Sugar, Sugar...

This morning Maggie went to a BIG girl birthday party.  She was SO excited. The party was at the cupcake shop downtown, maggie was just sure that meant they were going to get to make cupcakes (by make, she means decorate, she really could care less about the actually mixing, baking, etc., she just wants frosting and sprinkles.) The party didn't disappoint.

Everybody decorated an apron....Maggie wore hers all day...she finally took it off after dinner.

They 'made' 2 cupcakes, one to eat and one to take home. Everybody was pretty sugared up!

I was really proud of Maggie, she was the littlest attendee, by a couple of years, most of the girls were 5-7, but you wouldn't have known it. She acted like such a big girl, listened to instructions and played with all the other girls. Happy Birthday Kiki! What a fun party!

This afternoon, we had a babysitter come watch the girls and we cleaned the shed! I know, exciting, right? I'm embarrassed to say that in the entire 3 and a half years we've lived here we've never really cleaned the shed, and it was a mess! When we built my studio we just shoved everything forward and didn't really reorganize anything. It was time to get the tractor and snowplow ready for winter, so we decided we might as well just deal with the mess. It looks GREAT, after several hours of cleaning, organizing, throwing, etc...we finally have it lookin' good. I should have taken a picture, It could be years before it looks that good again!

Full Moon??

The last 2 times I've caught myself having 'one of those days'....you know the kind where I think my children have lost it...I've noticed later in the day, that there is a full moon. Seriously....I've always thought people were crazy when they talked about how full moons bring out the crazies....I think I'm starting to be a believer.  For about 2 hours yesterday afternoon, I traded my sweet, well behaved, adorable children for someone elses kids.

It was a long afternoon. After the usual argument about nap time, Maggie reluctantly rested for a bit. BUT I should have known that when I had 45 minutes of overlapping naps, I was going to pay. Grace woke up and had pooped everywhere...while I was cleaning her up and getting her new clothes, Maggie came in and told me that she was cold because she "was too tired to get up and use the potty, so she wet the bed." (by the way, it was MY bed!) Maggie NEVER has accidents, so after scolding her and sticking her in the shower, I stripped the bed, started the laundry and went to feed Grace. Grace was just about done with her bottle when she started coughing and proceeded to throw-up all over both of us. SO I changed Grace again, cleaned up the carpet, changed myself and went to get Maggie out of the shower. When I opened the shower door she was messing with the drain cover...I asked what she was doing and she said she was trying to get the poop to go down....YES, that's right, for whatever reason she decided to poop in the shower...again, not something that we generally allow or that happens around here. So after scrubbing Maggie and the shower good, I instructed her to get out, get dressed and play quietly in the family room.  Seriously, you can't make this stuff up! The good news is, sometime when she's about 15 and reading mom's old blog posts, I'll get my payback :)

Days like yesterday make me seriously consider going back to work full-time and hiring a nanny....

Before the crazies came out, Maggie had a dentist appointment. She did great, no
cavities and no whining.

This was Sunday, before my sweet little girls lost their minds :)

Mom and Maggie mad a cake on Monday, I'm not sure how she got batter
on her forehead??

 

Grace has a new favorite toy. I had forgotten that we had this, Maggie
was never a huge fan, but Grace thinks it's awesome!

Conversation with Maggie...

Yesterday on our way to Omaha, Maggie said, "Mom, when I'm a teenager I'm going to live on a farm. I'm going to have a zilliamen horses, cows and lambs. But don't worry mom, I'll give all the cows a shower everyday so they don't stink like Wisner cows."


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Whew! What a weekend....

This picture pretty much sums it up....just kidding!

The Offenbacher's came to visit for the weekend, it was SO fun to have them with us. Tucker has grown a ton since we last saw him. They arrived on Thursday and stayed with us in Norfolk. Friday, we played around here and then all headed for Lincoln. We took a slight detour to drop Gracie off with mom and dad. I think we were in the hotel less then 10 min. before Maggie was ready for a swim.

Friday night, cousin Carly came and hung out with Maggie and Tucker. We took Shawn and Renee to dinner and then introduced them to the Sidetracks Band. When we got back to the hotel, shortly before midnight, Maggie was still bouncing off the walls and I'm pretty sure Tucker was trying to sleep, but Maggie wasn't allowing it. At one point during the evening, Maggie looked at Carly and said "Peace out Homie...I mean cousin." What Mother wouldn't be proud :)

Saturday we spent some time at the tailgate, then I think there was a football game, but I don't remember...or at least I wish I could forget. I think Maggie might have been right to ask if she could wear purple (she ended up picking red).  Renee and the kids and I only stayed for the first half of the football game. Dick had found some great volleyball tickets for that evening and we decided if the kids were going to make it to the Colosseum we better take them back to the hotel for a nap. It worked great. We came back just in time to see the "Husker Girls", as Maggie calls them, win in 3 sets.  Maggie said several times that she liked the Volleyball Game much better then football. I'm with her on that. We had a great time, and she loved it so much that I would guess we'll have more VB in our future. The kids were AWESOME, it was a crazy busy day and after we left VB we headed for the HayMarket to watch the end of a couple of other football games and have some dinner.

This morning we packed up and said our good-byes and headed to Omaha to get Gracie. We missed having her with us, but it would have been much harder to do everything we did yesterday with her in tow (and she LOVED hanging out with grandma and grandpa).

Poor Tucker...he doesn't talk much, but became VERY good at saying "NO"
while he was here....wonder why?

Before the game Maggie found a nice little corner to watch a movie and "relax".

GO BIG RED!

Maggie was thrilled that she got to have a root beer from a bottle, the waitress almost
poured it into a cup...boy would that lady have heard a mouthful if she had!

Tucker, trying to get a little revenge!

 What a great weekend with great friends.

Look out world....

...Gracie is about to crawl!

Last night we had dinner at Dick & Betti's and Gracie decided to show us all that she could get up on her hands and knees...She's working hard at chasing her sister around (or maybe it's protecting herself from her sister??) Before long it will be time to dust off the baby gates and give Maggie more stern lectures about keeping the little toys off the floor.

Maggie was trying to hide the ball from Dick and Lucy...she also apparently needed a belt!

Shawn, Renee and Tucker will be here shortly and we'll start a fun filled weekend. We'll all stay here tonight then tomorrow we'll head to Lincoln for the game. We might have a problem on our hands, this morning Maggie declared that she's going to cheer for the purple team...who can blame her, she's a little girl...in her world picking between red and purple is a pretty easy choice.

Gramma Lea & Papa

This morning we headed to Lincoln for a visit with Gramma Lea and Papa. As usual the girls loved being there, Maggie left with all kinds of great finds and I'm betting Gramma Lea and Papa needed a nap!

Maggie getting a lesson in horse racing...

....then on to car racing.

"Papa, I'm not going to show you my new tooth!"

"Gramma Lea can see my tooth if she wants too."

 After a great visit and lunch, at a HuHot look-a-like, we headed back to Omaha for Gracie's eye appointment. She was a great little patient. We're going to continue to wait and watch, we'll see what happens when the air starts to dry out and it gets cold outside, and we'll plan on taking her back to the doctor in February.  It sounds like there is still a pretty good chance that we'll need to consider surgery but right now, there is no damage done and we can continue to delay.

Happy Halloween!

Yesterday was a busy day to be a 3 year old...A party at school, a lunch date with Daddy, cookie decorating and then HALLOWEEN!  Last night after a couple blocks of Trick-or-Treating, Alex said he was done, Maggie quickly responded with, "No, our bags aren't full to the tippy top." That's my girl :)

Here are a few pictures from our big day...

A "working" lunch....she thought it was fun to sit in Pop's big chair in the conference room...
I hope he doesn't find a little ham or cheese stuck in it today :)



Why is it SO hard to get 2 children to look the same
direction at the same time...



After Maggie got dressed she went around the room telling everyone it was still
really Maggie under there.

As long as our little farm girl had her corn, she was
happy to leave her pigtails alone.

Gracie thought it was fun to follow Maggie and Alex around the neighborhood.

I tried to put Grace in the neighbors GIANT chair, but she was so enamoured by
their fire that she refused to look at the camera.



This was my FAILED attempt at taking a picture of the babies in
their Trick-or-Treat buckets....Oliver and Gracie weren't so fond of the
idea and Ellie thought they were goofy for complaining so much.

 

I'm pretty sure this is what Minnie looks like after a hard days work...Maggie was loving
her bloomers.