Star Performer

Madi has been a busy, busy girl lately!  But THIS post is going to be dedicated to none other than GYMNASTICS!!  Madison has been in the preschool class since August and has recently really gotten into learning all the tricks, it's stinkin' adorable.  And it's spreading to Maelee too!  They wear their little leotards around doing somersaults, handstands and flips off the furniture.  I LOVE MY GIRLS!

About a month ago, they had a big show at the local college. Each class had a different movie as their theme, and Madi's class' was The Jungle Book. One of the coaches was in a gorilla suit, and Maelee got all excited! She started signing gorilla and saying it over and over. Cute kid!

Last week they had a mini show during their regular class time. I felt kinda bad for Madi, she is a very stubborn child and the girl in her line with her wasn't happy that Madi got to be the leader, so she kept trying to do the tricks faster {running Madison over in the process} and then wanted to be first for the next round of tricks because, well, she WAS there first! As you can imagine, that caused some fireworks... But all the girls got their medals and did GREAT! I'm so proud of Mads and how much she's learned over the past 10 months, and I can't wait to watch her progress even more next year!

On a side note, Madi and Maelee are currently serenading us with beautiful made up songs sung into the fan. :O) Oh, you should see them dance as they sing! It's simply... well... silly! Perfectly silly. :O)

I'm Corrupting the Children

The culprit? 

A cold glass of milk and a fresh, homemade chocolate chip cookie.  To dunk or not to dunk... that is the question!

Clint is SO not a dunker {soggy cookie floaties?  No thanks!}.

Tiffany SO is a dunker {soggy cookie floaties?  It's almost un-American to not dunk!!  Bring 'em on!}.

So, while Clint is off fishing with his friend...

Corruption complete!  I'm so proud!

Country Thunder

My dear hunny works 2 days a week in a truck for most of the day, with the radio jamming to whatever he can find to amuse himself.  This guy knows the words to every song {so much that I am VERY surprised when I know a song he doesn't!} and hears every advertisement.  So anyway, a few months back Clint got this crazy idea; he wanted to go on a weekend getaway to County Thunder.  I thought that sounded kinda fun so we got online to check prices on tickets, see who was performing and look at hotels.  Hoowee!  The more we looked into the whole thing, the more excited we got.  It's been years since either of us went to a concert, and neither of us had been to Country Thunder, so we were looking forward to a fun weekend away.

In April 'round here{yeah, this post is late in coming, sorry!}, it's usually pretty warm, and it actually HAD been warm for a month or so prior to our mini-vacay.  BUT, for some reason this weekend the thunder clouds rolled in and dropped the temp by about 40*!!  Luckily, I had brought a flannel and jeans as an afterthought or I would have frozen!  On our way out we had to stop by a Target to pick up shoes {my flip-flops weren't going to cut it unfortunately}, socks and an umbrella.  I found 2 pairs of shoes that I really liked: a fun pair of rain boots on clearance for $12, or a pair of Converse for $30.  Normally, the cheap Tiffany would have bought the rain boots, but I just knew that I was going to feel like an idiot walking around Country Thunder in RAIN BOOTS just because it was sprinkling outside.  SO, I nixed the boots and chose the Converse with the excuse that I've always wanted a pair and that I will honestly wear them more often.

See how pretty?  This is the before shot...

And here is the AFTER!

Holy moley, did I choose the wrong pair of shoes!!!

The road that was normally dirt leading out to the action had been turned into anywhere from a few inches to almost 2 feet of the stickiest, slimiest, squishiest, nastiest mud.

It may not look that bad, but keep in mind that we were only going 5 miles an hour and STILL kicking up that much mud from the tires!!

Oh, and not just the road but EVERYWHERE else too!  EVERYONE HAD ON RAIN BOOTS!  Ok, not everyone.  I actually saw another girl with Converses on, and when she saw how much mud were on her shoes she pouted, then I showed her mine and we took comfort in the fact that we were both idiots and wished we had rain boots.  :O)

Now let me preface this with a small clarification for those who have never been... Country Thunder is typically a big par-tay, but with all the frigidness, there were a lot more clothes this year!!  :O)  I'm probably pretty accurate when I say that I'm probably one of the few who preferred it that way.  LOL

When we trudged up, Rio Grand was onstage, followed by Neal McCoy.  We REALLY enjoyed Neal McCoy!  I barely knew any of his songs, but he was such a GREAT entertainer that it didn't matter!  He danced even though he knew he looked like a goober.  It was one of the funnest performances of the day.

Next up was the Bellamy Brothers, who {I'm sure back in the day were awesome, but...} were pretty boring.  Just our opinion!

There was an hour break between performers, and we took the time to walk around and see all the vendors.  They didn't let you pay cash for food, you had to buy tickets and then use the tickets to buy food.  Pretty smart, because we would never pay $6 for chicken nuggets, but when you have 30 tickets, 6 tickets isn't such a bad deal.  Sneaky eh? 

We saw Rodney Atkins next and he was AWESOME!  There was a huge mud pit that was full of happy, drunk people at this point who were pretty amusing to watch too.  We were pretty exhausted and frozen by the time he was finished but Little Big Town was up next and we were pretty stoked to see them.  They were incredible!  You can't get any better than their harmonies.  It was so fun to watch and listen to them perform "Boondocks" live, I didn't know who to watch!  SO FUN!

When they finished, our feet were SO cold and we were walking zombies and almost didn't stay for Martina McBride, but we realized we would SERIOUSLY regret it if we left early so we stayed until she started at 9 that night.  We didn't stay for her whole show, but I found out later that she had a special guest star {Jordin Sparks!}, and I {dang it!} wish we would have stayed.  Oh well, C'est la Vie right?!

It was a blast and although we came home dehydrated {who knew that you could get so dehydrated when it was pouring rain?}, we were glad we were able to take the time to get away for the weekend.  Don't we all need a mini-vacay now and then?  :O)

Random Cuteness

I was browsing through all the pictures and stories that I still need to blog about, and I came across these and couldn't resist sharing.

I love that Madi is upside down in the next one.  She LOVES doing flips on that trapeze swing!  Then, of course, Maelee tries to copy her... which isn't nearly as graceful since she's really not that coordinated yet...  She usually ends up falling on her rear.  At least she's still in diapers, eh?

Madison has discovered the joy of being behind the lens of a camera.  Luckily we have a 16GB SD card to hold all her pics and videos!  It's always fun to browse through her latest masterpieces!  This next one brought a huge smile to my face, even if it IS out of focus!  I think her focus is pretty great, what do you think?

Amazing the joy that a big dog, swing set, cottonwood seed fluff, a Krispy Kreme Donut paper hat and unlimited access to Mom and Dad's camera can bring.  These crazy girls make sure make life fun!

Messy Bessy

How can you not adore this face?

That was her, "What?" look.  Followed by "I don't get what you're laughing about, Mom. I'm not THAT messy!

And lastly, "Oh, yuck!  Get it off, Mom!" when she finally has that realization that she is, in fact, messy {this is one little girl who detests being messy.  Go figure, eh?}.

Love it.  Absolutely love it!

Superstar

This montage reminds me of the carefree style of a celebrity.  Look at how confident she is, like she owns the world... when in point of fact, the only part of her wardrobe that is actually HERS are the boots!

Note the self-inflicted graffiti on her leg... yeeeeeah... I wondered why she was so quiet during preschool... Thank heavens Spot Shot can get dry-erase marker out of carpet eh?  Sheesh!

I love Maelee's look in this next one, it totally says "Madi, you are nuts, sister!"  How true, how true!  :O)

An Ode to Paperwork

Oh, paperwork.

Best friend, worst enemy.

Worst enemy when I see you.

Best friend when you're done.

You bring stress.

You bring joy because I know I will never see you again.

You bring peace because I know you were worth every single minute of every late night.

And when you do your part, our prayers will be answered again by a miracle of selfless love.

And it is SO WORTH IT.

Faith

Madison has a pet rock.  While she has not acknowledged this status, I am going to come out and just state the obvious.  When she plays outside, the first thing she does is run for her rock.  She buries it, makes nests for it, washes it, loves on it and will occasionally bring it inside to play with.  And, I have to admit, it IS a pretty cool rock.  Clint found it at work a few months back and brought it home for her {what a good Daddy, huh?}, it looks like a fossilized dino egg - although it's probably the hand-held part of a Native American grind stone.  Either way, it's pretty darn cool and Madi thinks it's above special.

 

Last night she brought it inside and made it a bed in one of her backpacks.  We did our goodnight thing and this morning she was devastated to find that her rock was missing.  We searched and I assured her that no one had touched it and that she had probably just misplaced it before she went to bed.  She then assured me that she indeed had not misplaced it but that a rock thief had come in while we were all sleeping and kidnapped her beloved rock.  I kept a straight face and assured her that we would find it and all would be well.  I went back to my morning and she disappeared into her room.  She came out a few moments later, very somber and quiet.  I asked her if she had found the rock yet and she replied,

"Not yet, Mom.  But I will find it soon because I prayed and Heavenly Father is going to look for it for me.  He always helps me with this stuff."

I was really impressed that she A: had the faith to ask and B: THOUGHT to ask!  So now I start to panic a touch because what if we CAN'T find that rock?  What if a rock thief really DID come swipe it?  What if Maelee found an amazing hiding spot for it and we don't find it until years down the road when we're moving out?  Where on earth was MY faith to match hers?

I took her to preschool and came home and said my own little prayer.  Then I went and looked in the most obvious place... the backpack it was supposed to be in in the first place.  There, hidden in the pocket that never gets used was a rock that looks like a dino egg.  My guess is that the bed she made for it in the big pocket wasn't comfy enough so it switched pockets in the middle of the night.  :O)  She was so excited to be reunited with her long lost pet, and graciously thanked Heavenly Father for helping her mom find it.  Then she thanked me and proceeded to have a little talk with her rock, reminding it to never run away again.

Have I ever mentioned that I love being a mom?

Pee Pee in the Potty!!!

Ok, so Maelee has been showing way more signs that she's ready to start potty training than I wanted to honestly admit to myself for the last few months {let me just say for the record that I'm not the biggest fan of potty training}...

Asks to go potty {about 30 times daily}, but then does nothing on the actual porcelain throne.

After sitting on the potty saying "See?  See?", she gets down and then pees on the floor.

If we don't let her sit on the toilet, she will run out of the room and promptly remove her diaper and then bring it in to us saying, "See?  Potty!  Yuck!  Gross!  Potty!".  THAT gets our attention, especially when it's poopy!

Stays dry for about 2 hours.

Is beyond interested in watching ANYone go potty.

Knows all the motions of going potty and will randomly go through them by herself.  I don't know whether to scold or praise when I hear the toilet flush randomly throughout the day!

So, unless you're not seeing what I see, then you see why I've been contemplating toilet training my baby when she's not even 2.  Madi is in a play this week, and I've had mass dental traumas so I told myself that I would buckle down next week when things weren't so crazy.  I also told myself that I would start humoring her more when she asked to go potty {that one was really kicked into gear when she brought 2 nasty diapers to me yesterday... joyful vision eh?}, and that I would REALLY REALLY take it seriously when she peed in the potty for the first time...

Well, break out the pull-ups and MnM's cuz my big girl Maelee K just peed in the toilet!!  I honestly can't say whether she was more surprised by the pee coming out, or by my enthusiastic cheers and Madi's hugs while she was still sporadically peeing.  :O)  We woohooed and hurrayed for a few minutes, and Maelee didn't want to get down - not with all the attention she was getting!  LOL  Then I mentioned chocolate and she hopped down and ran naked-bunned into the kitchen to get her "Mmmmms!!".  It was adorable.  I wanted a pic of her naked buns peeking out from her shirt, but that girl is FAST when she wants chocolate!  :O)  So, instead here's a pic of her celebrating.

Love this girl!

And here are a few more from the rest of the evening.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that she's been sleeping in a big girl bed for over 2 weeks now and is doing GREAT!  She hasn't fallen out or become a night wanderer yet... BUT she does get up at 5 or 5:30 now.  Yuck.  Just gross.  Thank heavens Clint is a morning person!!  :O)

Wish us luck and pray she'll be out of diapers before I throw the towel in! :O)