Strum and Sweet Sass

It's crazy for me to think this is my little girl who used to bring her Barbies and Pollys along when we would go away for the day- now she wants to bring her guitar to strum. She is just growing up so quickly and is one of my most precious to be thankful for.


A little clip of what we got to hear all day- oh and a little dose of sweet sass at the end. Of course. ;)



Hope you had a wonderful holiday!

This week has been LOVELY sleeping in and not having to get Maddie off to school. It is such a nice little break that we could all use. So! I'm sure everyone has a busy week planned. I feel like we have something everyday/night for the next few days- it's exhausting just to think about! Tomorrow night we are going out w/ friends which I am super excited about- we haven't been out in a very, very long time. Too long. Thursday of course the turkey festivities on my side, and I hope to shop Friday morning (Lynn are you in ??) Some people think it's crazy to shop Black Friday- and it does get a chaotic, but I enjoy getting up early with friends, grabbing coffee, and shopping with the crazies. Then the weekend gets busy with me working Friday night and Saturday day shift, then one of Ryan's good friends is having a b.day get together Saturday night- so just lots to do in the next few days. Sunday will be bliss, as it should be. ;)
Ok, I have lots to do yet tonight and I haven't seen my husband it feels like for two days! I have, but literally.. just in passing. So I need to get off this thing! Hope you have a great holiday and lots to be thankful for! ;)

Night.

Time well spent

Maddie got to hang out with my youngest brother today. She got a little practice with her guitar- she's just learning to play a few chords but it helps when someone who actually knows what they're doing can help her!

You love a what ?

I debated whether to post this or not b/c I know she genuinely loves her mama- but it was just one of her funnier moments...

Many faces of Mayci

What can I say ? Just love her to pieces!

Can't think of a title...

Just posting some pics. As soon as Maddie got home from school she offered to take Mayci outside to play! Absolutely sister! Mom will just stay inside and take pictures of you ;)

Maddie is so sweet helping her little sis put her mitten back on.

Even got a little swing time in.

Our niece Taylor came to play for a while tonight- such a little doll. A house full of girls, no wonder Ryan had to run an errand ;)

Night!

Pretty pictures

What else is there to do when it's cold and snowy out ?? Haul out the finger paints!! I think this could have kept these two entertained for hours.. they loved it. They loved it enough to wear it as you will see below ;)

Can you even believe this snow ?? I pulled out of work and spun around facing the oncoming traffic on Riley.. THAT was terrifying. I put my hand out to the car coming like that was going to do anything!! She had to pull off the side of the road into a vacant lot of some sort- oops. I felt bad but I had no idea how slippery it was! So much for all wheel drive!

Have a good night friends- hopefully indoors!!

They're up!

Finally! I'm am thrilled that Ryan put the shelves up right away- usually things sit around for a while, not all on his part, but by my indecisiveness too! We still have a picture of the two of them that will go up in our office, but I need to find the right color shelf for it. Target only had black/brown and I would prefer white. In due time I guess!

Not that you need to really tune into this next paragraph, but since I'm blogging I wanted to let it out. As I'm sure you know, Psalm 23 is a very popular bible verse. I feel like it was the first or second one I ever learned, but anyway these past few days I have been feeling that I needed to read into that particular verse. I didn't pick my Bible up right away thinking I already knew it, but I did today and am reminded of this:

"When we allow God to guide us, we have contentment. When we choose our own way we can not blame Him for the environment we create for ourselves. Our shepherd knows the 'green pastures' and 'quiet waters' that will restore us. We will reach those places only by following Him obediently. Rebelling against this is actually only rebelling against our own best interests. We must remember this the next time we are tempted to go our own way rather than the shepherd's way."

Whew. I needed to hear that today. It was SO heavy on my heart for a few days- this verse- and now I know why. Sounds like a no-brainer, but how easy it is to try and 'go our own way', try and fix things the way we THINK or are tempted to think they should be fixed. I wish I would have read into this so much sooner as that was exactly what He wanted to get through to me.

It's Friday my friends! Have a good weekend. Maddie needs help with her 'cootie catcher' or whatever it is! Gotta go.

Few pics...

Have you ever gone to work only to find out there was a schedule change and you didn't need to be there ?? This has happened to me twice in the past week. (Once at ZCH and once at HCH) The hard thing is with the hospitals they staff ONLY what they need, unless there is a high patient volume. Most people would be like 'ha- see ya later!' but I was a little more annoyed today since this happened to me twice. I have to be honest and give Holland some credit b/c they actually made up for my lost 'time' by doing something very nice... something that really made my day! Anyway- here's a few pics from the past few days. I think they uploaded backwards but probably doesn't make a difference to any of you!
Mayci and Elliot doing their version of ring around the rosie.... maybe they just both needed a hug at the time too. ;) *Mayci is still in her 'new' princess pajamas- she loves them even though they're not princess pajamas at all!


Mayci and Daddy after her bath watching Polar Express and having a bedtime snack... (Maddie was at church still)


Random picture of Mayci and I- I would rather not be in pictures but thought this one was cute (of her)!


This one cracks me up... Mayci was laying in a tote turned on it's side (this was her 'fort'), with her hands behind her head, legs crossed, watching Mickey Mouse. How could I not get a picture of those cute little legs!



I thought I'd include this one for a friend who's daughter also ties her shirts off to the side... must be becoming a trend... again!

Quickly...

I have decided to go private with our blog and sent blog invites to those of you faithful readers ;) However, I have had a response that you were unable to log in... sorry! So I will be trying again soon when I have more time and if you can not log in again, please let me know!


Thanks!

Sunday already ?

Crazy how weekends fly by so quickly! As much as I wanted to make it to Mega 80's on Friday- I have to say I enjoyed spending lots of time at home, especially when it's becoming so cold! Friday night we ended up going for dinner at Red Robin (love that honey poppyseed with fries!) and took the girls to Chuck E Cheeses. Random act! We just didn't quite feel like going home so we thought we'd play some games for a while but boy did that go quick. It was packed and truthfully, it made me feel itchy and gross just to be there. (I think the place is germ haven) But we had fun anyway and called it a night.
Saturday I worked for a while and then came home with a migraine/bad headache. That doesn't happen very often but I could barely keep my eyes open this time. I took some Excedrin and laid down for a while, waking up to rambunctious kiddos. I actually felt alot better, enough so to make dinner and cookies. The girls played downstairs and danced around for a while before we put in Kit Kittredge. It was cute... even brought a little tear to my eye at one point! ;) Mayci sat and played Polly's on the couch next to us the ENTIRE time! I was so impressed by that! She didn't really get into the movie but could dress and undress those plastic dolls for hours!
Ryan went out Saturday night after the girls were tucked in to play cards and I ended up talking to a good friend on the phone for a while. Gotta have that sometimes!
Today was church, lunch, and then Maddie had Suzy over for a while. There were some sales at WalMart that Ryan went to check out- actually he offered to go so I could stay home and relax. (I had some stress this weekend that he knew was still bothering me) WalMart is crazy busy on Sundays so I was fine with staying home! Can you believe I passed up shopping ?!!? He knew exactly what to get and honestly, I would have found all that plus more so probably a good thing I stayed home!
I made a pork roast tonight- a recipe worth trying! Brought Suzy home and now have girls in bed. Ahhhh.. Time to cuddle up and chat with my husband.

Maddie and her friend Suzy



Have a good night friends!

Gone

Not my favorite song by any means, but Mads listens to Toby Mac quite a bit. I guess his genre would technically be Christian Rock/HipHop, but very upbeat and what she's into! (She's dancing her little heart out at the moment) Anything is better than Hannah Montana these days!

TOBY MAC- GONE

I told the girl that you should treat her like a lady and
She told me all the things you did and it was shady, man
She said that what you say and what you do are different things
While you were telling me that you were checking out them blingy rings
She said she's had enough
Well, it sounds to me like you're straight out of luck
And she said she's all through
And life's not blowin' her kisses thanks to you
I wanna know, wanna know what you were thinkin'
I can't imagine why it didn't even sink in
They say you never know what you got till it's gone (Never know what you got till it's gone)
I wanna know, wanna know what you were thinkin' I can't imagine why it didn't even sink in They say you never know what you got till it's gone (Never know what you got till it's gone)
She said she's had enough
So, it sounds to me like your still out of love
And she said you weren't true
And life's not blowin' her kisses thanks to you
She said it's gonna be alright
Cause God made a way through the pain and he opened her eyes
And she said you came crawling back
But after what you did to her she wouldn't have any of that

Just somethin' to blog about! We are going to attempt to watch Kit Kittredge as a family, we'll see how long the little Miss Mayci will sit!

Mature content

Alright, we all know the election is over and it's time to move on. The storm will calm and I'm sure there will be economical changes, etc, etc. Blah Blah. I'm not too into politics- I mean we all have a little in us just b/c we have opinions and have a right to rock the vote. But I don't sit and have seemingly endless conversations about it, it's just not me.

I try not to get into views with everyone- I don't know enough about either party. I know basics. I've tried to have conversations with Ryan and watched debates, and thought- well I kinda like Obama's ideas better, honestly. So I went on with this for a while. Selfishly.

A few weeks back Maddie said they were going to be voting at Roosevelt. She said she heard something about Obama but didn't believe it. She said she heard Obama let's you get rid of your baby if you don't want it. (I know this is similar to Lynette's story, but true and coincidental nonetheless). She couldn't believe someone would ever do that. How could someone just get rid of the their baby?!?! She went on and on- so obviously it intrigued her and even though she didn't want to believe it, she sort of did. It bothered her. I tried so hard to keep my mouth shut! I was crossing my fingers that we were NOT going to have this conversation, not now. But if she doesn't get answers from me, who else would she ask??

So, I told her the truth. Ugh! Not the blunt harsh truth, but how else do you explain it. I told her the proper term, gave her a sensitively mature explanation and reminded her God specifically forbids us to ever do that. Her reply, exactly-'that's the most horrible thing I've ever heard'... and there was silence. There is no 'nice' way to explain abortion.

Enough said. I had a complete change of heart. I was choked up to say the least. What a sensitive subject. She's going to hear things at school, I can't prevent that. I'm so glad she came to me about it and was so incredibly mature. I know she has no business knowing this kind of stuff but I would rather her be educated, than clueless. Sorry for those who don't agree and think I was a terrible mother! **edit to original: ok, maybe not so much a terrible mother... that doesn't sound right, more of- I gave her some serious info that I wasnt' planning on doing until much later in life! ;)

Forgetfulness and Halloween

So- alarm goes off at 8:03am (random I know but that's what I set it to) I hit snooze, laid in bed- wishing I could have just 20 more minutes. Before I knew it, alarm was going off again. Snooze. Ugh, I really, really don't want to get up. Everyone else is asleep. But I had to leave by 9:20 to have time to grab a coffee and make it to Sunday School in enough time to figure out the lesson and at least make it look like I know what I'm doing! ;) . So I do my norm- shower, get Maddie up and ready, get myself ready, change Mayci, Ryan makes breakfast, I remote start my truck (little chilly) and I'm heading out the door- feeling a little rushed.. 9:23 on my stove clock. I happen to look at my phone to see if any missed calls and.... wait- are you kidding me? It's freaking only 8:30! How could I forget ??? Obviously, we all forgot!!! I have never in my life- unless I was too young to understand- FORGOT that I got to get an extra hour of sleep! Who does that ?!?!?!

On a positive note, I had been meaning to make it to Target one of these Sunday mornings before church to pick up a Wii for our kids for Christmas (shh, it's a secret!), but we're always so darn busy that I haven't got around to it. This was a great opportunity! I called Target to make sure they had them and yep, got 40 and had 10 Wii Fits left. So I book it out the door, get to Target, get the Wii (those things are ridiculously expensive) but Wii fits are gone. No big deal, it wasn't what I truly went there for but would have picked it up if they had it. I felt bad that the lady behind me in line- yes there was a line at the electronics desk- was NOT happy they sold their last Wii Fit 5 minutes prior when she too had called a few minutes before coming. Whaddya do though? Apparently they go quick. Overall, for not getting my extra hour of sleep I am thrilled I have this done and can move on!

Anyway, hope you all had a fun Halloween! Halloween night we picked up dinner and met some friends at their house. The kids were so excited to trick or treat, we were at our candy or bust destination by 6ish! The little ones were adorable trying to keep up, say trick or treat, and thank you's. Last year, Mayci was too young and didn't quite get the concept but loved it this year!
Here's a couple pics:

*for those of you wondering what Maddie was- she dressed up as an old lady with silver/gray hair and a cane. She played the part well when she wanted to. ;)


The kids before heading out.
Madison, Mayci, Elliot, and Bailey. (Landon was at a party)



Mayci and Elliot enjoyed throwing the leaves around! They are so sweet together. Ryan and I were laughing that night, I don't remember what they/we were doing, but Mayci and E were having some sort of conversation about something, just the two of them, and it was so stinkin' cute. So sweet, innocent, and pure at 2! (sometimes)



Just a funny picture of my little kitty.

Hope you had a great weekend and enjoyed the beautiful weather!