just thankful she actually likes to have her hair done. I would not know what to do if she wanted to wear her hair crazy all the time!

Emma and Daddy were catching baby grasshoppers today. I was shocked that she even held them. That's why children need a mom and a dad. I would NEVER catch bugs with her! She's very into calling things babies. For example, she takes baby bites of her food, she caught baby grasshoppers, she calls her food baby grape, baby cracker, or whatever if it's a smaller one. It's amazing to see what all she is learning and how her little mind is just soaking up everything around her.
All 3 kids got flu shots Tuesday. We decided that Maddi and Cade would go first and they would tell Emma how fun it was. Thankfully they are both old enough to not be afraid of shots and they totally acted like it was fun. Emma got her shot and she didn't even cry. She had a look on her face like, "what just happened?" but she didn't let out a peep. She got a Hello Kitty sticker like her big sissy and she was happy. We were all amazed! We'll see how she does with her 2 year old checkup. I'm guessing since her big brother and sister won't be there it won't go so easy. We love you almost 2 year old baby girl!

5 Things and Farm Fun

2011-10-05T14:19:00.026-05:00

A few random things:
1. Yesterday was the 11th Anniversary of my dad's death. It still breaks my heart today that he's not here with us to see all 9 of his grandchildren. It was also my newphew Paul's 10th Birthday and I am still so amazed at how God's timing is perfect. He gave our family such a blessing on such a sad day one year later.
2. Cade's fall baseball season is over. They had their first playoff game last night and lost 3-2. He was up to bat with the bases loaded and 2 outs and he struck out. Ouch! I was so nervous for him and felt so badly for him when he didn't get a hit. They ended up going another inning so it wasn't the last play of the game, but still, I felt bad for him and his team.
3. Last night when Emalyn was in the bath tub, Cade saw her and couldn't believe how long her hair is wet. He asked if I could straighten her hair so she could wear it long because she would look so cute. I'm not straightening it, but how cute that he even cares what his little sister looks like.
4. I saw a post on facebook today about how this winter for Chicago will be the worst in the nation. Awesome. Not.
5. This morning, Emalyn and I met our playgroup friends at Kuiper's Family Farm. They have an apple picking side and a pumpkin farm side. We started off at the apple side and bought some apple cider donuts. I had never had apple cider donuts before moving to Illinois and that's one reason I'm glad we moved here. Delicious! This was Emalyn's first taste of the donuts and she liked them!

I decided I should take a picture of her in front of the measurement side so if this becomes a tradition, I'll have some early pictures of her. She's almost 3 feet tall!

While we were waiting for all of our friends to get their donuts, we played on the horsies and tractors!

Then we headed over to the pumpkin farm side. First stop was the corn box. I hate sand boxes, but the corn box was cool. Same concept but not so dirty. These were the girls in the group today, Ashlyn, Emalyn and Lucy. Emalyn loves to talk about Ashlyn.

It took a little time, but I was impressed that Emalyn got in the corn box and got a little dirty.

This was the whole group today, 7 little ones.

Next, some of the kids went on the jumping pillow but Emalyn had duck races with Lucy...

...and Noah. She loved the water.

Then we went over to the barn where she posed on some hay and then we fed the animals.

She really came alive when we were with the animals.

Kisses for Noah.

She still doesn't know how to hug, it's more of a strangle. ha!

I told her to hug Noah by the cow and she ended up tackling him to the ground. They both fell down and got all dusty. Oh, Emalyn, silly girl.

Emma loves when we see horsies on our drive to/from dance and swimming. She was thrilled to see one in person at the farm.

Then it made a loud sound, and she was a little freaked out, and then laughed.

"A white goat", is what she's saying.

"Another one white goat"

"Black goats cute tail." Ha. That girl loves her colors and her animals.

We ate lunch and then made a quick stop at the pumpkin patch before heading home. Now she's saying "another one orange pumpkin". She would NOT smile, just kept talking about the things she saw.

We found a baby pumpkin she could hold. I love her tiny shadow in this picture.

We bought two pumpkins with our coupons and then stopped for a picture. I am so thankful that I have one on one time to spend with Emalyn. I often find myself rushing around from here to there and dragging her along with me. Yesterday instead of errands, I took her to story time at the library. I almost cancelled today to get things done but I'm so thankful I took the time to go. I'm trying to remember to slow down and enjoy life and especially this little one before she's all grown up.

The big little girl by herself. Cutie pie.

And now a kiss for the pumpkin. She was crashed out within a few minutes after leaving the farm. I'd say she had a good time.

Picking our Battles

2011-10-02T21:47:00.006-05:00

We are learning to pick our battles with Miss Emalyn. Something tells me she will be saying "leave me my lone" in the near future. This little girl is full of independence and is as stubborn as they come. She happens to remind me of myself, only some days I'd rather not admit that. She can be sweet as can be or she can be not so sweet.

This morning before church it was time to get dressed and Brett really wanted her to wear her Cowboy Cheerleader dress. Not what I'd normally dress her in for church, but I know it makes Brett very happy to see his little girl supporting his team. He showed her what she was going to wear and she told him no, she's wearing her pjs. I don't think she didn't like the cheerleader outfit, it's just that she was really happy with her pjs she was wearing. She chose her pjs last night and it included two shirts with her pj pants. She was really proud of her pjs and she did not want to change. I fought her tooth and nail and eventually got her pjs off and her church clothes on. Cade found it all very entertaining, by the way (Maddi was still at her sleepover party), Brett and I not so much. I declared victory in that battle and was happy.

The next battle, I chose not to fight and let Emalyn win. I tried putting white ruffled socks on her with cute little tennis shoes. She demanded her own choice in socks and her pink crocs. Here she is putting on her beloved crocs.

And look at that face! She's so proud. When Brett saw her choice in shoes/socks he said she should at least have matching socks, but I told him I'd rather send her like she was because it was obvious she chose it herself. Believe me, it was hard for me to let go and send her to church looking like this. I've always made sure my children matched and looked decent even when we aren't going anywhere for the day. This little one is going to challenge me and make me grow, I'm sure.

How can you not love this sweet face?!? I was telling Brett that I've always been interested in birth order but after adding this little one to our family, I'm even more fascinated. For one, Brett and I are different parents with her. She's just not at all like Maddi and Cade. Perhaps I just don't remember, but Maddi and Cade weren't anything like this little one. Maddi still struggles with making decisions. Oh, what a long fun journey we are in for!

Another battle we didn't even try to fight...Brett got her dressed for bed. She found her yellow shirt and her plaid pants in the dirty clothes hamper and added her floral shorts. Notice the fancy shoes to boot. She doesn't just have opinions about her clothes. She ate 3 gogurts for dinner because that's what she kept asking for.

Oh, Miss Emalyn, you make life so exciting!

Girlfriends are the Best

2011-09-30T14:39:00.015-05:00

Last Thursday, I flew to New Jersey to spend some much needed time with my favorite girls. Leslie lives in New Jersey, about 30 miles from New York City, so we decided that would be a great place for our girls trip this year. Here we all are at our hotel before dinner Saturday night. I love each one of these girls so much and am so thankful for their friendship over the years. All of these pictures are from phones, mostly Kim's phone. Thankful for phones so I have these memories in photographs.

Before we went to NYC, we spent some time in Leslie's cute little town. I finally got to meet her adorable little girl, Alexandra, who's almost 3!

We got to NYC after 4:00ish on Friday. It was raining and pretty nasty. We spent a little time huddled under our umbrellas in Times Square.

I took this picture for Cade because he loves baseball. I tried to find him a yoyo and never did find one. Bummer.

We had too much fun at the M&M store. It's really the only store we went in at Times Square. A few comedy people stopped to talk to us/give us tickets to shows and we walked around a bit before we had to head back to the hotel to change for dinner.

I took this for Emalyn who loves yellow and also loves M&Ms. We all got our kids souvenirs from M&M store.

This blue M&M was a pervert in a costume. He kept coming up behind us and patting us or hugging us. Weird...

We had a wonderful dinner Saturday night and after dinner it was pouring down rain and we couldn't find a cab, so we gave up and went back to the hotel to hang out. We were soaked by the time we got back to the room. We took a little quiz about how well know we each other and had a lot of laughs in our room that night. Sunday morning we were thrilled it wasn't raining and we explored the city a little. We had so much fun in Chinatown. Here we are carrying our new designer (knockoff) handbags. It was still fun shopping, but not as adventurous because now they show you pictures or you go online and then they bring you a bag to look at. You can barely look at it because they are afraid the police will catch them. It was much more fun when they'd lead you to their secret warehouses.

After our adventures with our personal tour guide, Lee (aka China Man), we stopped for some lunch in Little Italy. It was the worst lunch ever. Terrible pizza, terrible service, but I was glad I was with good friends. There was a festival going on too and we walked around the festival for a while. I couldn't decide if I should get cheesecake or not and eventually got a fried Snicker's bar. It was pretty good, but I don't think I'll have another one anytime soon.

This was an actor Kim met in Little Italy.

Again we had trouble finding a cab, so we ventured to the subway to get back to our hotel. There was a wonderful Asian man who helped us figure it all out. We got back to the hotel and then drove back to Leslie's house. We had a tasty dinner Les made for us and then hung out and watched Bridesmaids (terrible movie, btw).

Sunday morning we all flew home to our families. It was a quick but wonderful weekend that I so badly needed. Brett sent me some texts of my little cuties while I was gone. Here they are before they came to pick me up from the airport.

Emalyn's pajamas she picked out and put on herself. She loves yellow, followed closely by green and purple.

And here she is with her many spoons eating applesauce. The kids had a blast with their Daddy. Cade said he didn't even miss me. Brett is so supportive of me getting time away and for that, I'm forever grateful.

I had to throw this one in too after seeing it on my phone while downloading other pictures. Cade is going to be an old man for Halloween this year. It's pretty funny. We'll see if he changes his mind in the next 30 days or not.

Three for Thursday

2011-09-22T07:18:00.011-05:00

1. This was Miss Thing throwing a fit last week. I don't remember what it was about, but probably something important in her world, like she wanted 4 spoons and she only had 2. The kid loves applesauce and wants to eat it with multiple spoons. These pictures of her fussing and pouting make me laugh and we have to remember to laugh with a child this age. She's not even two yet, we have a fun year ahead, I'm sure :)

2. I pulled the blocks up from the basement for playgroup last week and Emalyn has played with them every day since. She loves to play blocks with Bubba. I love that she loves something that Cade also enjoys. She'll make him get off the couch in the mornings and play with her. It goes something like "Bubba, blocks" "off" (as she's pulling him off the couch) "Yellow, blue, green, red blocks with Bubba". Then she'll point out all of the blocks she thinks Cocoa has chewed or "broken" as she calls them. There are 2 or 3 blocks that Cocoa chewed part of. Emma thinks if the blocks won't fit on right then it's broken because Cocoa chewed it. Lots of OCD tendencies. So many things she talks about all the time over and over like: Ellie, frog, basement, bye bye (there were frogs in the window wells and she was freaked out and Cade told her Ellie took them bye bye); pink swing, towel, uh oh, birds (she thinks if she's going to swing there's going to be bird poo on the swing and we'll have to clean it with a towel); it broken, horsie (the horse she'd ride at Meijer is gone and I told her it's broken and she talks about it all the time); Cocoa, backpack, sissy (we saw a back pack at the store with a dog that looks like Cooca and I took a picture for sissy to see). Maybe it's normal for these things at this age, I just don't remember. I guess time will tell if she outgrows this or not.

3. Emma loves her sissy and Cocoa. This picture was so funny because Maddi and Emma look cute but Cocoa is licking her nose. We were cracking up when we looked at the pictures.

Fun Times

2011-09-11T21:03:00.021-05:00

Somebody just celebrated their last birthday in their 30s! He even shared his cookies with the kids. Emma was super excited that it was "Daddas bappy"! She looks very happy to have a cookie. Funny thing is that she held onto it all night and never even took a bite.

The birthday boy with his girls.

I love this picture of those three.

Brett's dad sent him the sports themed chocolate covered strawberries and baseball cookies. The kids and I got him a Reeces Blizzard cake. We had plenty of sweets to celebrate the big birthday. All of my pictures of the kids with Brett had Emma making crazy faces at Cade. She must think he's a nutcase, they way she's always looking at him. So funny!

I love how Brett and Emma are looking at each other and smiling/laughing. She is feeling better and is back to to her happy and silly self. Soooo thankful!

Make a wish! I really can't believe Brett just turned 39. I remember my mom turning 40 and helping my dad decorate her office for her 40th. I thought she was pretty old to be turning 40. Ha! Now I realize how young 40 really is. Our gift to Brett was seeing Robert Earl Keen in Chicago Thursday night. He went with a few guys from work and stayed at our friends condo downtown. He had a great night and he deserved it. Happy Birthday Brettley!

Saturday afternoon, Cade had another baseball game. Tuesday night we froze at the game, but Saturday was beautiful! Maddi wanted to bring Cocoa, so she did. Two sweet girls cheering for their Bubba.

Cade's first at bat, he got hit by a pitch. He's had trouble hitting this season, so he was probably a little happy to get hit so he got on base.

On first base...

Now he's warming up playing first base. They were winning 13-3 after the first 2 innings but ended up losing the game.

He's playing with 4th and 5th graders and is the youngest kid on the team, so he's feeling a little down on his abilities. He looks good though :) He's doing great defensively, and hopefully his batting will improve this week after a few trips to the batting cages.

How cute are these girls?!? Emalyn loves her pigtails and asks for them all the time. She always says, "I want pigtails. Two yellow didtails." When I put them in, she looks at herself in the mirror and shakes her head side to side and smiles. Complete cuteness!

We went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. They have the perfect size ice cream cones for her. Bubba made this cone for her. She enjoyed it for a while and then had enough and said she was all done.

After dinner, we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and went for a walk. They are building a house around the corner, where they tore down the sales office. We have enjoyed going in the house to see how they are building it. Makes me sad to think back to our house we were building in Allen...and never moved into. I like it here and try not to think about what it would have been like if we had moved in that house instead of here. After our walk, Brett and Cade threw the baseball around.

Cade is pitching at the game Wednesday, so they were practicing.

Maddi and Emma played bubbles.

So much fun!

It was nice to have a low key weekend and have some quality time together as a family.

Sunday we enjoyed watching the coverage of the 10th Anniversary of 9-11. The kids had learned about it at school but still had a lot of questions. It's crazy how I can't remember what I did last week, but I remember that day like it was yesterday. Brett had work in Hickory, North Carolina and Maddi and I went with him. Maddi was 10 1/2 months old and I wasn't working, so it was easy to tag along. We ended up stranded in North Carolina for a few days but I was so thankful to be together with our little family. Such a terrible tragedy that happened. It's still hard to wrap my mind around it. I'm going to New York in a few days and I'm looking forward to seeing the memorial in person. It looks beautiful.

Phone Purge

2011-09-05T20:30:00.016-05:00

It seems I've only taken pictures on my phone lately. Here are the funny and cute things that have gone on in the last week: Emalyn has been riding Cade's old spiderman scooter. She saw Maddi on her razor scooter and wanted to ride it but Em's too little for it so I pulled out spider man. She kept saying "Bubba, scooter". How did she know it was for boys? Sorry baby girl, you're going to have to ride a "boy" scooter. We gave away Maddi's Barbie scooter many years ago because we never thought we'd have a little girl to pass it down to.

Speaking of never knowing we'd have another baby to pass things down to...since Emma was our "bonus baby", we were lucky enough to be given all kinds of baby gear from friends and family. We decided it was time to clear some space in our basement and say goodbye to the baby gear. We're pretty sure we're done with babies in our house (God might have another plan) so we don't need the swings, etc. anymore. We decided to participate in the community garage sale this past weekend to get rid of the stuff. Most places won't take donations of anything a baby sits in because of liability reasons, so this was the best way to get it off our hands. After we moved things out into the garage to prepare, Emma was thrilled, thinking we moved it out for her to play with. She said "chairs, basement" when she first saw it all. Then she started playing with everything. I was sorting out the clothes and she found this outfit and insisted on taking it inside. Brett had no idea what is was and helped her put it on. It was a 0-3 month outfit but somehow he managed to get her almost 22 month old body into it!

She was so happy and proud! Oh, yeah, she picked out both of her bows too. Yellow has become her favorite color. She always says "I want a yellow bow", no matter what she's wearing. Miss Thing has a mind of her own, for sure!

She tried to enjoy the swing, but she was just too big.

A backside view of the lovely outfit. Such a funny girl. She hasn't been feeling well lately and this was the first time that we had seen her happy and silly. We all really enjoyed seeing her funny and happy again.

Then it was time for the high chair. Emma thinks she's big like Maddi and Cade and won't sit in the chair anymore. It was fun to play in it in the garage though.

She wanted to try out the car seat too, but she was just too big. Kind of sad. The garage sale went pretty well. We had it a few hours on Friday and Saturday and then ended up putting all the leftover things by the curb with signs that said "free". Most everything was gone in no time.

Friday afternoon, Emma was pretty happy and was messing around in the kitchen. She found the bag of "b pops" in the cabinet and helped herself to all of them. She unwrapped them all and then came over to me and said "b pops"!

She was quite proud of herself!

She never even licked one of them, she just enjoyed unwrapping them and then put the wrappers in the trash. I gave her a bag to put the b pops in and then she threw the bag in the trash. I immediately pulled the bag out of the trash. She randomly asks for the b pops now and she'll take a few licks and then want to throw them away. Oh, Emalyn, such a stinker.

She's rounding the corner and feeling better and having happy moments here and there. Saturday night she went to bed at 5:45 and slept until 7:00 Sunday morning. We had a babysitter that night and she never even saw Emma. Sunday she had two naps of over two hours each. Poor baby girl is either growing a ton or really trying to get over whatever little virus she has had.

Sunday night we went over to our friends house for a cookout. It's always fun getting together with their crew.

The kids had a blast finding sticks for the fire pit and playing in their creek.

Emalyn and Dawson enjoyed the bounce house in the basement.

Cocoa needed more dog food, so we thought it would be fun to go to the pet store that has puppies to get her food. We always have to remind Maddi that we are only going to play with the puppies, we aren't bringing one home. Well, today, Cade was nearly in tears because we wouldn't buy the $1499 plus $249 mandatory microchip package puppy that he fell in love with. It was an adorable little Yorkie and the kids had named him Brownie and everything. So sorry Cade. We were shocked to see Cade so attached to a dog and also surprised that he liked that type of dog so much.

The kids also liked this little collie. We also played with a labradoodle to see if Emalyn was allergic to it. She was. She broke out in hives on her face at our friends house the other night after she pet their dogs. She got all red and puffy on her face today too. Secretly, I'm so glad she's allergic to big dogs. She was scared of the labradoodle too because it was big and hyper. Emalyn LOVED the little yorkie that Cade loved too. She would grab it and pick it up and hold it. That little puppy was so tolerant of her. We promised the kids when Emma is 4 or so we will get another little puppy. We want Emalyn to be old enough to remember getting a puppy and by then Cocoa will be older and it will be a very sad day when Cocoa goes. We declared it Cocoa Appreciation Day after we left the pet store with sad kids so they could be reminded how lucky they are to have a good pet in Cocoa.

4th and 5th grade!

2011-08-24T13:20:00.010-05:00

August 24th was the first day of school this year. Cade is in 4th grade and has his same teacher as last year, which is a very good thing. Maddi is in 5th grade and has a teacher who is new to the school. When I started taking pictures of the kids, Emalyn went and stood right next to Maddi copying her every move so I had to get pictures of her too, even though she's not in school yet.

Maddi had pe on the first day so she had to dress accordingly. Emalyn has become obsessed with socks, so she is sporting her "i dressed myself 2 year old look". She always wants socks on and they never match and then she puts her crocks on over the socks. I don't remember my other kids being so oppinionated about clothing, especially at such a young age. She's going to give us a good ride these next few years, I have a feeling.

We had well visits for both Maddi and Cade the other day so they could get their forms filled out for their inhalers for asthma at school. Cade was off the chart in height at 58 inches. Maddi was 70th% in height at 56 inches.

Sweet little Maddi girl. The new rage is having feathers in your hair. I totally don't get it, but whatever. It's not permanent so we let her get one. She got a red one that she paid for herself ($15, what a ripoff) and then she got a purple one at a birthday party last weekend. Everyone of all ages have those silly feathers in their hair. Maddi was very excited to start back to school. She has 28 kids in her class and only 10 of those are girls. Maddi seems to do well with boys, so she'll probably like that. I really hope Maddi has a wonderful school year. It's her last year in Elementary School!

Cade has changed so much in the last year. Last year before school I asked if he wanted to shop anywhere in particular for school clothes and he just said "I don't know where you buy my clothes." This year, he had to have a certain type of shoes, certain clothes, and even planned out what to wear for the first 2 days of school. I'm afraid he might start liking girls this year too, which makes mommy sad. He's my baby boy, but he's a cutie, so I know the girls will like him. Last year he had a comment for each girl like "she smells like cheese, she doesn't brush her teeth, her hair's never brushed, etc." I hope he has a wonderful school year too like he usually does.

This is our new neighbor, Abby. She is 10 and in 5th grade like Maddi. They have hung out a few times and I think she is a really sweet girl and Maddi and her will be great friends. She put on her glasses after she saw Maddi wearing hers. I think it made them both feel better about wearing glasses.

I'm pretty sure I embarrassed Cade and Maddi when I walked with them up to their classes. When we got to the crosswalk at school, they both said "bye mom". I told them I was coming with them, so no need to say bye yet. Once I got up to their rooms, I realized I was one of the only parents in the 4th and 5th grade areas. Neither of them were too thrilled to have their pictures taken in the class. I know they need to spread their wings and fly, but sometimes it's hard!

Maddi got to choose where to sit for this week. She sat by her friend, Abby (who has her eyes closed). After school I was talking with her and she said she was torn what to do because there was a new girl sitting at a table all alone and she wanted to sit with her but she also promised Abby she'd sit by her. In the end, 2 other girls sat with the girl who was alone. Maddi just has a very tender heart and is always caring for others. It's truely a gift. She's so wonderful!

Both kids had a great first day! Maddi really likes her new teacher. Emalyn was thrilled to see her Bubba and Sissy too. The next morning, I was talking about the kids buying lunch at school and Emma went over to the cabinet and got out their lunch boxes and handed them to them. I think she knows that the big kids are back at school and remembers what that's all about. She knows it's her alone time with mommy, and she has pretty much attached herself to me like velcro. I don't think she's feeling well and has had a low grade fever, so hopefully this velcro thing is just a stage. Otherwise, it will be a long school year!

Texas Weekend in Chicago

2011-08-24T12:16:00.014-05:00

This little cutie has become quite independent. Whatever she wants, she gets or demands until we get it for her. Here she had gotten out several boxes of cereal and you can see she was very proud of herself.

This weekend the Texas Rangers were playing against the Chicago White Sox. Brett has tickets for work and he was able to get the tickets for Saturday and Sunday for our family to use. Cade was so excited to get to see the Rangers and Josh Hamilton play again. He made Maddi wear his Rangers hat because she doesn't have any Rangers wear. He had been talking to her about it since the beginning of the week. Emalyn and I wore our Rangers red.

Our seats were right by left field, where Hamilton plays.

Happy to root for our Texas team! On a side note, it was Mark Beuhrle bobblehead night. We got 4 of them. After the game there was a guy outside who asked if we wanted to sell ours for $5.00. We sold one of them because what do we need 4 of them for? Maddi decided to sell hers too (because she she's saving up for an ipad). I saw them selling on ebay the next day for $30-$40! That guy probably saw us in our Texas gear and knew we were fresh meat for a scam. Kind of funny, actually. When I told Cade, he said he's hanging onto his until Mark Beurhle retires or gets inducted in the Hall of Fame so he can sell it for even more money. Pretty smart kid, I guess.

The Rangers won by a long shot Friday night but on Saturday, they lost by 1. This was the winning run for the Sox. The Rangers lost Sunday too :(

Time for liccorice ropes!

It was a gorgeous night for a baseball game. We all had a great time and even Miss Emalyn was so good.

Emalyn and Daddy.

Third child...she gets to eat as much liccorice rope as she wants. It made her a little crazy. She started jumping up and down in our laps and then making crazy eyes. We'd ask her "are you a sweet baby?" and she would shake her head no with her chin tucked down and her eyes rolled up in her head like she was possessed. We were all cracking up!

Sunday, Cade got to take 2 friends to the game with him and Brett. They had a blast.

Both of his friends like the White Sox but one of them really likes Josh Hamilton too. He borrowed Cade's Rangers hat and wore a Sox jersey, he was torn who to root for.

Cade was very happy that he caught one of the shirts that the girls throw out between innings. It's from Brett's phone and it won't let me rotate it. Sorry.

Maddi also had two birthday parties with girls from dance so it was a busy weekend for Maddi and Cade. It was the last weekend before school starts back and it was a great way to spend it.

5 on Friday

2011-08-20T07:50:00.012-05:00

Five Things from the past week:
1. Maddi and Cade had their first "job". They walked the Ford's dog, Boji, once a day for 3 days while they were gone. They had someone staying at their house but Boji needed a walk during the day while that person was at work.

2. Emma has become such a great "helper". I found her feeding Cocoa. Cocoa's food was already in her bowl but she decided to hand feed her.

3. We went downtown Naperville with the Laymans. We had ice cream at Cookie Dough creations and then went to the park. Maddi climbed to the top of this tree (in sandals too)and it gave me a heart attack. After she climbed down safely, all 4 monkeys decided to climb up but not quite as high.

4. Our neighbors that moved to Texas came back for a quick visit. It was a last minute surprise and it was so great to see them. They spent the night with us and I snapped some pictures the morning before they left.

Ellie turned 2 in May. They moved at the end of June. When she got to our house this week, she walked by her house and said "that's my house. Will you open that garage for me?" It was so cute. Poor thing was probably so confused. Ellie and Emma were so happy to see each other.

Donuts for breakfast!

All of the kids were so happy to see each other again. They've been gone 6 weeks and we've seen them twice. Once in Dallas and once here. We look forward to seeing them again at Christmas, if not before.

5. The kids found out who their teachers are going to be for the year. They have always posted the class lists on the doors at school but they changed it last week because of privacy issues. We had to go online and put in their name, birthday, etc. and then it showed us a picture of their teacher. That night was spent calling around to friends to see who's class they were in. Cade was thrilled that he got his same teacher as last year, Mr. Struck. He was an amazing teacher and we are so happy Cade will have him again. Cade also has quite a few friends in his class. Maddi got a teacher that his new to her school this year. Her name is Mrs. Saldana and she looks really nice from her picture. Maddi has a couple of friends in her class too. Both kids are really looking forward to school starting (I have to admit that I'm looking forward to it too).

9!

2011-08-15T22:09:00.037-05:00

We have had lots of rain this summer. Not too much, but enough to keep everything nice and green. Cade was teaching Emma about playing in the rain one evening. What a good big brother Cade is!

August 12th was a big day in our house. Cade Forrest turned 9 years old! He was greeted with gifts from his sisters.

Maddi made him a very sweet card. She punched holes in the back and wrote "I'm watching you" so she was watching him as he read it. Maddi and Cade get along very well, but they have had more brother/sister moments lately (aka argueing). It was nice to see that they really do love each other and hear the sweet things that Maddi wrote to Cade.

Emma didn't exactly know what was going on but she enjoyed the ribbons and she kept saying "happy Bubba" all day.

We got Cade his basketball goal for his birthday a few months ago. He got it early so he could enjoy it this spring and summer. The girls got him a few things at the dollar store and gave him some money to help him buy his ipod touch he wanted. Maddi is helping Cade put on this throw and return ball he got from his sisters.

He also got a light up yo-yo. We went to the dollar store for plates, napkins, party favors, etc. for his party. I secretly gave Maddi some money to buy the things that Cade said he liked/wanted. She was excited to be on a secret mission.

Later that morning, we went to Sports Zone for a few rides on the go karts.

They seemed to be pretty good drivers, but I don't think they're ready for real cars.

After go karts we went for ice cream before we went home for lunch. We ended the day at Red Robin for dinner for the birthday boy.

Saturday morning was Cade's party. I was worried it might rain and it was all outdoors but the weather was PERFECT! This was one happy birthday boy.

After all the boys arrived, we went to the field in front of our house to play some baseball.

Then we walked over to the clubhouse to go swimming. It was adult swim when we got there so they played in the spray park. Luckily there was hardly anyone at the pool and they pretty much had the place to themselves.

9 boys for a 9th birthday celebration. He's the last of his friends to turn 9 and one or two already turned 10 this summer.

Waiting for the whistle to blow so they can jump in...

...and they're in!

They played some games.

And they had some swim races. Cade really into brackets when the college basketball tournament started. He wanted brackets for his party so they were split into 3 teams of 3 and they did brackets for swimming and basketball.

After swimming, it was time for pizza and then birthday cake!

Make a wish...

...and blow!

I hope all of your wishes come true.

Goofy boys. Maddi girl missed the whole party. They had a guest choreographer come in to teach them a dance for next year. The party was from 10-1 and dance was 10:30-1:30. She was here for about 10 minutes before she got picked up by a friend to go to dance. It was a bummer that she had to miss it all.

That cake was delicious! It was a blizzard cake from Dairy Queen. It had a layer of vanilla ice cream topped with fudge. Then it had a layer of chocolate cookie crumbles topped with a layer of reeces peanut butter cup blizzard. The whole thing was topped with crushed pb cups and chocolate drizzle. 4 of the boys didn't want any cake and I was so happy because that meant for us!

Miss Emalyn loved the ice cream cake too.

Present time. Cade ended up with all gift cards or cash except two real gifts. He got enough to buy an ipod touch. The funny thing was that the boys were playing with baby dolls they had found in the basement.

They said the dolls were creepy, but they sure seemed to enjoy the dolls.

They were hugging on them and everything. Very strange.

Emalyn has recently discovered popsicles and will randomly ask for one. She enjoyed her popsicle while I wrote down the gifts Cade got.

Then she found one of the friends shoes and decided to try it on.

Love that little face!

The last thing at the party was 3 on 3 basketball games. It was pretty fun to watch.

Emma loves having Cocoa on a leash. Cocoa usually complies but she was going against Emma's wishs right now.

She was much happier to sit on the front porch.

More basketball! Cade's team won the swimming and basketball so he was very happy. It was a great party and Cade said it was his favorite birthday ever. Cade is such a great boy and we are honored to call him our son. He's very responsible and kind and really loves his friends and family. He's one smart little cookie and I can't wait to see what wonderful things he does with his life. I love you Bugaboo!

An hour after the party was over, the dark clouds rolled in.

It started raining and rained off and on through the night. I am so thankful the rain held off until after the party.

Later that night, Cade had a friend come over to go out for dinner and spend the night. Maddi got to go with her friend Kate, from dance, to the Selena Gomez concert. Here they are at the concert. It was a surprise for Kate from her parents and she picked Maddi to go with her. I heard that they danced all night and even made it on the big screen.