Visit #3

Our final visitor in January was Grammy. It was a nice and relaxing visit and we all really enjoyed having her here. Emma and Grammy played a lot of making food and playing with babies and puppies and kitties. Emma is not going to know what to do without her grandparents around. She's been a spoiled little girl with lots of playmates lately. Miss Thing is wearing her leotard and new princess dress again. Ugh, she loves that combo!

While Grammy was here, she got to see Cade's basketball game, we went to church and to a yummy lunch at Weber Grill, she got to watch Emma at gymnastics and we had fun at home goofing around and playing games. I wanted a picture of Cade with Grammy and little one jumped in the picture, as usual. She is wearing her socks as gloves, she loves to do that.

Cade is catching up to Grammy in height. It won't be long, I'm sure.

Emalyn loves to have people hold her things for her. She loaded up Grammy with all kinds of animals and babies.

Emma was looking for a book to read before bed but decided she wanted to play doctor instead.

She gave us all a check up and we were all sick and needed a bottle for medicine.

Maddi had dance and then homework. After her shower, she got in some snuggle time with Grammy. Maddi is a little snuggle bug. Such a sweet little girl.

Thanks for coming to visit us Grammy! We hope to see you in Texas soon.

Daddy Daughter Dance

Saturday was a very special day. It was the Daddy Daughter Dance! This was the first year the kids school offered this dance. The day the paper came home to sign up for it, I asked Maddi if she wanted to go to the dance. She immediately answered "yes!", like of course mom. I asked if her friends were going and she said she didn't care, she wanted to go with Daddy. I love that even though she's in fifth grade, she was so excited to spend a special night with her Daddy. Here's the pretty girl all ready for her special night.

Daddy with his daughters. I love that Emalyn gets in every picture these days. If she sees the camera come out, she's posing for a picture. So fun!

Daddy and Daughter, ready to dance the night away!

Kisses!

Brett and me with our girls. Cade was sleeping over at his friend Jack's house for the night.

The great thing was that Grammy had just arrived in town that morning, so she got to see her son take his daughter to the dance. We tried to get pictures outside, but they weren't good and everyone was too cold for more pictures so we came inside.

Cade was at a sleepover, Brett and Maddi went to the dance, so Emma, Grammy and I went to dinner together. We went to Chili's and had a great time together.

The funny thing is that Brett asked Maddi where she wanted to go for dinner and she said "what do you want?" in true Maddi fashion. She is so selfless and wants to make everyone else happy, forget what she wants. She said maybe she'd like Panda Express. We told her they could go there, but they were dressed nice and a sit down place might be better so she chose Olive Garden. Apparently everyone else in Oswego was at Olive Garden at 5:00 on Saturday and there was a 40 minute wait, so they ate at Panda Express! There was another dad with his daughters all dressed up there too. They had really good fortunes in their cookies and enjoyed their dinner together.

They had a great time and spent most of the night dancing together, but Maddi did take some time to hang out with some friends too. Brett sent this picture to me of her and Emily at the dance. I am so thankful that Brett is such a good father and that Maddi adores him. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall watching all the fathers and daughters dancing together.

Visit #2

Joel, Sara, Sara's mom Sharon, Grace, Will and Todd all arrived Saturday morning! Grace and Will were so excited to play in the snow and lucky for them, we had about 8 inches of snow the day before they got here. When they got here, we ate lunch and then Cade had a basketball game so by the time they played in the snow, the sun was going down. Emma and Maddi were the first ones to get all their gear on and had the snow to themselves for a bit.

Emma let Maddi bury her in the snow.

SNOW!

Uncle Todd! The kids all love him because he's like a 38 year old kid.


Big smiles!


Girls Rule! Grace has followed Maddi around for years and this time it was cute to see Emma follow Grace around too, especially when Maddi was at school or dance.

Trying to sled.

Snow angels.


After a little snow time, it was Chili time!

Sunday, Cade had a swim meet and we all went to support Cade man. Everyone enjoyed hanging out and snacking between events.

After the meet, we went to eat lunch at Culver's. Miss Emalyn slept through the whole lunch all snuggled up on Daddy.


After lunch the kids played in the snow for a long time. The snow was very powdery when it snowed, but after the temperatures rose, it got nice and sticky.

Great snow for snow balls.

The snow balls were so big they couldn't move them any more!

Fun times with cousins.

I thought this was so funny. Emma's face looks like she's hanging on for dear life.


All the cousins got along very well, until Will had a melt down and had to come in for a nap. Then Emma got too cold and Cade got bored.

Grace and Maddi stayed out and made a snowgirl!

Aunt Sara gave Emma a princess dress and Emma wore it for 4 days straight! I think she liked it. She had to wear it with her leotard too. Not so convenient for changing diapers. Everyone but Todd went to the city Monday and stayed the night. Joel was there for work and they went to see the city and visit with Joel. We enjoyed a quiet day/night with Todd. Emma, Cade and Todd played Connect Four.

Uncle Todd is fun!

Emma, Grace and Will had some fun together at the Museum of Science and Industry on Tuesday and then we all went for a fun dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. Here are some fun pictures from my phone at the museum.





The McDonald clan left early Friday morning so we tried to do as much as we could Thursday. The little ones had some fun in the basement.


Will and Grace are wearing I'm the Big Brother/Sister tshirts because Sara found out on Monday she was pregnant. It just so happened that I had some shirts that were sent to Maddi and Cade when Emma was born but they were too small for them. I kept them all this time and they were perfect for Will and Grace. Sara used these shirts to tell Joel she was pregnant. I'm excited for them, but a little scared too. Will and Grace are sweet kids, but Will is really a handful. He'll be 4 by the time the baby comes, and hopefully a little less strong willed. Joel and Sara will be very busy with 3 kids, but I'm sure they'll do a great job.

We took Maddi and Cade out of school for lunch and went to Red Robin. This is our crew at lunch (minus Sara and me)...






After lunch we rushed the kids back to school. Maddi didn't want to miss her reading class. I'm so glad for that. After school, Maddi had dance, but Cade had a blast running around with Will and Grace.

I think Grace and Will had a blast too!

Before Maddi left for dance, we tried to get a few shots of the 5 cousins together.

Don't be fooled, it wasn't really warm enough to go without a coat in Chicago in Janurary, they are just crazy kids that didn't want to put a coat on for a few minutes on the trampoline.

Grace is all girl but she's definitely got a rough side to her.

Here she is trying to beat up the snow ball. Silly girl! She's got to be tough having Wild Will for a brother.

We had some fun playing games, like Flipping Frogs.

The little girls had fun dressing up together.

It's always so fun to get the extended family together. We are thankful for the memories and that they made the trip up here to visit us. The week went by quickly and we all loved every minute of it!