The Party!

The party was a lot of fun and turned out surprisingly well with the age group we had. The girls were so cute dressed up in their princess outfits. We had two prince charmings there as well.

When the kids arrived they had fun coloring on the giant storybook page (great idea from my cousin Suzy) and playing on the slide. They had princess story time and then we played some fun toddler games.We'll call the first game bibity, bopity, boo. In this game everyone was given a fairy godmother wand. They all got a chance to be fairy godmothers and turn everyone in the room into their favorite animal. It was fun to watch the kids run around as puppies, frogs, ponies, kitties, and.... many more! The next game was Disney freeze dancing. This was a chance for the kids to dance and wiggle all they wanted until the music stopped freezing them in their tracks. They were so fun to watch and I was amazed at some of their moves!

Happy Birthday Madison!

At the end of November Madison turned two! Wow, I can't believe how grown up she is! I have more pictures and birthday details to come but for now here is a picture of Madison enjoying a pink cupcake at her princess party!

Emerie Seven Months

Emerie now has two bottom teeth! She loves to laugh and give big kisses. Madison still enjoys pushing her over and Emerie still loves to see Madison after her time out sessions:)
Tonight they had lots of fun splashing each other in the bathtub and laughing as they spit out water that got in their face. Since Madison was a lot better at splashing Emerie Jake made sure that Madison got her share of big splashes too. Emerie has learned to clap and has started to say Daa daa daa. Madison loves say, "Stop talking Emmie Boo, stop laughing, stop crying..." I remind Madison over and over that she is not the boss of Emerie. She then tells me she is the boss!? Hmmm, it's a good thing Emerie doesn't know yet what Madison is saying. What funny sisters! We love you Emmie!

Emerie Six Month Pictures

Emerie is growing up so fast! She is such a sweet little girl and is starting to show off more of her personality. She loves to sit up, roll over, eat rice cereal, and laughing at her silly sister. Emerie is a snugly baby and likes to hide her head in your chest when she feels shy. She likes to babble and make funny noises. She is always such a happy girl in the morning and she loves books! It's so fun to watch you grow up!

Long time comin...

Before...






...during...








...after!





Jake here.

The greatest part about having cable TV is of course the ESPN family of networks. If I had only had access to such a plethora of sports on TV as a child I probably would be shooting the three ball in the NBA right now rather than the local community league. BTW, we lit up the score board tonight in a winning effort. Final: 34 - 25.

The second greatest part about having cable TV is HGTV! Since I am happily married to a beautiful woman and have two beautiful daughters I can feel quite comfortable admiting that I like HGTV. Bang for your Buck and Property Virgins are no threat to my manhood! Inspired by the design ideas we saw on HGTV we embarked on a little home improvement project in our home last July. Yeah, it's taken that long to post some photos. The projects have been mostly done for months. Above are some before, during and after pics of our home! We painted every room in the house and replaced old linoleum and carpet with laminate "wood" floors. It looks much better and feels like ours now. The bench you see in one of the pics is a Jenny project. She found it sitting on the side of the road, picked it up and refinished it... sounds like a story for HGTV don't you think?

Halloween!

What cute girls and what a fun Halloween! We wondered if it was ever going to happen. Each and every time I asked Madison what she wanted to be she said "Snow White". Unfortunately, she refused to put on any of the Snow White outfits we got for her. She had a Snow White skirt that was acceptable to her highness, but she would never let me put on the top that went with it.
Plan B: I bought a beautiful, Wal-Mart original, Snow White dress. Would she wear it? Not a chance! She screamed and cried with every invitation to try it on. Begging, pleading, bribes... none of it worked.
So how did we end up with this cute costume? I took one of her blue shirts and found a bunch of Snow White adornments to sew on (thanks mom for the great idea). Jake's parents were in town and his mom sewed them all on for me (thanks Mana for sewing so much). I think it turned out great! She loved it and wore it for two days straight.
Emerie wore her witch shirt in the first picture and ended up being a fish for trick or treating. We had a few different options for costumes and Jake ended up throwing the fish on with his fisherman hat. What a cute catch! Originally I thought it would be fun to have Madison be Snow White, Jake could be the handsome prince, Emmie a dwarf, and I was going to be the witch. We ended up with Snow White, a fish, Caesar (or the Ghost of Christmas Past), and Cleopatra. Jake and I went to a Halloween party without the girls as this cute couple.
Madison loved trick-or-treating and didn't want it to end. She wore her wings with her Snow White costume so we had a fairy Snow White. Out here in Ohio the city chooses a day and a time for trick or treating. Our city chose the Thursday before Halloween from 6-8. Everyone sits out in their drive way and passes out candy. It's great, no door knocking! People set up fire pits, cute displays and have a great time out with their neighbors while they pass out candy. Such a great way of doing things! Madison even climbed up in some of their lawn chairs and made herself at home. We had a great time and it was so fun to have Jake's parents in town to help us with all the Halloween fun.

Pumpkin Patch Fun!

Last week we went to a nearby pumpkin patch. The only night I would be able to take the girls Jake was on call. Luckily I had some friends there to help out. Madison loved running around at the farm, looking at the animals and exploring their kids size hay maze. Those tunnels looked a little scary but she was brave enough to run through them after seeing her friend Conner run by. She was dressed for the farm in her Sleeping Beauty skirt and Cinderella pink sparkle shoes. Some days I just don't want to deal with a screaming fit over what she wears so I let her out in public in the outfit of her choice. It will be much harder to explain now that Halloween is over:) It was quite the challenge just to get pants on under the skirt. I used to wonder sometimes why moms let their kids out in silly outfit combinations. Now I completely understand. Madison feels "so pretty" in her outfits and that's all that matters (unless it's family picture day).
Anyhow, back to the pumpkin patch. I was so excited to take the girls to the pumpkin patch and have those cute little pictures that every blogs about with the girls sitting with all the pumpkins. However we ended up getting on the hayride that takes you to the field of pumpkins as the sun was going down. The tractor we were waiting in line for to pick us up was extremely slow. We ended up having quite the adventurous hayride with the moon and the stars. When we arrived at the pumpkin patch the driver told us all to hop off. There were a bunch of people waiting to be picked up who had apparently been waiting a long time. I guess they pick you up at the farm, drop you off in the patch, and then let you pick your pumpkins while they drop off and pick up the other load of people. There weren't any lights other than the headlights on the tractor. Since I had both girls and the double stroller loaded up on the hayride I had my friend pick out a pumpkin for Madison and we just stayed on the tractor until it reached the parking lot. It was dark, late, and cold. Madison didn't seem to mind one bit and when the ride was over she said she wanted to go again. I made friends with the new load of people who hopped on the ride and they helped me off the hayride with the stroller and two girls. We had a great time! Next year we'll get those cute pumpkin patch pictures and make time for some pumpkin carving. It's been a busy month!

Five Months Old!

I am very behind in my blogging! Here are Emerie's cute five month pictures even thought she just turned six months. I'll add her six month pictures later.
We call Emerie, Emmie, Emmie Boo, Goofy-Loof and Cutie Pie. She is such a sweet baby and she makes me laugh all the time. She pulls the funniest faces and makes the funniest noises. She does a really cute scream that sounds kind of like a lamb instead of crying. She is usually very happy and Madison is the only one that can make her laugh really really hard, and I guess cry really hard too:) Emerie has a deep muffled laugh and it sounds like she is trying really hard not to just let it out! She still kicks like crazy in the bath tub and I don't think she has ever cried in the tub except when she was in with Madison and got water poured on her face:( She wakes up really happy, smiles and kicks her legs like crazy when we come in. She is working on sitting up all by herself, still a little bit wobbly. She can roll over but were not anywhere close to scooting. She loves to be social and when her daddy comes home she can't stop staring at his face (finally someone else to look at besides mom)! I love kissing her chubby little cheeks and she loves to snuggle which also meant she didn't like being put down in her bed. Her lip would quiver as soon as we walked into her room. Lately she's been going to bed great however. She's not sleeping through the night yet but hey, who wouldn't want to get up two or three times a night with this cutie;) I always say to myself, it's a good thing you are so cute as a walk into her room half asleep. We love you Emmie and we are so grateful to have you as part of our family!

Little Singer

These last two weeks Madison has just exploded with singing. She always liked to listen to music and she loved it when we sang to her but she would rarely just start singing the songs on her own. I have been amazed at how much they can remember at this age! Last week she started singing "I am Like a Star Shinning Brightly" and I had never sung that song with her. It's fun to watch her learn so many new things. The songs she is singing in the first video are "I am Like a Start Shinning Brightly", the ABC song, and the Turtle Song. The second video is Twinkle Twinkle, and the third video is Zip-a-de-do-dah. The last video is of Emerie being cute. She is such a sweet funny baby!
Madison sounds like she is speaking a foreign language whenever she reads "mommy and daddy" books. This must be what she sometimes hears when we talk:) Any big book with lots of words she thinks is the scriptures and so as she is reading you can hear the phrase "be nice to people". Often when we read the scriptures together I summarize it by saying the scriptures teach us to be nice to people. She definitely caught on to that phrase. The room was kind of dark so the picture isn't the greatest but what she is saying is pretty funny.

Cute Sisters!

The girls were being so cute in their matching outfits from grandma! Here is a little video of them that was interrupted by Emmie's spit up, yucky:)

Apple Picking!

Last week we went apple picking. It was a lot of fun and not as stressful as I thought it would be with two little ones! Madison loved picking the apples off the trees and baby Emerie was a little angel. We had a lot of fun on the hayride and Madison loved eating the apples we picked on the ride. I had never given Madison an entire apple to chow down on. Usually with even just a slice of apple she would end up spitting it out either because of the taste or texture??? I was very surprise when she ate the entire apple almost to the core. So grown up!

Shoe Tragedy

This last week Madison's heart was broken when her Snow White shoes snapped in half. She loved wearing these shoes and we often had to keep her from wearing them to the park, to church and other places where they would be hard to get around in. She walked surprisingly well in them and could even run in these little plastic heels. I am so glad she didn't hurt her foot when they broke as you can see from the sharp edges.
Madison loves shoes! Ever since she could walk she would go into her closet and ask me to put on her different shoes. She was very particular about what shoes she wanted to wear. She likes to go into our closets, pull out our shoes and clomp around the house in them. It's fun to watch!