Happy Birthday Papo and Grandpa too!

We decided to make a giant cupcake for the birthday dessert! Maddie helped of course!
Grammie brought Mads and Claire beautiful angel cookies - yum!

Grandpa lets Mads have some fun!

Dancing with the birthday boy!

Grand p's and the girlies!

Notice the babies just sleeping through all of the action. :)

We went to lunch on Papo's Birthday at Gumba Joes. We shared the back of the restaurant with another family and it worked out great! We had a wonderful dinner fiesta prepared by Darlene to celebrate both dads birthdays - what fun!

The knock knock jokes come out once again! This time Claire busted out with "knock knock" and it caught us by surprise! She just smiled!

Fancy "Maddie" Nancy

Maddie LOVES dressing up! She loves her fancy dresses, shoes, earrings, boa's, the works! Yesterday she was Cinderella in the morning and Belle in the afternoon. How long will it be until she starts dressing up Dane?!!!

St. Louis Trip

Madeline and Dane were wonderful little travelers! Madeline was being a goof ball under her blanket. We listened to her princess Disney CD much of the way down state! We surprised Grandpa at the nursing home where Maddie and Dane were super (especially considering the six hour drive it took to get there)! Grandpa was playing BINGO when we got there, but he quit and we went to the small cafe to visit.

Dane chillin as usual. He is such a good and sweet baby who is very easy going! Grandpa took Maddie for a ride on his scooter and she liked it!

Madeline was so comfortable with both g-ma and g-pa. She was all about them! She even was crying for great grandma at bedtime!

Maddie found fun things to do at the nursing home. Her most favorite was going to see the birds and her close second was going to the vending machine to push the buttons. She scored animal crackers on Saturday and again on Sunday (thanks to ger GG-ma)!! BUDDIES! :)

We had another nice visit on Saturday before heading back towards Chicago. It was SO WONDERFUL seeing them. We love them so much and wish it wasn't such a long trip to see them.

Madeline fed fluffy his food and it was pretty funny! Fluffy doesn't like to eat, but took the food from her piece by piece!

Mads got to experience a special breakfast treat - Toaster Struedels! For as long as I can remember, we would get so excited to have them for breakfast when we would visit G-ma and G-pa. Of course, the icing was the best part as a kid!

Dane shows his adorable huge smile!

Proud Great Grandma with Dane.

Grandma treated us to pizza and Matt fell asleep on the couch shortly after! Madeline went to bed in the pack and play and I thought she was down. About 5 min. later we saw her standing in the hallway. She has always been a climber! She was quite proud of herself but knew she may be in trouble! Matt ended up getting off the couch and shared the bed with her. Dane and I took the other room and he ended up in bed with me. Oh kiddos!

Church Christmas Party

Daddy and Dane hanging out at the party.
Madeline played hide and seek in the coat rack.

The new babies! Claire was born in September, Kaitlin in November and Dane in October! Madeline had fun playing the piano!

Daniella and Maddie were BUDDIES! She carried Madeline all over the place...it made me just a bit nervous!!!

Having Fun Decorating!

I am very behind on posting, but we put out more decorations and adorned the tree a couple of weeks ago. Madeline and I had so much fun! She was taking out the ornaments and putting them in piles. I then noticed that she was grouping them. She had a pile for santa, angel and snowmen ornaments and I just had to laugh...so Maddie! She LOVES the manger and often asks to play with it. Her favorite piece in the manger is Baby Jesus by far. My dad played with this manger when he was a child, so it makes it that much more special! Maddie has heard "gentle!!!!" many times!

Dane - 2 Months, Maddie - 2 years

We had Maddie and Dane's Dr. Visits last Friday. They were both troopers! Maddie refused to take off her shirt and they let her get away with it.

Dane - 39.5" head (25-50%) /12lbs. 6 oz. Weight (75th%)/ 23.5" Length (75th%)

Maddie - 47.25" head (50%) / 25 lbs. (25-50%) Weight / 33.25" Length (25-50%)

Doctor daddy checked out Maddie while we waited for shots.

Our big boy getting weighed!

Happy 2nd Birthday Madeline!

It's so hard to believe that Madeline is 2 years old! She is a very talkative, sweet, spunky, goofy, Disney lovin little girl. She rarely stops talking or singing and loves to sing the Wonder Pets song, twinkle twinkle and ABC's. She absolutely loves reading her books. She goes to the library often and gets so excited to pick out new books. She is into princesses, Fancy Nancy, dogs and Disney books (she can pretty much recite her Peter Pan book!). She loves her friends, grandparents, cousins and loves playing with older kids. She loves to say "Hi! How are you?" to people, dolls and animals. When you ask something of her she often says "sure!" or "of couse!" She is into asking "Why?" and repeats questions over and over even if she knows the answer. She loves her "Daney Boy" and gives him hugs and kisses often. She knows some letters, can count up to 15 and knows all of her colors. She is a very good eater, but still a bit messy at times! She loves hiding from daddy (under a blanket or pillows on the couch) when he gets home from work. She really only has interest in using the potty when it's time for a nap or bedtime. She definitely tries to make the bedtime routine as long as possible (little stinker). Our Maddie is something else and we love her so much! She has a sweet tooth for sure! She found the cupcakes that we made for the party in no time!
We had a holiday party on Maddie's Birthday! She and I took the train down to meet Matt while my mom watched Dane. She loved the train ride! She enjoyed looking out of the window and kept climbing in and out of her seat. She pointed out lights to me and asked me what a bunch of different things were! Maddie and Charlie (one of the other little girls) loved the ice in the drink bins. They couldn't keep their hands out of it!

So many fun things to play with at the office! There was a magician at the party. He pulled a ball out of Maddie's ear and she....CRIED!!! LOUD!!!! (Which did not surprise me at all, she doesn't like to be startled.)

We decorated the house for Maddie's 2nd Birthday (we got the idea from Aunt Kristin)! Mads loved it and got so excited! We then had blueberry pancakes, opened presents and played with all of the fun new toys. Daddy even stayed home and had lunch with us. Maddie had so much fun that she did not nap (although we tried and tried to get her down). We were worried that she would be super tired for the party later that day, but she was great!

Maddie thought Chip in her mouth was hilarious! (Notice the b-day girl shirt and cupcake wrist bands - she was so into it!)

She even wanted to wear her b-day girl bib!

Opening presents! She loves all of her gifts so much!!!

Maddie's Party

Daddy and Dane are ready for a nap!
CHEESE!! Someone had a very fun day!

The first birthday party Dane attended was for his sister. He was a very good boy.!
I love my mama!!

Guess who didn't want her pic taken?!!! Matt was doing his best to get her smiling and still!

She kept sneaking over to the sweets...she didn't know g-pa was watching!

We had a snowflake party for Maddie last Sunday. G-ma and G-pa Welke came up, which made it very special. Grammie made about all of the food and did a ton of work - THANKS!!! Maddie is so lucky to have such great family and friends. She loved her party and all of her presents.