Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a great, 5 day break! We did a lot of traveling, as usual. Rachel rode up with us because Randi and Joe had their appointment for Rebekah at Riley. The girls were all excited about our roadtrip!!

We went to South Bend for the day Wednesday to visit with Uncle Greg, Steven and Kelsey who had been at Grandma and Grandpa's for most of the week of Thanksgiving. Everyone had a great time visiting and playing.

Some had a little too much fun......

Our visit was all inclusive to be able to visit with Grammy and Mandy as well!

After our visit in South Bend, we headed to Grand Rapids. This time Madelyn went with Randi and Joe, so we just had Amelia....and some Barnaby's! We spent Wednesday evening through Sunday morning in Grand Rapids. We went to Lansing for the day on Thursday for some good food and Lots of family....think we figured there were about 45 there!

The Rachel and Madelyn got some cool air matress beds to sleep on. They were kind of a pain to blow up, but were perfect for them and they loved them.

Friday morning, Randi, Roberta and I got up and left to go shopping at 6. We got lots of good deals and didn't really deal with too many unruly crowds. Walmart was a little sketchy, but that is to be expected I suppose! Chuck and Joe kept the girls entertained while were were gone and got some really cute pictures.

Amelia Crawls!!

About a week ago, Amelia started crawling. She does more of an army crawl by only using her arms, but she moves pretty fast! As with Maddie, we used the remote to inspire her to crawl. Not bad for being just 6 months!!

Chuck gets sleepy too!!

Just want to make sure everyone is aware that Chuck has his sleepy moments during football as well. As a matter of fact, this was taken today while he slept through an extremely exciting second half of the Indianapolis Colts game! He slept for 2 hours like this (well with Maddie up and down from there).

New pictures of the girls

We haven't done anything terribly exciting in the past few weeks, but have managed to catch some great pictures of the girls around the house.

The kids are doing well. Amelia is now 6 months old and getting big! She has started crawling this week (We will get a video of this on here soon!). She just uses her arms to pull her along, but she gets quickly gets to where she is going! She is now 18 pounds and 28 in. long. She has her first cold, poor thing. But, she is hanging in there. She still remains all smiles....well, most of the time!

Maddie is keeping us busy. The other day I heard her counting....in Spanish! You can see in this video that she can go all the way to 8!

We had a quiet weekend at home this weekend. We poured some rice in a container and let Maddie play with it. This kept her entertained for nearly an hour (and took about an hour to clean up!).

Her new favorite place to play.....

Halloween

So, better late than never, right? Here are pics from Halloween. We really lucked out with great weather and Amelia got to stroll along with us! She was excited to go for a ride, as usual.

Maddie was a pro. She knew exactly what to say to ask for a piece of candy and, of course, peeked in her bag to see what they gave her while still standing on their porch.

Maddie had a great time, but when she was finished, she was sure to let us know!!

Twas the night before NFL Sunday...

Twas the night before Sunday, and all through the house, all the girls were sleeping, quiet as a mouse...

The Purdue game was on, and none seemed to care. The Boilermaker beating was in full-swing, Spartan points coming from everywhere.

Kiddies were taken, put snug in their beds, images of good teams (like the Colts) dancing in their heads.

A High Flying Adventure

We were sitting around Sunday enjoying doing nothing and Chuck said to me "You know what would be perfect for today?" I finished his thought with "The kites!"

Quite awhile ago we picked up these two cheapy kites from Menards. They were super awesome. One has Batman on it and the other Transformers.....they were buy one get one free. We hadn't had (or maybe the word is made) a good time to fly them. However, Sunday presented us with the perfect opportunity because there was plenty of wind (30-40 mph sustained winds).

We went outside and of course Madelyn was totally interested. Chuck got one flying and gave it to her. I wish we had caught her excitement on tape when she was squealing and saying "Look at me Mommy!" Every time she had the kite she would squeal with excitement. This video shows a little bit of it, but at the end her kite crashes, so she isn't as excited.

A family trip to Broadripple 10-25-08

Isn't this a great picture?!?!? She is getting so big!!

Awhile back Chuck and I were watching Sunday night football. The game was here in Indy and they showcased a burger joint in Broadripple (a section of Indy that has a college-like atmosphere). Several weeks later, we decided to pack up the kiddies and go try it out.

It was a little chilly Saturday morning, but we bundled up and headed out. We first went to the Broadripple Farmer's Market, behind Broadripple High School. We didn't find much, but Maddie picked out some pumpkins. She got one big pumpkin (the daddy pumpkin) and 4 tiny pumpkins (the babies).

We then headed for some lunch. We went to Boogie Burger. It was a tiny little place that probably only had seating for about 20 people at the most. We got burgers, fries (Chuck got his favorite...chili cheese fries) and Maddie, of course, had a hot dog. It was really good!

After lunch, we did some walking. We were looking for Just Pop In, a local popcorn place that was started by a set of twins. We found it and decided to get some cheese popcorn as well as carmel corn. Yum, yum.

Maddie enjoyed our walk over there. Oh, and see in her hands? She is carrying 3 tiny ponies (or honies as she says it) that she got from her stocking last year. These are her new favorites to carry around, but are impossible to locate at bedtime sometimes and many of you know how she is about her things at bedtime!

Halloween party at Gymboree 10-24-08

Maddie participated in her first Halloweed party last Friday. It was pretty chaotic (we attended after not having a nap), but it was a fun time. They spent about an hour in the gym playing games and singing songs.

After that they moved into the side room (where we have our music class) to have a snack and decorate pumpkins. Maddie had a good time decorating hers.

She was completely exhausted after the party.

Another Busy Week

Last week Joe and Randi had a conference to attend in Noblesville and the plan had been for Chuck and I to keep the girls from Thurs-Sat morning. Randi came Wednesday and stayed with us. After we put the kids to bed, Randi and I went to see Nights In Rodanthe. When the kids got up Thursday morning, Rebekah was running a fever and not feeling well. We gave her a popsicle to try and cool down.

Randi took Rebekah with her and left Rachel with us. Madelyn and Rachel had a great time playing together. Friday came and I knew I had to get them out of the house to burn off some of their energy. Chuck suggested we go to the zoo. We are members, so we figured if it didn't go well, we wouldn't be out any money. The girls did a really good job!

We got there in time to see the elephant Tombie get a bath.

The zoo was all decked out ready for the Halloween Zooboo. The girls hopped in the ghoulbus for a picture.

The girls enjoyed looking at the penguins and the polar bear (or, as Maddie says it "holar bear")

The girls had a good time and were really well behaved. They both took good naps that afternoon after we got home!

That weekend we had our third and final wedding in South Bend. We left about 8 in the morning. We had to make one stop in Kokomo to feed Amelia. We met Randy and his family, along with Bill and Debbie at Chik-fil-a for lunch on our way into town. Maddie had fun playing with her cousins!

She climbed up into the play set and realized she didn't have a way down she liked. She sat up in there saying "I'm stuck!" "Daddy save me" and "I'm in trouble". SO dramatic. Anyway, Chuck had to climb up in there to get her out, but as soon as he got up in there, she said "I go play now" and then repeated the same cries for help when she wanted to get out again. This time there was an older girl in there who was able to help Maddie climb down.

Our friend Jenny's wedding was at 3, so Bill and Debbie took Amelia with them and we took Maddie to Chris and Brandi's house. They took her to the pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin. This is her and Kayla looking for pumpkins.

Found one! Actually, she ended up getting 2....one to decorate and then a "baby pumpkin".

They stopped at WalMart to get stickers so that Maddie would be able to decorate her pumpkin herself. With the help of Zack and Kayla, she made a pretty cool looking pumpkin!

Sunday morning, we met up with Mom, Grandma and Pap for lunch at Logan's. Maddie sat next to Pappaw and played with him. She really enjoyed making faces at him and cracked up when he would make them back at her.

Our drive back to Indy was pretty typical. We start out with quiet children and then end up listening to them alternate who is going to cry or whine for most of the way. Amelia took first shift while Madelyn napped. We decided we needed to stop and give her a bottle, but that meant we would have to wake Madelyn up. We passed the Apple Dumpling Inn on US 31 and decided to stop there.

It was a really neat place. They had fresh picked apples for sale. They also had a playground to play on as well as a barn with different animals in it for petting/viewing. Madelyn was brave enough to pet the donkey.

This was the first time she sat on a big girl swing. She loved it, in case you can't tell from her face.

We got home about 5:30 and were glad to be home once again!

Indianapolis Children's Museum 10/09

Thursday we made another outing with Stacey, Brayden and Bryce. This time we went to the Children's Museum. This was our first visit to the museum and it was a blast! We played in the Playscape room the entire time we were there. This room is geared to children 5 and under and was full of hands on items. While it was mostly for the big kids, Bryce and Amelia enjoyed themselves as well!

When we first arrived, Brayden showed Maddie his favorite thing at the museum....chasing the lights on the floor. They spent several minutes doing this before we moved on. click on this video to check it out!

Maddie spent the majority of her time in the playhouse. It had furniture, play food and even a baby, which she latched onto right away.

Maddie also enjoyed the sand table. Thanks to Pop, she took the baby from the playhouse and buried her in the sand table. I didn't get a picture of it....I was too busy cleaning the baby off!

Near the sand table was the water table.

This is Madelyn as a bird. They had an area where they could climb up and sit in the "nest".

Maddie and Brayden had a good time playing together. Not sure how she talked him into moving her all around, but they did this for quite awhile.

They had a time for singing and dancing, which Maddie was ALL about. You can see the excitement on her face!

Needless to say, she was exhausted and fell asleep after about 2 minutes in the car. She went home and still took a 2 hour nap!