Lately

Summer of 2012 is winding down, and we are staying busy and time is flying by us. A few things we've been up to lately.... We had a big storm roll in as we were driving back from running errands. We all climbed in the back of the car and watched the rain and winds.

I don't know how or when this happened, but Maddi is going to sixth grade which means Junior High School! The thing Maddi is most excited about it having a locker, and in particular, she is excited about decorating it. She has spent lots of time watching you tube videos about decorating ideas and she has looked at the locker stuff at every store we've gone to. Here she is with her decorated locker. It looks cute, but even better, she was able to open her lock every time she tried. Whew! She was really nervous about that, so hopefully she can check that off of her list of things she's worried about for junior high.

Another great thing is that her bff, Jane, has the locker right next to her. The knew they'd be close to each other because they are both "Mc" names, but even better, they are locker neighbors. It looks like Maddi has a great schedule with PE first in the day and Study Hall at the end of the day. She knows people in several of her classes and knows a lot of people with the same lunch. She also has a teacher that I really was hoping she would have for Read 180 and for Study Skills. I thought the whole sixth grade orientation went really well, but Maddi left in tears, mainly because she feels overwhelmed and is afraid she'll never find her classes. She's going to sixth grade survival skills on Monday and I think she'll feel better about everything after that class. It's hard to believe Maddi is getting so grown up but I think this will be a good next stage of her life and she will mature and become more responsible.

We met with Maddi's friend, Jarid, at the bowling alley for a photo shoot for a special needs calendar. The theme is friendship and Maddi, Jarid and Jarid's sister, Grace, will be the picture for March. Maddi wrote this to go along with their picture:
I met Jared at school during recess. When I first saw him I knew he would be a good friend. He does sign language and that encouraged me to learn it so I could talk to him. Ever since I met him I would play with him at recess. In the summer we got together to play. I am so glad I met him. He is such a sweet friend! -Maddi

It's so cute to see Jarid and Maddi together. His whole body literally lit up with excitement when he saw her. He started his CP squeal and almost fell down because he couldn't control his excitement. I know that Maddi has touched this boy's life and I couldn't be prouder to be her mom. When it was time for us to go, Jarid signed "miss Maddi" and almost cried. Maddi gave him a hug and then he pointed to his lips for a kiss but Maddi gave him another hug. We thought that was so funny that he wanted a kiss! Jarid's program has been moved to a different school than where Maddi will go, so she won't see him at school this year. I do hope they can get together now and then during the year on the weekends. There is something very special about this Maddi girl and I can't wait to see what she does with her life!

Never Dull

There's usually some sort of excitement going on at the McDonald house. This excitement was caused by my great idea. The kids want ice cream every day (it's genetic, I think) so I decided if we were going to have ice cream, we should get some exercise too. The kids each invited a friend and I pulled Emma in the bike trailer. Our neighbor told us a bike trail to take to get downtown Oswego. We got a little lost on the trail and I ended up using the map from my phone to get us there. It took us almost an hour to get to the ice cream place that is proably 5 miles away. The kids were worn out but very happy to get ice cream. Cade got quite messy because the ice cream melted so quickly because it was so hot outside.

Cade with his friend, Sam.

Maddi with her friend, Anna Marie. The way home from ice cream is when it got exciting. Cade crashed his bike and not only was his lip busted and bleeding, his knee and elbow were scraped and his finger got pinched in the brake. Even worse was that his back brake slid off and was stuck on the rim and he couldn't ride his bike because the back wheel wouldn't move. I wasn't sure how we would get home but an angel came and offered to help us. He is a bike rider and was able to fix Cade's brake and then we were on the road home. All was well until Maddi decided her bike seat was too uncomfortable and was hurting her back. She got off her bike and was walking. It would have taken us forever to walk and thankfully Anna Marie agreed to switch bikes with Maddi. Eventually we got back home and I realized my idea to get the kids to exercise for sweets was a FAIL! We went to the pool to cool off and ordered pizza for dinner. The funny part was when Cade's friend realized we were walking to the pool. He didn't realize we live around the corner from the pool. I don't think he was up for another adventure!

In other exciting news, a storm ripped through here and it made a mess of our yard with shattered glass from our patio table.

This is our table after the fact. Our trampoline net was ripped in half. Siding was ripped off our house in the same spot that the blizzard ripped siding off last year.

Our umbrella was not only ripped off, but it was carried to the front yard and was wrapped around the tree in our front yard. That makes me think we had a microburst or something more than just high winds. Our neighbor accross the street also had siding ripped from their house. I guess we are lucky that's all the damage we had and we were all safe.

This makes me laugh, Emalyn loves to help Daddy and this was her get up the other day as she followed Brett around watering the grass and cleaning up the yard. She had her puppy, her bag with another puppy and food inside and of course her leotard and fancy shoes.

Growing Up

Lately I can see that each of the kids are growing up so much. It's a little sad, but I am happy and proud at the same time. Emalyn is really into pretend play and is always telling us "I's the mommy, you dadda" or "you be the puppy and I's the baby" or whatever. She often tells us long drawn out stories and she laughs as she's saying them and it's so stinking cute. She has started asking if she can stay home with Bubba or Sissy instead of going wherever I'm going. The kids are great with watching her and Cade has even put Emma down for a nap for me while I was gone. It's a win-win for all of us.

Miss Maddi girl had her first babysitting job last Saturday. She watched our two neighbor kids for four hours. They can be a little wild but she did a great job. As the dad said when they got home "one babysitter, two kids, one house, very good". She made $36.00 so that made her very happy. Maddi has always been so good with kids and kids adore her, but I wasn't always sure that she had enough wits about her to babysit. She has shown a lot of responsibility this summer and I think she is maturing in her actions. Maddi has also started cross country training and after her first practice, she declared she hated it. All of it. However, she never said she wouldn't go back. She went back on Friday and said she kind of liked it. Yeah! I think Maddi enjoys being active but also enjoys being part of a group and we hope this will be a great way for her to connect in junior high.

Cade had try outs for travel baseball and he did very well. It was kind of stressful because he did so well and we had to choose which team to say yes too and which ones to decline the offer. He first tried out for the Cobras and he made the A team. Panther tryouts were after that and he made the A team for that as well. A coach from this year is coaching the B team for the Cobras and he wanted Cade to decline the A team offer and be on his team instead. The coach for the Panther B team also said he would love Cade to decline the A team offer and join his team. The Panther team one age group up also called and asked Cade to try out for their team. In the end, Cade decided not to play up and accepted the offer to play on the Panther A team. Thankfully, each of the coaches spoke favorable about the other teams and were very classy with their recruiting efforts. We are excited to see how this year goes and think Cade will really learn a lot this year.

Summer is winding down. We are going to Great America and have friends visiting starting tomorrow. Maddi gets her schedule for middle school and has sixth grade survival camp. Cade has his birthday and party and then we leave for Texas! School starts right after Texas. Even Miss Emalyn will be in school this year. That makes this mommma very happy!

July

July turned out to be BUSY! After we got back from Myrtle Beach, Cade swam in his second and last swim meet for his summer swim team. He only swam in two events after the meet was cancelled early again, so for the whole summer I think he swam two events, of which, I saw two of them. Such a weird swim season this summer. He had baseball games conflicting with most of the meets or we were out of town or had family visiting or the meet was really far away or for other reasons, we weren't able to swim in many meets. The highlite of the meets for the kids is always the ice cream. Cade is all smiles before diving into his large cone!

We spent some time shopping at the mall and of course made a stop at Furry Babies, the kids favorite store in the mall, to see the puppies. This little cutie was only $2,000. Crazy.

Maddi is obsessed with the "Toddlers and Tiaras" show. It's disturbing to me actually how much she likes this show. One day while playing with Abby, Maddi and Abby dressed Emalyn and Emily up and had their own Toddlers and Tiaras contest.

The girls wanted to go show Emily and Abby's mom their Toddlers and Tiaras contest. Since I didn't get to see it at my house (they did it in Maddi's room without me), I went to the Key's house to see it.

Emalyn and Maddi doing their routine.

Then they came back to our house to dress like princesses. It was cute and the girls all had fun. However, two days later, Maddi put full makeup on Emma (foundation, eyeliner, the works) and full hair (teased it with hairspray, etc.) and I was not a happy mommy. I got mad at Maddi for doing all that to Emma because she was less than thrilled having her hair unteased and all the makeup taken off. Maddi is now banned from watching the Toddlers and Tiaras show anymore. I told Maddi we are not pagaent people and probably went a little overboard with getting on to her. For some reason I am just really not ok with the pagaents for little girls. I think Maddi gets it now:)

Brett and I had a great night out and ate at Fronterra Grill. I had made reservations months before and it was so worth the wait. Check out my dinner.

And this was our complimentary dessert sent from the chef because it's Brett's customer. I didn't touch the flan or bread pudding, but Brett said it was great. I did, however, devour the cheesecake thing with raspberry ice cream. Yummy! After dinner, we enjoyed a beautiful night walking around downtown Chicago and enjoyed looking at all of the pieces of buildings from the world on the Wrigley Building.

A few days later, Cody and Katie stopped in for a visit on their way back to Montana. We rode the train into Chicago and had a fun day.

The big kids were too cool to sit with their parents and sat upstairs for the train ride.

Maddi made her way down with the parents and little ones. Quinn is Maddi's little buddy!

Emma and Quinn were snacking most of their train ride.

We went to Navy Pier and ate lunch at Billy Goat's Tavern. It was horrible! Nastiest burger I've ever had. It's an icon though because of it's history with the Cubs. I can check that off my list of touristy things. Then we played in the fun house mirrors and tried to ride the swings, but they weren't running that day. Instead, we had ice cream and then made our way to Millenium Park.

It was very hot and humid that day, so the kids were very happy to cool off in the water. Maddi, Paul, Benton and Cade are just to the right of the water coming out of the mouth.

Emma wasn't so sure about it all.

Cade and Benton were playing chase?

I asked the kids to lay down for a picture. This is what I got. lol

Cade's always sneaking a kiss in on Emma. He adores that little girl and it's so sweet to see him so loving on her. He's not much of a huggy kind of kid, but he sure is with his baby sister.

This is more of the picture of them laying down I was looking for :)

The boys with Emma.

The girls chilling.

This makes me laugh. Katie challenged the kids to see who could stand under the water the longest.

They were screaming because it hurt and their shoulders were red from being beat with the water,but they were laughing at the same time.

These two were not going to give up on the challenge.

Cody and Emalyn waiting while the big kids play.

Millenium Park is great for people watching. Exhibit A here. There were several people with bags on their heads. I somewhat understand, I've got a fro and don't like my hair to get wet either, but I refuse to wear a bag on my head. I wasn't brave enough to take pictures of some of the attire people were wearing. Wow. Very entertaining.

Aunt Katie is the best! She is so positive and fun and we always enjoy our time with this sweetheart.

Maddi enjoyed taking pictures at the bean.

On this hot summer day everyone really enjoyed laying in the shade of the bean to cool off a bit.

These four had fun posing for the camera. After the bean, we caught the bus back to the train and then drove home and enjoyed a relaxing evening at the house. We ordered pizza and we played Apples to Apples. The kids were in rare form and were being crazy, which led to Paul and Benton showing us their "Sexy and I know it" dance. We were all cracking up. The kids were all being so funny and I think we all went to bed with sore cheeks and stomachs from laughing so hard. It was a great day!

The next day, we went to drive go karts. It was there that I learned that my camera was broken :( The lens snapped off. I still need to take it to the camera store to assess the damage. Ugh! The kids had a blast driving the cars. Benton had to drive this little car and it was soooo slow, but he had fun anyway.

Cade was in heaven.

The next time around, Katie drove Benton so they could have a faster car. The funniest part was when Katie wrecked into the tires when their turn was over and they had to pull the cars in. Maddi missed the turn and they had to back her up and help her back to the start too. It's always entertaining with this crew :)

We also went to the batting cages and everyone hit except for me, Emalyn and Quinn. Maddi was comical to watch. I don't see softball in her future. lol The funniest part is when we were in the car and Cody told me he was offered a Viagra (the ones with the milligrams, whatever that is) from one of the men there. Random.

After go karts, we went to downtown Naperville for a picnic lunch and then went for ice cream at Cookie Dough Creations. I didn't get any pictures of our ice cream adventure, but everyone loved the ice cream. Emalyn peed in her stroller (that has never happened) while we were ordering ice cream so I was trying to clean out the stroller and Emalyn. I had no other clothes or panties for her so she wore one of Quinn's diapers. Always entertaining, I tell you.
After ice cream, we went back to our house for a swim. That night the kids were enjoying their last time together and Maddi was giving them all random things of hers. Cody and crew left early the next morning, Cade was the only one who was awake to say goodbye. We had so much fun together and are so glad we got to see them twice this summer!