Madison's Birthday. . .and Brian had one too!

The highlight of the month so far has definitely been Madison's 1st birthday party. We held it at our home on Monday the 10th and combined it with playgroup. Aunt Brittani came over early that morning and set up a lot of the decorations!

Brian brought some butcher paper home from school for the kids to draw on. It was a big hit until we realized most of the kids were eating the crayons!

Linsay made another impressive masterpiece! The flower cake matched her decorations perfectly and everyone loved it! (Linsay I think you may have some business coming your way!)

I love the next few pictures demonstrating her stages of emotion during the present opening portion of the party. Here she is very excited and clapping at the sight of all the presents!

Realizing all the kids swarming to help with the process, she soon became very possessive! I can't believe how evil she looks here.

Like most children, her attention span does not last very long and soon she was tired of opening presents. She must be crazy-presents are the best!

Here are a few pictures of all the guests:

After lots of fun with all the kids and opening presents, Madison's favorite part arrived: Cake and ice cream. At first she had to scope it out and make sure this was really happening-I never let her eat a whole tray of sweets!

As soon as the realization sunk in, she was in heaven!

And the best part: Grandma came and played with me for four days!

And the day before we celebrated Brian's 26th birthday! Now just because his portion of the post is only two pictures doesn't mean that we weren't super excited but Brian hates having the spotlight and a dinner was all that I was allowed to do. Regardless, we had a lot of fun and enjoyed having a lot of our family there and awesome friends and neighbors-Marcie and Jamis! (We miss you tons!)

Brian enjoyed helping Madison practice for the big party except we let her go to town on fruit salad instead of sweets!

Family Pictures!

We FINALLY got in to do family pictures this weekend. They turned out pretty good. Here was one of the pictures we liked.

We ended up choosing this one!

And that was about all Madison was in the mood for. This was the closest thing to a smile we could get, so we'll be going back in a week or two for her one year pictures.

Thanksgiving!

I figured I should probably go ahead and post our Thanksgiving vacation before Christmas arrives, so here is a quick recap of our trip to the Ranch!

Madison and I had some bonding time on the trip down. It was good practice for our 13 hour drive we'll be making for Christmas.

The kids were great sports and endured the cold better than I expected. Some of their activities included:

Madison practicing walking (more my idea than hers-it just seemed like more fun than crawling and eating dirt).

Eric and Madison loved the rocking horse Grandma has down at the ranch. (I think Eric preferred the four wheelers though!)

We bundled them up in a wagon and they loved the bumpy ride. Both were constantly trying to dance as well as jump out!

We kept pretty busy keeping them entertained while the men were busy hunting and working on different feeders and cooking the acquired game!

Here Brian demonstrates the precision used in hunting with a bow

His form paid off and I was impressed to learn that he killed an 8 point buck with his bow. He also shot two turkeys and a pig with his rifle.

Here we are cleaning the turkeys. I agreed to help pluck the feathers but that was about as far as my service was extended!

And then we feasted! Harold deep-fried a delicious turkey and we also ate some of the pig that grandpa cooked in a pit underground. It was so tender!

And the best part about Thanksgiving was that it was also Jamie's birthday! It was so much fun driving around the ranch following the scavenger hunt Paul planned with her gifts.

Jolynne brought a yummy cake and Jamie opened all her gifts. She is demonstrating her delight of finding several dollar bills in a box [one of my favorite gifts if anyone feels like being generous :) ]

On a more serious note though, this vacation was so much fun because we truly got to be surrounded by nature and ponder all the wonderful blessings that we have.

And here are two of the greatest blessings in my life. I am so thankful for Brian and the extremely caring and considerate husband he is. I am so grateful for Madison and the blessings as well as patience that I have gained from being a mother. They are so amazing!

And we are so thankful for our FAMILY! We sure did miss seeing my parents and are very thankful for them. The Black's and Smith's are also amazing and it was so much fun making memories with them as well as being uplifted by each of them. I was especially grateful for the devotional that Jamie and Paul gave on changing our lives by pondering the decisions we make. I have been blessed this past week as I have tried to change my choices from just good and better to best and have already noticed a change in my attitude and overall happiness! Thanks also to Jolynne and Hal for making everything possible-you are so very generous to our family and we are so thankful for all you do!

Hope everyone is enjoying this holiday season and may we each remember the Lord's hand in our lives!

Our Little Lady Bug!

This past Saturday was so crazy! We started the day by going to the gun show (I go for the yummy jerky) and looked at all the booths, including jewelry! Jamie and I went to Rachel Bassett's baby shower after that and had a lot of fun, Christine did an awesome job. Then we headed to the Halloween Party at church. There was lots of yummy soup and so many awesome costumes!

Madison and I are posing with our neighbors Chuck and Madi (she is the cutie that I babysit).

Marcie is so awesome with all the kids, she always hauls Madison around for me (not to mention she made the adorable lady bug costume Madison is wearing!) I couldn't believe how Daniel looks like he is the same age or older than Madison-I love big babies!

After the party, we went over to Brittani's to celebrate her birthday. Madison had fun posing in front of the pumpkins.

This is my favorite picture. I just picture her saying "Life is easy when you are young and beautiful!"

And here is the birthday girl! I can't believe that you are 21 now Brittani! We are so excited about her getting into nursing school so she'll be here with us through dental school. After her party, we stopped by the Konkle's pie night which was also a blast. I ate way too much pie but who could pass up having 10 different selections? It was so fun hanging out around the fire and enjoying everyone's company. Overall, a very fun day but I don't think I want to be that busy again for awhile!

Murder Mystery Party

Friday night we went to our first Murder Mystery Party. Marcie and Jamis Charles hosted it at their apartment and did an amazing job organizing everything. The setting dated back to 1940 as WWII was approaching and each of the characters were invited to escape Paris on a government train heading to Southern France. Everyone showed up dressed to impress as we began four rounds of accusing and denying each other's clues. Between each round was a course of food-my favorite part! and then there was a final accusations round where everyone guessed who the murderer was. And the criminal was. . . . . . . . .ME! I didn't find out until the fourth round and was excited to learn that I am better at hiding emotions and deceiving than I thought. It was tons of fun-thanks so much Marcie and Jamis-I think I may have to host one some day.

Brian and I played the parts of Capt. Wey (a pilot of renown) and Idelle (princess of the ancient and noble Chattre family).

Melissa and Aaron Wood played the characters of Mal (a soldier of fortune) and Mary (a journalist for a newspaper)

Quintin and Jill played the parts of Khover (A worldly businessman) and Belinda (a famous designer).

And the wonderful hosts acted the parts of Duke Klare (a military leader of a small nation) and Barbra (a rich and spoiled daughter of a French perfume king).

Daddy-Mommy Time!

Brian and I went away for our first night alone together without Madison last week. We went up to his family's ranch near Rock Springs and watched the animals come in for the evening hunt (Brian went for the morning as well but I stayed in bed). We initially went up to try and find Brent's deer that he shot last weekend that they never found but had no luck as well. It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed the time together. I was a little disappointed that Brian didn't shoot anything, but he had to get back for school. Thanks again Jamie for watching Madison!

Daddy-Daughter Time

I love this picture of Madison and Brian. Brian has done an amazing job at finding time to help out lately-I'm so greatful for him and everything he does for our family. Here they are cuddling at Brittani's house.

More Daddy time also means more messes for me to clean up. It is so amazing to me how messy she gets when he feeds her. I think her expression says it all! Mess or no mess-it sure is nice to get a break every once in a while. Thanks for all your help lately Brian!

Halloween Fun!

This past weekend we went to the Bassett's to carve pumpkins and see their beautiful new home (I am so jealous-I love your kitchen Rachel). Here I am carving the pumpkin! It really wasn't as tedious as I thought it would be (then again I chose like the easiest design there was)!

Here are a few of the finished products. Mine is the furthest on the right. I had to blog this once I read a comment Jaime posted about it reminding her of Edward and Bella-that is right Jaime. Once I saw it I immediately thought of my latest addiction and had to have something in my house to remind me of EDWARD!

Here is a picture of it in the light-it looks a little more clear (I think?).

And here is the whole crew that came out for the fun. Thanks for having us over Rachel & Jed! We really had a lot of fun and enjoyed all the yummy snacks! (P.S. I wanted to give a shout out to Jamie S. for the pictures-I didn't have my camera so this post is made possible because of her & Lyssa. Thanks again).