More Party Pictures!

Madison's Rapunzel Party!

Madison turned three! She has been talking about her birthday since she turned two! She had been planning her party almost everyday of the year! For over a month Madison has had us read her the story of Rapunzel from her Mickey Mouse Fairytale book. So... with the new movie "Tangled" coming out it worked out perfectly to have a Rapunzel birthday party. The movie didn't even come out until a week after her party so hopefully Disney will thank me for some extra marketing:)

Madison woke up to find a castle (a great find on Craigslist over the summer) with a Rapunzel barbie letting her hair down. Luckily the castle comes apart nicely and fits in the crawl space otherwise hiding it for so long would have been tough! Madison has very extreme emotions and she screamed with excitement when she walked in the room.

I had so much fun planning the party. It is amazing the things you can do with a Rapunzel braid made out of yarn. The kids played in the castle at arrival and colored on the castle picture preserved from Madison's two year old party. After coloring we played Rapunzel limbo, and then jumped over Rapunzel's braid. Afterwards they were all given their own Rapunzel hats and the boys got crowns. It took me about a week to figure out how to make the hats and I am happy to hear that they have survived a lot of wear by many of the girls and some even wore them to the movie! That makes staying up so late to make them even more worth it:) I made them out of the foam paper you can find at craft stores. The hair was carefully arranged on a piece of masking tape and then I used a glue gun to attach the hair to the back. They looked so cute!

After dressing up we did some freeze dancing and then we used strands of Rapunzel's hair to play the worm game. You take gummie worms, tie them to yarn and tell the kids to put them all in the middle of the placemat. You then play music and when the music stops they have to hurry and pull their worm away before the lid squishes their worm:) Sounds so silly but they love it! The party was then interupted by the witch who stole Rapunzel from her tower. They all had to hold on to her braid to find Rapunzel and some stollen treasure. After Rapunzel was found they followed the clues to the treasure. The treasure could only be retrieved by letting down Rapunzel's braid over the banister. After all this excitement we did presents, cake, and icecream! Whew, what a fun and exciting birthday. Madison and her friends had so much fun!

Happy birthday Madison! You are such a fun girl with so much excitement for life. We are so lucky to have you in our family! Thanks for always making us laugh and for being such a cutie!

Color This!

Back when I was an illustration major at BYU I did a series of paintings with kids caught in mischievious acts. My cousins little girl posed for this painting and now she is all grown up. It's so funny now to be the mom of this cliche situation:) This illustration fits Emeire perfectly! The cat in the picture used to be my stuffed kitty and now Emerie sleeps with it every night. She even has the sad eyebrow look perfected! Here are two of Emerie's latest drawings on the floor and our door. There are others on the floor, yesterday I washed the couch, our washing machine has some nice art on it and who knows what will be next?

You may be wondering why I keep trusting her with crayons. Well, she just loves to color and often will walk around the house yelling, "Color this! Color this!" If she sees a pen, pencil, or crayon she won't stop saying color, color, color until she has her way. Lately she has been saying," I need markers mom." Those definitely get full supervision! However, often when she has a pencil or a crayon, I get distracted for a moment, or go in the other room only to come back with a new drawing on the wall or floor. She is quick and she doesn't get into mischief every time. I often think she has learned that we can only "color this" on paper. She is very good at going to time out and will run in her room, come out and say, "I will be nice mom!" as she runs and gives me a big hug. So so cute! Thank goodness most everything is washable. Santa is bringing this little artist an Aqua Doodle for Christmas.

One of the other illustrations I did was of a little girl cutting her hair. I haven't come across that situation yet... knock on wood!

Nothing Is Safe!

The other day I walked back into the kitchen to find that little Emmers had scooted the chair over to the counter and seized the computer and the phone! This was my tallest counter where I could keep all our stuff "safe"! Looks like nothing is safe anymore and I will just have to teach the girls the honor code system (if mommy says no they will obey?). Do you think this face can be trusted;)

Emerie's First Haircut!

About a month ago Emerie got her first haircut! I was amazed at how still she sat and not a single tear. Hmmm, I may get brave and try to cut her hair the next time she needs one:) It was so cute to see her sit in the little car, watch her show, and be so serious. We love you Ems!

Helping Dad

What a fun messy day. This was one of those moments where letting the girls help dad was very fun yet the mess after was not so fun to clean up:) These girls loved painting the doors to one of my refurbished furniture projects and when the paint on them was greater than the doors... it was time to take them to the tub. They were sad to leave the paint and to get scrubbed down!

Love this Cutie!

Emerie has always been a funny girl, but now that she can talk and sing she gets even funnier. Her favorite song is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". She randomly breaks into song throughout the day but often it's when we are driving. I love it when little kids sing because the pitch is all over the place and often their voices crack. It's so cute. She starts out small then increases the songs volume and intensity as she goes.
Emerie is pretending to be a superhero in this picture. Both girls put on their blankets and had fun running around the house. Emerie can pull some really cute cheesy grins but she has an equally funny grumpy face. She has been getting some teeth in and we have had some very grumpy moments lately. I just have to laugh sometimes because she is so funny grumpy. She pushes those eyebrows together, and puts out her lip, and has even told me to "go away". We all have those moments Ems:) Despite her grumpy moments she is still a cuddle bug and gives the cutest hugs and kisses. Her favorite kisses lately are butterfly ones and she is very good at giving them back with her long eyelashes. We just love our Emerie, or as Madison would say it "Emmer" (Madison's new nickname for her sister).
Oh, and one more cute thing... This last weekend we went on a road trip which meant I told a lot of stories! In the retold story of Peter Pan I asked Madison what her happy thought was that would make her fly. She said it was "Her sister Emmie!" That just melted my heart, they really are cute friends!

Madison's Dance Recital

Madison has been taking dance lessons and she had her first recital a few weeks ago. She would run down the stairs and wave to us. I love how in the picture all the little ballerina's are doing their own thing. The whole time I had to restrain Emerie from climbing on the stage with her big sister.

So Blessed

Almost two months ago I had a procedure done called an ablation. An ablation is a procedure used to treat serious, irregular, or rapid heart rhythms. Here is a summary of the procedure. They advance several flexible catheters into the femoral vein or jugular vein and move them towards the heart. High-frequency electrical impulses are used to induce the arrhythmia and then they ablate (burn or destroy) the abnormal tissue causing the bad rhythm. My exact diagnosis was, paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT). This is a rapid rhythm of the heart which involves an accessory pathway. We discovered this condition when we moved to Columbus and I started playing basketball. When I would exercise my heart would start racing really fast and I couldn't catch my breath. I would also have smaller episodes throughout the day. At first I thought I was just super out of shape after having two kids so close in age. After wearing a heart monitor for a month they discovered that my heart would start into a bad rhythm and beat over 220 beats per minute. The length of the episodes would vary but when I had an episode with my girls walking home from the park I knew it was time to get it fixed. The main short term risks of this condition are passing out. They do have medications however I didn't want to manage medications through any future pregnancies. I was very, very scared to get the procedure done however we knew it was the right thing.
The procedure lasted several hours and the most painful part was getting the IV since I have such bad veins. They even had to call in the specialist with the ultrasound machine and even he missed. I was awake during the procedure (they did give me some type of sedative to make me sleepy) and I did feel some really weird sensations in my heart. I do remember the doctor yelling,"Stop, stop, stop..." He apologized after he realized he scared me. I am sure they forget we can hear what is going on. We were at the hospital from about 7am until 4pm. Thanks to wonderful friends for watching our sweet girls and for all the meals while I recovered. Jake was able to take some time off work and he even passed up an amazing golf opportunity that weekend while spending extra time with the girls ;) My heart has been feeling great and it is so good to exercise without feeling like my heart is out of control!
The picture I posted is of one the most beautiful sunsets that I have ever seen. It was even more amazing in person! I put this picture with this post because I love all the rays of light that come through the dark clouds. It seems whenever we go through a hard time the "rays of light break through". Cheesy I know, but I really do feel blessed that everything went well and so grateful for modern medicine that can perform these crazy procedures:)

Halloween Costumes

This year we had a few different Halloween costumes! For months Madison wanted to be a princess kitty cat, then it was a fairy, then princess kitty cat, then at the last minute, Sleeping Beauty:) Luckily we had the kitty costumes from my sister Becky and Madison's cute preschool friend had an extra Sleeping Beauty costume on hand. So... for the ward party the girls were fairies, Sleeping Beauty for the preschool party, and they were both warm kitty cats for the cold Halloween night. They loved trick or treating and ate lots of candy all along the way!

Fun Decorations!

Here are some fun pictures of some Halloween decorations we had this year. The bats on the shelf are painted pumpkins and the ones hanging from the ceiling are made from strips of paper. What a fun holiday to decorate for!

More Fall Fun!

The first picture is of us at the pumpkin patch. Every fall I say we need to go to the pumpkin patch and get some fun pictures of the girls with the pumpkins. Last year the hayride took so long it was dark by the time we got to the pumpkins. This year my camera died. So funny, one of these years we will get some cute pumpkin patch pictures:)

We walked around the zoo before Halloween and Madison was overjoyed to see Snowwhite and the big fluffy dog. They love brushing the goats at the petting zoo and had lots of fun watching the polar bears jump into the water. We found out that the polar bears at the Columbus Zoo are the little bears that were born and raised in our Toledo Zoo. Ohhh, we felt such a bond to the bears when we found out. Madison has lots of pictures of her with the same bears in Toledo.

It was also lots of fun to have Jake's parents in town for Halloween! This is the second year they have been able to visit us and we have loved having them for all the fun fall festivities.