3 Years Old

My baby is 3 and at times it's a bit hard to imagine. Whether I want to face it or not though, it came and we celebrated. We actually had her party about 4 days previous to her birthday since her Aunt Mimi and cousins were in town and they usually celebrate with us.
Now, she got quite a few things I must say, it's crazy, especially coming off of Christmas. She really enjoyed unwrapping gifts this year. She got a few things for her kitchen, lots of coloring things, a carrier for her babies....
her Dora crock slippers she was wanting very badly that she just knew her Daddy would buy her since Mommy wouldn't one day while grocery shopping. This picture shows her enthusiasm as she tells her Daddy how happy she is that he bought them for her and she knew he would. (By the way, who did the birthday shopping???? Yep, mom, but you can't tell her that.)
Then there was her cake..... She and I were all geared up for a "Rainbow Care Bear Cake", as she called it. I was gonna make a cake, the frosting light blue for sky, pipe in some clouds, draw a rainbow with different color frosting and then stick a few toy care bears she didn't have yet on the clouds and rainbow. Well, we went to Rachel's 1st birthday party and Madi saw her butterfly cake and the care bears flew out the window. She wanted this cake and was gonna get it. Winter so kindly made the cake for us. It turned out so cute, most importantly though, Madi loved it.
Now how cool are these candles?! We found these on clearance earlier in the morning while grocery shopping and Madi thought they would be great as did Rodney and I. The candles flames, as you can kind of see, burn the color of the candle. Seriously, that is so neat.
We had a fantastic time celebrating and eating cake. Later the kids played Hungry Hippo and Madi was so tired that when she only got one marble, she began to cry that her Hippo was so hungry and he wasn't getting enough food. Poor thing, she was very upset. On Wednesday (her actual birthday) all she wanted me to do was color with her, so we colored all day while we were home except the 5 minutes we took out to play her new care bear game. We had one piece of cake left and I lite her a candle, sang to her, she blew it out and we enjoyed the last piece together. It was a memorable day, as simple as it was. She will always be my baby, even in 20 years!!!

Christmas Faces

Well, better late than never, right!!!!

Here are a few faces from Christmas morning. My Madi sure loves babies and was quite pleased to get a couple new ones.
This one she had been eyeballing for weeks everytime we would go to Walmart. What a surprise to get it!

This one crawls and laughs. It's really quite cute.

This year we were blessed to have all 5 kidos wake up together Christmas morning. That is hard to accomplish.
Now this was a face I was truly looking forward to. Colby has really took an interest to hunting and so we thought of starting off small. He was a bit confused when we opened the stuff in our stockings first and in there was a container of pellets, but no gun in sight........ until the end.

This was a reaction we were looking forward to as well. Dakotah was consistent in one thing he asked for this year and that was a Darth Maul double light saber. His mom Leah bought it for him and this is why he has a phone up to his ear while he was opening it. She wanted to be in on his reaction as well. This was not only big for him because of the light saber, but because this is the first time Autumn and Dakotah have received something from their mom in 4 years.
Now this is one of the things Autumn got from her mom and she was happy about it.
As for this look, seriously...... you buy her something princess and what a look you get.
Here are the girls when they caught first sight of their new kitchen from Grandpa Rob and Grammy. They didn't leave that kitchen for 4 or 5 days except to eat, sleep and potty. This is my ballerina in the kitchen and for just a moment, we got a bit of entertainment as she sang a song for us.

Christmas Date

On December 16 Rodney and I had the opportunity to go out on a date to his company Christmas party. Our dear friends Winter and Jesse baby sat for us and even offered to watch the kids overnight. Well, anyone, especially any stay at home mom in their right mind would jump on this offer and we did. When we dropped them off Winter took our picture which I was excited about because Rodney and I since this summer have started to finally accumulate some picture together and this was a special night. He brought me flowers! I was so excited and for those who may be thinking it's really not thaaat big of a deal...... it was for me. This is the first time I have got flowers from Rodney!!!! WHOO HOO!!! They were a pretty purple like daisy flower and 3 yellow roses. The funny thing that dawned on us is that I wore a purple shirt and he wore a yellow one so we matched my boquet. We had tasty dinner, played some games, went to Walmart to shop for our Chrismas child for Operation Elf then went home. I was the wierdest thing actually to not wake up early in the morning to go potty with Madi as well as wake up to such a quiet house.

Cutie Christmas Girls

Here are our little ladies this morning before church. They were so excited this weekend finally came so they could get all dressed up in their Christmas dresses. This is Madis first time wearing a Christmas dress and she looks so beautiful.

Just Another Kid

It's been a year now since we have had Daisy and she is just a wonderful dog. She is perfect for us and we stand firm that God picked her out specifically for us. She is so sweet and such a joy to have in our family. Now I did say she was perfect for us, but I didn't say she was perfect. She seriously is just another kid. As soon as Rodney comes home, she circles him until he gives her some love, just like the kids. She wants to be outside playing with him all the time, just like the kids. (She is curled up here getting her nails done by Rodney and she fell asleep between his legs)

She leaves her toys every where and is constantly hungry, just like the kids. She chooses to ignore me when I am telling her to do something and will only really listen to dad, just like the kids. She tears up the yard and leaves her mess out there for dad to pick up, just like the kids. It is truly funny how much she reminds us of a kid and we just love her so much and really I couldn't see our family complete without her as a part of it.

Clean up Time

So on our way back in from Walmart I took a few pictures of what our drive way and yard looked like. The three trees we had such major concerne about didn't come down, but when spring comes they will be. Ever since we have moved here Rodney has been telling me he was going to take the 3 trees down around the house. I have stood fim in fighting for them even though they are over 100 years old and sick or half dead. Yeah, well after I heard the noises they gave off in this storm and saw that my van, house and family were in jeoperdy, I told him to go for it. Besides it will give him a chance to get a head start on cutting wood for the winter.

Ice Storm Fun

Alright, a little intro for you all...... I woke up at 4:30 AM to Madi needing to go potty as well as rain and wind. Ok, so maybe your thinking "no big deal". It really wouldn't be if it wasn't freezing rain and if we weren't in an ice storm. So maybe for folks who live out here or have been in ice storms you might still be thinking "not to big of a deal". Ok, well between this time and 5:30 our security light outside goes out as our power went out and I see 2 of the biggest and bluest flashes out my bedroom window, that I've seen and asked Rodney if it was lightning (I really didn't think it was, but wasn't sure what it was). So at 5:30AM (I didn't fall back to sleep from concern over the storm) Rodney and I hear this noise that was quite odd to me as well as a bit freaky. I asked Rodney what it was and he thought maybe wind. I didn't think so though and told him that. He asked me if I thought it was a tree and we looked out the windows. We didn't see anything. We couldn't go back to sleep so we stayed up and looked out a different window in a different area of our house at a different tree. With that we hear the noise again and when we did, I saw some of the biggest branches on this tree sag big time heading closer to my van. With that Rodney flies down the stairs, throws on his boots, jacket and hat and flies out the door to move the 3 vehicles out from under this tree and down the drive way since the tree up front was doing the same thing. Ok, so vehicles are safe, husband is safe, now for the kids...... two of them woke up and got out of bed when we were discovering the creaking tree over my van, so I woke up the other two, gathered all of their pillows, blankets, sleeping bags and animal of choice. We all gathered in the stove room (we are blessed to have that since with the power out, many wouldn't have heat but we would remain warm) and hunkered down for a while waiting for the call from the school about it being canceled and Christmas break starting a day early. We were blessed to have a griddle that isn't electric so Rodney put it on the wood burning stove and cooked us breakfast as well as made us hot chocolate. We then later (after the sun came up, we ate breakfast and got bundled up) ventured out to Walmart for some drinking water (no electric means no running water for us) as well as food that wouldn't require much prep for us. We treated ourselves to lunch out at Culvers before heading home. Once home we all took naps (mom was tired and grumpy from being up since so early in the morning) and when we woke up, we had power. Praise God!!!!!!! Seriously, it is a blessing we have power, there are still people in Wabash (in town as well as in the country) that don't have their power back yet. We stuck with our simple dinner and enjoyed watching TV that night as well as being able to flush the toilet and not haul in water from outside to flush it.