Madelyn's Birthday Party Pictures

This is cute Madelyn and Ben getting ready for the party. She tried to blow her own balloon up but had to give up and let Dad do it. She loved watching him!
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Ben, Joel, and Isabel playing a before-dinner game of crouqette. Here is Caleb about to take his swing playing crouqette too.


Beth Marquette and the rest of her family came to the party. This is Beth and Ebrina. The baby sling is GREAT invention! I am gonna have to get one for carrying Pipsqueak around. Prego Melissa....


Madelyn opening her cards and gifts. She loved everything and wanted to open all the packages and start playing with the toys right away!


When Madelyn saw the cake with candles on it, she started singing "Happy Birthday to Madelyn". She tried to blow the candles out on her own but Mom ended up having to help. She also did a good job sharing her cake with Lillian. Yum! The last picture shows how much cake Madelyn ate. She ate A LOT of her cake, especially the parts that had frosting!


Ben (and family) blowing out the candles on his cake, since his birthday is August 20th. Don't try and count them, they don't add up to 30! It was hot enough with only 24 candles on it! And isn't this the cutest family you've ever seen?!


Madelyn LOVES to dance to music. She's figured out how to turn on the TV, unfortunately, and after the party, she turned on the TV and this was on. She just started dancing to these four old men singing barbershop-style. It was cute!

Madelyn's Birthday Pictures

Here are some pictures that Ben and I took yesterday for Madelyn's birthday. There are more to come after her party on Saturday.

Madelyn and Daddy start off the birthday with smiles!

Here is Madelyn blowing bubbles with Mommy and her classmates. She loves having control of the bubble wand... doesn't want ANY help! But she seems to have gotten the hang of it!

This is Madelyn with her favorite birthday gift so far.... the birthday balloon, or as she says "irt-day alloo"

Daddy reads Madelyn and her classmates a book. I find this picture particularly funny because you normally wouldn't find Ben on the floor with a bunch of children ANYWHERE except maybe at home!

Madelyn is TWO today!

I can't believe how quickly time has flown the last two years!! I can't believe that Madelyn is turning two today! She is such a wonderful little girl! God has really blessed us with a loving and independent, smart and brave, social and tenacious little girl (the list could go on and on)!

When I walked into Madelyn's bedroom this morning, she looked up and said "Hi!" - always a good sign that the day was going to start off well. I responded with "Good morning, sweet girl! Happy Birthday!" Madelyn says "Irt-day? Irt-day!!" She chose her birthday outfit (I gave her two choices) and then when we got in the car, there was a balloon waiting in the car for her to take to school. Madelyn's reaction was great! - "Alloo!!!" (Balloon!) The whole way to school she was saying "Alloo! Irt-day!" It was very cute!

Later today, Ben and I are going to celebrate Madelyn's birthday with her class. We are taking little muffins and noise makers...I hope the teachers don't mind too much.... Then, this Saturday we are having some friends over and some cake and games. I will update this post with some pictures when I have them.

Happy Birthday, Madelyn!

August Birthdays!

Wow! I didn't realize until this year how abundant the August birthdays are in my family! First is my mom's and gram-Bunny's on the 12th. Then Madelyn's on the 17th and Ben's on the 20th! And to top it all off, I am AWFUL at planning and executing birthday plans.... I was late mailing mom's and gram-Bunny's cards - got them MAILED on the 14th and I have nothing but a card yet for Ben's (30th) birthday. I have a plan for taking treats to Madelyn's class on her actual birthday and then we have some friends coming over on Saturday to help us celebrate but I haven't even been shopping yet for the food and decorations. Is birthday planning a special gift that only some people have or that I missed picking up along the way? Anyway, does anyone have any simple, but great ideas of how to celebrate someone's 30th birthday? I don't want to let it just slip by like a normal birthday (just a kiss, card, cake, and gift), but I don't want to do anything big like a surprise party either.... I need your thoughts or ideas!!!!

Christina and Brandon came to visit!

Seeing that we have had very few visits from our southern-located families to our nice state of Minnesota, it was very nice to have Christina, my sister-in-law, and her husband, Brandon visit us this past weekend! They came just to see us (mostly Madelyn)! They didn't even have an overt reason to do this, they just came! It was such a nice visit too, depending on how you look at it. We had a great time together but they came on the hottest weekend we've had in 11 years! It was close to or above 100 degrees the whole time! They are from Dallas, so they thought they would be getting away from the hot when they came up here. Little did they know that it would hotter up here than in Dallas while they were here. Crazy.... I told them they needed to come back in the middle of the winter and bring some of that warmer weather with them then. In any case, we did get out and see some sights - the Minneaoplis Institute of Art and the Cathedral of Saint Paul. We also were able to have a night on the town - all-you-can-eat sushi at Ichiban and then to comedy show called Triple Espresso. Very fun! Otherwise, we just did our best to stay rested (to combat our late night gabbing) and cool (to combat the unprecedented weather) while we were visiting. The picture above is of Christina and Brandon at the sushi bar. You can see the all-you-can-eat plates stacked up on the right side of the picture. The way it works is there is a circular bar where they have a "river" of water between you and the sushi chefs. In the river are little boats and they fill the boats with little plates of sushi and then the boats float along around the bar until someone picks them up, usually less than a minute or so because it is so good!). We had a great time!

We all had a good time playing with Madelyn too. It was very cute to hear her say "Ni-Nina" and "Bandon". On the last day that Christina and Brandon were here, we went down to Grande Avenue and had dinner and then ice cream. These pictures are from that outing.

And then here is just a cute picture of Christina and Madelyn hanging out before bed.

Thanks y'all for taking the time and money to see us! We love you and loved your visit! Come again when you can! And to everyone else, please come see us!