Maddy moments

A few weeks ago I spent some time getting some cute pictures of little Maddy.

her hair is growing so fast!

We also got a good mail package from Doug's parents.

One day Maddy was standing in the doorway looking outside at this bird and the bird was standing there just looking at her. It seriously sat there, head cocked to the side, staring at her for about 5 minutes before I got kind of creeped out and opened the window. It flew away.

Maddy likes to line up her 'friends' on the stairs...

and build towers...

Apparently Annie had been naughty.

An Elf Breakfast

This morning Mom was playing upstairs with the girls while I was cleaning up and the doorbell rang to the tune of Jingle Bells. The girls came down and we all went to the door together.

When Abi opened the door she found this....

We were even more excited when we saw the labels saying it was 'reindeer carried', 'Santa approved', and from the North Pole.

As soon as we opened it Abi found this long letter from Santa himself.

The letter explained about the elves and the rest of the treats inside as well as a few personal things to each girl.

The package...

It contained plates and napkins for a festive breakfast, the two elves, an elf craft, a LaLaLoopsy Christmas doll for Abi, a Rudolph coloring book for Maddy, edible snowballs (powdered donut holes), Elf made snicker doodles (they were red and green), cupcakes (made my Mrs. Claus!), hot chocolate, and yummy eggnog in a cute container.

It was such a magical morning!

This past week

This last part of October has flown by. Doug was out of town for a week at Blizzcon in California with some friends and for some reason that week decided to test my limits of patience, then last week there were Halloween happenings almost everyday. I can't believe the month is almost over!

Tuesday Doug got home and while he stayed with Maddy, Abi came with me to Activity days for our Halloween party. She decided to be Alice for this. It was a really fun night with all the girls.

Wednesday Abi had her class Halloween party. I didn't get any pictures. I was able to go and take Maddy with me but it was pretty busy the whole time so I forgot to take the camera out. It was a fun party though. She has a great class.

Thursday and Friday Abi didn't have school so we were able to spend some time relaxing at home and watch Halloween cartoons and make some crafts. 

We got a package from my parents with candy for each of us, cards, and stickers for the girls. 

Within moments the girls were making masterpieces with their stickers.

Good Mail x2

Last week was a good one for mail! 

My mom does a cross stitch for each grandchild on their first birthday of their first name. This past year has been really busy so it took her a bit longer to make Maddy's, plus Madeline is not the shortest name!

She finished a while ago and had it matted and framed like Abi's. We were going to just bring it back with us when we go to Utah but she decided to mail it instead. We were so excited to finally see it finished and the girls love it!

Thanks mom!

Later in the week we got another package from Doug's parents. It was a total surprise for me but apparently Doug knew it was coming. When he was out in Utah he and his mom decided to get me some new scriptures. I guess he told her how much I've been studying them lately. These new ones are monogrammed with a CAV for my full name which is pretty cool. They also got a beautiful pink scripture carry case. I was very surprised and very excited!

Also in the package was a grumpy ladybug stuffed animal, an Eric Carle puzzle that makes noise, a cute little hat, some Root Beer lollipops, and 3 glitter batons.

The girls wanted to try the batons right away. Abi is looking forward to hopefully getting some baton twirling lessons from Grammy later this summer!

Good Mail: Birthday and Easter edition

The day after my birthday we got a surprise package in the mail! It was from my sister Stephanie's family. The box was decorated so cute and that made Abi so excited!

Inside there was some Easter goodness for the girls and a birthday present for me. Abi immediately used the stickers to write a thank you note and then dove in to the candy.

These were the things for me...

The necklaces cracked me up! They are completely perfect for me. I have a feeling that a little conversation I had with my sister a few weeks ago when I told her that I freaked out about something the girls did and threw a cardboard box at the door led to the little green necklace! So funny.

Good Mail: Philadelphia Style

Doug's dad sent us this amazing addition to our home a few weeks ago. He has had this copy of the Declaration of Independence since he was young. It is an exact copy of the original so it appears to be wrinkled, has hole markings and is the same size so it is huge.

We love it so much. It has been sitting in our front room for a couple weeks now as we try to figure out where we want to hang it.

We won!

I entered a contest to win Epic Mickey back in November and we won it!

Good Mail: Halloween edition times three

Over the past few days we have received a few fun Halloween packages.

The first one was from my sisters family.

It contained these cute cat bags, a numbers book for Maddy, some Mike and Ikes and a card.

Inside the cats were all these treasures...

The next package was from Doug's parents...

they gave us some Halloween napkins, some balloons, some pumpkin treats, Candy corn dots, Halloween oreos, slips for the girls, and The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown game.

It is such a fun game and has been played non stop around here!

Next came a package from my parents with goody bags my mom made, lots of treats, some puffs for Maddy, fruit snacks, coupons, cards for each of us, stickers, a cute ghost book, and some money to see Rapunzel when it comes out!

Abi's eyes were so big when she saw the bag of candy with her name on it!

Good Mail: Princess edition

Abi got a package from my parents this week that was just for her. She was so excited. My mom thought of her when she saw this at the Shakesperean festival and had to send it to her.

Abi loves it. She was really happy that it matched the outfit she already had on.

Good Mail: Easter and Birthday

The next package on Saturday was from my parents. They sent a really cute outfit for Abigail, a really cute outfit for Madeline, an Easter pez for Abi, Joe vs the Volcano, some Easter eggs for our hunt, a birthday cake mix, frosting, and a chocolate bunny to make it into an Easter themed cake for my birthday, and my birthday gifts that I can't open until my birthday... although I do know what one of them is and can't wait to open and watch it Thursday!!!

I decided to get the eggs out and put them in the box with the ones from Steph because I just LOVE that bright green paper grass and that was when I noticed that the eggs from my mom had writing on them. I had to take a close up of all the eggs because I think between my parents and my sisters family, we have the CUTEST eggs ever for our hunt.

Good Mail: Easter goodies

Saturday was a great day of packages from family for Easter! The first to arrive was this beauty from my sister and her family. Abi was so excited about the new Polly Pocket. She also sent us some Easter Ring Pops, a visiting teaching message for me, and some Easter eggs for our hunt.

A little prize

Abi has been potty trained for a while now but at the very beginning she still had issues with one aspect of it.. which led to some not so great problems. My parents, being concerned about it, promised her a $5 bill as soon as she would do it. She was motivated.

Finally she earned the $5 and immediately shouted "I get five dollars!" with a huge grin on her face. Since then she has been anxiously awaiting the $5 she got to spend however she wanted.

She wanted this Easter polly! Yesterday we went to Target and got it. She has been playing with it ever since. 

We also got her glasses re-sized at Wal mart yesterday. I knew they had to be wrong because they kept falling off. We all like them much more now!

Good Mail: Easter from Grammy edition

Tuesday we got an Easter package from Doug's parents. It had some beautiful dresses for the girls, some bunny marshmallows, some chocolate marshmallow eggs (wrapped in yellow) matching tights for the girls, and a basket full of goodness as well as a little mystery white box.

When we opened the basket it had a Queen of Easter book (something we had talked about over the phone- one of the few girl characters with glasses!), a couple of church books, and a Peter Rabbit Easter Egg hunt book as well as a CD and a Peter Rabbit stuffed toy. The white box contained a puzzle of Jesus. Love it!
We were so excited about all of it! As you can see, even Maddy was thrilled... she was playing with the bunny and trying to eat his ears before falling asleep like this.

Good Mail: pay it forward edition

Monday I got a package from Katie. She did a Pay if Forward post about a year ago and was making homemade things for the first 3 commenters. I was so excited to see all this beautiful pink!

She even sent Abi a little Princess stationary set from her daughter that was just so sweet and Abi loved.

Once unwrapped I couldn't believe how amazing everything was. She is so talented and everything was so beautiful!
Thanks Katie!! For those of you that commented on my Pay it Forward post... not to worry. I will be getting your stuff to you soon as well. This year has got away from me!

Good Mail: Leprauchaun edition

Monday we recieved a St. Patrick's Day package from Doug's mom and dad. We knew it was going to be fun when we opened up the box to this green goodness...
We were right. It was great! She sent me a ton of her leftover fabric. (I can never have too much fabric these days!) There were Spring/Easter outfits for the girls (the striped dress for Abi and the bunny shirt and polka dotted pants for Maddy), St. Patrick's Day matching tee shirts for the girls, a St. Patrick's Day book, napkins, cupcake holders, shamrocks, noisemakers, and chocolate gold coins.

Good Mail

Last week we got a great good mail package from my mom and dad! It had a bunch of treats for us and Abi as well as some cash to go to McDonalds (for Abi to take us on a date!) and some photos from our road trip. I loved looking through the photos and realized it was good my mom took so many pictures of me because they are some of the only pictures I have of me pregnant with Maddy. This package started with my dad talking to Abi on the phone and asking her if she wanted him to send her some fruit snacks.

She said, "What kind?"

He said, "Smiley face ones."

"I like those!"

So the next morning she rushed into my room asking me to check the mail to see if the fruit snacks from Grandpa were there yet. A few days later.. we got them with a lot of other stuff too.

Good Mail

This was SO unexpected. We recieved a package from Brent and Karen on Monday. It was so wonderful. There was a dance video for me that she doesn't use as much which Abi and I then did together .. it was pretty fun and a good workout. Then she included gifts for the girls. For Maddy was a cute new outfit and a rattle frog toy and for Abi was a new shirt, crayons, a coloring book, and some hershey kisses in a sheep egg. Abi was so excited. She immediately tried on her shirt (she had been pretending to be Princess Aurora all morning so it was perfect timing to get a pink shirt) and colored. Thanks guys. That was so much fun and so nice of you!

Good Mail

Friday we got a fun package from Doug's parents that included sweaters for the girls, a cute Valentines garland, and yummy See's toffee-ettes.