It's Birthday Party Time!

We celebrated Madeline's first birthday with lots of friends and family. Everybody had a blast! There were kids everywhere, running and jumping and making lots of noise, just having a great time! And in the middle of all the chaos was Madeline sitting and playing on the floor, just enjoying the festivities! What a great way to celebrate a big first birthday!

Playing in the middle of the toy room with all her friends.

Happy Birthday to Me!












Trying to eat cake and ice cream












Adam couldn't stand it. Here, Maddie, let me show you how to get it into your mouth!








posted by Elena

Today is Madeline's 1st Birthday!!!

Can't hardly believe how quickly it's gone by, and then think that I've been waiting for her to get older for a year now. Kind of a bittersweet moment when you realize your baby just isn't quite a baby anymore. One year. Wow. Gonna have a birthday party this weekend; Maddie doesn't seem to care, but Olivia just can't wait!!! She keeps thinking that it's a party for herself, not her baby sister. Won't really matter, as I'm sure she'll be plenty of help with playing with others and opening any presents (this is the highlight of the day, of course).

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The Rest of the Halloween Day:

We had such a busy day!

Yesterday morning I had an appointment so I took Maddie and Zach to daycare. Then after that, Livi and I had half an hour before preschool, so we stopped by "the french fry house" (translation: McDonald's) for a quick bite.

Then I volunteered at preschool for their library day. So 4 parents helped 5 classrooms of kids check out library books for the week. It was kind of fun, and a good work-out too! I just got a kick out of some of the kids there! Such personalities!

Preschool got out, and Livi and I headed to Ana's Daycare to get pick up the little ones and get into our costumes. Then Daddy had a special request to stop by US Bank, so that's where we headed next! Went there to show off our costumes, and then decided to head over to Charter House (assisted-living at Mayo) because they were having a Halloween party and we got our pictures taken with the Pumpkin Queen! It was really a pretty fun deal! Then off to catch a quick bite for supper. At this point Daddy decided that he was a bit "Halloween-ed out," so he volunteered to take Maddie home so that Livi, Zach and I could go trick-or-treating. And that's what we did.

Since we live a ways out of town, the trick-or-treating scene is a bit scarce here. So we drove through a couple of neighborhoods in town, found one with lots of lights on, and went around one block. It was so cute, the kids with their little bags, running from door-to-door to get candy. Livi was so excited she would go up to the closed doors, knock and immediately say sweetly, "Trick-or-treat!" Usually this was before they even had a chance to answer the doors! Very funny. And then Zach would run a bit behind her, holding his bag, shouting, "Ti-Tee!" and then wouldn't say anything once he got to the door, just looked suspiciously at the people all trying to reach for his candy! All they wanted to do was put candy in his bag. It was so cute, really! And then he'd turn around and say, "Ankoo! (Thank you)." One lady did a double-take when he said that, she was so surprised by the polite little fireman at her door.

After one block, we decided we were tired and ready to go home, so we hopped in the car, buckled in the kids and the candy. Got home around 7:15pm (that's really all the later it was!) and I was beat! Ready for bed, but the kids decided that they needed to run off some steam, so they had a blast here at the house!

posted by Elena