After Texas

The first few days after getting back from Texas were quite busy! Tuesday night, I had parent orientation for Emalyn's preschool. I didn't realize until I got out the paper work to turn in that night that I had to buy supplies for Emalyn. Maddi, Emma and I stopped by the store real quick to get the requested supplies before I dropped Emma and Maddi off with Brett at Cade's baseball practice. I got out one of Maddi's old backpacks for Emma to use this year and Emma loved it! She carried it full of puppies for several days wherever we went. I loved seeing big and little sister holding hands walking out of the store after getting Emma's supplies. Maddi and Cade are so excited for Emma that she will be starting school. I'm pretty excited too. Ha!

Wednesday was the first day of school, pictures in an earlier post. Thursday was just as exciting, if not more, Chick Fil A opened in Oswego, IL!!! Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would get a Chick Fil A in Oswego. I was thrilled we got one about 15 minutes from us a couple years ago. This one is right by our neighborhood and we are all so excited to have it here. Emalyn and I stopped in for lunch after Emma's first visit to the dentist. (She did awesome at the dentist, by the way. She sat in my lap the whole time, so I never got a picture, but she was perfect!) I got a peach milkshake and Emma had some chicken.

Later that day, I took the kids for dinner.

With the drama of the Chick Fil A owners remarks toward marriage, there were protesters on opening day. Maddi and Cade had questions of why they were there, what's gay marriage, etc. Maddi wanted to yell out to them that they were wrong and Chick Fil A is a good company. It was a great opportunity to point out that peaceful protesting and Freedom of Speech and Regligion is one of the benefits of being an American. I told her they weren't yelling at us for eating there, so we weren't going to yell at them :)

Thursday was also an exciting day because of this little puppy...

...against my better judgement, I told the kids about our neighbor who has/had 5 little yorkie puppies. They said if they didn't sell them in 15 days, they would give them away for free. I contemplated getting a puppy, who can beat free? I even let this little puppy come over to our house to see what Cocoa thought of it. Cocoa was terrified. I wasn't thinking straight for a short period and then I came to my senses...we DO NOT need a puppy! I'm finally getting Emalyn in preschool, she's growing up and not so needy and the last thing I want/need is something else to care for. I broke Maddi's heart when I told her we couldn't get the puppy. I felt terrible. I really did, but I knew getting a puppy would make me quite grouchy and the old saying is true "If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." I tried to make it up to Maddi and told her we could redo her room (she's been wanting new bedding/paint etc.). She said she wanted a puppy more than her room redone.

Well, Saturday was Brett's work party. While there, the story of the puppy came up. One family said they couldn't get a puppy, but they let their kids get hamsters. I swore over my dead body, there would never be a rodent in my house. Well, a weak moment came over me again (what is going on with me?) and I agreed to let the kids buy a hamster if they promised to not bring up the puppy again. Brett could NOT believe I agreed to a rodent. Honestly, I can't either, but I did it. (More on that a different day.) The kids had fun at Brett's party. They hired a funny man who played games with them like the egg toss, shoe kick, sack races, mummy wrap, etc.

All 3 of them crashed out on the way home :)

The next day was rainy almost all day, and it was wonderful. We enjoyed some down time and relaxed. Emma got out these drinking birds and watched them many times during the day. Omie brought these to us many years ago and they still provide entertainment!

Fun Weekend with Family in Tejas!

After seeing some friends in the Dallas area, we went to Granbury to Oliver and Ellen's house for Texas Grammy's Summer Camp. It was our first time to see their place in Granbury. It's really a neat place. We got there Friday afternoon and enjoyed a dip in the pool and a tour of the place by golf cart. There were so many people staying at Oliver's so we had a hotel at the clubhouse. At first I was bummed we would have to leave early each evening, but I later realized it was great. We were able to leave and get Emma to bed and have a great night of sleep while Maddi and Cade stayed at their house. Saturday morning, we met back at their house for breakfast and then went to a state park with dinosaur tracks. Here we all are sorting out all of our stuff.
I should note that all of these pictures are courtesy of my wonderful momma. We took our little camera since the big one is breaking and I never took a single picture with my little camera. Ugh! My mom and Al drove up for the weekend so we could visit with them. Our Texas visit was too short to make it down south this time. I am sooo happy they were able to come up to Granbury to see us!

Maddi is pointing out one of the big dinsaur prints before getting in for a swim at the blue hole.

Cade with his boat, enjoying the blue hole. I didn't plan to swim that day and was glad I didn't after the man next to me told me there were alligator gar in the hole. Yikes! They didn't bother anyone, but I didn't like knowing they were in there.

Emalyn and Daddy contemplating going in for a swim.

Our crew trying to figure who's going in, who's not, etc. After a swim and hanging out for a while, we went out for lunch. It was good Texas food and we enjoyed good company too.

Later that afternoon, the kids painted a shirt. Emalyn really enjoyed this summer camp activity! After her shirt was painted, she painted on paper. She asked to paint every day after that too.

Al and Oliver getting to know each other.

The boys grilling fajitas for dinner. Yummy!

Emalyn being a fussy pants back at the hotel later that night. All I wanted was a picture with her Omie :(

3 of the most special girls in my life!

The next morning, Emalyn wanted to go see Omie after she got dressed.

The kids waiting for me to take them on a golf cart ride. It was fun, fun, fun driving those kiddos around on the golf cart! They loved to go fast and loved the bumps. They would scream and cheer when they liked the ride.

Janet and Sharon came up for a visit Sunday. I am so glad Oliver and Ellen opened their home to my family as well as Janet. We are lucky that we have such wonderful and loving families. We enjoyed some time visiting together while the rest of the crew was on a river float/walk. The river is really low so they said it was more of a walk than floating, but they still had a good time. Even Emalyn floated and had fun!

Uncle Todd and Cade. I pray we get to move back to Texas...soon! My kids love being around Todd and I know he loves it just as much. He's such a good guy and has such a great sense of humor.

Omie with 3 of her 9 grandchildren.

Omie and Al with the kiddos!

Maddi, Cade and Emalyn with all of their grandparents. This is the first time in Emma's life that she's had all of her grandparents in one place. I think everyone might have been all together for Maddi or Cade's dedication at church, but I can't remember. I know they were all together at Joel and Sara's wedding, but I'm pretty sure I didn't get a picture of them all. Lucky kids with grandparents who love them so much!

The 5 McDonald cousins.

All of the McDonald grandparents and grandchildren.

Grammy with her 5 grandchildren. Sara is expecting again. She has miscarried the last two pregnancies, so we are praying that this will be a healthy pregnancy for her. She's due in April. If things go as they have in the past, they will have a little girl. So far we had Maddi and Cade 21 months apart and then they had Grace and Will 21 months apart. Now they just need a little girl and we will be the same!

My little monkey boy climing the tree for the big family photo.

Oliver and Ellen with their children and grandchildren. What a crew! The rest of that day was spent swimming, fishing, eating, golf cart riding and hanging out. Monday morning, we spent some time watching deer on the golf cart and then I lost my phone. We spent quite a while searching for it and then Brett and Emma found it. Whew!

We made our way back to DFW later Monday afternoon. While waiting for our flight, we saw this girl get off a plane at the gate we were sitting at. Some people took pictures with her and got her autograph so Maddi decided to get a picture with her too, even though we didn't know who she was. Turns out she's Eryn Wilson and she has a few pretty good songs on her website. I'm curious to see if she becomes a big name. If so, we'll have this picture of her. If not, we'll have a picture of some Lady Gaga wanna be!

Our flight home was smooth and uneventful. We were all glad to be back at our house, but a little sad to leave Texas.

A bit of Heaven

We didn't think we were going to make it to Texas this summer, but in the end, we were able to squeeze it in right after Cade's birthday but before school started! Going back to Dallas and seeing friends and family is like a bit of heaven for us. We had a late flight on Tuesday evening. Here we are on the plane ready to take off at 9:25 p.m. Emalyn was very excited!

Unfortunately, we didn't actually leave. Instead, we had to get off the plane because of bad weather in Dallas. This little one was a trooper. She was probably 5 minutes from falling asleep, but instead, she stayed awake the whole time we waited to hear if we would get the green light to reboard and leave at 11:00 p.m.

Cade man was tired too, and tried falling asleep at the airport. He never fell asleep, but he fell asleep as soon as we took off at 11:00!

Maddi was wide awake while we waited. She is the night owl of the group!

We finally landed at 1:00 a.m. Emalyn slept the entire flight and stayed asleep when we moved her to the stroller. She even turned around in it like she was on her belly. What a trooper! We drove through the scariest storms I can remember and were releived when we finally made it to Kim's house after 3:00 a.m.

Wednesday morning, we met Joel, Sara, Grace, Will and Janet at Gattitown. I only got these two pictures from our time there, but trust me, we all had a great time!

I think Brett enjoyed the bumper cars as much as the kids!

We stayed at Kim and Michael's house and had such a great visit with them. The kids LOVED their house. Emalyn found a new love of pop guns. Cade showed her how to use it and she told me how to use it about 50 times. She was so cute, she's say "you pull this back and then you POP it! Do you want to try?" I thought about getting Emalyn her own popgun until I saw Cade with a popgun. He'd drive me crazy with it, so no popgun little Emma. Sorry!

Kim's kids were out of town with Dan, but Dusti and Mike brought Zach, Gavin and Reese and our kids loved playing with them. Maddi was playing dress up with the Emalyn and Reese and then Kim introduced Maddi to her closet. Maddi had a blast trying on Kim's middle and high school dresses. Here she is in Kim's prom dress!

We all got a good laugh at Maddi in Kim's candy corn costume from a few years ago. Nice! We used to all dress up in Kim's clothes in college and now our little girls are doing the same thing. How fun!

I was soooo happy to see my bffs. We had a great night hanging with our fams at Kimmy's. Les is trying to move back to Texas and we are too. Hopefully one day we will all be together again.

After a few nights at Kim's, we went to stay a night with the Balls. Their new house was beautiful and we had a lot of fun visiting with them.

Emma and Ellie had just seen each other at our house the week before, so they played together awesome. The day we were leaving, Emma and Ellie were outside when Molly, their dog, got sprayed by a skunk! When Brett went to get the girls inside, Molly ran inside and rubbed on their couch and rug. Their house smelled HORRIBLE! I was glad we were leaving to get on the road but felt terrible for them that they had that smell in their house. They were able to buy some products at Home Depot to get the smell out. I'm sure they were so relieved!

After leaving the Balls, we met up with the Laird's for lunch. No pictures from that, but it was so good to see them. Hayden was there too, which was great. He's 16 and a junior in high school. We've known him since he was about 2 years old! It's always so good catching up with old friends. After lunch, we made our way to Granbury for Texas Grammy's summer camp. Pics from that coming soon....

Modeling Maddi

My posts are out of order, because this actually happened the day of Cade's birthday, but I'm not sure how to change the order of posts. Anyway...our neighbor is the store manager for a Sears near us. His daughter, Abby, was modeling in the back to school fashion show and she invited Maddi to do it with her too. Maddi was THRILLED to be modeling and it was fun to watch her. I left Cade's party early so I could see both of her shows. When I got there, she was just coming out of the dressing room and she was getting her tags cut from her clothes.

She did her own hair, but they did her make up and picked out her outfit.

Getting lined up for the first show!

Maddi and Abby! Abby got to model a school uniform and another outfit. It pays to have your dad as the store manager :)

Maddi had a great time. Before the show, Abby's dad took them on a tour including the behind the scenes of Sears and Maddi really enjoyed that. She had a lot of questions for Adam. We certainly miss the Ball Family, but the Key's family who moved in their house is such a nice family too.

And here comes Maddi on the runway...

...work it girl.

A very pretty girl, if you ask me. What's even better is her inner beauty!

Maddi had so much modeling, that she was asking me afterwards how she can do more fashion shows and modeling.

All of the models after the first show! Some, I think most of them, were from an agency. What a fun experience for Maddi! You did great Maddi girl. So proud of you!