More McDonald Clan Fun

This is a continuation of the McDonald clan visit this past weekend. Saturday Cade had a football game and I have no pictures from it (way to go, Pam). He recovered a fumble on the kickoff return team and he was so proud and excited that so much of his family was there to see it. If they win their game this weekend, they'll be in the playoffs. If they loose, there is still a chance they'll be in the playoffs. Does that make me a bad mom to kind of hope they loose so football will be over? It's just that it's getting so cold at practice and I'm ready to have nights at home.

After football we headed back to the house and had a cookout. Sunday was Janet's birthday so we celebrated Saturday night. Happy Birthday Janet! The kids are lucky to have such a good Grammy and I'm lucky to have such a sweet mother-in-law.

The neighbors came over to join in the celebration. The kids were loving their cookie cake, birthday cake, ice cream, cupcake and grape on top. We didn't have cherries, so Janet and I tricked them and put a grape on top....you know, just to make it healthy!

Sara's cousins live in the city so they came out to the 'burbs with their boyfriends for a visit. It was fun to see Courtney and Kim again. They were refugees from Hurricane Katrina with Joel and Sara a few years ago and they'd come over and swim at our neighborhood pool so we got to know them pretty well.

The kids were having a dance party outside with the Shrek soundtrack on the ipod. They had lots of sugar to burn off!

The dance party ended because there were too many misquitos and the kids moved to the basement and had a blast playing school. As you can see, Maddi is the teacher and Cade is raising his hand to speak. So cute!

We were watching them from outside the window well and were taking pictures of them. Brett got in the window well and gave them the scare of their lives when he knocked on the window. They all jumped and then were cracking up once they realized it was just Brett.

Before the McDonald clan left on Sunday, Grammy taught them how to "smoke" bubble gum. Remember the gum with powder you can blow? Leave it to Grammy to teach them such a thing! Grace was more interested in eating the gum and paper than blowing smoke.

Even baby Will was "smoking". How horrible is that?!? We had a great visit with Joel, Sara, Grace, Will, Janet, Todd and Rebecca. Thanks for making the trip to see us and you're welcome back any time!

Fun with the Whole Clan!

Thursday afternoon the whole McDonald clan arrived from Dallas. It was Brett's brother Joel and wife Sara and children Grace and Will. Also Brett's brother Todd, sister Rebecca, and mom Janet. Soon after they got to our house it was time to get the kids from school. Maddi and Cade were so excited to see them. Grammy and Rebecca earned major brownie points from Maddi because they went to watch her at dance. It's a new temporary studio so there is no waiting room and Maddi's class was on the side of the studio without anywhere to watch so Grammy and Becca sat outside in folding chairs watching Maddi through the window. Do they love Maddi, or what?!?

Uncle Blond Todd went to watch Cade at football practice and endured getting eating by bugs. Does he love Cade, or what?!?

Joel, Sara, Will and Grace stayed home and took much needed naps :) That night we ate tacos and enjoyed each other's company.

Grammy brought crafts for the kids, of course. Maddi was working on painting rings for everyone. Grace was playing in water and pretending to do crafts.

Aunt Rebecca helped Cade make a glow in the dark super bouncy ball. The kids got to stay up late because they played hookey from school Friday to take a field trip to the city with the McDonald crew.

I had fun bonding with my newest nephew, Will, on the train ride. He is such a sweet baby and is getting to the fun smiley age of 2 months. I love cuddling on babies, and I love that I can give them back to their parents when they're fussy, need new diapers, and wake at night.

Rebecca got stuck with the kids on the train ride. Cade played DS most of the way, Maddi played with Grace and Will and Grace was a typical 2 year old on the move. The funniest thing about Grace is that she calls her mom Sara. Really she says Sa-Wa! Sometimes she calls her mom, but usually it's Sa-Wa and she says it louder and louder until Sara comes to her. Too cute!

Brett and Todd chilled out kid-free on the train ride.

Once we got to the city we headed over to Pizzaria Due for some deep dish pizza. It takes 45 mintues to cook a deep dish so Joel took the kids outside to burn off some energy. Our table was in the basement and right by the window so the kids had fun entertaining us while waiting for the food.

Cade tried to take a ride in the stroller while Grace was getting a diaper change. He's way too big, but he enjoyed taking a little rest anyway.

After lunch we headed to water tower and then the park behind water tower. All the kids, young and old, had fun playing at the park.

The McDonald boys, Todd, Brett with Cade, and Joel with baby Will.

Aunt Becca is so much fun! Grace was loving the opportunity to run free and be a two year old.

Of course we had to take the clan to visit Millenium Park and gets some photos with the bean!

Cousins-Cade, Grace, Maddi and sleeping Will.

An attempt at a McDonald family self portrait.

Don't know if this swing sculpture is new or not at Millenium Park but it's the first time we noticed it. The kids jumped right in and wanted a push on the swing. Very cool!

To finish the night Grammy treated the girls to manicures and pedicures. Maddi loves getting her nails done with Grammy. Grammy has taken Maddi to get her nails done for holidays or anytime she was visiting since Maddi was 2. Maddi has always been very patient and would sit still at a young age to get beautified. She's such a girly-girl and her Grammy loves having a girly-girl to do girl stuff with! That was the end of Friday. Everyone went to bed worn out tired from all the trains, buses, walking and eating in the city.

More pics of the weekend to come!

Apple Orchard

It was a beautiful Saturday and we headed west to an apple orchard. We forget that other than the city of Chicago, pretty much all there is in Illinois is field after field of corn, soy beans, and some apple orchards and pumpkin farms. We had a blast doing all kinds of fun things at the orchard including eating caramel apples and apple cider donuts and much more.

Does this picture remind you of The Incredible Shrinking Woman movie? Do you remember that movie? I was cracking up when I saw this picture. We look ridiculously small and strange!

Fun belly slide!

This "no left turn maze" was fun for Brett and I. The kids didn't quite get it and were getting frustrated.

This was one of my favorite things. It was a silo filled with corn. After watching the kids play, I decided to join them in the corn. It felt really weird and cool. Not a fan of sand boxes, but it was like a sand box but it didn't stick to you.

Children of the corn!

I helped Maddi bury her legs in corn. So much more fun than burrying someone in sand if you ask me. I don't know, after seeing so much corn I don't feel like I want popcorn or corn on the cob for a while.

Cade in the corn.

Brett helping Cade pump the water to send the duck down the chute to Maddi. They played at the water thing for a while pumping water sending the duck back and forth to each other.

An old schoolhouse barn with a slide coming out the side.

One of the kids favorite things was riding the apple train. A tractor pulled them around and drove them in circles and zig zagged along by the apple trees.

The sun was so bright...not a great picture, but it was a cute setting for a photo. After the picture we went through the corn maze. The camera battery was dying and I wanted to save some battery for apple picking pictures, so no pics from the maze. It was a HUGE maze. They gave us a map with the maze to help us find our way. I wanted to wing it and just have fun with it. Brett wanted to be the engi-nerd that he is and follow the map to a tee and not take a chance of getting lost. Of course if we did it my way, we'd get lost and I wouldn't really care and eventually we'd find our way out. But Brett convinced us that it was such a big maze and we were already worn out and hot and it would be better to use the map. It was still fun following the map, but it's just not as fun as getting lost and doing it your own way. Brett and I realized that's just the way we are...we each take our own paths to get to the same place. Brett's is usually a straight, narrow, and efficient path and mine, well...not so much!

Picking the apples was fun. They had a schedule of what types were ripe and there were ribbons on the aisles we could pick from. We'd pick an apple and taste it to see if we liked the flavor and then we'd pick the apples we wanted. I was really hoping Cade's front tooth would fall out after biting into so many apples. No such luck. That funky tooth is still hanging funky in his mouth!

Both of the kids had a great time picking the perfect apples and were quite proud of the ones they picked. After tasting quite a few apples and eating several apple cider donuts and a caramel apple, we were appled out and headed home. Maddi is going to help me make apple bread this week. mmmm....

Brett and I were waiting for the kids to ride the apple train ride one last time before heading home and we decided to cool off in the shade of an apple tree. It's so nice that the kids are big enough to wait in line themselves and get on and off the ride themselves and we can sit back and watch!

When we got home from the apple orchard, I mentioned to Brett that I'd like to move a tree from the front to the back. As if he wasn't worn out enough from the day he grabbed his shovel and started digging it up and he and Maddi dug a hole for it out back. Brett tried getting Cade to help, but he wanted nothing to do with it. Maddi loved every minute of it. It was a fun bonding experience for daddy and Maddi.

6 for Saturday

1. I am so glad we finally let Cade get a Nintendo DS for his birthday. We were at the doctors for an hour getting allergy shots. Not one peep from Cade. Went to the dance store to get tap shoes...not one peep from Cade. He didn't even complain that we were going those places, he just asked if they'll have a chair for him to sit in. The DS is worth every penny because it saves my sanity!

2. Allergy shots went really well. Maddi was very nervous but while we were waiting a friend of hers from dance, Bridget, walked in for her shots too. She is in 6th grade so she was very sweet to Maddi and told her all about it. Bridget has been doing shots for a year so she is a seasoned pro. Maddi had the same nurse she had Saturday for the 8 shots and she is super sweet. I imagine she wasn't so thrilled when she pulled Maddi's chart again, but it went much better this time. She didn't even feel the first one. Maddi told the nurse to count to 3 on the next one and she felt that one so next time the nurse won't count and we'll see if Maddi feels them. Maddi went with Bridget to watch her get her shots (Maddi gets 2 and Bridget gets 4) and they got their arms checked together before we could leave. Bridget also has diabetis and wears an insulin pump and she has severe food allergies like peanuts and she gets allergy shots and she is the happiest sweetest girl, you'd never know anything is wrong with her. It was good for Maddi to realize that other people she knows have it worse than her.

3. I did my first substitute teaching this week. I did 2nd and 5th grade in the afternoons on Wed. and Thurs. The 2nd graders are so sweet....makes me remember why I loved teaching. As soon as I walked in they were like, "you're pretty", "you're nice" and giving me hugs. I was very scared of 5th grade, but they were really good. They're like little kids in big bodies. Still not my favorite grade, but it went really well. Both classes pegged me for being from the south. They thought it was pretty funny that I say y'all. I told them I think they talk funny too so that's ok for them to think I talk funny. Most people are so surprised that we don't sound like twangy Texans but I guess I said y'all too many times that they caught on.

4. I hate deciding what we'll have for dinner each night so I decided to put some chicken and velveeta in the crock pot and was glad that we'd have dinner waiting for us Wednesday night after football. I had it cooking for about and hour and went to stir it only to find it was still ice cold. Darn crockpot broke! Then I was back to square one...what will we eat for dinner tonight? I bought a new crockpot and I cooked it on Thursday. Hate when those electronics just stop working all of a sudden!

5. Maddi and her boys craziness....we finally got Cade's football pics and she wants to hang the group pic in her room so she can see the boy she has a crush on. She wants to invite him to her birthday but she's never even talked to the boy! She wants Cade to ask him if his family can come have ice cream with us and then she can tell him she's in love with him and ask him to come to her party. I'm sure the 4th grade boy is really interested in coming to a random 2nd grade girls bday party! She's shy and softspoken until you get to know her, but she's not shy at all around boys. HELP!!!

6. Our basement is clean! If you've seen our basement lately, you know it looked like a bomb went off. Last Sunday we had a little leak so we went down to check it out and clean up the water. We started cleaning up Legos so they could at least walk and play on the carpet but then that led to cleaning other things which led to buying more storage things which led to a clean basement! We told the kids they didn't have to keep it clean but I didn't think that meant they would NEVER clean up a single thing. Hopefully they'll at least keep it somewhat picked up now that they know how nice it is when it's clean.

What a Day!

Today started out as one of those days that you just want to stay in bed forever. You look at the clock and you aren't sure if it's 7:00 am or pm. It was raining a nice hard rain so it was dark and the raindrops were so soothing. My personal alarm clock (Cade) came in with love for his mommy and then started worrying/whining about football. He has started freaking out about school, football, church, awanas, anything and everything. Drives. me. nuts. Anyway, I had to get out of bed and eat breakfast and get dressed because Maddi had another appointment at the allergist. I woke Maddi up at 8:00 (I'm sure she would have slept until noon if she could have) and it was a struggle every step of the way to get her out the door for her appointment. We are going to start allergy shots this week, but we had to do more testing to make sure she was/wasn't allergic to a few things before starting the shots. Let's just say she was less than thrilled about this appointment. First she refused to get out of the car, then refused to get out of the elevator, then wouldn't go in the office, wouldn't go back when the nurse called her, freaked out when she found she would have 8 shots in her arms (ok, I'd freak out too, but don't tell her) and ran out of the room and down the hallway. Another nurse came in to hold her down to give her the shots but then she decided to cooperate and ended up being such a trooper and such a good girl and let the one nurse give them to her without any trouble. She wasn't allergic to these things and I was happy, but it made Maddi mad because she said she told me she didn't need that test and shots anyway because she knew she wasn't allergic to those things. Keep her in your prayers as we start shots Friday that she will tolerate them well and that in time we will see improvement in her skin and allergies.

So while I'm having all this fun with Maddi, Brett is at home battling Cade every step of the way to get ready for football. It was the kids first full week of school and they both had late nights with friends last night so they are exhausted and it really showed in their moods this morning. Maddi and I met them at the game after the allergist and we were so happy that in the first half we didn't have any rain. Then the skies opened and it rained and it poured and rained and poured. They don't cancel football unless it's lightening. That's why I like dance (it's indoor and it's never cold, hot, rainy, snowy, etc.) Once again, I put my big girl pants on and dealt with the rain even though I'm phobic of getting wet in my clothes. Cade is on the kickoff return team (he's just another player out there, he's not reallly intended to get the ball and return it) and today it came right to him. He picked the ball up and wasn't quite sure what to do. Brett tells him over and over that he's on the kickoff return team and if he happens to get the ball DO NOT run with it, just jump on the ball. So Cade picks up the ball and is standing there like a deer in the headlights and he got pummeled. They knocked him right on his back but he didn't fumble. Yeah Cade! It was really funny. I think if he gets the ball again he'll remember to just jump on the ball. :)

After getting home from football and lunch/dinner Cade had some chill out time with the computer.

Since Maddi was a big girl at the doctor she decided she would like to make cookies for her reward. She loves to help bake and loves decorating/eating cookies so we had fun making the cookies together.

I let Maddi pick out 5 cookie cutters to use so she chose a very random assortment of a flower, butterlfy, ghost, pumpkin and heart. She did the big flower and butterfly, they're so much cuter than the rest of the cookies that I did on that sheet.

I guess Cocoa wanted in on the girl time. She doesn't really beg for people food, but she was trying to get our attention to feed her her dog food. She has been wanting to eat very early at night so she'll go bark at Maddi because she knows Maddi will feed her.

So we got the kids to bed and I showered and was drying my hair. After about 5 seconds of drying, the air went cold on my dryer. I took it to Brett but he told me the heating element is out, so all I can do is get a new dryer. I've warn a pony tail the last two days because it's been so rainy/humid and I just wanted to dry and straighten my hair so I didn't have to have a pony again tomorrow. Brett offered to go to the store to get me another dryer but seriously, have you seen the selection of hair dryers lately? I tried drying my hair (taming my fro as I so affectionately call it) with air, not hot air. Not so good. So I used my flat iron to scorch the rest of my hair dry. Tomorrow I'm going to buy 2 hairdryers so the next time my dryer goes out suddenly I'm prepared!

Today wasn't a bad day, but it's just one of those that you are glad is over. I'm off to watch the updates of the damage in Houston from Ike.

Happy Bday Brettley

Sunday was good ol' Brett's bday. We celebrated his birthday all weekend, as our family tends to do. Saturday we went to lunch at Texas Roadhouse followed by fun at Phillips Park to burn off some calories from all the rolls and butter at lunch. Once we burned enough calories at the park, we were ready for ice cream! Earlier in the morning Cade said his throat hurt when he coughed, while eating ice cream he said it made his throat better, but while walking out from ice cream he said his throat was really starting to hurt. Our Walgreens here have "take care" clinics where you can see a nurse practitioner. The ice cream place was right by Walgreens so we drove on over to get a strep throat swap on Cade. Oh, it was quite a sight. Last time Cade had his throat swabbed was not a pretty picture and it took FOREVER to get him to cooperate. So, this time since Brett was with us we gave him one chance to cooperate and then we held him down to get the throat swab (Brett, me, the assistant, and the nurse were all holding him). Sure enough, the boy has strep!

Since Cade had strep, he couldn't play in his football game Sunday morning, but Brett had volunteered to do the down marker so we went anyway for Cade to watch and support his team. Cade is a very lucky kid, so we had him buy our tickets and rub his good luck all over them for the split the pot raffle. We totally didn't expect to win again since we won last week, but...we WON AGAIN! This time it was $116. Then we went to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings and Cade won the frog he's holding in the picture in the crane game. So after lunch we went to buy a few lottery tickets since Cade's luck is on a roll. Wouldn't you know it, that lucky dog won $10 on his scratch off! Too bad he's too young for Vegas because we'd be on the next plane.

It's so fun to see the kids do things that we did as kids. Maddi is now making friendship bracelets out of string, yarn, whatever you call it. Her friends mom had taught her a fancy way of making them and she was getting frustrated with how it was turning out so I showed her an easier way (leave it to me to show her the easy way out). She promised our neighbor one so she was hard at work making Grace a bracelet. She wanted to make a bracelet for party favors for everyone at her birthday party but after making two bracelets she decided we could buy favors instead!

5 days of school....

So the kids have had school for five days so I have 5 things to report.....



1. Maddi has strep throat! Her friend Maddie H. got it on the second day of school and they sit next to each other, so I figured it was only a matter of time before my Maddi got it. Wouldn't you think that the strep virus in the school would die during the summer?



2. A little boy in Cade's class (I keep callling him Cheeto, but his name is Keato) kept opening and closing his desk over and over (they have desks where the lid opens to get their supplies out). The teacher took all his supplies out and put them on her desk and taped his desk shut! How funny is that? I'm sure it will be a fun year for the teacher with that boy.

3. Cade has turned into a worry wart. Every night before bed he worries about the next day at school. He worries about wanting to cry at lunch (I don't know why) and about being in the right line for after school pick up. He worries that he's not getting enough time to play, and who knows what else. Hopefully at the end of the week he'll be comfortable with being back at school and the routine. He's usually not my worrier, not sure where that came from.

4. Kids say what they think. Maddi had a rash (thought it was eczema, turns out it was scarlet fever rash from strep) on her face and neck. After school a little girl thought Maddi got a sunburn and was peeling. She said if she didn't get it fixed she would look hiteous. My heart broke for Maddi. She was so upset and it was salt in an open wound because she was already so self-consious of her rash/eczema. Sometimes I wish I could keep them in a bubble forever so they would never feel pain or sadness.

5. I feel tardies in our future. No matter what time we get up and start getting ready for school, we just can't make it out the door on time. The goal starting the year was to be out the door at least 15 minutes before school starts so the kids would be relaxed and not start the day stressed out. We've yet to have one of those days. There's always tomorrow....

Love Labor Day

I love Labor Day Weekend. It reminds me of when I was younger and thought that was the day that all the pregnant ladies went into labor. I know, I was one smart kid.....Anyway, we had a great long weekend with lots of eating. Saturday we had a cookout with our neighbors. The kids were chilling under the umbrella chairs while sipping juice boxes.

After dinner the kids had cupcakes and ice cream to celebrate Brett's bday (Sept. 7th) and another dads bday on Sept. 1st. The kids love the cookouts because they get lots of sugar with juiceboxes and desserts.

Sunday morning Cade had another football game. The last few days have been rough on Cade man with starting school again and still having football practice. Thursday on the way to his practice he said he doesn't want to play football anymore but I told him he started the season so he has to finish it. So he said he doesn't want to play next year for sure. Then he said his son won't play football either. I thought, wow, he must really hate it. Then he started crying and said his son can't play because Cade won't know how to teach him to be good at football because he won't know how to play if he doesn't play anymore. Poor guy. They lost the game, but he did really well. The hilight of the game for him was that we won the split the pot raffle. We actually volunteered (we have to do 4 volunteer positions) to sell tickets for the raffle so we walked around selling tickets and we wanted to buy some raffle tickets but so it didn't look fishy if we happened to win, we bought our tickets from the other family who was selling tickets. We were happy to hear our number called and we won $136! After hearing we won Cade decided he would like to keep playing football so we can keep buying tickets and try to win again. That boy and his love for money....

Before the game Cade was whining and complaining about not wanting to get dressed for football so Maddi jumped at the chance to get all the gear on. When he saw Maddi wearing his stuff he wanted her out of it right away so he could put it on. She looks like a w.t. boy doesn't she?

My Maddi girl loves going to the football games so she can see the latest love of her life. She has a crush on a boy on Cade's team. She has never talked to him, but she is in love with him and says she is going to tell him she's in love with him at practice Tuesday. I said he might find that weird for her to tell him that but she said she needs to tell him so he can know she loves him and he can love her back. So I tried to tell her that she isn't in love with him, it's really called a crush. She said, no, she really is in love. Oh, I'm afraid that girl is going to give my poor husband a heart attack. She loves those boys and they sure like her too.

On another fun note with Maddi, we had a funny, sad, whatever moment before bed tonight. She had a friend a while back who helped her make a "fairy house". It was a shoebox with tissues for a bed and I forget what else and Maddi left it outside her door so that a fairy could come at night and write to her and sleep in the box. So she wrote back and forth with the fairy for a while and then the fairy kept forgetting to write to her and Maddi stopped writing the fairy and then one day while I was cleaning I got rid of the fairy house. She never even noticed it was gone. Saturday Maddi decided to make another fairy house so her fairy would come back. Saturday night the fairy didn't come but Sunday night she came and left a note for Maddi. Tonight before bed she wanted me to tell her the truth if I wrote the note and was the fairy or tell her if there really is a fairy. I couldn't keep a straight face. I asked her what she thought happened and I could tell she was on to it.....so.....she now knows the truth about the fairy. She was so excited that I would do that for her so she wants me to keep being the fairy and write to her. Then she wanted to know if I'm the tooth fairy. I said, do you think I'd give you money for your nasty teeth? I don't even like teeth, I just like to pull them out. Maddi girl, you're getting to big and asking too many questions!