Maddie in glasses

Since Amy started wearing glasses when she was 5, she wanted to get Maddie checked, so, they went on Friday to get Maddie's eyes tested.  As it turns out, Maddie is 20/20 in her left eye and 20/40 in her right eye, so she's far-sighted there.  Although he said most kids have some far-sightedness, the doctor thought that wearing glasses for a few months might actually correct this for Maddie.  She was very excited and was having a lot of fun picking out frames, until we saw the price tags!  Sheesh!  I convinced her to go with a cheaper pair, and she liked them best anyways.  The glasses were ready today, so they picked them up on her way home, and without further ado, here's a few with her new glasses...

 

 

Going bowling

Amy needed to get out of the house today (she's had cabin fever a lot this winter), and wanted to do something fun for the girls, and once the word "bowling" came out of her mouth, Maddie didn't want to do anything but.  I have a feeling she felt it was easy as it is on the Wii.  For the record, it's not.

 

 

At this point in the game, Sam was doing just as good as Amy!  Way to go Champ!

ST-RIKE!

Random Pics from January & February

 

  

  

  

Valentine's Day

Maddie had a lot of fun at pre-school giving & receiving valentines (and candy, natch).
The girls were excited to open their cards on Valentine's Day. 

 

 

Children's Discovery Museum

While we were off between Christmas and New Year's, Amy decided we should take the girls to the Children's Discovery Museum in Normal.  The place had a lot of themed areas, and overall was a pretty cool place for kids.

This water area was like a raised pond on a table.  there were jets of water where you could add pipes to move the water to other areas.

There was a pizza restaurant station where they could take telephone orders, make pizzas out of cloth materials, cook them in the "oven"....

And deliver them fast!

They had a water paint area where they could paint on the clear walls around the area and then clean it all up.

Dr. Sam has her smart-looking glasses on & is ready for her patient.

Checking out her patient's heartbeat.

Dentist Maddie is intimidating her patient with that giant toothbrush!

Christmas at G&G Hoehne's

After going through the gifts at our house, we got all dressed & headed over to Grandma & Grandpa Hoehne's to open gifts there & have our usual Christmas morning breakfast...yum.  I'm hungry for date bread just typing this...

She can hardly stand waiting any longer.

Sam decided she didn't have time to get dressed & wore her pajamas over...

Jewelry...ah, teaching her at such a young age.

Can you say "new favorite dress"?

BATH TOYS! BATH TOYS!

The big gift at the end...a scooter!

Christmas in Iowa

We spent our Christmas time with Papa & Margaret in snowy Adel, Iowa early.  Sledding, feeding & petting the neighbor horses, seeing Santa, and of course, opening presents all made for a good time.  And this year it wasn't us that ended up in a ditch!

The girls getting pulled behind the tractor for a fun ride!

Papa Bob & Sam taking a quick ride down the hill.

Maddie with Santa doing his mall duty in Des Moines.  Sam wasn't feeling it, so we don't have a picture of her with this jolly guy.

You know, I'm not sure the girls are ever so well-behaved as when they have a boat-load of presents waiting to be opened!  They got spoiled as usual!

Random November-December 2009 Pics

Here are some random pictures from the last 2 months of 2009.

Sam playing dress up...um, gypsy dress up.

Maddie at her tumbling class.  I'm not sure she learned much, but she did enjoy it.

Murphy must have had a cold nose.

More dress up...bling bling.

Maddie & Great Grandma Baker playing Candyland...

Maddie just before her pre-school Christmas show
starts...

The four of us after the show.

Halloween 2009

I started the day trying to track down a place that still had some pumpkins left.  The night before apparently we were too late for 2 crates at Kroger's that arrived that evening!  So, after about 7 calls, I found someplace that said they had some.  So while Amy & Maddie were at tumbling, Sam and I went for the pumpkin.  They literally had 4 left.  I grabbed the best one and after Maddie drew up a face, we carved it up.

Got Maddie this Princess Jasmine outfit for her birthday and she just loved it.  Slight freak out just before we visited the family when there was a tear in the tulle in the middle of the outfit and Amy's stitching job didn't work.  Dad came to the rescue with super glue & scotch tape!

Sam used one of Maddie's old costumes...the lady bug.  She enjoyed getting into it and everything, so that made it easier, cause when she doesn't want to do something, believe me, she lets you know.

So, we went & saw some grand-parents & great-grandmas and then hit the trick-or-treating on our block.  It was a warm day, but when the sun went down, it got rather cool.  Sam kept saying that she was tired, but wouldn't take me up on my offer to go home with her right then! :)
They had a blast, and we ended up with a big bag full of candy. 

Maddie's point of view...take 1

Maddie always liked pretending to take pictures and especially when we let her use our camera to take a picture or two.  I thought she was old enough, so we got her a decent camera for her birthday.  I say decent, cause it wasn't too expensive for a digital camera, but the megapixel size is better than what we have!  Anyway, I just pulled some images off of her camera card, and thought they gave a different perspective, and so, here's one of the chalk in a bucket...one of the clearest shots she got!

I'm not sure if it was the fence she had in mind, or something in the next yard, but the fence is right there!

Cute one of Sam, I presume just waking up from a nap...even if it is a bit out of focus.

EXTREME CLOSE-UP!!!  Yep, that's Frosted Flakes in a bowl of milk...hilarious!

Maddie's first tumbling class

Maddie was so excited to go to tumbling.  The day before she told me about how school & daycare was going to just fly by, cause she knew she had tumbling the next day.  She was very happy to have a new leotard and did great!  She's definitely the tallest in the class, and maybe the oldest.  She volunteered to do things first a number of times, and I think she's going to really enjoy it!

Maddie's 5 year photos

Got Maddie's 5 year old photos taken last weekend.   She was totally into the photo session.  She picked the background and the little stone wall to sit on in a few photos.  It was really funny.  The photographer said "I think you've been here before."

Click the photo to get to the rest of the set.

Maddie - 5 Year Photos