Cleaning out the Camera

I cleaned out the camera to make room for pictures from todays Halloween parade and parties at school. I found pictures of this nasty gummy hand that Grammy sent the kids. It even has crunchy bones in it.

Maddi was the only brave soul in our house to eat such grossness.

The worst part was when she'd take a bite you could really hear the candy bones crunching inside and the gummy part sounded so squishy. I get grossed out hearing people eat in general, so hearing my sweet girl eat a hand was really pretty gross.

Another item found on my camera was Maddi's choir performance. Our church has Awana's on Sunday nights that the kids went to last year but this year Maddi is too old for Sunday night Awana's. She would have to go on Wednesday night and that doesn't work with our schedule, so she goes to children's choir on Sunday night while Cade goes to Awanas. Maddi has always loved singing so it works out well that she's able to do choir while Cade is in Awanas. They had their first program on October 18th and it was really cute.

Maddi is always singing songs and just like her mommma, she sings the wrong words. It's really funny. How can that be hereditary? She was singing her choir songs a lot before the performance and I think Emalyn heard her singing because each performance (there were 4 and I went to 3 of them) as soon as the kids would start singing Emalyn would go crazy in my belly. I think she will like to hear Maddi singing the songs after she is born.

More pics to come with parades, parties, Maddi's bday, trick or treat and belly pics. 7 days until Miss Emalyn is evicted from my uterus!

Maddi's 9th Bday party

WARNING!!! PICTURE OVERLOAD...Remember that this blog is my way of scrapbooking/documenting our lives so lots of pictures in this post!

Maddi's bday is October 30th, but we had her party early this year since I'll be induced November 5th. I was hoping this party of 12 girls painting aprons, making and decorating cakes and a scavenger hunt would put me in labor, but...no such luck! Maddi said it was her favorite party ever, which I think she says every year, and she didn't cry. My kids always follow the theme of "it's my party, I can cry if I want to." All of the girls were very sweet and they all seemed to have a blast. We haven't had a party at home in a very long time and I tried my best to convince her to have it at a place instead of home but this is what she wanted and I have to say it wasn't bad at all. 8 and 9 year old girls are a good group to have for an at home party. Something tells me that 12 of Cade's friends would have been much more chaotic. Anyway...here it goes....

The almost 9 year old birthday girl, Maddison Shea!!!

We tried and tried to get a normal picture of Cade, but this is the way he acted so this is the way we'll remember him....

Maddi loving on her baby sister Emalyn. I'm a little over 36 weeks here and a little less than 3 weeks from inducement. Woo hoo!!!

Brett was showing Maddi that no matter how old she is that she's still his baby girl and he can still throw her around.

Where has the time gone??? Our "baby Maddi girl" is all grown up! She is such a beautiful girl inside and out and we couldn't be more proud of her. We love you so much Shea Shea!

First on the agenda at the party was painting, jeweling and glittering aprons. Brett was in charge of the glue gun and helping them put their jewels on while I had the girls come over and add the ingredients for the cake mixes.

After all the aprons were decorated and the cakes were in the oven, it was time for a scavenger hunt around the neighborhood. Brett with his group.

Our neighbor, Brendan, and his group for the scavenger hunt. This group won by a few minutes, but both groups got everything on their list. They had to get things like...year 2000 penny, party hat, plastic spider, orange paper, Christmas card, snickers candy bar, etc. They had a blast and everyone came back worn out from racing around trying to beat each other back to our house.

Next up...cake time!

Make a wish Maddi...and please don't wish for a baby sister again this year. Ha! Apparently Maddi has wished for a baby sister all these years and her wish has been granted...almost!

Maddi with some of her bffs, Grace and Maddie.

Aly, Olivia, Abby and Hanna.

Hannah, Maria, and Lauren.
Cade and Jane. Cade was the only boy and he had made an arrangement with a friend to got to his house instead of coming to the party, but he changed his mind last week and decided he wanted to come to the party even if he was the only boy. I think he enjoyed pestering all the girls.
After cake it was time for presents....

The girls said they were worn out and they all enjoyed the reclining chairs during present time.

After presents they played a few games of charades, telephone, and freeze dance. Check out the video of freeze dance at the bottom of the post. Crazy, fun girls!

Maddi was teaching them how to "pop".

The cakes were finally cooled off and it was time for the decorating to begin. It made my teeth hurt to look at some of them because they had so much icing, sprinkles, and candy piled on.
They were having a great time making their Halloween themed cakes.

Maddi and Maddie actually took their time and tried to make theirs look nice and not just throw on as much candy and sprinkles as they could.

I forgot about them wearing their aprons until they were almost finished decorating the cakes. The whole point of making the aprons was to keep their clothes clean while decorating cakes. Oh well, nobody got too messy without the aprons.

Some serious cake decorators in action...

Cade with his finished masterpiece. The finished cakes and aprons were their party favors to take home. We finished with about 10 minutes to spare so the girls played in the basement, Maddi showed them all the nursery and her room and then the party was over. Happy 9th Birthday Maddi!!!!

Two things about this video...First, the kid coughing up his lung at the beginning is Cade. Poor guy has had a really bad fall so far with his asthma. Second, please don't ask what my freak for a son was doing in this video. I think all the girls made him go crazy. Not a way to impress those girls, my dear...

Dinos at the Zoo

The weather wasn't exactly perfect for the zoo but we ventured out anyway because we had free passes for the zoo and the dinosaurs alive exhibit that was leaving at the end of the month. It was sunny with a high of 48, so not too cold, but not exactly warm. That's October in Chicago for you. Warm is just a memory at this point... We thought the huge pumpkin was pretty cool. It weighed 1,311 pounds. Crazy! None of us are really "into" dinosaurs, but it was pretty cool to walk through and see how big they really were. Apparently they've changed some of the names of the dinosaurs since we learned about them years ago. The one behind them we used to call a stegosaurus but it has some weird new name now. Whatever... I thought these were brontosaurus but not anymore! This was the mom with her baby so this is me with my babies. I thought it was pretty funny that one of the dinosaurs lay their eggs while they are walking and that's that. They don't make a nest and sit on them, care for them when they are born, or anything. Thankfully the T-Rex hasn't changed it's name. It was huge! This was a cute little Alaskan Brown Bear resting in the sun. The brown bear next to it was swimming in the pool. I guess those Alaskan bears think the 40s is great swimming weather. There's a video of the bear at the bottom of the post. Of course we had to visit our cousins in the primate exhibit! Cade's uncle. We watched these for about 20 minutes. They were so active and entertaining playing with paper, eating and stealing hay from each other and just climbing around. On our way out of the zoo we saw a random peacock walking around. Never seen one walking around before. Not sure if it escaped or what but it seemed scared of us and walked really fast when we came around so I'm thinking it escaped. We didn't stay at the zoo very long, but we had a good time.

Sweet Seniors

I teach a Seniors of Steel class on Monday mornings with some very sweet "Senior Citizens". They told me last week that this week they didn't want to exercise, they just wanted to have a party for me. It worked out perfect that it was Columbus Day because the kids were out of school so they were invited to come too. They enjoyed the cinnamon rolls, cake, fruit and punch and then Cade wanted to go back to child care to play. Maddi stuck around and visited with the "grandmas". They gave us a gift card to Babies R Us so we could choose what we wanted/needed.


Here is the clan. I look like a giant compared to all these ladies! I enjoy seeing them every Monday and hearing all about their weekends, grandkids, etc. and they enjoy hearing about my family. Since I don't have any grandparents living, it's nice to have some other grandmas in my life!

Funny Kids

Just a few funny things from the kids lately. Here they are showing off their pregnant bellies like their mama. Cade only let me get his pic if I said I wouldn't put it on the blog. Sorry Cade, but I think the picture is cute and had to put it up.

The other day in the car Cade said he wasn't sure he wanted to be a Lego for Halloween anymore because someone at school laughed at him when he said he wanted to be a lego. Maddi was so mad at the kid for laughing so she said, "what's the kids name who laughed at you?" Cade told her who it was and Maddi said, "you tell Devin that you have a big sister and she'll beat you up for laughing at me." She was so serious too that she wanted to beat that kid up. It's good to know that they do actually love and care about each other even with all of the argueing they can do too!

"Walter the Farting Dog goes on a Cruise" is the book that Cade brought home from the library today. I had the joy of reading it with him before bed tonight. He thought it was so funny and I couldn't help but think it was so strange. I think Brett and Cade would have enjoyed reading this book together more but Brett was picking up Maddi from dance so I tried to find the humor in it and enjoy it with Cade.

I have been really bad about taking pictures lately but we've been busy with Cade's soccer games, Maddi's dance, and birthday parties. Both of the kids have had birthday parties for the past few weekends and still have more parties this month, including Maddi's bday party.

That's all for now.