Christmas Memories

Here's some great ones from the 2008 Christmas season.

Maddie's first Christmas show at pre-school...it was as good as you can imagine! :)

All my girls, ready for the Christmas Eve party at Grandma & Grandpa Hoehne's!

Check out the loot! Santa thought we were all good this year!

Opening gifts at Grandma & Grandpa Hoehne's! Sam sure looks happy.


Christmas gifts with Papa!

Sam's Crazy Nap Hair

So Samantha woke up from a nap with some interesting hair one day and we just had to capture it on video!

A born performer

Maddie decided to use her microphone & speakers to sing us some songs, and her performance just had to be captured & shared...



Whatta finish!

Exercising

I've been trying to get back to doing more exercising again. Maddie came downstairs this week a couple of times while I was on the treadmill, and wanted to try it. Tonight (after some juice) she decided to start exercising in the living room...


Sam wanted to get into it too...

Click!

Sam's learned to click her tongue in her mouth...cutie-pie.

Random November Pics

Sam kept trying to help me or Maddie use the laptop, so I thought it was time to break out Maddie's old toy laptop, and she's loved it!






















Everybody needs a cool pair of shades...













Maddie posing with cousin Quaid!













Murphy was rather intrigued by the air popper.

Jump Sam!

Here's a cute one of Sam's attempts at jumping...

Halloween!

It was a beautiful night for trick or treating...no windy, cold weather! Samantha was Marie the cat from The Aristocrats movie. She spent some of the time riding in the wagon, but also liked walking up to the doors with her pumpkin like her big sister. Maddie was a fairy and liked wearing make-up. An obscene amount of candy was collected and a good time was had by all!

The Annual pumpkin autopsy

Daddy and Maddie carved the pumpkin. Maddie was more involved this year and helped scoop out the seeds. She also helped decide how the pumpkin face should be carved.

It's tough being a dog...

Murphy isn't so little anymore! Here is a rare calm moment between him and Casey

Pre-Halloween parties

I took Maddie with our neighbor Toni and her daughters, Ty and Brynn to the Hall-zoo-ween at our zoo. The girls had a lot of fun!
The next night we met up with Kim and Savannah and Kim's nieces to go to Wildlife Scary Park. This time I took Samantha along too. They got to go on a train ride that was "not so scary" since it was earlier in the night. Another good time!

Toy shopping (& Spider-Man)

On Saturday, I took Maddie to the toy store to spend a gift card she received. She had it in her wallet in her little purse. She also had a coupon in there (her Mom is training her early). She had a great time picking out what she wanted. She ended up with a new Diego game for her hand held system, a mermaid bath toy that has a little swing & slide for the doll it came with, a new Strawberry Shortcake DVD, and some of that fabulous color-wonder paper that the markers only work on special paper. This set was a glitter marker set, so that should be interesting, but it still says "mess-free", so I'm going to hold them to it!
After we purchased her new toys, on the way out she saw this Spider-Man ride and wanted to ride it. I didn't have any change, so I told her she couldn't, but she reminded me she had her purse with her, and low & behold, she had enough change in it to ride the ride! She's growing up so fast!

Family Day

Saturday we went to the Family Day at the proving grounds for work. We decided to get there early, and it was good that we did. There was a line already starting up.

First thing we did was head to the face painter. We only had to wait a few minutes, but Maddie picked this immediately out of the book, and it looked cute.








They had the inflatable slides & jump/bounce houses there, and Maddie loved the slide! There were less than 10 kids going on it at the time so she must've been able to go down it at least a dozen times.










Even Sam got to go down the slide a couple of times!








Maddie sitting in the cab of a backhoe loader.














Sam in the small bucket of the backhoe part....










And Maddie in the large bucket of the loader part.







All in all, we had a great time. We had lunch, and all shared some ice cream treats. We got some freebies (hats, keychains, nylon backpacks & squishy smiley faces), saw a machine demo, including one of a large dozer run by remote control. By the time we left, the line to come in was at least 10 times longer than when we got there. Sam was ready for her nap, so we headed home.

Playing House

Amy got her hair done tonight, so I spent a couple of hours alone with the girls. Everything went great, no crying, no muss. In fact, everything went so well, the girls even played well together. Here's a couple shots of them playing with the front & back of the toy house. It was really cute.

Bunch of random ones...

I've gotten behind posting pictures, so I thought I'd throw out a group all at once. Enjoy the slideshow!

Maddie's Birthday

I decided that Maddie's birthday deserved it's own post, so here's some of the same pics from the slideshow.
She had a great time opening her gifts. She loved them all
She picked out her Cinderella & Prince Charming cake, and it really looked great!
After blowing out the giant "4" candle, we all enjoyed the cake and the kids played around all afternoon! It was a great day! Happy 4th birthday Madeline

Maddie's 4 year pics

Maddie's 4 year old pictures came out so good. They took a ton of pictures and she posed & followed directions so well. Click on the image below to see the rest.

From Maddie - 4 Year Photos

And it continues...

Sam was dancing around a lot (as were the other girls, if you've seen the previous posts). She was going nuts on the zebra riding toy tonight, and by the time I got the camera, this was all I could capture...still a good one though.

Happy feet...the video

Here's a quick one with a video of all my girls dancing it up!

Happy feet

All my girls got dance fever tonight...even Amy! She didn't want me to put this out here, but I talked her into it. I had to rub her feet to convince her, but it was worth it!

Random Pics Tonight

I thought Maddie looked so cute with this barrette in her hair.












And Sam looked like she'd grown up so much wearing this outfit...I don't know why.

The early bird...

So Maddie was feeling better this morning (she had stayed home sick yesterday after getting sick in bed). She was in our room before my alarm could get through it's first snooze, completely dressed with her hair in headband and shoving me to get up because she was ready to go to school. Glad she's so excited about school, but it certainly doesn't make Mommy a morning person still! She got to take a bath in the jacuzzi tub that night and decided she would turn herself into Santa Claus with some strategically placed bubbles!

Every place is a place to play

So I was looking through the pictures on the camera tonight, and I didn't even know Amy had taken some pictures of Sam that day. When Amy's getting ready, Sam likes to go through the things under my sink. Well, apparently today, instead of pulling things out to play with, she thought it was a good idea to get in there with it!

Sam's learning stuff too!

Maddie's not the only one that's learning...Sam's picking up new tricks too, just not at school. Where's you're head?
Found it!

First day of (pre)school

So, today was Maddie's first day of pre-school. I stayed home to witness this amazing event. When we woke her, she was a little groggy, but when we mentioned it was first day of school, she leapt out of bed, threw open her closet door to get to the dress she had picked out. She was so excited! When we got there, she was a little shy, but she jumped right in and made friends, and didn't even notice that we left. One of her teachers told Amy that Maddie had a great day, so we are very proud of our big girl!

So excited for school

So today, Maddie must've asked us 20 times if school was tomorrow. She was disappointed each time that she had one more "home day", then it would be the first day of pre-school. She's been telling us everything she thinks we want to hear. We tell her she can't throw fits about clothes, or argue with the teacher, and must listen, etc. etc. etc. Well, when she threw this little nugget out, we just had to capture it for posterity's sake.
It's a deal Maddie!

Sawin' logs

We were watching TV tonight, and started hearing some snoring...Murphy's head was just hanging off the couch. This was, of course, in between sparring with Casey and driving us nuts. He's really growing & is all legs.

Dinner with family!

Tonight we had dinner at my cousin Laurie's house with her, Chris & their little girl Carly. Right before we left, Laurie called to suggest we could bring our dogs with us...she just wanted to see Murphy, since she hadn't yet! We had hot dogs (kosher, yum!) and some great cheesy potatoes. They even bought a peanut butter cup pie...oh man, did we eat a lot! After dinner, the girls all played in their living room. Maddie even found some a cowgirl hat & boots in the basement, so she was stomping around the house having a great time. We all had a great time!

Keepin' it cool!

Saturday after some shopping (& a nap for Sam) we had some downtime, and Sam decided to pose for us. The sunglasses didn't stay on long, but long enough for a good one!

Couldn't take any more...

Amy mentioned that I met her & the girls at McD's for lunch (Maddie suggested it to me...I later found out from Amy that I was supposed to say no), and Sam was a crab most of the time there. By the end of lunch, she was throwing things and just in a general foul mood....here's the picture Amy sent me on my cell of her crashing between lunch & shots....good thing she got a little rest before having to get all worked up again..whatta cutie!

Girls Day Off!

I had the day off for one of the Catholic holidays that I get where I work. I decided to keep both girls home with me since Samantha had her one year immunizations in the early afternoon. It was a nice day so I asked Maddie if she wanted to go to the zoo and she said yes. Still not much of a zoo since the new exhibit is not open yet, but good enough for Maddie's age. After about an hour, Sam was tired of being in the stroller and hungry so we met Brian for lunch. Maddie selected McDonalds. After that we headed for the shots. Sam finally crashed on the way to the health department after lots of tears, but the little snooze perked her up enough to have more tears for her four shots. We headed home about 2:00 for a much needed nap for Sam and quiet time for Maddie!