Hockey Time

We don't get to go to a lot of Alex's hockey games, but Sunday afternoon the kids and I, plus Kaleb, went to watch. The boys played off and on a little game of hockey themselves on the sidelines and Maddie and I sat together watching Alex play. Alex scored one and had two assists (I believe). The game ended up tied at 3 at the end of the 3rd period so it went into a shoot out. The other team scored the first one, then the next three guys didn't score, then Alex's team scored and the other did not. Still tied! It went into another shoot out and Gomer (aka Chris) went in for his shot. I snapped a picture as he headed to the net.

And this is after he scored the game winning goal! Yay!

The kids were immediately excited because that meant it was time for them to head out on the ice, not that they don't enjoy watching Alex play. But lets face it, it's a little bit less eventful as a Preds game and it only holds their attention for so long!

As you can see they were having a good time shooting and Maddie was out there right in the middle watching.

Two hockey players in the making! :-)

Maddie's Birthday Party

Saturday we had Maddie's 5th birthday party! I know, I can't believe it either. I keep saying things to her and having to correct myself that she is 5 years old NOT 4 years old. It is crazy!!!

When Maddie decided she wanted a party at home this year, I got a little excited. Alex immediately told me I was being ridiculous and going overboard and I kept telling him that this was a milestone birthday and I couldn't help it. She's only going to turn five and be going to kindergarten once! I am sure you can imagine where this conversation went. LOL Alex told me milestone birthdays are like 100, not 5 and that I would turn every year in to a milestone some how to justify my party planning. We laughed and I went on planning her party as I wanted. (I love my husband for just going with it!)

I took Maddie shopping and let her choose her invitations and then I ran with it from there with some input from her here and there. She loved the cupcake invitations and so I immediately called my friend, Katrina, to start helping me brainstorm. Alex, probably really needs to thank her for me going a little more crazy, she found hundreds of websites and emailed me all kinds of pictures and ideas. It was great! I did find a cake online that I loved and Alex had already asked me to use a girl he met thru work for her cake this year. So, I emailed her a link to the cake and told her what I wanted to modify and our color scheme and this is what we got.I loved it! (If you want to give Heather a try, you can find her by clicking on her name and going to her site or email me and I can give you her contact information.)

Alex wasn't totally out on the party planning. He did suggest me doing little aprons for all the girls as party favors instead of the traditional favors (junk as he called it). This way they could use them to decorate their cupcakes, without messing up their clothes, but then take them home for a little gift. I loved the idea and tried to customize them each to the little girls favorite colors and/or parents' favorite team! (Jason and Leann)The girls all had a good time decorating their bags to fill with the pinata goodies and then decorating and eating their cupcakes. It wasn't near as messy as I thought it might get and the girls seems to really like it, which I was glad!After cupcakes, we played a little limbo upstairs and then headed out for some water fun to cool off from the heat. This turned out to be a hoot! Number one, Alex NEVER lets the kids play in the front yard because he is VERY particular about his grass. However, for some reason he decided that is where they could play with the water toys, including a slipe and slide. Everyone at the party was in amazement because pretty much anyone that knows even the least little bit about us, KNOWS this was major! The kids had a great time, including Kaleigh and Lillie, our little toddler buddies!!!! I wasn't sure they'd really get involved but they both were totally fine being drug down over and over. :-)

And the party wouldn't be complete without Maddie's special request:

A CUPCAKE PINATA!!!!!!!!After that, we let her open her presents and then the kids all scattered doing random things. Here is a shot I couldn't resist sharing of the girls after they got all dressed up and put their make up on. It seemed like they spent half an hour in my room getting ready. Don't they all look beautiful!?!?!

Maddie turned FIVE!!!

Its hard to believe that Maddie is FIVE YEARS OLD! I can remember her being so tiny and me sitting in her room every night singing to her until she went to sleep. Now, she wants me to lay down with her and rub her back. Isn't it amazing how times change?!?!?

Maddie has been very excited about her birthday and counting down the days since Sunday after church. On Wednesday she woke up saying "this is the last day I'm four." She couldn't wait. Alex had a breakfast scheduled early on Thursday morning and she was devastated that she had to wait for him to come home in order to open her presents. We decided that Ashton could give her his when she woke up so she'd at least be content for a while.

As you can tell, she was a little bit excited about the barbie with a dog stroller, dog purse and TWO dogs. That meant they could each have a dog to play with when they played barbies together. (That means no fighting!!!!)

After some breakfast, I took the kids to the pool at the park which is where Maddie asked to go. They played there for about an hour and then they were ready to hit the playground. I took tons of pictures, as usual. Ashton found a little boy to play with right away and they had a good time playing ball together.Here is Ashton taking a little break while he watched Maddie play with some little girls that she made friends with.

Maddie was super excited!!!

We stopped for Wendy's after they were "done sweating" as they both said. They wanted a frosty to go with their lunch and since its Maddie's birthday, she made all the decisions for the day. :-)

I was hoping that after the pool/partk, some lunch and showers, Maddie would be back to the barbie and not concentrating on "when is daddy coming home?" I was wrong!!! She was immediately back at it. Every couple of minutes she asked. When he finally got home, we let her open her other gifts and then they went upstairs to play. Alex brought in her "bigger bike" and called her back downstairs and she was excited. She just recently learned to ride without training wheels but her bike was really too small. She got on this one with a little anxiety but then quickly was ready to take it outside.

She was looking super cute riding around the cul de sac with Ashton!

For dinner, Maddie chose Ruby Tuesday because she said she "wanted salad and college cheese". (aka cottage cheese) So, after her hip hop class we met Grammy (Alex's mom) and Papa Monkey (my dad) at Ruby Tuesday for dinner. We had a nice time and they brough out a cupcake for the birthday girl.

Maddie was in a very silly mood and so I didn't get any serious pictures of her, as you can clearly tell!!!

What is this anyway?!?!?!

Maddie got ANOTHER star in gymnastics!!!!

Yesterday afternoon, Maddie FINALLY mastered her cartwheel. Miss Tammy has been working and working with her on doing it straight, without landing on her bottom or going sideways. It has been a long time coming and yesterday she got it. She did one and Miss Tammy got all excited and told her if she could do it again then she'd give her a star. The stars are to represent when you master something. I don't know if you'd say Maddie mastered it, but she has never done two good ones in a row . I guess she figured that might be as close as she gets. LOL

Here Maddie is sitting in the floor drawing a heart and writing her name on the star.
And here she is SUPER EXCITED about getting it! As you can see, she ran out of room for her name and had to finish it above! I love that kids do that like they are wrapping it around. LOL

4th of July Weekend

Our 4th of July weekend consisted of a lot of household chores. I worked on getting some things together and done for Maddie's birthday party this coming weekend and Alex worked on cleaning up and staining our deck which really needed to be done. He worked himself to death out in the heat and it looks so good!

Fourth of July we spent the day shopping for new mattresses, which we were in desperate need of and then cooked out and had some family time at home. We let the kids get a few fireworks and here are a few pictures of them having some fun. (My battery was dying so these pictures look a little funny!!)

After they finished with those, we watched others in our neighborhood from our front porch and called it a night!

Science Museum

Thursday, the kids and I went to the Adventure Science Museum. We haven't been in a few months and with it being so hot we decided some indoor fun was in order!

Maddie kept telling me to look at how tall she was when she looked in this mirror. :-)

Ashton riding the bike as fast as he could!

The digestion area is always a favorite of my kids. They are both trying to get the food in the mouth and neither are having much luck with it, so Maddie goes down the "tooting" slide as she calls it.

Off to being doctors.....

We even built some houses.

Ashton wanted a picture with his "double" house.

We had a good time and enjoying staying cool for a bit!

Cars 2

Last Friday, Cars 2 came out in theaters. Ashton and Maddie watched the first Cars movie probably a hundred times or more in the car when it first came out. Alex and I could quote the movie but for the longest time, we'd not actually watched the movie. Finally, we brought it inside and watched it. It was a cute movie! We were excited about the second one coming out and Monday night we decided to take them to see it.

Here are our two silly kids waiting on the movie to start. They kept telling us to put our glasses on or we'd not be able to watch the movie. LOL

The kids did good sitting there watching the movie. It was cute, but I think the first one was better. As you can tell, Maddie didn't make it until the end. She snuggled up in my lap and fell asleep. We couldn't resist a picture of the sideways glasses. :-) She was beat!