Photos....in no particular order.....

I put this picture first b/c I LOVE IT - I absolutely 100% LOVE IT!



Patrick is a sexy BEAST in his swim attire!

Wrapped up after swimming....

Cute as can be in my swimsuit!

Swimming with Daddy!

Playing around.....

All the kids on the slide.....

SO SCARED!!!

Kiegan on one of the rides at the indoor amusement park.

Kiegan & Patrick playing video games.

This was Grandpa's "reading material" at Grand Bear......

These home-made PJ's (just the onesie is home-made) that Maddie is wearing were designed especially with Aunt Tracy and Uncle Jason in mind (BOO CARDINALS!)

The back: GO CUBS

The front: Cardinals Stink

Lexi & Maddie sleeping on the couch.....

Lexi at Grand Bear being a goofball!

After a hard day's swim.....

Daddy was pooped too.....

My swimsuit - so cute! Although Mommy sorta had to SQUEEEEEZE me into it....

Kiegan at Grand Bear.....

Angel, Patrick and Tyler enjoying a swim!

Lexi swimming.....

This is what we woke up to Sunday morning. It was a fun drive home!

My first camping trip!

The daycare clan was learning about blueberries during March so I made my very first pie - blueberry! It tasted better than it looks - I promise. I decided not to make a top crust b/c making crust is NO FUN!

This one is funny - the little girl to the right is the daughter of a couple that we are friends with and I take care of her a few days a week while her mom & dad work. There is only 6 weeks difference between the two, but a BIG size difference!!

Kiegan & Maddie swinging!

Time to catch up.....

So I've been bad about posting again - time to catch everyone up!

We did go camping the weekend before Easter. I think it'll be much more fun when the weather cooperates. Maddie & I spent A LOT of time inside the camper. She was getting over cold #2 (she's now on cold #3) and I didn't want to take the chance of having her outside in the cold and then her getting even sicker. The guys spent most of the weekend freezing at the race track. In fact, Friday night they came back to the campground before it was over with because they were so cold! Kiegan was lucky and got to hang out with us girls (me, Maddie, Nicole and Ashleigh). We played a lot of cards and Nicole was even able to get a fire going so some marshmallows could be roasted. We woke up Sunday morning and it was pouring rain! So when it let up a bit, we packed everything up and came home.

Easter weekend was great! Maddie was finally over her cold, but by the end of the day she was sneezing and coughing again. Of course because she's growing so much - she no longer fit into the cute Easter outfit I had that even had a fuzzy bunny tail on her fanny. But Lord knows she had plenty of other outfits to pick from! The food was awesome and I think I just kept snacking and snacking on stuff as I would walk by. After everyone was done eating, the Easter bags were all hidden outside around the yard for the kids to find. They came home with enough candy to re-fill our candy drawer and Maddie came home with some SUPER cute clothes including some little skorts that Travis says are "too short". :o) Now if the weather would just cooperate and stay warm enough for her to wear her cute clothes!

This past weekend we had a night out with friends to celebrate a birthday. Kiegan & Maddie stayed with Mamaw while we went with a group of about 12-14 people to Bloomington for dinner at Alexander's. Travis & I had never been there before, but we loved it! Afterwards, we went to Donnie B.'s Funny Bone Comedy Club and we laughed till it hurt. We had the best time! We got to my mom's about 10:15 or so to pick up Maddie (Daddy says she can't spend the night anywhere for at least a couple of years) and home we went! It was nice to have a kid-free night with our friends.

Kiegan starts baseball this week! His first practice is suppose to be tonight at 5:30, but we'll see if the weather holds out or not. I hope it does because he is VERY excited! This coming weekend will be busy as usual. Friday night is the Drawdown Dinner & Dance for St. Mary's at The Elk's Club. Cross your fingers that we win the big cash prize!! I'm also in the process of tagging stuff for a garage sale that our neighbors, Todd & Jen, are having. Maybe we'll sell some stuff and have some extra cash! A lot of my Saturday will probably be spent at their house helping out. Sunday I'm having a 31 Party at the house - they have a lot of cute totes & bags & other stuff! On top of all of this, I'm determined to Spring clean our house this year. It will probably take me ALL of Spring to get it done, but I've got a good start. I've already finished one bathroom, the office and the kitchen. I love a clean house and old country/farm houses are so hard to keep clean!!

Yesterday was our 1-year anniversary! We'll see how many more years I can put up with this guy..... :o) We went out for lunch (with Maddie of course) to Bernardi's - so good!! It was also Lexi's birthday and Joanne's birthday so we had dinner at John & Joanne's house - steaks, cheesy potatoes, pasta salad, baked beans, corn, rolls - the food list goes on and on! And for dessert Joanne made a Dump Cake and Brownies with hot fudge, hot caramel, ice cream and nuts. I've never had so much to eat in one weekend!! We gave Joanne a photo album that was put together from Shutterfly.com - she loved it!! Lexi is rolling in the dough - she received lots of cash which she loved. She also got some earrings, a digital makeover dealio and an Easy Bake Oven. I baked up some cookies (dough from a tub - not homemade) for her to take to school today. I think this coming weekend, we might let her choose a friend to take bowling or to a movie or something like that (as if we don't have enough going on!).

I think I've caught everyone up now - we'll see when my next post happens. :o) I've got some pics of Grand Bear Lodge and other random photos to post - I'll stick them in a seperate post.

Grand Bear Lodge

What a FUN weekend we had!! We left Friday evening after all the daycare kids were gone - the drive was only about an hour and a half. The boys were busy playing their Nintendo DS's and Lexi was starting to get one of her headaches which worried us because whenever she gets one of those she has to throw up to make it feel better and we didn't really want that stench in the van! She was able to keep it all in until we made it to the cabin, but once we got the van parked she flew out of it and immediately went into the cabin to find the bathroom. The original dinner plan was BBQ, but with it being Friday and us being a Catholic family - our plans changed to tuna salad, grilled cheese sandwiches and mac 'n' cheese! After dinner, Tracy & Joanne took the kids up to the pool that first night for a bit while the rest of us stayed back. Lexi also didn't go that first night - she was feeling better, but not 100%. Joanne ended up coming back early with Patrick & Tyler. Patrick stayed with us during his Spring Break and a couple of days before we left he had not been feeling well and coughing really bad. I guess he started to feel bad again so Grandma brought him back and he took some medicine and went to bed with Grandpa. By the next morning he was feeling much better!!



Saturday morning started out with a yummy breakfast of pancakes, biscuits and gravy, bacon and eggs. It was so good! Later on in the day we all got ready to go back to the indoor waterpark. This was going to be Maddie's first swim!! I had to try her swimsuit on her before we left because the one that I bought was a 3-6 months suit and she's been wearing 6-month clothes for awhile now. It fit, but barely! Travis & I took Maddie into the pool with us - the water was MUCH colder than I thought it would be so I was afraid she would get upset, but she didn't! We kept her in the pool for a decent amount of time and when we finally took her out and I wrapped her up in towels, she fell asleep in minutes. Not too much longer after she fell asleep, we took the kids back to the cabin for lunch. After eating, Travis & Maddie went back upstairs for a nap and Maddie slept for about 4 more hours so swimming must have really tuckered her out! In the meantime, some of us took the kids to the indoor amusement park to ride the rides and then over to the waterpark to play some video games. They all walked away with some of the cheapest little prizes that were just awesome to all of them. :o) Later on that evening, Travis, Tracy & I took the kids back over to the pool to swim. I started to notice that Maddie was starting to cough again - I was just hoping that it wouldn't turn into what it did the last time!



Sunday morning we woke up to probably 5 inches of SNOW! Of course this got Travis going and we took our showers, packed up and started to head back home in case he got called out to plow. We didn't have near as much snow here at home, but he still got called out around 11:00 or so to get the slush off the roads. So Sunday was spent doing laundry and getting the house ready for Monday morning! That night Maddie started running a fever - 99.8. By Monday it was gone, but she does have a cough and yucky nose so we're back on breathing treatments again. The cold never seems to bother her - she sits with Travis in the recliner and just cracks up laughing at him all the time! She's so funny....The kids had a GREAT weekend though and wished that they could live there! :o)



I've got a short work week - I'm closed all day Friday to take Lexi to a skin specialist in Blm. to see what we can do about the warts on her feet. Then we're leaving Friday to go camping at Dawson Lake for the weekend. The guys will be at the racetrack by the time Maddie, Kiegan and I get there. This will be Maddie's first camping trip - I'm sure it'll be fine. She's such an easy baby!

Family Pictures

Here are just a couple of our family pictures we had taken! They turned out pretty good I think!

Not much is going on this week - I've had a couple of slow days here at the daycare (I only have 2 kids today and only had 3 yesterday!). Patrick woke up feeling sick yesterday and stayed in bed until almost 3:00. Then he finally came downstairs and ate a couple of poptarts and seems to be feeling better except for having that nasty croup-sounding cough. Cross your fingers he doesn't get sick - we leave for Grand Bear tomorrow!! I'll try to remember to take my camera with us to get pics of the kids swimming and Maddie in her little swim suit. :o)

Family pics:

Maddie's Pic:

Here is how the boys have been spending their Spring Break - playing either their Nintendo DS or the Wii:

One sock off and one sock on!

I attempted to take the daycare kids outside to play and have a snack when it was nice, but SUPER windy. Miss Maddie in her shades.....

Happy, happy baby!

I love babies in jeans.....

Happy St. Patty's Day!

What a BEAUTIFUL day it is today! I'm hoping to get all the kids outside to play. We all have on our head bopper headbands with clovers on them - check out our picture below! I love Oriental Trading - they have really cute (and cheap!) stuff. I was able to get a dozen bopper headbands, a dozen pots of gold plus a bag of chocolate coins to put in them, a dozen little green mugs and a dozen tissue paper clovers for the kids to make for about $25 - not bad! Miss Maddie has on her St. Patty's Day outfit too which of course is totally cute. :o) I always talk about how our cat Haley is Irish (not really sure why I do) and it drives Travis crazy. So last night I told him to make sure he tells Haley "Happy Irish Day" when he got up this morning - he basically told me I was a weirdo, but he used words that I can't really share with you all to communicate that to me.
Our weekend was pretty good!

Tracy and her kids came home for a bit on Saturday so we all ran in town to the DQ for a treat from Grandma Joanne - good stuff! Grandma also bought the kids each a kite - it was perfect weather for kite flying!! Oh and Lexi got her ears pierced too - this is like the 3rd or 4th time now so we'll see if it lasts.

Now that Kiegan's signed up for baseball, we've been trying to practice with him so the boys & I went to the backyard later Saturday afternoon to hit some balls around. We need to buy Patrick his own bat & glove I think - Kiegan's bat is way too heavy for his poor skinny arms and the gloves we have are about as big as he is! So he didn't play with us for very long. :o(

We had our family pictures taken on Sunday - they turned out good. Of course I don't like how I look in them, but what's new? I was so irritated too b/c when I got ready that morning I really thought I looked nice - I liked my hair and my makeup - I really felt good! But then when we saw our pictures afterwards, I looked like crap - a big FAT pile of crap. The others looked good though! Maddie wasn't really smiling much in it, but she's cute even when she doesn't smile. We did get some pics of just her by herself and they turned out really cute - we could have gone crazy buying the different poses, but we controlled ourself. Pictures are so expensive! And of course their computer server went down so I can't even send you all to their website to view them. They said that they might have their server back up in 2-3 weeks. Anyway, we can pick our pictures up on the 24th so I'll try to scan them and put them on here for everyone to see.

Travis' dad gave him a welder over the weekend and Travis just loves it! He welded a hook thing on a post to hang my bird feeder on and he welded a broken sign of mine back together for me - he's so crafty with his new toy! Saturday is Flanagan's town "junk sale" as I like to call it and he's hoping to find a bunch of junk that he can weld together and make it look like new again. That could be interesting! Another "to do" for his list......he still hasn't finished our bathroom! He has also mentioned that he would like to buy some fence and posts and fence off the play area in the backyard for the daycare kids - I would love for him to do that! So we'll see how long this task takes to get done. :o)

The countdown is on for our weekend at Grand Bear Lodge! We leave two weeks from this Friday. The kids are VERY excited! Grandma Joanne told the kids that they didn't need to bring their Nintendo DS that weekend and I honestly think Kiegan went into a panic about that. Then she said that they could bring them for the ride there and that seemed to be ok. These boys of ours are game freaks - they will sit for hours on end playing either the Wii or their Nintendo DS. Reminds me of how I was when I was their age!

I'm sure you all know what a genius Maddie is going to be simply b/c she has me for a mom, right? Well, she is already showing how smart she is! A few weeks back I was putting her PJ's on her getting ready for bed and all of a sudden, loud and clear she says "HI!". Travis & I looked at each other and then looked at her and said "Hi" back and then busted out laughing. We thought for sure that was just a one-time thing, but I guess when she stayed with Grandma Joanne and Grandpa John she said it again and they both heard it! AND one night when Grandma Joanne was at our house visiting, Maddie counted to four on her fingers! FOR REAL! One at a time she held up her fingers until she counted to four. It was so funny....she is definitely "talking" more to us and I've even found her tickle spot and can get a giggle out of her every now and then, but I feel bad tickling her so I don't do it very often. I know I hate being tickled and I'm able to fend it off, but she can't! Oh yeah - our long-legged brunette is now wearing size 6-month clothes. A few of her 3-6 month clothes still fit her, but we're mostly pulling out of the 6-month pile now.

That's all for now - enjoy the pics!





I love the little fat rolls on the thighs....


Soooo looooong!


Yep - I'm cute!


Happy St. Patrick's Day!


Very serious moment....


Yes, that's drool.....

HELLO!

This is what she does with her hands when she's eating - balls them up into tight little fists!

2 1/2 months old already!

Maddie is 10 weeks old today! Hard to believe....she's growing like a weed too! At her two-month check-up she weighed 13 lbs. 3 oz. and was 26 inches long!! She's grown 6 inches in just 2 months - no wonder she's outgrowing her clothes so quickly! She's wearing her 3-6 month clothes now and only has about 2 more inches to grow before she'll be too long for her 6 month clothes. I definitely think she'll be tall like Daddy. She is still an excellent baby - she sleeps all night now! Her bedtime is still between about 9:30-10:00 and she'll sleep until around 5:30. When she wakes up, she nurses for about 10-15 minutes and is then back asleep until usually 8:00-8:15 or so. My kinda baby!! She also smiles like crazy now (I'm just waiting for her to bust out in a laugh one of these times) and wants to always sit up so she can see what all is going on. She has strong legs too! She's always standing on them if you hold her up on your lap.

Travis & I did have our first night out this past Saturday! We went to a comedy night at The Elk's Club that the Pontiac Firemen were putting on. There was a big group of us that went for drinks (I had my one beer), dinner and laughs and boy did we all laugh! It was absolutely hilarious!! Travis had a headache by the time it was over from laughing so hard - we definitely plan on going next year. I think some of the older people there were a bit put-off by some of the language, but I'm not sure what they were expecting since these were professional comedians. Oh well - we had a great time! Maddie stayed with Grandma Joanne and I knew they would get along perfectly fine. All week long I was convincing Travis that we were ok to go out and have some fun. He kept saying how he wasn't sure if he was ready to leave her yet. I think he was glad he went, but we were both ready to get her back home by the end of the night! :o)

Daycare is going very well! My daycare kids are so stinkin' funny - I have one little girl that is 2 1/2 years old with the funniest imagination. Her mom has also told me how she has named one of her babies at home "Maddie Moose" - I wonder where she picked that up at? :o) Her mom also shared with me last night that when she gets in trouble for something at home, she'll tell her parents "Heather says 'yes'". So funny! I took all the kids outside for a little bit last Friday - it was so darn nice out that I just had to get them out in the sun. Our swingset is leaning really badly and I was nervous to let them play on it so we all just held hands (well, I held Maddie) and made two trips around the yard. They were so cute b/c I had them all hold hands (I had 7 or 8 kids that day) and they were all holding hands in different ways so some of them had to walk backwards and some were walking sideways and when cars would drive by they would honk at the kids and boy did they think that was so funny!! I've also received 2 requests this week for daycare which is encouraging. AND one of my current daycare moms has told me that she told her husband that they would not be having another baby unless I had the room in my daycare - what a compliment to me! It was nice to hear after some of the problems I've been having with another daycare provider in Pontiac. For some reason this lady has targeted me and likes to run her mouth. It's getting bad enough that I'm thinking about having a little talk with her - I've been biting my tongue long enough. I certainly don't bother other daycares or get into their business, but I've heard that there are a handful of daycare providers in Pontiac that are just out to get others. I'll never understand people.....

In other family news - we get family pictures taken on Sunday! I've been trying to get better about pictures. I think we're all just going to wear jeans and something nice on top - Lord knows we're not the fancy clothes kind of family! Plus Maddie has the cutest jeans!! Hopefully I can post one of the pics after we get them taken.

Kiegan has been signed up for baseball - he'll start practicing in April. He is VERY excited about it!! We think all the running will be great exercise for him. Also, Kiegan will be having some Auditory Processing evaluations done at ISU either this summer or early Fall. Cross your fingers that we can get him the help he needs to make school and learning easier!

Lexi has her last volleyball game tonight. She told us the other night that she signed up at school to play volleyball for St. Mary's next year. We're hoping this will be incentive for her to keep her grades up - they are NOT good at the moment. Lexi heads to a specialist next month to do something for all of the nasty warts she has on her feet. We've already tried having them froze off and that did nothing and now she has like 800 more! I wonder if stinky feet bring on warts?? This girl's feet smell AWFUL!!

Patrick is finishing up some eye therapy appointments that are suppose to help with his lazy eye. He also got another pair of glasses that are now bifocals - they seem to think this will help with his vision.

That's all the news for now - let's start praying for warmer weather!!

Her face cracks me up in this one (she's sleeping of course, not blinking).