Merry Christmas!

Every year right after Thanksgiving I pull out all of the Christmas decorations and set everything up. This year I pulled out the stuff that I put on shelves and tables but I didn't get the tree set up. Brett asked me a couple of times when I was going to set the tree up and I told him soon. I did have a couple of little trees in the living room so that was kind of working. I had originally planned on putting the big tree in the basement where nobody would see it anyway so I guess I figured what did it matter when I put it up. Well, as the month rolled on I decided that it would be fun to put the tree up on Christmas Eve after Madi went to bed. That way when she woke up in the morning she would come out to a new Christmas tree. I thought it would be like Santa brought it with all the toys. When I told Brett my plan he was all on board.

Christmas Eve night I decorated the tree and placed all the gifts around it. Madi woke up around 5:30AM. Brett and I were already up I think we were just as excited about Christmas as she was. I really just wanted to be there when Madi came out and saw everything. I'm so glad I was because the look on her face was priceless.

Madi was ready to start ripping into presents but we talked her into waiting until we got Kimber out of bed. They both had so much fun ripping and tearing into their gifts. Kimber mostly pulled the bows off and played with the bows so Madi helped with actually opening the presents. It was so much fun just watching how excited they were about their new toys. When we finished opening gifts the girls played for a while and then it was time for a nap. I think we all crashed until 10:00AM. When we woke up we called the Wright's to have them come over for breakfast. One of my gifts this year was an egg poacher so that I could make our traditional eggs benedict. Yummy!!!

Later that day the Wright's came back over for Christmas dinner. Tifany made the yummiest sweet potatoes. They had coconut and pecans on top of them. It was kind of like eating a Girl Scout cookie. You know the coconut macaroons with caramel? They are my favorite. Anyway the potatoes were delicious along with everything else!

After dinner it was time to veg out. The kids ran around and played while the old people (just kidding) played our favorite card game BIG! I started out loosing but was making a comeback right at the end but I still lost. I don't remember who won.. It might have been Tifany. It was a lot of fun.
It was a great day and we had so much fun! I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas.

Christmas card photo's

Here are the photo's I took for our Christmas card this year.Mission completed! All I need to say is thank goodness for digital. I would be so broke if I had to go and develop film.
I also tried to get a photo of the girls together but Kimber just didn't want to share the limelight. Well, see for yourself. She's our little Prima Donna baby. Oh well, I tried at least.

Spider-Man needs his Mommy!

The other night Brett and Madi were watching Spider-Man. At some point in the movie Spider-Man is crying. Madi turns to Brett and says, "Oh!! He needs his Mommy!" I love that she knows that Mommy is the one to come to when you feel sad and you need someone to make you feel better.

BRRRRR!!!!!!

It's so cold here!! Brrrrr!! Our bedroom is probably the coldest room in this whole house and we weren't really sure why. We just figured it's the way it is. Well yesterday was a very blustery day. The wind was blowing all the snow from the west. I think the temperature got down to -1 but by the time to go to bed it was -2. Our room felt like an icebox. Our windows are really drafty so I thought that I would just put big pillows along our headboard to keep the draft from our heads. When I walked over by Brett's side of the bed the draft by the floor felt like I was outside in the cold. I just thought, "Thank goodness I have my curtains on the windows! It's keeping most of the cold out." When Brett came into the room I told him about how cold it was on the floor and he asked if the window could be open. Well, since our windows are awesome (note the sarcasm) they do open by themselves sometimes. Guess what! The window had pulled down about a half an inch from the top letting all the cold winter air into our bedroom.. BRRRRR!!!!

A Monster story as told by Madi

Once upon a time there was a sweet little monster that scared everybody. The End!

Snow much fun!

Now that we have plenty of snow we finally got to take Madi snow tubing! Kutter and Payton were at our house and they came along for the fun. I even bundled Kimber up and put her in the snugly so she was just as happy as can be.We have the best hill just a short little walk from our house.

The kids all had so much fun. We met some more of our neighbors and had a great time. Our neighbor Eric let the kids use his red sled which I think they preferred over the tube. The neighbors dogs greeted Madi when she got to the bottom of the hill. She got lots of doggie kisses. The yellow lab is Sam and the small dog is Bailey. Such sweet dogs that we always stop and say hello to.

Eric's sister Amy showed Madi, Payton and Kutter how to eat snow. They loved that! Brett and I made sure to tell them not to eat any yellow snow. Icky!!

The kids had fun running around and playing until Madi's glove came off and her hand went right into the snow. Needless to say she wasn't very pleased with how it felt. So we walked home and had hot chocolate with marshmallows.. Yummy!

Snow removal

This morning around 7:30am I decided to get myself all bundled up to go outside and finish shoveling the snow from our driveway. Brett had started doing it at 5:00am this morning but gave up because our shovel was a piece.
I almost had my boots on when I heard a really loud motor running in the front of our house. When I looked out the window I saw the neighbor from across the street snow plowing our driveway. I was completely shocked that someone would do that for us and also so excited that I didn't have to go and do it. I mean he did what would probably take me over an hour in the matter of minutes. What awesome neighbors we have. I hadn't even met this neighbor yet so it was a great opportunity to go out and meet him. It also turns out that they have a little girl Madi's age and all this time I've been trying to find someone for Madi to play with. If only I had been a little more outgoing before I would have met them a few months ago. Oh well.. I just owe him big for clearing my driveway for me. Hopefully they like sugar cookies because I'm going to take them a huge plate full.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!!

Weird weather here in Iowa. The temperature outside fluctuates anywhere from 9 degrees to 30 degrees. Last week we had a day that was in the 40s and it was so lovely!

Well, today it pretty much rained all day. It wasn't like a down pour it was more like a drizzle. I hadn't been outside all day so I didn't realize how icy the roads were. The rain that was falling was turning to ice on contact. The windows on our garage had frozen rain drops all over them. It was crazy slippery. Brett used up two bags of the ice melt on our driveway and front steps. Eeek!

The snow started to fall around 5:pm tonight. I haven't heard how much snow we are supposed to get but we have a ton right now. I think Madi will for sure get to try out her new snow tube.

The Wright's came over to have dinner with us tonight so Tifany and I looked to see if Kutter had school in the morning. So far it looks like they are going to delay school for two hours. I guess that way they have time to clear the roads.

Well, here is a photo I took from my front door. Hopefully you can see the snow. It's really dark outside right now except for the glow from all the white snow.

BRRRR!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving at home here in Le Mars, Iowa. We had planned on going home to Vernal but since we have all been sick we decided not to punish ourselves with a long, loNG, LONG drive and runny noses and hacky coughs. We also didn't want to get our sickies around the new babies. So we stayed home and had a good ole time all by ourselves.
Madi and I made Grandma Woolley's yummy corn bread stuffing together.
Brett helped me put the turkey breast in the baking bag. We all worked together and had a wonderful feast. I almost did the entire Grandma Woolley and Grandma Barnes traditional turkey dinner. We had turkey breast, corn bread stuffing, candied yams with marshmallows on top, steamed veggis with cheese sauce, fresh cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes with turkey gravy, rhodes rolls. I also made the pumpkin pie and chocolate pie. After doing all this stuff a few times I nearly have it perfected. I'm so proud of my work I just had to take a photo of my crust. It's such an art. I'm a dork I know but hey it took practice to get it right. Had we been at Grandma's we also would have had the yummy frozen slush (which Bud and I always fight over), a whole turkey with dark meat and all, fresh cranberry jello salad (which is Brett's favorite), another type of fresh cranberry salad with marshmallows (which is my favorite), and lemon meringue pie. The Fairey family had deep fried turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, candied yams, rolls, lots of pies, cranberry sauce, and stuffing. Yummy Yummy! I had planned on making the fresh cranberry salad but there is only so much a girl can do especially when you do everything from scratch... So much work but so worth it. Now we have all of the left overs for the lazy days that I really can't bare to cook dinner.

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We missed being with our families and friends but there is always next year to look forward too.

Madilynn's 3rd Birthday!

Madi has been talking about the things that she wanted on her Birthday for weeks if not months. One day she just started saying that she wanted a "Kitty Cake" and then it was a "Kitty Birthday". She must have seen a commercial or something because then she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese's for her Birthday. Well, I did my best to make all of her dreams come true. I looked at all the Hello Kitty cakes they had at the store and I wasn't really impressed. So I tried to find a cake pan shaped like the Hello Kitty. They don't really make one. So I made my own with two different shaped pans. I think it turned out really great and I think that Madilynn had the time of her life. It was so much fun to watch Madi playing at Chuck E. Cheese's. She had a blast. Then to watch her face when she saw her cake for the first time. She was just delighted! Probably the best part was watching her open her gifts. She loves everything about Barbie and has wanted every kind that she has seen. It was so much fun for her to play with her new dolls and watch her new movies. I have to admit I think that Brett and I had just about as much fun as she did on her Birthday. Kimber even got in on the action.Happy Birthday Madilynn! I hope you had fun and that all of your wishes came true! We love you munchkin!