New York, New York

Over President's Day, I was able to take Maddie on a trip of a lifetime. We went to NYC and met up with our friends, Barbara and Alex, from Georgia. It was such a special trip to be able to take my daughter on a girls weekend.....to NYC no less.

Here are our NYC girls on the last day. Maddie cried and cried when we parted ways with Alex and Barbara at the Subway.



Empire State Building -

This is the Statue of Liberty as seen from the 83rd floor of the Empire State Building.

We went to see Freckleface Strawberry. It is based on the book by Julianna Moore (the actress). It was the perfect play for our girls. Singing, Dancing.....and only 70 minutes. If you haven't read this yet, it is a cute book about being happy with who you are and how you look....even if you have freckles.

No girls weekend to NYC is complete without going to the American Girl Place. We ate brunch (with Hannah -Maddie's doll and Samantha - Alex's doll) and had a shopping spree while there.

We visited the largest Toys R Us that is located in Times Square. While at the ToysRUs, we rode the 3 story Ferris Wheel and toured the life size Barbie Dream House.

Alex had always had wanted to go ice skating. She doesn't live in the frozen tundra like we do. What better place to ice skate for your first time than Rockefeller Center. What a neat experience to ice skate as the lights came on at 30 Rock! Maddie out skated us all!

We walked or took subways or buses everywhere. That allowed us to see things like NBC Studios as we were going to our scheduled activities.

Maddie and Alex on the NYC subway.

We took the girls to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was a cold and windy day and the water was VERY choppy. But so worth it in the end. We had tickets that allowed us to go in the Pedestal and Museum at the State of Liberty.

After we met up with Barbara and Alex at the airport and found our hotel, we took the girls to see Times Square at night. The look on their little faces with all the lights was priceless. We also made sure to take them into the M and M store and the Hersey store.

Of course I have to end this post by thanking my wonderful husband and Scott, Barbara's husband for keeping the little kids at home. We couldn't have taken this wonderful trip without them.

New Reality

Since we don't have enough excitement in our lives, Jackson decided that he needed to add some. On January 1, 2011, he fell down our basement stairs. He had just gotten really good at crawling. The big kids left the basement door open after coming up from the playroom and in just a split second he fell down the stairs.

He has a fracture to the right femur......leave it to my kid to break the biggest strongest bone in your body from a fall down carpeted stairs onto a carpeted floor.

He is in a Spica cast. This goes from the toes on his right foot up past his hip and around his torso. Because of this cast, he can't sit up. So, we have had to "rig" everything from car seats to high chairs to allow him to use them. Oh, and since the cast goes completely around his waist....diapering is quite the challenge. Let's just say, buying Depends at the ripe ol' age of 31 has gained me quite a few funny looks. We use a Depend to stick under the cast as best we can and then use a regular diaper on top to hold it in place.

We go back on February 4th with the hopes that we come home with a cast-less child. I am already planning on packing a cute outfit (since we only have 4 that he can wear now....and only 2 PJs with the right foot cut out), soap wipes-that when you add water to them they sud (he has only had sponge baths since the accident and is starting to get a bit ripe), and his snowsuit (we can only swaddle with blankets to go out in the cold). Woe be unto the doctor, if they have to tell me we can't take the cast off!

Hopefully, I will get up a Christmas post complete with cute pictures of the kids.....but that will probably have to wait till the child attached to my hip is cast-less and able to entertain himself.

Maddie's Winter Dance Recital

I am so thankful that I have found a Christian based dance program for Maddie. She LOVES dance, but her mama is very selective about what kinds of dance and where she dances. In other words, I don't feel that my 6 year old should learn to shake her "groove" thing and wear suggestive clothing.

This year, Maddie is in ballet, tap, and jazz. It's one combined class. Her teach is wonderful, sweet, caring, and doesn't criticize the girls when they make a mistake. It has really boosted Maddie's self esteem.

They have a huge end of year recital with costumes and the whole 9 yards. But, the winter one is much more low key. It is really nice to get in and see what all she has learned without all the stress that a dance recital can bring.

So, now let me put a plug in for Prairie School of Dance. If you live in the frozen tundra, it is a great dance school!

Blizzard 2010

I miss many things about the south....the accents, family, friends, sweet tea......

But in the winter I miss the excitement the "threat" of winter weather brings.

The news programs love to "interrupt this program for a very important winter weather advisory" (cue the suspenseful music). They also love to name every "winter event" - Winter Storm 2008, Artic Blast 2007...are some that I remember.

Here snow is a part of my daily life. Putting children into snow attire or out of snow attire takes up a lot of my time and makes up my daily exercise routine. For instance here is how Maddie goes to school everyday. Snow pants, boots, coat, gloves, hat and hood. In her book bag, I pack her "normal" shoes along with lunchbox, books, etc.

However, last week something changed in the way that the weathermen were talking about snow. It went from the tone, similar to that of rain in the south, to a bit more excited. It almost had the feeling of a "southern" winter weather event....minus the names and music.

Why did snow suddenly change from daily life to something we should pay attention too?

Because it was a BLIZZARD! Yep, us southerners have now added a blizzard to our litany of experiences we have had here.

Care to know what a blizzard looks like after the fact?

This is our deck after the blizzard. Doesn't look like we will be opening that door till sometime next April. You think I am kidding.....well, I'm not!

And this is our sidewalk cleared after said blizzard. You can't truly get the real picture till you realize the snow is up to the bottom of our window sills on the first floor.....and it is only December.

Here is a poor deer trying to walk in our backyard during the snow. Please note the snow is almost to his belly....and this isn't a small deer.

Another deer, same problem.

This is a look out the front door toward the side walk and street....somewhere out there. Doesn't look too impressive if you didn't realize how many bushes and shrubs have disappeared from very. That blob on the bottom left......is all that is left of our small pine that frames the front window.

Sam's Christmas Program

Sam has his Christmas Program at school last Wednesday. I love that he attends a Christian Preschool that isn't afraid to celebrate the REAL reason for Christmas. His program was all about the best gift ever given, Jesus.

Sam is such a ham. No pun intended. He knew all the words to all the songs as well as all the motions. Of course, I knew this way before the performance even started. You see, I had been the one to practice with him.

By practice I mean, sit very still while he sang songs that I had never heard and did motions to said songs. Then, I was suppose to applaud him and tell him that he didn't miss any part. Easy. I had no idea if he had missed anything or not.

Win Win for both of us. I got to hear, my baby turned big boy, sing and he had someone to tell him what a wonderful job he did......even if he didn't :)

Sam's last Basketball game

Sam was FINALLY old enough to participate in a sport. He played basketball through the Chanhassen rec league. He loved it. Of course, his idea of basket and the real world's idea of basketball is totally different.

So different,that I have to go through a list of things that Sam shouldn't do during basketball before every game. For instance, don't stick your finger up your nose or in your ear while running, we don't need to run up and down the court pretending to hunt deer with a gun, we should run and not skip, etc. However, I didn't add....and don't use the strings on your sweat pants as motorcycle handles. And apparently I should have.

Here is Sam, "driving" his pants down the court.

And here he is again, in close pursit of the ball......all while "driving" his motorcycle.

But, this cute face had a great time....and is all we could have asked for.