A New Dress for Madison

Madison needed a new dress. She is going with her daddy to the Daddy Daughter Dance the weekend before Valentine's Day this year and there is also going to be a Spring Dance at school.

We made a big deal of the dress getting event. We all huddled in the dressing room while Madison tried on about ten different dresses.

Of course, I tried to lead her towards the dress I liked best on the hanger, but that rarely ever works anymore. Anyways, dresses never look the same on your person as they do on the hanger.

This dress isn't one that I picked, but I think she looks fabulous and both her daddy and I think she picked extremely well. This girl's got style!

Party Treats

Every year at "Meet Your Teacher" night at school the kids get to choose a party to bring treats to. This year Madison chose the Holiday party, so we took melting snowman cookies.Out of all the parties available, Gabe, of course, chose the 100th day of school party, which is tomorrow. We decided to do 100th day of school cupcakes. I think they turned out pretty cute.

Shellsburg Winter Dance

Madison and Gabe had their Winter Dance tonight. They both had a great time. Maddie danced and played with Isaiah the entire time.

Gabe danced with Leo for a while.

They ate corn dogs, Cheetos and cookies for dinner. Gabe actually ate a corn dog.

Gabe slow danced with Darby for a while. They had lots of parents taking their picture. There were probably 3 "couples" dancing in the entire gym and 2 of the "couples" were Gabe and Darby and Madison and Isaiah.

They came home and got undressed to get their pajamas on and I had to make them get their clothes back on to get this picture.

Santa Knows Everything!

Santa has emailed each of the kids a special video.

They are pretty cool.

Click here to see Madison's video:
http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/cQIKy60cqjAnsWbRBsnnrQ

Click here to see Gabe's video:
http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/3SNx63W8KKnk4nO0RlY6uA

Advent 2010

We are doing our Advent Calendar again this year. Last year I made one, but we had a hard time with the boxes falling off. My mom and I found this new one at Michaels after Christmas last year. It is working very nicely. I kept the same paper idea circles as last year and we keep some Christmas candy in a little treasure box above the nutcrackers instead of actually in the advent calendar.

The Santa in the picture in the Advent Calendar is Dave's Great Great Uncle (I may be wrong, but he's in that vicinity). His name is Charles Howard and he was the first Santa in the Macy's Day Parade.

So far we have unwrapped one book, wrote letters to Santa and
decorated the kids' bedroom trees.

The one with the purple star is Madison's and the one with the red star is Gabe's.

We have decorated our big tree and the rest of the house.Gabe has notified his Nana that he wants in on the Christmas Nutcracker tradition and has requested one that plays music. Good luck with that one, Nana!

We made a gingerbread village this year. We thought it would be easier to make smaller houses and then each one of us would decorate one. The kit came with five houses. As we were putting the houses together we remembered from last year how hard it was to keep the houses together. We ended up only making three of the five.Madison decorated the candy shop,Gabe and Dave decorated the Chalet,and I decorated the toy shop.The point of our Advent Calendar is to spend time as a family everyday while counting down the days until Christmas. We have really enjoyed the time we have spent together so far and look forward to the other activities we have planned later in the month.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Originally posted November 21, 2007)

My grandma (dad's mom) passed away this past June. About a week after she died my parents received a package full of old family pictures that my grandma had sent to a distant cousin of hers that is into genealogy. He has a website with my entire family line. While looking at it I realized that I am a descendant of William Bradford. He is my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather (I think that is enough greats).
William Bradford came over on the "Mayflower" and was the second person to sign the compact of government before they landed. John Carver was the first to be elected as governor and when he died in 1621 William Bradford was elected in his place. He and his assistants negotiated with the Wampanoag and other Native groups and according to Wikipedia, "Bradford is credited as the first to proclaim what popular American culture now views as the first Thanksgiving."I think this will make a pretty cool history project for Maddie and Gabe when they get bigger.

On a side note (also from Wikipedia):

Other noteable descendants of William Bradford (besides myself, of course):

The Baldwin Brothers (Alec, Daniel, William and Stephen): American Actors
Julia Child: American entrepreneur and chef of French and French-influenced cuisine
Frank Nelson Doubleday: American publisher
Clint Eastwood: American film actor, producer and director
Christopher Reeve: American film actor, political activist

Miss Madison Got a Haircut

At first it was supposed to just be a trim. Straight across, that is it. After I trimmed it she wanted it layered. I tried to comply and it didn't work out so great, so yesterday after school I took her to the salon and she got a real haircut. She loves it and she got a lot of her curls back, which I love.