Oh, these girls!!

Thank you to Megan for doing such a GREAT job presenting our coupon Q&A Thursday night, it was a lot of fun and she was absolutely fantastic explaining things.  LOVED IT!  And thanks to everyone who came and shared their questions, stories and personalities.  AND... thanks for eating most of my pumpkin roll so that I won't be able to!  Ha ha

NOW, I have been waiting to post for a while now because I wanted to make sure everyone knew the details of Thursday night's shindig.  So, now that it's over I can get back to some of the crazy fun happenings around our house!

I heard this commotion in Madi's room the other day.  Then I hear Madi yell, "It's ok, Mom!  I got the lid!!"  This is the face that met me at her door...

Thanks, Madi... but uh, maybe next time grab the marker ok?!  :O)

It got really quiet while the girls were watching "'Your Baby Can Read!", I peeked around the corner to find this:

After dinner last week, we turned on a movie to watch as a family.  I was finishing cleaning up the kitchen when I heard the sigh of complete bliss escape my husband's lips.  The moment was too precious to pass up...

A few weeks ago, Michele had the girls dress "Fancy" for pre-school and they had a "'F' is for Fancy" party.  Michele had pretty necklaces for all the girls and crowns {Madi wore hers for the next 2 weeks religiously until it totally fell apart and I had to chuck it while she was sleeping!}, and they dipped their feet in paint and stepped on paper, forever capturing their "Fabulous Feet".  So stinkin' cute!  Anyway, Madi wanted fancy hair, so this was our creation:

And, last but certainly not least - the girls helped me bake some of the world's greatest chocolate chip cookies the other day {ok, maybe not the world's greatest, but pretty dang close!!!}  :O)  Maelee was so dang adorable in her apron, and was SO excited once she realized that all the stuff we were putting in that bowl tasted yummy... yeeeeeah, she suddenly was sneaking fist-fulls of cookie dough into her little mouth!!

This next one was Maelee's reaction to being told "No more cookie dough, Coconut!!"

And THIS next one was when she thought I wasn't looking...

It doesn't get any better than this... that is until we're ready to adopt again!

Too much to catch up on so moving forward...

However, I will just say quickly that we cut back most of the branches on our tree

Before...

After

and after the leaves have had time to grow and all the poor branches are SO overloaded that they look rather sad and limp!

And that my birthday was loads of fun and I was spoiled by friends, family and my darling husband. Thanks to all!

I have to also inform you that princesses eat hot dogs,

Clint took Madison on a Daddy Daughter campout just out of town with Andy and his girls,

and we had a blast at our family reunion with Clint's Mom's family.

Easter was fun, we put out a carrot and some water for the Easter Bunny and when we woke up the carrot was eaten, water drank, and eggs ALL OVER the house!!! Madi was a hoot finding all the eggs, screaming and jumping and laughing. It's so fun now that she understands holidays! We didn't get a picture of her in her Easter dress because we were already running late. Maybe in a few weeks when she wears it again!

Clint was watching Madison the other night and when I got home, he was grinning and would only say, "look at the pictures!" so here they are for your enjoyment also!

Yes, those are pretzels inbetween my daughter's toes. And yes, she did eat them.



Madison also learned how to paint this week. Mommy and Daddy got in on the fun too, and now it's a daily activity at our house.

Ok, that's a wrap. Whew!

What a STINKY, DIRTY, FUN, FUN, FUN weekend!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Sunday morning was like any other until Clint and Madison built a castle out of legos for her horseys. Daddy made sure it had guns for proper defense, while Maddie made sure it had a door so that when the horseys said “Knock knock”, they could come in. When it was all finished there was a small battle, but no fatalities. When the smoke cleared, all was well and both horseys rested in their castle, safe and sound!

The next part of our weekend actually started off on Saturday with Russell (Clint’s dad) giving us a HUGE MONGUS tent, (it has 2 rooms AND a screened in porch!) so we were like “Oooo! We should go camping on the mountain Sunday night and try out our new tent!” Since no one could go with us, we had our first ever Family Campout!

Let me let you in on a little secret… setting up a giant pole tent with the help of someone who really knows what they’re doing (and with 3 adults instead of 2) makes a great big difference! It didn’t go up NEARLY as easy for Clint and I as it did back at Russell’s! The wind was blowing, the ground was uneven, and there was a cranky kid running amuck with our two dogs! It was definitely an experience! Even though the size was really great, I think we’ve decided to stick to our little dome tent for now because it is SO MUCH EASIER to set up! Maybe someday we will save our pennies and buy a great big dome tent when we have more than 3 people sleeping in it!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Madison thought Clint’s flashlight was the coolest and would shine it up on all the tree branches above, until he taught her to shine it on her face and go “Bru ha ha ha!” in a scary voice…

Later that night, Riley (Clint’s little brother) and some friends drove up and joined us for smores, and were chased away by a skunk that our dog, M.J., had scared! Lovely, eh?

For breakfast, we made biscuits in Clint’s Dutch oven and gravy on his backpacking stove. While waiting for them to cook, Clint got bored and decided to try an experiment. He skewered a raw biscuit and slow roasted it over the fire! Guess what? It actually cooked and was (burned, but) good!

So, we spent that night camping on the mountain, bundled up and roughin’ it. We came home Monday morning and spent the day on the lake, in bathing suits and sun bathing! It was SO FUN! I have to say that I love where we live – we are so close to so many different climates that we are able to DO that! (And not spend all day driving to do it either!) Seth and Courtney had promised Logan that he could ride on Andy’s boat so we all spent the day playing in the water (and in the shade!)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

We came home stinky, dirty, exhausted… but we had SO MUCH FUN!!