Homebody

Madelyn takes after her daddy and is a homebody (is that really even a word?). Particularly at night, she wants to be home with her parents. She has spent the night at friends' houses maybe three times.  She enjoys spending time with her friends but when it nears night time she wants to be home with us. Case in point, a couple of days ago her friend asked her to spend the night on Thursday (tonight). Initially Madelyn was very excited about the idea, but as the time grew closer she changed her mind and didn't want to go. Since she had already told her friend she would stay the night Ryan and I decided that she would not back out on her plans. Tonight Madelyn and I went to the movie, Repunzel, with our friends and afterwards she was to go home with her friend. As we walked out of the theater, she said "mama, I want to go home." I told her that she was going to spend the night with her friend and I would pick her up in the morning. She gave me extra kisses and hugs and told me she was calling me first thing in the morning to come pick her up.  It hurt my heart a little but I knew she will be just fine. She is in very good hands, as the mom of Madelyn's friend, is one of my good friends and running partner, and they live just over a mile from us. My friend knows that she can call at any hour if Madelyn is too home sick and I will come get her.
One day soon when Madelyn wants nothing to do with us and would rather be at her friend's house than at home with her parents I will look back at this and remember that sweet girl that didn't want to leave us.

Wordless Wednesday

Christmas 2010

At 7:30am we were woken by a very excited seven year old saying "mama, mama, it's Christmas morning, lets see what Santa brought!" Followed by "Oh my gosh!!! He brought me a red and black bike and new bedding just like I asked for!!! He even ate most of his cookie, drank the milk and the reindeer ate their oatmeal!" From that point on it took maybe a total of 20 minutes for us to get through all our presents. Santa was very good to Madelyn and Ryan out did me on the gifts as he does every year. He is a very good gift giver.

 Ryan was the first one to try out the new bike.

  A cute ornament from Madelyn.

 We both received very nice letters and drawings from Madelyn.

Goodness such a sight for sore eyes! BLECH!

 More DVDs, my goodness this child could open a red box with all her movies.

How exciting a new pink rug for her room.

 Weeding through all the gifts!

 Testing out her new bike, complete with a black wire basket.

Trying out her new bedding.

After gifts I made bacon and toast for breakfast, which trust me, is a real treat. Then we spent the day relaxing and enjoying our new toys. For dinner Ryan grilled a delicious steak and before we knew it Christmas was over. All the fuss and hype and it was over in a flash, but we made time to focus on the real meaning of Christmas and thanked God for our many blessings. 

Christmas Eve 2010

We celebrate Christmas with our families on Christmas Eve. We arrived at the Muhligs' around lunch time and then went to my parents' house at dinner time.  After we arrived at Ryan's parents' house we ate lunch, opened gifts and then the adults played robber's bingo. There is never a dull moment at the Muhlig house and you can always count on lots of laughs.  This year the highlights were Dustin falling through the ice at the creek and walking back to the house in his underwear. Then wearing Nana Muhlig's robe, and earning the name Hugh Jensen. The other highlight was when Ashley's boyfriend, Joe, won most of the gifts at robber's bingo and it became Joe's Christmas. He was a very polite young man even when he opened some rather tacky gifts. I sure hope he comes back next year with many of the items regifted.

 There is always rough housing on Christmas Eve

 Bob and Brett (who happens to be taller than everyone now).

 Robber's Bingo in action

 Matt, and Papa Muhlig helping Hugh into his robe

Hugh Hephner eat your heart out!

 A long awaited pillow pet

Garrett licking his chocolate pie, who needs silverware anyway?

 Joe's Christmas

Nana Muhlig, Garrett, Jen & Travis

After a fun time at the Muhligs' we headed across town to my parents' house. We then all went to pizza hut for dinner and then to church. While the rest of the fam arrived 30 minutes early to church, Kaitlyn drove Ryan and I around Council Grove...and amazingly we made it to church in one piece. After church we went back to mom and dad's house to open gifts. By the time we got through ALL the gifts it was time for us to head home to Augusta so we could all be snug in bed before Santa arrived.

Surprisingly we didn't get kicked out for being so loud.

 All the girls received Christmas teddy bears.

 Such a pretty face Kaitlyn

 

 The girls opening their "big" gifts

New digital cameras! Yipee!

KC Trip

Wednesday evening we enjoyed our visit with Terry, Angie & Jillian.  We went out to dinner and then we kept them up entirely too late visiting, as Terry and Angie had to work the next day.

On Thursday morning we made our way to Cabelas and Nebraska Furniture Mart for some quality shopping. And then it was off to GWL. It became quite evident that our child is a bit spoiled when going to GWL was really no big deal to her. Although she was excited when we broke the news, once she had played in the waterpark for an hour she was ready to move on to something else. We did spend quality time at  Legends Mall and then went back to GWL where we made sure that Madelyn spent more time in the waterpark. Then it was story time in the lobby, where it began to snow and Rudolph made an appearance, then it was off to the arcade. We were all tired from a busy day and crashed early.

 A little blurry from the steam in the hot tub

 On Friday morning we woke up to a beautiful snow and made our way to Council Grove for Christmas with our families.

If we return to GWL it will definitely be with friends. When it is just the three of us Madelyn is attached to our hips and with friends she would likely have had more fun and would have spent more time in the waterpark. Or maybe I'm just trying to deny that we have created a spoiled child. :)

Heading Out of Town

Today is the beginning of  Madelyn's Christmas vacation so I decided to take the day off and spend with her. The only thing we actually have planned is to go see the Yogi Bear movie, other than that I will probably be getting ready for our trip to KC. As soon as Ryan gets off work we will make our way to KC where we will stay with our dear friends, the Bosch's. Then on Thursday the three of us will be going to Great Wolf Lodge unbeknownst to Madelyn. Amazingly we have kept this a secret for a couple of months. She will be thrilled when she finds out. This will be her fifth time going and this time she will be able to go down the slides without us which is thrilling to me! I'm looking forward to shopping at Nebraska Furniture Mart and Legends Mall and of course Ryan has Cabelas gift cards that are burning holes in his pockets.

On Friday morning we will travel to Council Grove where we will celebrate Christmas with Ryan's family and then my family. Of course we have to make it back to our house that night because Santa will be visiting.

Merry Christmas to all (the 4 people that actually read this)!!

"Elfie"

"Elfie" our Elf on the Shelf  has appeared in some interesting places this season.

I'm pleased that Elfie joined our family two years ago. It/he has become a fun family tradition that we all look forward to every Christmas season.

Hemming for Dummies

Baking Day

Today Madelyn and I had our annual baking day. Madelyn was quite excited about plans for baking and mentioned a time or two that we bake every year and it has become our "family tradition." Well the family part was short lived as she was involved for about an hour and then found something more entertaining to do, and Ryan is nowhere to be found on baking day. But Madelyn was very helpful when needed, especially when it came to the tedious peanut butter balls. After spending a majority of the day baking and then cleaning up we delivered most of the goodies to neighbors and friends. With the exception of the peanut balls because Ryan prefers to keep those for himself.

The bakers

The finished products: peanut butter balls, puppy chow, choc covered pretzels, rolo pretzels, peanut clusters

Packaged up and ready to deliver to neighbors and friends

Ten Years Ago

It is hard to believe that it has been 10 years since that terrible quadruple murder took place. That day Augusta High School lost a vibrant, young teacher, and families and friends lost treasured loved ones. I often wonder how the sole survivor is doing, and I wonder how the victims' families have moved on. It angers me that the murderers are still alive and well in prison, getting 3 meals a day, heat in the winter, ac in the summer, tv, etc., They are undeserving bastards and should not exist in this world. *Gasp* I guess you all now know how I feel about that.
Below is the link to the article that appeared in the Wichita Eagle today.
http://www.kansas.com/2010/12/15/1633883/ten-years-later-carr-brothers.html

Birthday Shout Out(s)!!

Happy Birthday to the man that hung the moon!

 And to a lady that I will be forever grateful for bringing up an amazing son.

I love you both!!

Gingerbread House

Madelyn talked me into making a gingerbread house on Saturday. I had purchased the gingerbread house kit because I knew I was not crafty enough to build one from scratch. Turns out I'm barely crafty enough to assemble one from a kit. The directions on the box made it look so easy...yeah, not so much. I ended up breaking one of the walls and the roof kept sliding off. After a few choice words and having to walk away before I threw it away we finally got it built. Madelyn loved decorating it but we both decided that it would be much better to buy one that is already put together and then she could decorate it without having to deal with her mama having a mini tantrum when putting it together.

Looks can be deceiving...it wasn't that easy!

Finally the fun part begins.....

 Taste testing...