Capitol with a capital "C"

 Grandpa Gary works security at the Capitol for the Legislative Session each year.  We took advantage of a no school Monday and went up to see him.  The girls love visiting with the guys in the green jackets to get a salt water taffy.  Visiting the capitol is better than a parade!

 Maddie is officially taller than her cousin Katie - who is a few years older.  Maddie was pretty proud of that. 

 Grandpa took us into the basement this time and showed us the earthquake safety measures that were added a few year back.  Super cool! 

 Lexi was a good sport about all of it.  She loved peering down below. 

 Such a fun day!  So grateful for my family. 

Happy birthday, Lexi!

 I  can't believe that my baby is already two!  Makes me sad, but we are loving seeing all that she can do and say these days.
This child really didn't need anything for her birthday, but what would a birthday be without presents?  I let her pick out a few things at the store, like this hooded towel...

 Since we were in Disneyland for her first birthday, we decided to take a trip for her second birthday also!  We went to Malad to visit Grandma and Grandpa. 

 Grandma made Lexi a chocolate sheet cake, which just so happens to be Jeramy's favorite cake.  Cousin Ellie decorated it for her. 

 Sleeping at grandma's is always an adventure.  Rough night for all of us.  :(

 Lexi loved hanging out with Grandpa Kim.  She warmed right up to him this trip and she loved playing with his puppies, especially "Meenah"  We are still  hearing how nice puppy Meenah is. 

Her two year check up was scarier than a haunted house for my sweet baby.  She screamed and screamed while they tried to weigh her.  She's just shy of 26 pounds.  And I can't remember how tall, but under 25%, which is normal for my kids. 
She can spell her name and count to 11.  She loves to color, which I didn't think was odd, but the doctor was impressed.  She doesn't have a dominant hand yet though.  Right and left are used equally.  
I can't even imagine life without her.  Such a blessing and a joy in our home.  She will always be spoiled and loved by her sisters and by me. 

The Valentine banner

Back in January my mom handed me a bunch of pieces of wood and said, "I bought this last year at The Wood Connection, but we never made it.  You can have it if you will make it."  So I lined all the pieces up and was clueless as to what it was supposed to look like.  So I took a picture of all the parts and sent it to The Wood Connection asking for a picture of how it went together.  My mom was so excited that I got "on the line" to ask for help.

But, I never heard back.
Fast forward to February.  My mom and sisters came down to take my niece Danielle to lunch.  After we ate and got Dani back to work, my sister tried to get out of my van and my mom said, "You're not going anywhere.  We are going to The Wood Connection."  And so we drove to American Fork and went shopping.
Since my mom hurt her knee, she hasn't been going in many stores, but she went in and that made me so happy.  Then I soon remembered the crazy steps all over the store.  My mom was not happy about it and let the poor lady working there know that if she fell, she was going to have to sue them.  You have to know my mom to know that she's half kidding half truth all the time.  I could tell the worker was trying to be patient, but was losing the battle.  At one point the worker said, "If you're not careful, your daughter will make you wait out in the car."  And we had a good laugh about that since that's usually what she does. 
My mom then brought up that banner.  The worker said she remembered my post and that they really had looked for it, but couldn't find it.  My mom promptly said, "Well, then I want my money back."  And I quickly told the poor lady that wasn't necessary and I'd just make my own with it.  (And I should add here also that my sister stayed as far away from us as possible, trying to not be seen with us.  Love her!)
A short time later the manager came in and my mom went after her about the step, then about the banner.  The sweet manager said that she thought the other store had found it and she called up to check, but no one knew for sure where it had gone again.  She took my phone number and promised to text me later that night.
She did!
I was impressed.  She let me know that they still hadn't found it again, but would keep me posted.  The next morning I had a picture of the banner on my phone!
And after all that work, I had to make the darn thing.  All right, I had Maddie and Macie paint the wood, but I did the rest.  I used some paper I had on hand and I found a tiny scrap of white vinyl tucked away in my paper so the total cost for this cute project came to a whopping .25 cents.  That's my kind of project. 
And now when I look at my banner, I chuckle a little thinking about my mom and being the "greasy wheel."  (I won't use the term she used to describe herself...this is a family friendly blog!)
(And you'll just have to wait for a picture of the finished project until next year...it's packed away with the other Valentine's stuff now).  

More Maddie...

 This year was the year of the science fair.  Yay!  (Do you sense the sarcasm there?).  Maddie and her friend Elysse decided to work together and it turned out to be a huge blessing!  It seemed like every time they needed help, I would have to go in to work and sweet Gwen would jump in and save the day.  So grateful that they were able to work together.  They dyed food green to see if people would still eat it even if it was green.  Our family was totally fine with it (I'm guessing all those green smoothies help us eat green food).  The Ostermiller's family didn't like it as well.  Funny project!

And after months and months of waiting, Maddie and I became official volunteers at Thanksgiving Point.  She had been dying to do this and they finally called us in for our interviews.  There are so many great opportunities to serve there and Maddie's having a hard time limiting her time there.  Her mean mom won't let her be there everyday like she wants.  It's been fun to work together just the two of us. 

Maddie's 11th Birthday

This year was a "friend party" year for Maddie. From the moment I mentioned that, she knew she wanted to have a Harry Potter party. And I  didn't want to do it. I tried to sway her many different directions, but she always came back to Harry Potter, so I finally embraced the Potter Party and off we went.
I can't believe I didn't take a picture of her invitations!  We bought white balloons and drew an owl face on them and tied a rolled up invitation to the end of the string and left them on porches.  We only had one blow away.  (Luckily, I had bought extra balloons). 
I ran  into Amannda Ashby a few days before the party at Wal-Mart and she had just thrown a Potter party and let me borrow platform number nine and 3/4.  Huge thank you!  Saved me oodles of time.  

I think it was a huge success!  Macie and Lindsay were house elves and helped with all projects.  We made mandrakes, had potions class which involved mentos, diet coke, pop rocks and sprite.  Super fun!  We played table top quidditch, which was pretty hard - if I do say so myself.  We feasted on pizza, butterbeers, golden snitch cake pops, pretzel wands and a birthday cake just like the one Hagrid made for Harry. 

I'll admit it now, I actually had fun creating all of it once I embraced that it was going to be Harry Potter.  I don't know what we did before Pinterest though!

On the actual day of her birth, I went and took her lunch and checked her out and went and got a perm.  That was the one thing she really wanted for her birthday.  It took over 3 hours to have done and when they unwrapped it, we were both disappointed.  We went home and by the second day, it was pretty much straight.  Huge bummer.  I called and asked if they would re do it.  They gladly did.  This time we got a different girl who was super fast and it worked much better!  (And it helped that I kept texting Aunt Tera asking her questions about what they should do this time - like use a smaller rod and stronger solution). 

I'm so grateful for my Maddie!  She growing up so fast and is such a good example for me and her sisters!