Madison's Room

I have been promising Madison for awhile that I would paint her room. I finally had a week off from work to get the job done. Here she is helping me paint the bottom half of her walls purple. This was on Saturday which was 2 days before she came down with a 102 fever that she ended up having for 6 days straight. So needless to say I finished the rest of the the room myself.

I kept telling her not to peek so the final result would be a big surprise for her.

When the reveal was made she came in with her jaw down on the ground and ran to her bed and starting jumping on it saying "i have the coolest bedroom ever" it was the happiest I have seen her all week since she was so sick.
We are now in the market for some new bedding because she explained to me that she is too old for her princess comforter. (sad!)

Go Hornets

Austin's basketball team made it to first place in the regular season. They still have playoffs ahead of them so anything can happen. The games have all been very exciting this season. I think they only lost 2 games.

Back up and running...

I know, I know it's been awhile since I've posted something. Brian was cleaning up the computer and deleted my photo software so I couldn't get any pictures onto my computer until now. Between basketball games, superbowl party, slumber parties, game nights with friends and Hannah Montana movie... there was close to 100 pictures on my camera. Here are just a few I thought you might like to see.

Madison and Austin in matching Peifer School shirts. Austin warned Madison he better stay away from him that day at school.

Miles and Julia got to meet each other for the first time at our annual Superbowl party. All the guys played flag football in the snow before the superbowl party started. Then the rest of the night was football, friends, fun and food.

Pictures at Austin's basketball games never seem to turn out because they are running so the pictures turn into a blur. Here is a photo of him during warm ups.

Madison and I along with 6 other girls and their moms went to see the 3D Hannah Montana movie together. I must admit I enjoyed the show very much. You had to get there really early to get a good seat so our popcorn and slushies were gone before the movie even started. Free refills are the best!

...party day!

Madison's day of fun started off with a makeover at Libby Lu. That is a fun girly store located inside of Carson Pirie Scott. This was part of her birthday present from us and she had been looking forward to it for weeks! They paint your nails, put on a little eyeshadow and lip gloss, and do a fun hair makeover complete with fairy dust! She even got to pick out 5 things from the store as a gift.
Then we were off to Build a Bear which has become a birthday tradition for her. This year she picked the pink leopard and dressed her in a velvet black and pink cat suit. She wanted to name her Hannah Montana, but I talked her into naming her Miley which is Hannah Montana's real name instead.

This is the only picture I have of the two kids for the day. Austin spent the day with Nana and Papa while we took Madison to the mall, then later he went to his friend's house instead of the girls party.

Nana could hardly recognize Madison when she arrived to the party. Thanks mom and dad for all your help during the party... I couldn't have done it without you.

Madison doing one last mirror check before her friends start to arrive...

Once all of the girls arrived we started off by doing a picture frame craft. I took a picture of each girl with Madison and will be sending them as soon as they are printed to put in the frames.

Here is a group shot of all 10 girls.

After we all had some pizza it was time for Madison's favorite part of the night... opening her gifts. Gee... do you think she likes this one??

Thanks Sue for letting me borrow your cupcake display rack. It looked great!

Then we all headed back downstairs for some games and prizes!!

This is a Hannah Montana wig that Madison got from one of her friends. I still can't believe that my little girl is 7 years old. I think the birthday marathon is over now. Thanks to everyone for the cards, gifts, phone calls and visits to help make Madison's birthday extra special.

Happy 7th Birthday Madison

This is what a 7 year old girl looks like when she first wakes up in the morning! Happy Birthday Madi Sue! I still can't believe you are 7 years old.
This is what she looks like once she's all ready for school.

She's listening to her Aunt Sheila and cousins Marissa, Makayla and Myah sing "happy birthday" to her on the phone.

She wanted to go to Red Robin for dinner since the "balloon guy" was going to be there. He made her this really cool balloon crown. From the smile on her face... do you think she liked it?

Austin got a cool dragon balloon and Miles got a creepy looking Elmo balloon. Oh well, we all had a great time. Madison is really looking forward to her day of fun on Saturday. You'll have to stay tuned into this blog to find out what happens...

Extra Extra

Here is a recent picture of our dining room. Notice the sconces hanging on the wall on each side of my curio cabinet. Okay, also notice the beautiful flowers on the table too that I won as a door prize at the Pepsi Winterfest we attended on Saturday night. Actually one of Brian's coworkers won them and didn't want them so he gave them to me. ANYWAY... I was trying to figure out what to put in the sconces. Candles... rocks with a tea light on top... potpourri??? Then it hit me...
How about gravel and live betta fish???? Can I just tell you how ridiculously excited my kids were that we were getting 2 pet fish? It made me feel bad that because of my dog and cat allergies that this is what it has come to. 2 pet fish hanging on the wall in our dining room. I think they look great so I'm pretty happy with them. Madison talks to her fish several times a day and here she is doing fishy lips at him. They even followed our tradition of naming our kids after capitals. So Madison named her fish London and Austin named his Jackson.

Austin is getting pretty good at playing bowling on the Wii. I think in one game he got 5 or 6 strikes in a row. So Dustin challenged him to a game and can you believe they tied at 205? I was so happy because Austin still talks about losing to his nana on Christmas day.

Proof is in the picture!

Happy New Year

I know, I know... I said I wasn't going to post every poker winner's picture. But when one of us girls actually win... you bet I'm going to post that picture. Way to go Kristi!!!
New Year's Eve is also Sarah and Dustin's anniversary! Happy anniversary you two!

This is how the girls celebrated the new year.... silly string fight out in the snow! Looks fun, doesn't it? There was silly string for the boys too, but they were inside playing the Wii.


I was so excited to see the snow was the good packing kind. So I whipped up this little snowman on my back porch.

Here is Miles enjoying some sparkling grape juice on his first New Years Eve. SO CUTE!!!

Welcome Natalie and Joann

Welcome to America cousin Natalie. It was so nice to finally meet you in person. Brian and Natalie figured out it had been at least 15 years since the last time they had seen each other.
We took Natalie and her friend Joanne to see Chicago while they were here. Here is Madison taking a funny picture at Millenium Park.

This is Natalie on the left and her friend Joanne on the right lookin so cute all bundled up for the cold.

Girls picture at the top of the sears tower.

I need to learn how to center these self portrait pictures better.

Here is grandma with Austin and Madison at the top of the Sears tower.

We had so much fun meeting you both... or should I say."we took a liking to the both of you"

We can't wait to come visit you in England someday.

Painter in me

I'm so excited this project is finally done. I have to admit I'm not very artistic so I didn't think I could pull it off... but it looks pretty good. My designer (okay so she's really my friend Meilnda but also an interior designer) drew the patterns onto the canvases for me and then they just sat there in my dining room for weeks because I was too scared to paint them because I might mess them up. If you notice, the patterns come from the pillows on my couch. Great idea Melinda... thanks again! And thanks to my dad for hanging them just perfetly centered above my couch for me.

Christmas Day

Try to bear with me, there are many photos in this blog. The kids finally dragged Brian and I out of bed around 6am. They headed downstairs first to check their stockings. They were both pretty excited that we have a chimney now for Santa to come down...
Here's Austin all smiles about his new fishing game for PS2.

Madison must have been on the "nice" list this year because she got exactly what she asked Santa for... Baby Alive. No one told me that this baby actually poops though which means we need to buy diapers for her.

After opening gifts at home and having our traditional cinnamon roll breakfast we packed up the van with my parents and headed off to Ohio. We were originally supposed to stay in Ohio for a few days but plans changed at the last minute. We still had a great time spending Christmas Day there. The afternoon consisted of eating, opening presents, taking tons of pictures, eating some more, bowling tournament on Wii, guitar hero, still more eating and hanging upside down on Jeremy's new back stretcher thing.

I guess you know who we are!?!?!?!?!

This is my sister Sheila with her hubby Jeremy and 3 beautiful girls Marissa, Makayla and Myah. Thanks for being such awesome hosts. Everything was beautiful in your home, yummy in our tummies and fun memories were made for the rest of the day.

Here is Nana and Papa with their 5 grand kids. I guess 6 if you count Molly the dog.

Does he look like a rock star or what??? Especially with little Molly sitting on his lap. haha

And here are the Champions of our bowling Wii tournament. Congratulations mom and Austin.