Maddie's party

We finally had our birthday party for Maddie on Thursday. Like I had said before, we had to post-pone it twice because I had the flu (yuck!). But we finally had it. We had some of our neighbors and family over, and even though it was a bit crowded, it was fun. I made her a cake (since I've been dying to make another fun cake), and we had ice cream and then opened presents. Here's a few pictures from her party.

Maddie with her cake

Parker & cousin Kenya helping Maddie open her presents

Madisyn with her first Cabbage Patch doll from our neighbors

Maddie's cake

Madisyn's birthday

Yesterday was Maddie's 1st birthday. I can't believe my little baby is no longer a baby!!! Although we weren't going to have her party until today, we still had a little family party where she got to dive into some cake. She loves cake, although she still eats it quite daintily. Here are a few pictures of her on her big day!!

Big girl Maddie!

No, she's still not standing on her own (she can, but she won't). She loves to climb up on something, turn around and put her bum on it, and stand there and "dance."

Mmm, cake!

Parker helping Maddie eat the cake

Maddie feeding Ben some cake

Yeah! Maddie can drink whole milk now! She would never drink formula & I still nurse her some, but I am SOOO excited that she can and does drink whole milk! (Parker never would, and still won't!) On another side note, we are still waiting for her to get her first tooth!!

P.S. We didn't end up having Maddie's birthday party today because I was sick all night and most of the day (yuck!). So we've post-poned it until Thursday night. I'll put pictures on here from the party after we have it.

Fall Fling

Yesterday we had a "Fall Fling" at my Aunt's house. We played a few fun, fallish games with the kids, had a chili cook-off, made funnel cakes and ginger bread, and just had fun with the family all together. Since it snowed (yes snow!!) about half of the day, we had to move everything inside. We set up a cute picture area in my uncle's shop, and took fun pictures there. Parker & Maddie weren't that cooperative (maybe since we had just gone the day before and had professional pictures done), but we got a few good pictures.

Parker & Maddie together

(Yes, he has a juice smile on his face. I took this one after all the others, which was after dinner, since he hadn't cooperated earlier.)

Big girl Maddie, about to turn 1!

Happy girl!

And this is what we woke up to this morning. Except I took this picture after church, and some snow was already melted (as you can see). Even though I couldn't believe we have snow already (none of it stuck yesterday), it was beautiful!

Happy Autumn!

Fall is officially here! :0) When we went outside to play yesterday, I actually remembered to take the camera out and take some pictures of the kids in the leaves. Out back we have a little play area where there's a slide and swings. Parker loves to use the little rocks around the swing set as a little "sand box." So he has fun doing all that kind of sand box stuff with the rocks, and Maddie has fun sitting and watching (she hates the grass and refuses to move at all in it, so she just sits there). There are several trees around, and the leaves have started to change color. So I got pictures of the kids playing, and pictures of them in the leaves.

Parker & Maddie in the leaves (Parker saying "cheeeeeeesssseeee")

"Wow, Maddie, look at these cool leaves"

Can you believe Maddie will be 1 in less than a month?!

Parker playing in the rocks

The other day when we were having a pretty good storm, we let Maddie and Parker stand up in the window to watch the storm (don't worry, we were holding on to them-we just cropped it out). They loved it!

And this is from Maddie eating spaghetti the other day. We looked over, and she had is all over the place!

Our little Scavenger

Madisyn has become quite the "professional" scavenger. She loves to crawl over to Parker's table, get under it, and see what "treats" she can find. We have to be careful with what we leave on his table (or under it), and if we do leave anything accidentally, she'll find it. The other day after lunch, I took Parker with me shopping while Maddie was asleep. She woke up while we were gone and was playing while Daddy worked. Well, she found the biggest treat of all: Parker's left over ice cream. As you can see from the pictures, Dad didn't find her in it until she had gotten it all over the place. But she loved it! The second picture is of her with her face in the bowl, trying to get ever lick of ice cream she could.

Maddie clapping at what she had done. What a little rascal!

Idaho State Fair

I absolutely LOVE fairs, and I really wish they would have them more than once a year. They are so much fun and there's so much to do there! There's the rides, the booths, the animals, the showcases, the food (scone nuggets, funnel cakes, and cotton candy-YUM!!), the music, the horse races, the kids areas set up-I love it all! We took the kids and went to the fair on Tuesday. It was the perfect day to go weather-wise, which made it even more great. A sweet 68 degrees-not too hot, not too cold. Parker had a lot of fun. His favorite parts were of course all the animals, the petting zoo, and the John Deere tractors (I know, very hick-ish, but he loved them!). Here's some pictures that we took.

Parker feeding a goat

A cute little puppy that Parker loved (even though he's actually really afraid of dogs)

Ben with the kids at the petting zoo

Maddie munching on a cracker while Parker checks out the animals

This horse was hilarious. It really really wanted Madisyn's cracker, and she was just so shocked that it kept getting so close to her. It was quite funny.

Parker having a blast on "his" tractor

"Don't worry guys-I got it. I'll just back it on up over here."

Labor Day Weekend

This weekend, my cousin (Brooks and his wife Megan) had their baby blessed and we all got together for that at my Aunt Joann's house. We were all going to go to the Idaho State Fair on Monday, but we got a huge cold front in, and the high for that day was only 57 degrees. So we didn't go. But Ben and I and the kids ended up going yesterday, so I'll have pictures of that to come later. Here's some pictures of my cute little first cousin once removed in her blessing dress. :-)

Anya Meuzet Haroldsen

Maddie checking out Anya

Maddie with her second cousins: Sammy, Audrey, Aiden, Alyssa, & Kenya

On Labor Day, since we didn't get to go to the fair and since it was a little cold, we took the kids to an indoor play place.

Parker going down the slide head first

Maddie going down the slide

Maddie at the top

Parker climbing the rock wall-he was really good at it!

Parker climbing the wall

Here's a funny picture of Maddie. I was folding laundry and she was "helping." I looked over, and she was trying (somewhat successfully) to put one of my shirts on. It was really cute!