It's a bow giveaway!

Duh! I should have posted this a few days ago. Ok! So I'm doing a giveaway on some of my bows so you all better come over to my bow site and put your name in because you could win. www.madibubows.blogspot.com Don't wait because the drawing is going to be Tuesday February 3rd. Good luck!

Dr. Madilynn

A few weeks ago I found this cute little doctor bag at the store. I knew it was going to be a big hit with Madi since she is always pretending to be a doctor.

Yesterday as I was busy chatting with Tifany I turned around and saw this...

New bows!

www.madibubows.blogspot.com

Since we moved I haven't been doing anything with my bow blog. Well, I'm back at it! I changed some things and added some new things. Go check it out and if you know anyone that needs little girly bows send them along!

Sending Daddy off to work

Tonight as Brett was walking out the door to go to work this is what Madi said to him.
"I love you Dad! Drive carefully! Make sure you don't trip yourself!"

Play time!

Last night Tifany brought the kids over to play with Madi and Kimber. We stuck the big kids in the basement to jump in Madi's bouncy house. It was so nice to put them in the basement because they could scream all they wanted to and it didn't bother us much. They just played and played and had a lot of fun. The baby girls were playing upstairs and would crawl together all over the place. It's really cute to watch the babies together.
Well, at some point during all of the playing Payton came upstairs to get Madi a drink of water. She walked into the living room with a little plastic cup and filled her cup up with water (pretend water) from Madi's kitchen. Tifany turned around and asked Payton what she was doing and Payton replied, "I'm getting Madi some water." Then she turned around and went back downstairs. We had a good little laugh that Payton went all the way upstairs to get Madi a pretend cup of water. Silly willy!

Silky

Madi has a most prized possession, her silky. I'm embarrassed to say it's an old garment top cut up. She just got attached to it when she was a baby. When she was tiny she always tried to put her hand down my shirt to hold onto my garment top. Silly willy! Well, one night in a desperate attempt to get her to go to sleep I gave her one of my tops to hold onto. Well, it turns out that it worked like a charm. Long story short I cut an old top up and gave her the pieces. We lovingly named it her silky.
She cannot go to sleep without her silky. She tries to carry it around with her everyday. I've tried to make the rule that she can only have the silky when she is in bed but somehow she always has it and has many of them. I need to count all the silkies we have. I know that there are a lot of them and she always seems to have them all. I think she sneaks them out of the laundry basket when I get them out of the dryer.
Madi’s attachment to the silky has been good and bad. When we are driving in the car and she just can't take it anymore I give her a silky to hold onto and it makes the trip a lot nicer for everyone. It's bad because sometimes in the middle of the night she will wake up crying that she can't find her silky. Ok I guess that's really not terrible it's actually kind of cute. Someday soon I hope to be able to get rid of the silky.
Today she was dancing around in the living room and then turned and saw one of her silkies hanging out of her toy box. She yelled, "Silky!" Then ran over to the silky picked it up and said, "Yep! It smells like my silky!" I just started laughing she really is funny.

Clean up! Clean up! Everybody clean up!

While I was in the kitchen feeding Kimber I asked Madi to go and pick up her toys. This is what I heard her singing...
"Clean up! Clean up! Everybody clean up! Clean up! Clean up so Mommy won't get mad!"
I'm not exactly sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that she knows that I'll get a little upset that she doesn't clean up when I ask her. I guess maybe it's good because she actually did it without having me right there making her do it.
It was also pretty funny to hear her put that into her song.. I think she wants to be a songwriter like her Dad. Little cutie!

Wild child

This morning Madi came into my room and jumped into bed with me. She laid her head on my stomach and started telling me a story. She had one arm in the air and was just waving it all around. She said that she spun around and around and around and then fell down. I guess this morning she was spinning in the kitchen and she fell. Brett said that she was running around like a wild woman.
To watch her telling me the story was so funny. She is just so animated. She would pause every now and again and put her hand on her chin and say, "Soooo..." like she was really thinking hard about something. She makes me laugh.

Airplanes

I have two brothers’ who are airline pilots. I am so very proud of both of them and I know that they are both wonderful pilots. I also am terrified that they would be put in a difficult situation such as what happened in New York a few days ago. I know that if they were in a difficult situation that they would be able to keep things under control. It's just scary to hear news of a plane going down and especially scary when it's the same airline one of your brothers works for.
The last time I went to visit my brother Steve he took us up in one of his planes. It was one of the smaller four passenger planes. He flew us all over the Bay Area. It was a lot of fun. As we were flying over San Francisco we hit a pocket of air that made us drop quickly. It was scary for a moment but I was so impressed with my brother. It was really cool to watch all of the things he had to do to get us back in order and how quickly he moved. What was really funny was my nephew in the front seat that slept through all of the commotion while Brett and I hit our heads on the roof.. Silly little Jason!
When my brother Boyd was a pilot in the Air Force there was a time when he was flying and the cabin lost pressure. Sometimes that happens and the pilots pass out because they don't have any air. It was pretty scary but he had his oxygen mask and all was well.
What a huge responsibility it is to be in charge of so many people lives while they are passengers on the plane that you operate. I'm so glad that there are these incredible pilots out there that are capable of pulling off something so awesome (for the lack of a better word).
This is my little salute to all the great pilots of the world especially Captain Sullenberger and my two brothers, Captain Allen and Captain Fairey.

I giggle a little bit about my brother, Captain Fairey.. Isn't that awesome? Fairey! Ha ha ha!! Love ya Boyd! He has wings! Ha ha ha!! Ok maybe it's not that funny...

Regis and Kelly

Ever since we moved to Iowa I haven't been able to find Regis and Kelly on TV. It's one of the fun shows that I like watching. They just crack me up. Anyway, in the past I would set a timer to record it so that I could watch when the girls were taking their naps. It's not like it's the end of the world if I don't get to watch it I just find it interesting that we don't get it here.
Tonight I decided that I would call Dish Network and see if I could add a station out of Denver that has it. Did you know that you could do that? When we lived in Colorado we added an extra station out of Los Angeles. They call it a la carte. I guess it's also kind of cool to get the Denver news since we have friends there. Oh and I bet that had I done this sooner Brett would have been able to watch the Bronco games. Ooopsie!
So for all of the people here in "Siouxland" you know what you can do to watch Regis and Kelly. If you care to that is. And the rest of you... I guess now you know that I like to watch Regis and Kelly... I don't know I'm silly..

Madi's magazine cover

You knew I had to make one for Madi too.

Our little cover model!

I know you're probably sick of this photo but look how fun this is. Go to http://www.parenting.com/article/Toddler/Activities/Make-Your-Own-Parenting-Magazine-Cover to put your little darling on the cover of a magazine.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

A little while back I down loaded a 30 day trial of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I have an older version of Adobe PhotoDeluxe Home edition that works pretty well to change photo's up a little. I really don't know what I'm doing and it would help if I would actually read the instructions but this new program is really cool. I was just clicking around and changing this and that and I love what I ended up with. The second photo is what I had done in my photodeluxe program and the third is what I did in the lightroom program. The fourth photo was also in the lightroom program and I just tweaked it a little more. So cool and can you imagine if I knew what I was doing..
Anyway I really just loved how this picture turned out. It's also fun to see what a photo can change into with a little editing.

(Sigh)

My little Madi is such a dolly. She is such a good little helper. She is very loving and has a very cute personality. I love everything about her even the things that drive me nuts. It's all what makes her who she is.

The other night I was in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner. Madi was playing and moving between her bedroom and the living room. My back was turned a lot of the time so I didn't witness what was going on. At some point I looked over and saw that Madi was holding a string. Pretty quickly I recognized what it was. She had a string from one of the snow flakes off of my Christmas tree. I know what you're saying, "Your tree is still up?" I told you I was a slacker about putting it up and since I put it up on Christmas Eve we wanted to enjoy it for a little while. Anyway, back to the snow flakes. She was kind of standing there in front of me almost taunting me with this string that had obviously been broken away from the ornament. When I reached the spot where she was I saw them, all over the floor in the hallway just hidden enough from view so that I didn't notice them earlier. It upset me to see that she had broken my ornaments and I didn't want to react so I just walked away.

Today we had a few disagreements and finally when it was bed time I felt like I would finally get to have a minute to myself. So, we walk into her bedroom to find that she has dumped everything and I mean everything even the drawers out of her dresser. I just don't know what she thinks about when she does this stuff. I talk and talk to her about not doing this stuff and take things away trying to help her understand that she needs to treat her stuff better. Well, when I saw the mess and it's probably the fourth or fifth big mess today I had met my limit. I just told her to get in bed and not very nicely and I went out of the room. I am proud of myself though that I did tell her that I love her before I turned the light off. I'm just so frustrated with how our relationship is going lately. I know she is only three and she doesn't know any better but I feel like lately she is really starting to act out.

So I took a few minutes to myself before I went back to talk to her so that I was completely calm and also so that I could call and talk to Brett. When I went back to talk to her she just listened to what I had to tell her. You know how you kind of reach the point of frustration that you just cry because you don't know what else to do? Well, I just started crying and the look on Madi's face was so cute I'll remember it for always. She saw that I had tears on my face and she looked sad then reached an touched my eye. She said, "Don't cry Mommy. It will be ok." She is such a sweetie. She gave me a big hug and told me that she loved me.

(I wrote this a long time ago and for whatever reason I didn't publish it but reading it now just touched me. Madi is really a sweetie I love her so so so much!)

Too sweet!

I just love this picture. Madi wanted to hold Kimber and help her drink her juice. She always says, "But Mommy I have to help her!" She is such a great big sister. They just love to hang out with each other. Do you think that Kimber kind of looks like the baby in the movie Willow? I don't know something about that first photo I see the baby in Willow.

I'm so so so behind!

Ahhh!! So annoying! Last night I sat down and started writing a blog and didn’t finish. This morning I finished it and then my spell checker wouldn’t work. I thought, “No problem, I’ll just copy it and check my spelling in word.” Well I hit control V which is paste and my whole thing went away.. Ahhh!! So instead of looking for a fix I closed it and then re-opened in the hope that it hadn’t saved yet. No luck it saved right away. I later found out that I could have hit control Z to undo it. Dang it! Oh well. I think I can mostly re-create what I wrote. Just excuse this little side note.

Do you ever get in a funk and can’t get yourself to do anything productive? That’s how I’ve been feeling lately so I haven’t been in the mood to write anything on my blog. I’m so behind and have so many things to write about. So in the attempt to get on a better track and change my attitude here is what happened in our house today.

Kimber just loves to stand by the bathtub. That’s right stand! See what I’m talking about I need to write about Kimber crawling all over the place and standing up by furniture and other objects. Anyway, today while I was at the sink brushing my teeth Kimber was behind me hanging onto the side of the tub playing with the curtain. Then all of the sudden I briefly saw feet in the air and heard a bump. She had leaned too far forward and fallen head first into the tub. Poor baby! She wasn’t very happy about it but recovered quickly. Thankfully there wasn’t any water in there. Whew!!

Madi started her ballet class today! She has been so excited about it. She wants to wear her leotard all around the house and she makes up the best dances. Usually she just twirls around and kicks her leg into the air. Funny oney! Brett stayed at home with Kimber and Madi and I went to class. I thought that maybe I would get to watch but that’s not how they do it here. I was a little disappointed at first but it’s actually probably better that way she doesn’t act silly because I’m in there. Anyway, I think she did really well for her first day especially since the other girls have been in the class since June. When she came out she had a funny look on her face. I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t tell if she didn’t like it or what had happened. While I was putting her warm clothes back on she said, “Mom. I want to do it again.” Silly little munchkin! She wanted to keep going. I guess 45 minutes wasn’t enough time. I quickly told her that she would get to do this every Wednesday and that made her happy.

You know what I think I like how this turned out better than the first attempt. I don’t know what I was complaining about. Silly me!

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.