5 years old

Madilynn turned 5 years old today, I cannot believe how time flies. She is such a wonderful little girl, we are so glad she came to our family.

Things about Madi:
Her favorite color is Yellow
Her favorite primary song is "Revently Quietly"
Her favorite princess is Ariel
favorite dinner is Rib (which is what we are having for her birthday dinner)
favorite candy is Cotton Candy
favorite game is DON"T EAT PETE!
favorite movie is "Barbie in Princess Charm School"
favorite toy is new puppy
favortie book is "Silly Rapunzel" (Tangled)

She still loves her yellow blanket
She still loves to get "snuggy"
She loves anything sparkly and fancy
She loves to be fabulous
She loves shinny jewels, necklases and seashells (don't know where the seashell thing came from but that's what she said.)
She is very sensitive to what others are feeling
She is always the one that cries during a movie and when grandpa and grandma leave
She likes going to primary and playing games there
She loves preschool, her favorite thing to do is sing the "Rise and Shine" song there.
She loves her siblings
She loves doing special activities with her dad. While we were out buying her presents, she got to go with her dad to the car wash, to the gas station for a treat and out for lunch but her favorite part was that she got to ride in his car. She had such a great time! She is still talking about it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADI GIRL!
WE LOVE YOU!

Random Pictures from the day...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

with love- the flapper, the witch, the kitty and the dinosaur

halloween festivities

Saturday, October 22, 2011 "Night Eyes" at the Zoo with Grandpa and Grandma Gardner

Sunday, October 23, 2011 decorated sugar cookies


Friday, October 28, 2011 carved pumpkins

Savannah did her pumpkin all by herself from start to finish

Madi cleaned her pumpkin out all by herself.

Olivia carried her pumpkin around all night and wanted to sleep with it that night...that did't happen

Austin loved his pumpkin and carried it around too and couldn't stop saying "pumkin, pumkin"

Final results...Jason's didn't carve one this year he got home too late that night and then had to work the next day/night.

Saturday, October 29, 2011 Trunk-or-Treat at the Church (Jason had to work)


Sunday, October, 30, 2011 Beggar's Night (Jason took the kids while I passed out candy)

Eating the candy after a fun night/week of Halloween festivities

time away

Jason and I needed vacation (especially Jason since he doesn't get a lot of vacation time in the sun) so we booked a cruise on Royal Carribean. The last cruise we went on was 10 years ago and we really liked it so we decided for the money it was our best deal. Our parents were nice enough to fly in and watch the kids (see previous post) which we were very grateful for. It was just a quick 5 day cruise but Jason actually stopped dreaming about work for those 5 days so it served it's purpose and we got to spend quality time with each other.

The first stop was the private island owned by Royal Carribean.

It was so nice! We snorked and had a great time sitting on the beach until the down pour of rain.

The next stop was Nassau the capital of the Bahamas. It was okay...we went to the straw market, walked around the town a little bit, had lunch at Senor Frogs and took a little boat tour on the other side where the Atlantis Resort was but we didn't go in.

lady putting the girls names on their purses...the only souvenirs we bought

Then Thursday was a day at sea, we sat in the sun and got burned while we drank our pina colada and strawberry daiquiri. We had a great time just hanging out and spending time together.

It is always amazing to me to see the vastness of the ocean. It is so beautiful!

After the ship got back to port on Friday morning we had about 6 hours to spare so we rented a car and drove out to NASA and spent a few hours there. Jason had been there years ago with his grandparents and he was just excited now as he was then. After seeing all of this stuff it is truly an amazing thing that we have sent people into space...it took very smart people to figure all of that stuff out.

I love you Honey! Thanks for a wonderful vacation.

miracle

Last week a miracle happened in our house...Jason and I went on vacation. But that is not the real miracle...The real miracle is that we corrdinated 6 peoples schedules to make this thing work and it worked wonderfully.

Last month Jason and I decided that we were going to go on a cruise and since both our parents talked about coming to visit in October we decided to try and work it so that they could watch our kids while we left for 5 days.

Jason's parents flew in Saturday morning, October 15th.
Jason and I flew out Monday early morning, October 17th


My parents flew in Wednesday morning, October 19th and switch places with Jason's parents at the airport.
Jason and I flew in Friday late night, October 21st.
Then my parents flew home early Sunday morning, October 23rd.

I'm sure the kids had just as much fun as Jason and I did... They when shopping, made shirts, made cupcakes, went on walks around the block, played at the park, went to the apple orchard, went to the Farmers Market, went to Night Eyes, swimming and more things that they remember everyday. Those are just the extras that grandpas and grandmas did, they also had to take the kids to school and dance and do homework, not to mention the things they did in secret that I may never know about.

Jason and I are very lucky to have such wonderful parents to take time out to come visit and watch the kids. Thank you so very much for all your love and support. We love you!

pets

This past month we have had two different pets in our home...

The first was Polly Penguin, Madi's preschool class pet. September 30-Oct 2 was our weekend to take care of her. She was the best pet ever, she is invited in our home anytime. As you can tell Madi was very excited to bring her home and we took her everywhere even to Dad's work to see the helicopter.

Second we have been raising caterpillars into butterflies and finally we got to let them go. The kids loved to watch them everyday. It was kind of sad though, we had a "Nemo" butterfly and when I let the last one go on a windy day it disappeared too and we never could find it. We also had two who couldn't wait to mate until they got into the wild and we let them go in the middle of them doing their thing.

These are the kind of pets I love, ones that don't make a mess and don't smell.