Chips and Cheese Restaurant

Our girls wanted to serve us dinner. We set a date and wrote up the grocery list. They were so eager and did such a wonderful job setting everything up! Here are a few pictures capturing our evening.

We were greeted at the front door by our hostess Miriam, who showed us to our seats.

Our beautiful table set for two, they also had family picture videos playing on the TV for us to watch 

Our menu!

The restaurant staff, so cute!

Our wonderful dinner of Nachos!

It was beautiful evening! We even had ice cream sundays to finish off this delicious dinner. The girls did a wonderful job! They were so very attentive to make sure we had everything we needed. 

Happy 8th Birthday Madisen!

Dear Madisen,

Today you turn 8! What a blessing it has been to be a part of your life these last 8 years. We love you so very much and are so glad that you are our daughter. What a blessing it is to see the Lord working in your life!

We love ....

• watching you grow and learn in your school work.
• how you want to clean, organize, and plan everything.
• how you always have to sample and taste everything we make in the kitchen.
• how you pretend-play with your sisters.
• your desire to go to church and worship the Lord.
• your loving and caring heart.
• your creativity and love for making new things.
• hearing you sing and play the piano.
• your fascination with "Hobby Lobby".
• your beautiful laugh and smile.

Happy 7th Birthday Madisen!

Madisen, you have grown into such a beautiful young lady! Your love for Christ shines through in your life. It is our prayer that you will continue to grow in your faithfulness to and love for Christ in this coming year. You are a wonderful blessing and a precious gift from God!

We love how you......

• enjoy doing crafts and making things.
• are so willing to help mommy and daddy.
• enjoy to clean, organize and plan.
• help and love your sisters.
• diligently learn your memory verses.
• enjoy and care for "Snowy" your polar bear.
• generously give to those you love.
• have grown and learned so much this last school year.
• enjoy reading everything you can find.
• keep loosing all your baby teeth.
• dance ballet and organize shows for your sisters to "dance" in. 

Happy 6th Birthday Madisen!

Another year has passed! You are now 6 Madisen. It has been so fun to watch you learn and grow over this last year, and as you enter into the new world of Kindergarten. What a blessing you are to us!

We love how you......

• love your little sisters.
• enjoy cleaning and organizing.
• love to make cards and special creations for us.
• diligently memorize scripture and love learning more about the our Lord.
• enjoy Math.
• love calling daddy on the phone.
• delight in your ballet class and all the new things you learn there.

Growing Up

It is weeks like this last one that remind how fast time goes by. Our oldest Madisen got her first two loose teeth and now is riding her bike without training wheels. Two big mile stones. Oh, how fun it has been to soak up and enjoy these moments, they come and go so fast. Here is Madisen riding her new bike.

Creativity At Work

Madisen loves to create!!! Paper, glue, tape, scissors, penciles and pens can always be found close by during Maddie's rest time. Today she came up with a pair of glasses. They would not stay on so she taped them to herself :-), whatever it takes to get it to work.

A Ballerina Birthday Party

This last weekend we had fun celebrating Madisen's 5th birthday. Birthdays are usually very simple around here, celebrated with family and maybe a friend and their family. This year was a little different. For the last few years Madisen has wanted to have a ballerina party. So we decided that her 5th birthday would be when she could have a ballerina party. She got to invite here little girl friends over to help celebrate!

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Everyone arrived at 11:00am and the fun began. We started out with coloring, as everyone arrived. I printed off some coloring sheets I found on the Internet

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Then we moved to makeup and tutus. We made tutus for each of the girls using this pattern, and they had fun dressing up and putting on some makeup.

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Next we read the poem Ballerina Ballerina as the girls did all the different moves. We also played ballet musical chairs, with markers on the floor instead of chairs.

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Then it was off to lunch. Madisen loves sandwiches so we had peanut butter and honey, meat and cheese, egg salad, and chicken salad sandwiches. I will be sure to share the chicken salad sandwich recipe soon, they were delicious. With the sandwiches we also served carrots and cucumbers with ranch dip, layered jello, crackers and cheese dip and fruit cups. (Sorry I did not get any pictures of lunch).

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We also enjoyed a game of pin the tutu on the ballerina and hot potato using a little pink bear as the potato.













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Then it was time for present opening

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Cake and the birthday girl enjoying it!

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All fun things have to come to an end and each girl went home with a little party favor bag.

We had a lot of fun! This will definitely not be an every year event as I just do not have enough time to through a birthday party like this for each of my girls every year. On each of our girl's 5th birthday we will throw a party that they can invite their friends too. Miriam is next and she is already planning her party.

Happy 5th Birthday Madisen

I cannot believe that it has been five years since you first joined our family Madisen. You are such a blessing to me. Here are a few of the thing I love about you.

I love how you....

• live your life for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
• love and care for your little sisters.
• enjoy cooking and helping out in the kitchen.
• wait anxiously for daddy to come home.
• get so much joy out of vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms.
• have such love and concern for those in need around you.
• pretend and play with your sisters
• love and enjoy your ballet class.
• enjoy Awanas, learn your memory verses, and use them to explain things as you go through your day.

Fruit Kebabs

Madisen is our little chef. She loves to help out in the kitchen. She was very excited to receive Paula Deen's my first cookbook for Christmas from my parents. My hope is to let her pick something each week to make from her cookbook.

This last week we made Fruit Kebabs. Both Madisen and Miriam had fun putting them together. They are really very simple to make. The recipe has you take skewers and put red grapes, green grapes, strawberries, and pineapple on each skewer. We ended up substituting the green grapes for blueberries because that is what we had on hand and they turned out very well! My girls are good fruit eaters, but Miriam does not always care for pineapple and blueberries, but she ate them all up.

We have really enjoyed this cookbook so far! The illustrations are so very cute. All the ingredients are laid out in picture format, which makes it easy for Madisen to see what we need to make each recipe. We are looking forward to making Frozen Bananas (chocolate covered) next.

Our Ballerina

We have a little ballerina in our home. Madisen has been wanting to take ballet classes for a long time! A few months ago I discovered a dance school just a couple of minutes from our house, with reasonably priced classes, so Chris and I decided it would be a good time for her to start. She started a few weeks ago and has been greatly enjoying her class. She has her first Christmas performance next week. What fun that will be!

Painting Fun!

We were given the easel pictured below about a year ago. We used the side with the chalk board but it was not until a few weeks ago that I finally ordered some paint supplies, so that the girls could have fun painting their beautiful paintings. Here are a few pictures of their painting fun!

Enjoying the black paint!

Here finished masterpiece! (As you can see in the picture all the colors had to be separate, no colors touching each other. So her picture was done when there was no open space left)

Painting is serious work!

While Madisen painted, Miriam went in to get her camera and with ohs and ahs took pictures of her sisters painting.

Oh, and she had to take one of mommy.

Maddie's finished masterpiece!

My Little Big Helper

About a week ago I was getting ready to vacuum the living room and my little four year old daughter Madisen, told me that she wanted to vacuum. So, I thought that I would let her try and she would be done trying in just a few minutes. You have to understand that I am pretty sure the vacuum is heavier then her and stands taller then her. Well, she vacuumed the whole living room and then wanted to vacuum the play room. This trend has continued all week and when ever it is time to vacuum she is there helping. As you can see from the pictures, she has to throw her whole body into it. I feel bad having my four year old do the vacuuming around here but she enjoys it, and what great exercise, and a can you think of a better way for her to get all of her energy out?

So Cute!

Every day before nap time both Madisen and Miriam get to pick out a book that we read together and then after our books are read we sing a few songs together. Then it is time for Miriam's nap and Madisen's quite time.

Well, on this day, Madisen had a different plan. I had sent both of the girls up stairs to pick out their books and when I arrived up stairs Madisen told me that she was going to read Miriam her books today (this from my 4 year old who can not read yet) and sing her songs with her. After consulting with Miriam to make sure this was ok, I headed out to the loft were I waited until it was time to tuck Miriam in.

When I got the "ok, we're done" I came back in to find Miriam tucked in and ready for her nap. Upon further inspection I saw she did not have her blanket and was about to go find it when Maddie told me that she wanted to get it. I gave Miriam a hug and kiss and watched as Maddie brought Miriam her blanket and gave her a hug and kiss and said "sleep good Miriam, I will see you when you get up". With that Madisen left the room and went down to the playroom to start her quite time.

The above picture taken in July 2006

Madisen was 2 and Miriam 2 months

Weekend Musings

We have had a full but fun weekend! From slip-n-slides to new words, and more. I just wanted to share with you all a few of the fun things we got to do.

• Miriam started saying a new word "NO". I am actually really surprised this word has not come out earlier but she would always communicate it though UH UH. It has been hard for us not to smile when she tells us "NO" so seriously and firmly in her cute little voice and sometimes even pointing her little finger. She has been using it often and it has been cute listening to her use it while off playing by herself.


• On Friday Chris and the girls got to dress up as cows for cow appreciation day. Chick-fil-A was giving a free entree item to anyone who had something "cow-like" on or was dressed like a cow. I was not able to join them at Chick-fil-A because I was home hosting a baby shower but from what I heard they had fun and enjoyed their free dinner. Here are a few pictures of my cows.


• Saturday morning Chris and Maddie had a date. They went to one of our favorite little cafes here in town for breakfast. Chris enjoyed biscuits and gravy and Maddie a Mickey Mouse pancake. From what I heard Maddie had a lot of fun telling Chris a lot of fun things and all that is going on in her little life :-).


• Saturday was warm and a little muggy, after naps the girls enjoyed a new slip-n-slid. For all you moms out there I was at Walgreen's on Saturday and they were clearing out all their summer pools and slip-n-slides. I paid $2.49 for the slide and they are offering a $5 rebate for their pools and slides so I will actually get money back for purchasing it, if you have a Walgreen's near you, you might just want to check it out. For the rebate, check their Easy Saver booklet, usually located by the adds. Maddie enjoyed going on her knees down the slip-n-slide. Miriam also enjoyed the slip-n-slide but usually just scooted the whole way down it. It also took Miriam a few falls before she realized that she could not run or even walk, like Mommy and Daddy told her. Macaylee enjoyed sitting in the little pool at the end of the slide. Here are some pictures so you can see for yourself.

Ready Set Go!

Miriam's Slide Crawl

Miriam's Scoot.....

almost there.....

almost there!

Macaylee having fun!

• The other neat thing for Chris was the opportunity to preach in the main service (or "big church" as he says) last Sunday and today. He always enjoys teaching, and always does such a great job (I am just a little bias). I know that some of you might want to hear him so click here for part one and here for part two. He taught on the life of Samuel.