Dance with Friends

Maddi had another dance competition this weekend! Once again, Emalyn loved watching the dancing and then fell asleep and slept through all the loud music, yelling and cheering. She was in utero all of last competition season and then was also in utero while I was teaching all of the aerobics classes, so I think she is "at home" with loud music.

Maddi's friend, Maddie, came to watch her dance this weekend. She was so excited to have her friend there to watch her. Here is the crew hanging out while the adults talked about where to go for lunch. Luckily Maddi had 3 dances in a row then a nice break before awards and then another nice break before having to go back for her last dance. We ended up going to Red Robin with both families and had a great time.

Maddi M and Maddie H. Two sweet girls! Maddie H is doing gymnastics pre-team this year and she is thinking of maybe going into dance. My Maddi has talked about wanting to do gymnastics team instead of dance. Maddie's mom would like her to try dance and I would like my Maddi to take a break from dance and try gymnastics team. Ha ha. The grass is always greener, I guess. Of course we aren't pressuring our kids to do anything, we'll let them decide what they want to do (if anything).

Another very sweet girl Maddi dances with, Bridget. This girl has diabetis, celiac disease, is allergic to peanuts, has bad allergies and asthma and has the most positive and bubbly attitude. She is such a nice girl and her family is wonderful too.

Maddi, Cade, Maddie and Gavin at lunch at Red Robin. The look so funny eating the glow in the dark lolli pops they had bought at the dance competition. Maddie's family has decided they are going to adopt a baby girl from China. Well, they are hoping for a 3 or 4 year old, actually. They hope to have a child in 18 months or so.

Another dance weekend down. Next weekend there's no dance or anything so we hope to get some yard work done, we certainly need to!

Dance, Golf and Earth

Last weekend Maddi had a dance competition at Pheasant Run Resort, which is about 30-40 minutes away from us. Brett and Cade enjoyed putting, chipping and going to the driving range while they were waiting for Maddi's dances. This is where she will have Nationals this year too, which is really nice since we won't have to travel and Brett and Cade will have a place to do some "boy" stuff between dances.

This is not a great picture but I had to take it without a flash and I still don't really know much about how to use our camera, but...I wanted to capture Cade's love for his little sister and also Emalyn's fascination with dance. I'm continually amazed at how much Cade loves that baby girl and he just loves holding her and playing with her. Oh, I'm so thankful, because I honestly had no idea how he would react to losing his spot as baby in our family. I also love how Emalyn is so entertained and LOVES being at dance competitions. She tries to take it all in, the music, lights, sparkles, movement on stage, etc.

So glad Brett has a little golfing buddy now!

This is Maddi and McKenzie in their lyrical costume. McKenzie is such a sweet girl.


Had to throw in this random picture of Maddi on Earth Day too! I think her shirt just says everything about Maddi....Save the Earth, it's the Only Planet with Puppies!

Randomness

A whole bunch of randomness that has taken place in the last week.

The kids finally had a lemonade stand with the neighbors last weekend. It was 70 degrees and sunny but very windy. They each made $1.66 so they were happy campers. They are hard workders and even ate their lunch outside. No lunch break for them!

Emalyn had her first taste of peas...

...and she is NOT a fan! I tried mixing some peas into her cereal during the week and she would eat it if I only put a little bit of peas in there. If there was too much peas, she wouldn't eat it. We tried carrots yesterday and she's not a fan of carrots either. She loves her cereal and she makes a "mmmm" sound as she eats it. So cute!

She was happy after I stopped torturing her with peas! I love that baby. I told Brett that I am so sad that she's getting so big. He, of course, replied by saying we could try to have another baby. I said, no way. He then said we could adopt a baby and I again said not a chance. I don't feel the need for any more children in our family, I just want this one to stay little forever.

We always have so many bunnies around. One day Cocoa was barking like crazy and Brett walked over to find this little guy right outside our front window.

Ugh. It's baby bird season again. Our first morning after we got home from Texas I saw a red robin builing a nest. I went to run some errands and came back to find the whole nest built. Later that day I saw some doves in the nest. Each day we'd see doves and red robins around the nest. Well, apparently the doves knocked the robin eggs out of the nest (they were on the ground by the front door all cracked/smashed) and have laid their own eggs. I watched the robin and dove stare at each other for a few minutes and then decided to get the camera to document it. Crazy birds!

This baby just loves her feet!

Cocoa and Emalyn are very curious about each other. I love the way they were checking each other out.

Emalyn showing off her rolling skills. She now rolls from front to back and back to front. I know this only the beginning of the end of life as we know it. Not much longer and we won't be able to leave her alone because she'll be rolling/crawling and getting into things.

Our Last Day in Texas

I'm really behind on blogging lately. Life has taken over since we've gotten back from our trip to Texas. Here are the pictures from our last day in Texas. We started the morning with trying to get some family pics. Getting 5 people to look at the camera, with 2 of them kids (one of those an uncooperative 7 year old boy), and one of them a baby who has no interest in taking pictures, is not an easy task. Here we all are on Omie's back porch swing, which is one of our favorite places to hang out at Omie's house.

Then we tried for some more pictures in the bluebonnetts. It was so sunny that it was very hard to keep your eyes open.

After pictures and loading the car we stopped at the cemetary to visit our loved ones who've gone before us. Babies and children always have a way of making a situation that can be difficult emotionally more light hearted. Right after Brett snapped this picture, I felt something wettish on my hands and found that little Emalyn had messed her diaper, her clothes and even my clothes! Luckily our suitcases were in the car so I had clothes for both of us to change into. I know my dad would get a chuckle at the fact that his littlest grand daughter did this the first time she visited the cemetary.

It breaks my heart that my dad never got to see his grand children and the kids never got to meet such a wonderful man. He would have been the BEST "pa". Oh, how the kids would have loved him! My kids love to hear stories about him and we love to share the stories about him. My dad loved rocks and the kids always like to find rocks to leave for him.

Maddi always likes to find flowers or stuffed animals that have blown out of the vases and she'll put the flowers in a vase that doesn't have flowers. She had found the frog that she was holding in this picture and she ended up putting it in a little babies vase. We always get a lot of questions about death and heaven when we talk about their "Pa" and when we visit the cemetary. I do believe there is a heaven and I can only imagine how awesome it will be when we get there and I can hug my daddy again!

Notice Emalyn is now in a different outfit....we couldn't get her to look at the camera, but here she is with her namesake...my Omie, Benola Emalyn Trappe. What a wonderful lady and grandmother she was!

After our visit to the cemetary we went to the farm house for a bit and then had some ice cream at Marble Slab (another food we don't have in Chicago) and then drove to the airport. Our flight home was great. Emalyn didn't make a sound at all and Maddi and Cade were very patient and well behaved. We got home late that night and the morning craziness of getting to school came all too soon. We had a great trip seeing our friends and families and we were sad to leave, but as soon as we got back into our routines everyone was happy to be back to our home in Illinois.

More Fun in San Antonio

As always, we ate our way through Texas on our trip. I have to say that Alamo Cafe was disappointing, but the queso and tortillas I had every day at Mom's for a snack were wonderful so maybe it wasn't so bad after all. We had planned to eat at Freebirds in Austin before catching our flight home but we decided not to and we were so excited to find a Schlotzsky's at the airport. You'd think Chicagoland would have some wonderful food and maybe they do, we just haven't really found it yet. We are still hung up on our favorites from Texas and it's amazing to me how many places are not in the Chicago market. So many places are in Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, even Southern Illinois but not in the Chicago area. Why???

Anyway, Monday we ate at one of my most favorite Mexican places in the wide world...Mexican Manhattan. It's nothing fancy and it is now on the riverwalk but growing up it was never open to the river. You see, my mom ate here very often when she was pregnant with me because she worked at the bank across the street. I guess I had it so much in utero that I'm crazy for it. I have so many memories of going there growing up and my dad would do a coin flip with the owners to pay double our bill or pay nothing. My mouth is watering thinking about eating there, so enough about it...

We had some time to kill between eating and meeting some friends at Chick Fil A (we really did eat our way around Texas!) later that day so we did some sightseeing along the river walk. We had to take Emalyn to the Hyatt hotel to see where her mommy and daddy had their wedding reception almost 12 years ago.

We made another trip to the Alamo and this time went inside the Alamo. BOR....ING! My kids can now say they've been to and in the Alamo. Wonder if anyone in Illinois even knows what the Alamo is?!?

You can see Emalyn was very interested in our tour of the Alamo! She fell asleep. If she's like her mom, sister and Omie, she will not appreciate history.

The exit doors of the Alamo. One of my favorite parts of the Alamo visit was the gift shop where they had little sherriff badges with names on them. They had Alejandro, Jesus, Javier, Juan...only in San Antonio...made me laugh. No Cade, Maddi the way we spell it, or Emalyn. Oh well....

We did some shopping at one of the little Mexican stores. Emalyn tried on her first cowgirl hat. I think she likes it!

One of our favorite things downtown SA...the random blowing sidewalks. I have no idea why some of them blow air and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know where the air is coming from, but it's always fun to let your clothes and hair blow up. Emalyn wasn't so sure what to think. Maddi and Cade loved it.

Cade got a little lion puppet he named Jumper at the Mexican store.

Maddi got a cute little poodle she named Addison. We saw some other kids walking their puppets and we tracked down a store that had them so the kids could get one. The kids were so cute walking their little puppets around. We still had some time to kill in SA so we did some shopping for Aggie/Cowboy clothing before meeting some friends at Chick Fil A.

We met 3 of my friends from high school at Chick Fil A. Here are Beth's kids, Tyler and Katelyn, with Maddi and Cade. I love how kids barely know other kids or don't know them at all and they just start playing together and have so much fun. Maddi was trying to go home with Beth and Katelyn when we left.

Cade was showing Layla's daughter, Lindsey, his magnets. Lindsey is such a cutie!

Hard to believe all of us girls are all grown up with all these kids! We realized we're going to have our 20 year reunion in 3 years. 3 years! Beth with Tyler(5) and Katelyn (7). Me with Maddi, Emma, and Cade. Ashley with her Katelyn (almost 1),
Avery (8) and Brady(5) are in the front of the picture. Layla with Max (5) and Lindsey (3). It was so fun to see everyone and their adorable kids.

When Layla and her kids first got there, Lindsey came over and asked me if she could hold my baby. I let her and then she went and told Layla she held the baby. Layla thought she was just asking her if she could hold her and Layla said no way she could hold her. She was surprised to find out she had already held her! This was the first baby Lindsey held and she did so well and Lindsey and Emalyn were wearing matching clothes so we had to get a picture.

Love these girls! Thanks to facebook, I reconnected with Ashley. We were inseperable in 6th-9th grade and then we got busy with different lives and grew apart. It was so fun to see her again after all these years.

Great Aunt Shirley got some loving from Emalyn at Chick Fil A. I love the chunky baby dimples on Emalyn's elbow!

Emalyn and Omie.

We ended the day at Omie's house and the kids enjoyed their last time to play with Trey. Brett was having fun trying out getting some action shots with the new camera.

Maddi, Trey and Cade. The kids always have so much fun with Trey. We always enjoy seeing him and his family. The kids were worn out from another busy day and had to get some rest for our last day with Omie before flying home.

Happy Easter!

Warning....LOTS of pictures!

After visiting Dallas we flew to San Antonio. We were at Omie's house on Easter morning. 3 sweet little kiddos trying to be patient taking pictures before they open their Easter baskets.

I love Emalyn's little crooked smile in this picture. It's always fun at Omie's house and it makes me sad that Emalyn won't know Omie's house like Maddi and Cade did since we went to Omie's probably about once every month or two when the kids were younger and we lived in Texas.

We have so many pictures of Maddi in this same green chair when she was a baby. As much as Emalyn looks like Brett, I can certainly see Maddi in her too. The dress she wore for Easter was a dress my mom had got for Kim's daughter, Kaitlyn, and Kim passed it down to us. So fun!

Emalyn was all smiles for her big sister, Maddi. She was just smiling and laughing at everything Maddi would do. Melts my heart...

Little Emalyn with her favorite toy, her feet/toes. We have a picture of Maddi at the same age in the same chair but Maddi's toes are in her mouth. Emalyn has never put her toes in her mouth, but Maddi was constantly chewing her toes.

I can still remember Maddi as that sweet little toe muncher in the green chair and now she's a big 9 year old girl. She has her moments of acting like a teenager but most of the time she is such a kind and loving little girl.

My pretty Momma with Emalyn. She doesn't look old enough to have 8 grandkids with one on the way, does she?

We had such a great time with Omie. She of course cooked like crazy for us and it was all yummy. It's such a warm and fuzzy feeling being at my parents house, even if I never lived there, it just feels like home.

Brett bought our new camera the Saturday we flew into San Antonio and he stayed up reading about it that night so he was taking a ton of pictures on Easter.

Cade loves his holidays/celebrations. He loves every day, in fact, because he just loves life. But he wakes up extra early for special days and this was no different. He woke up at 4:00 am saying he had a sick stomach. I think he just couldn't sleep and he figured saying he was gonna be sick was an acceptable reason to be awake. He never got sick and never went back to sleep, and he was thrilled to finally get to hunt the eggs after waiting for hours. I think he peaked and knew where all the eggs were because he found way more eggs than Maddi did. This of course upset Maddi and she was in tears when it was over. Good times....

My mom loves working in her yard and playing in the dirt as she says and she has the most beautiful flowers. I love that she has so many bluebonnetts in her yard. Nothing says Texas like a family picture in the bluebonnetts. It was obviously very sunny as we're all squinting like crazy. Cade had thrown a big fit about having to take pictures and by the time we had Cade cooperating Emalyn was ready for a nap.

Todd and his family had stayed at the farm house and had their egg hunt at the farm and then they came over to Omie's house for the rest of the day. The sweet Bubbas! Those boys just crack me up and they are so much fun to be around. Case is sitting on the rock and Blake is giving him a kiss.

Look at those faces, they look like trouble to me! One minute they are so sweet to each other and the next minute they're beating each other up telling the other one to share as they steal a toy from the other. Love them!

Two sweet and stubborn little girls, Maison and Maddi. There will be 9 cousins after Cody has their baby this summer and Maison, Maddi and Emalyn will be the only girls. When we saw Maison the first day Maddi told me "Mom, you know how Grace follows me around and copies everything I do...Maison just grabs my arm and drags me around telling me to come here." Maison is Little Miss Independent with an attitude but she's so stinking cute and can also be so very sweet. She's just Maison!

Sweet cousins telling secrets...

I love their faces and they way they're looking at each other.

The Stanley Family in the bluebonnetts. I tell you, it's hard work getting a good picture of a family of 5!

This picture makes me laugh. Maddi was playing with the baseball bat and as soon as Brett said something about her playing with it, she threw it down. You can see it still falling to the ground and her face is like "I wasn't doing anything".

Todd with his crazy monkey boys.

I LOVE this picture. I knew Todd would be a good dad because he's always loved kids, but it's just so fun to watch him be such a good daddy.

Blake getting thrown around by Todd.

Todd and Breezy. We always have so much fun with them.

Me and Brettley. We were all cracking each other up taking our "couples" pictures in the flowers. I'm so thankful that Brett gets along so well with my brothers and I love all of my sisters in laws like real sisters.

Cade was just hanging out and Brett put him up in the tree and starting taking his picture. I couldn't believe he was being so cooperative with pictures and then we realized how wonderful it was that we were getting such good pictures of Cade in "Pa's tree". When my dad died, the neighbors bought this tree and planted it in my parents yard. Cade is so much like my dad and it was awesome to have him posing in his tree.

In the afternoon the kids had another egg hunt with some of Omie's neighbors and their family. They always use my mom's yard for the hunt because it's big and has some good hiding spots. This year my mom was home and had her grandbabies there to do the hunt too.

Cade in action at the hunt. He won the prize for the most eggs. He got 41 and the next highest was 26!

Seriously, is Maddi that old that she can find the eggs on the top of the fence? That's not right...

Maddi, Cade, and Trey at the egg hunt. Trey is about 6 months older than Maddi and they've known each other since Maddi was born. Hard to believe that Cade is 21 months younger than Maddi and more than 2 years younger than Trey! He's a big boy!

Checking out the treasures in their eggs.

Everyone won a prize of bubbles at the egg hunt.

All the kids were loving the bubbles. Sure beats the little bubble wands I grew up with!

We're loving our new camera and the details it captures. Maybe one day we'll really learn how to use it too. Ha!

Maddi and Cade chilling with Great Aunt Shirley.

Cade and Trey riding bikes. It was such a fun Easter filled with great food, friends and family. The kids wore themselves out playing and catching lizards and just being kids. Thanks for a wonderful Easter, Omie!