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!