Toys

We broke out the birthday toys last weekend.

Who knew Hungry Hungry Hippo could be so fun?

Madi was surprisingly good at this game.

Next, it was time to walk the dog.

More toy pictures to come . . . today we potted her new plants.

Madison's Birthday Party!

We celebrated Madison's 4th birthday last weekend.

Dinner was steak, sausage, baked potatoes, green beans, salad, and rolls.

Grandpa Mayberry just had hand surgery the previous Friday so his cast was pretty neat!

Grandpa and Grandma Heider gave her two of her very own plants. (Hopefully we can keep them alive!)

Next, we sang Happy Birthday to our precious 4 year old.

She blew out the candles QUICK! She was ready to eat that icing and open presents.

All her cousins were eager to help her open the presents.

Then it was pinata time!

We all laughed so hard at the faces all the boys were making as they swung the bat.

Maci joined in too.

Then there was lots and lots of running, ball throwing, etc. in the front yard.

Matt somehow got suckered into swinging all the kids.

They would chase after him like he was the best ride ever.

Ethan, Madison & Owen

Another one of the 3 Amigos!

Madison's 4th Birthday

We started a new tradition this year. I saw the idea before we even had Madi but waited to start it until she was old enough to understand. From now on, the morning of her birthday she will wake up to balloons in her room. So on October 17th this year she woke up to FOUR balloons.

She LOVED them! The pictures I took that morning were too dark since we have a little one who likes to wake up around 6am. So this is from later in the day.

Her next request was to play Hi-Ho-Cherry-O. My first response was NO but then I thought well it is her birthday and I don't work for this very reason . . . so at 6:35am on her birthday we played Hi-Ho-Cherry-O.

No pictures, but next on our agenda was to head to Chick-fila to play and eat with our friends Ty and Allie.

Madison loves to bake anything so we made cupcakes to celebrate her day.

Every time anyone asked her how old she was she'd just look at them and point to her "4" shirt.

The sprinkles are definitely her favorite part.

Then it was time to sing to our precious girl and . . .

Blow out the candles!

We are so thankful for our Madison and can't wait to see what the next year will bring!

Weekend Trip

With Matt and Cody gone to Vegas, Shelle and I decided to load up all the kids and head to our parents' house for the weekend.

We celebrated Madi's upcoming birthday by making and decorating cookies.

They made pumpkins and black cat cookies.

Making cookies is serious business!

As I was taking pictures of the baby . . .

Grandma thought I needed to take a picture of her "baby!"

Funny story: Grandma bought green and black icing but they were out of orange so we decided to make our own. Grandma's icing is on the left and mine is on the right. Which is closer to orange? My mom actually tried to defend her icing as being close to orange. Crazy!

Now came the decorating part . . .

Here's my attempt at a Halloween cookie.

I think Madison ate one cookie otherwise she just nibbled on the sprinkles and frosting.

Such a ham lately!

We made "M" and "T" cookies for their initials too.

If you don't watch this one closely, this is what you'll find him doing! Licking the icing. Thank goodness we were done decorating at this point.

The birthday girl loved decorating cookies!

Then it was on to making little pizzas. My mom and I had seen the commercial advertising mini pizzas so we thought that would be a fun addition to the weekend.

We all laughed because we made breakfast, ate breakfast, made cookies, ate cookies, made pizzas then ate pizzas. We were at the table almost all morning and afternoon!

The pizzas turned out cute and yummy.

Later that night we had a little bubble chase going on.

This picture cracks me up . . .

It was such a good weekend!