California- Disneyland

Bill has been busy studying on the computer for 8-9 hours a day for the past few weeks so I'm a little behind on the blog. These pictures are late, but this is from our trip to CA about a month ago. We had a great time at Disneyland with our cousins. The first thing we saw was the Main Street Parade. My girls were mesmerized! We only rode a few rides, but Madisen still talks about "Yesterday when we went to Disneyland". Her favorite rides were the teacups & Dumbo.

{Check out these happy dads!}

{Aunt Christy actually volunteered to carry Caitlyn for a while.}

{Of course, we're in a PINK tea cup!}

{Madisen wanted to ride by herself!}

{Caitlyn was in heaven!}

{Aunt Karlea & cousin Connor}

California: At the Beach

A few weeks ago we spent a week at the beach just relaxing. Enjoy these pictures & try to transform yourself there. There's something therapeutic about the sound of the waves crashing on the sand, being around all of the GREEN trees, and smelling the ocean. It was a great final get away before life as we know it resumed.

{Madisen & I got to celebrate our birthday's early- lucky us!}

{Madisen was happy to have G.G. (great grandma) read her a few books}

{Madisen & Matthew had so much fun racing up & down the hill}

{Singing to the seagulls}

{Check out those white boys!}

{G.G. in the background really enjoyed watching the kidos}

{They loved the sand!}

{The famous crawl.}

{Caitlyn loved splashing around.}

{My three favorite people!!}

{Coming out of her first official swim in the ocean.}

{Madisen thought it was so fun to have the waves splash her!
I've never heard her laugh so hard.}

Dancin' Girl

These pictures speak for themselves! I had to share because she just LOVES to dance. She asks for music on the 'puter' and then she just rocks out. Sometimes we're lucky and she sings, too.

Happy Birthday

I have to post these pictures. My sweet husband and children put on the sweetest little 'party' for me this morning. When I got home from my walk, I was welcomed at the door by them wishing me a Happy Birthday and the smell of waffles and bacon filled our house. This is what I found at my place at the table. Bill baked cupcakes in ice cream cones & decorated them after I went to bed last night. He even cleaned up every lick of evidence because when I woke up with Caitlyn in the middle of the night there was nothing to make me suspicious. I'm so lucky to have him! He is so sweet & thoughtful!

Tonight he babysat the girls while I attended enrichment. It was fabulous and inspiring! The speaker is a school psychologist who also owns a children's bookstore. She strongly believes in using books to teach & enrich our children. A sad fact: In the 1960's when students graduated from high school they had a vocabulary of 25,000 words. The average high school graduate now has a vocabulary of 10,000 words. What a tragedy! She recommend some great books for moms & children. If you'd like to know any of them, I'd be happy to share.

The best news of my birthday is that my sister had her baby tonight! I got the text that Caden Lane Scherbel was born at 10:35 p.m. weighing in at 8 lbs. 2 oz. and 20 inches long. Mom and baby are doing well.

The Neighborhood Express

We have these fun friends in our neighborhood with crazy, inventive ideas! Kate was in charge of pack meeting for boy scouts this month & the theme was trains. As you can see, she & her husband decided to make a train that the boys could take turns riding at pack meeting. Zack worked hard to create this 10 car train that he pulls behind his 4-wheeler, sadly the pictures don't do it justice. The kids in our neighborhood got to be the help out with the dry runs. Kate said that Madisen's face was going to fall off because she was smiling so hard during her ride!

10 Months

On Saturday Caitlyn turned 10 months, the same day that she discovered the toilet paper. Wow was she ever pleased with herself! Sadly, she also discovered the toilet bowl brush in the corner so now we keep the door closed. As I mentioned before she LOVES the stairs, but hasn't mastered coming down. She also stands up to furniture & has started to let go occasionally and stand on her own. One of my favorite things about Caitlyn right now is that she just adores Madisen! On Tuesday at Madisen's dance class, Caitlyn REALLY wanted to participate and kept crawling toward the girls. On Sundays, we sit on the 2nd row at church and she always heads straight to the steps to get on the stand- it's time to relocate 'our seat'. She has also decided that she only needs one nap during the day, and she even protests at that, but I'm still the mom. Caitlyn has also got an opinion about baby food- and that was so yesterday! My challenge is finding the right things to feed her since she has only 2 small teeth. We sure love this girl!!

Looking Better

This picture was taken yesterday morning. Her eye is starting to look better. It's more yellow now, & less purple. Madisen knows what to say now if people ask what happened. She tells them it's blood flowing down.