Fence

As mentioned in my previous post....we sort of started a home-improvement revolution at our house with that stupid bush....so, can you tell me what's missing in the bottom picture? Whoever gets all of the things wins! And, here is our lovely new fence in progress. The old one was falling down and rotten, and Brian has been literally slaving in the beating sun to get it done this summer. We have taken a new approach, using metal posts that are bracketed to the wood fence. It is supposed to last up to ten years longer than the wood posts. Of course, our wood posts would have lasted longer if they had been installed correctly and not just shoved in the dirt a couple of inches. Looking good, huh? Isn't Brian amazing? Isn't he? Huh, huh??

Goodbye Spider-Bush

We used to have this really nasty spider-collecting bush in our front yard. I have hated it since the day we moved in, and this year it had gotten really big and hard to see around when you back out of the driveway. Welllll....I sort of got really annoyed with it and started to "prune" it. By the time Brian got home I had half of it hacked down to the roots, and it looked so bad that he had no choice but to finish the job and yank it out. Hooray! So he and a guy on our street chained it to the bumper of his truck and ripped it out of the ground. I cannot tell you how satisfying that was for me. Unfortunately, once we got the bush out we realized how many other things needed to get done outside at our house.....and we will show you what this project started in the next few posts. I guess I didn't get a picture of the house after the bush is out, but I'm sure I will later.

Thirty, Flirty and Fabulous.....

Okay, so he's only 29 (31...shhh), but we had a good time celebrating this year. The kids and I took him out to lunch in Nampa, and then took him shopping for clothes (which is really more like torture than birthday for him, but we can't let him always look like a hobo now, can we?) and then brought him home and fed him some yummy cake. As you can see, we ran out of memory card long before we ran out of birthday, but Happy Birthday, Brian!!! We love you!

Standing!

My mom and dad are lame and can't remember when exactly this was....about a month to a month and a half ago...but look at me! I'm standing against the furniture, finally!!! Today, the couch; tomorrow, the world!!!!! Mwahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

Removing of the Cast

As most of you know, about the last week of April I got a phone call from the school telling me that Madison was hurt and I had to come and get her. I have to admit that I didn't think it could possibly be very bad, I mean, she is slightly dramatic sometimes, so I thought maybe she was just milking the situation. When I got there, she was wearing a sling made from a torn up bandage fabric and about a ream of that long recycled paper. She had fallen off the monkey bars and landed smack-dab on her wrist with all her weight. When I asked her what happened, she said, "I was trying to do the monkey bars, and I made it all the way to the second one, but I was going to fast and then, I fell." She actually was pretty brave, and once we got it x-rayed we found out it was broken pretty good...right through the growth plate, which meant we couldn't just get a cast, we had to go to the orthopedic surgeon and get it x-rayed again, cast...wait two weeks, x-rayed, cast again and then monitored for the next five weeks to make sure it was healing okay.

She healed up just fine, and these lovely pictures are of the removal of her cast. At first, you can see she is excited. The second picture she is still happy, but a little nervous. By the third picture she has realized that the evil looking saw sitting next to her is going to be used on her, and she is not happy about it. I didn't get a picture of the mayhem that ensued when the doctor tried to turn on the saw and saw off the cast...but those of you with children can imagine what happened. The last two pictures show Madison looking into what she called her "nasty" cast (when the doctor asked if she wanted to keep it, she looked at him with disgust and vehemently said "no way") and showing you her arm....eeeeewwww! It was so gross! She insisted on going right to the bathroom and she tried to scrub off all the grossness...I tried to be positive for her, but YUCK!

She now tells everyone she sees that she got her cast off, which is funny because most people don't have any way of knowing she had one on in the first place. And she is also very sure that she is not going to get on the monkey bars any time soon. We passed her school the other day and she said, "Mom, those monkey bars are still there! You need to call the principal and tell her that those monkey bars are dangerous and they should take them down." I concur.

Undefeated!

...at being defeated! Soccer this year was pretty fun....for us spectators. Madi's team, well, they weren't that good. And the other teams? Let's just say it was like watching Shakiel O'Neal play against Pee Wee Herman, oh, and Pee Wee's wearning a blindfold.

Let me just give you a taste of Madi's version of soccer.
Technique #1: Why run after the ball when you can rock out to the music in your head, while the rest the team plays around you?
Tecnique #2: Kick the ball to the closest goal....not yours, you say? So what! It's going toward a goal isn't it?! Kick it!!!
Technique #3: When being goalie, be sure to hang from the bar and jump into the net to see if it will catch you, this will not always save your team from being scored on, but you'll have a good time.
Technique #4: If you get tired during the game, just sit down wherever you happen to be.
Technique #5: Make sure you chat animatedly with your girlfriends from the other team during the game.

You have to give her some credit, though....she really did run in the general direction that the soccer ball was being kicked some of the time, and she played the last two games with a broken arm...the third one her team to get one this year!

Madison's Sixth Birthday

Madison turned six on May 1st (a date she had been counting down to since Christmas). We actually got to spend her birthday this year in Pocatello, and she had a great time. We had a tea-party, complete with tiny cookies, tiny cakes, pink juice...and an obnoxiously pink cake that I'm not exactly the most proud I've ever been of a cake. The original plan for the cake sort of fell through when our girly day (we got our hair and nails done and went out to lunch with just the girls) went a little longer than expected. Actually, we barely made it to the party in enough time to through it all together....but it was still really fun. We had lots of family come to celebrate with us, and all the little girls and boys were dressed up (some of the adults weren't as cooperative with the whole fancy dress up part of the party....you know who you are!)

Madison has made us very proud this year. She went from a very shaky first day of school (biting a kid on the finger and getting scissors confiscated) to graduating with top marks (not sure what this means for Kindy's, but...whatever) and really growing up into a beautiful little girl. She helps with Ben so much that I sometimes have to ask her to stop helping with Ben. She is smart and funny and just a lot of fun around here. We love our Madison!

A note about the first picture...no, it isn't misplaced. We drove down to Pocatello with clear skies and roads, and woke up on Madison's birthday to a foot of snow on the ground. Idaho. Ugh.

Ben's First Birthday

Benjamin survived his first year of life here with us, so we decided to commemorate the event with a cool party, lots of friends, an awesome home-baked cake and general happiness and revelry.....

Unfortunately all the friends cancelled, I had to work all week so there was no time for a cake, Benjamin came down with a horrid double ear infection and the party was way not as cool as we thought it was going to be. It was actually clever if my party had actually gone through...it was a party for Benjamin Bunny....the invitations we sent out had pictures of a little carrot patch and invited people to come to Benjamin's carrot patch for a party. It was just after Easter so I got a bunch of bunny party favors, chocolate bunnies, bunny ears, peeps bunnies.....bunny plates and napkins.....you get the picture. And even though I didn't have time to make one, we got a cute carrot cake from the store that was decorated like a carrot patch. Yep, I know....shame that our guests all cancelled that morning. And it would have still been alright if Ben hadn't screamed the whole night before and all day because his poor little ears were killing him.

Sooo....we ended up putting him in the high chair long enough to get a picture and let him smoosh some cake, then we drugged him up and put him to bed. Brian, Madison and I did our best to party without him. Oh well, he'll have plenty more birthdays, I suppose.

At this time he isn't walking yet, and hasn't stood up on the furniture, but he gets around really well with his special (read *weird*) crawl that he does. He says "Mommamama" and "Dadaddada." He loves Madison and follows her everywhere, and for now she doesn't mind.