I love Spring!!

 


I am not really the photographer, as you may tell in most of my pictures. But I had to take this picture of our magnolia tree in the front yard. I am pretty sure it's a magnolia, but not the typical magnolia tree. This tree blooms for about one month, at the most two. It smells so nice and it is the most beautiful thing! I love perennials, its so nice when flowers just magically appear every spring.

Blog tag

I was blog tagged by a friend of mine, Jenny. Check it out! Also Smith Family. Blogging is still a bit new for me, but it was fun to check out other people sites! It's so fun!
Here it goes: Random Facts Tag. The rules: (Post these 3 rules on your blog.) Share 7facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. Tag people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I always imagined myself living in the desert on a ranch, not sure what I'd actually be doing on this ranch, but I would definitely be listening to country music all day long. Back to reality, I live in Wauwatosa...and I love it.

2. One my favorite things to do (when I didn't have kids) was to wake up in the morning on the weekend on a warm summer day and enjoy a cup of coffee out on the porch. Now I get the coffee, but where is the R & R????

3. I want to vacation in the Caribbean for a few months at time...

4. I would like to play in the World Series of Poker...and win??

5. I love TV! I am supposed to limit the amount of TV my kids (Maddy) watch, yet I DVR way too many programs. And I still manage to accomplish most things I set out to do.

6. Sometimes I look forward to the days when we can retire and travel and do anything we want to do. Yes, I know that my kids are 2 yrs old and 6 months old! I am cherishing all times we spend together, but you know what I mean!

7. I love to cook, but it seems I am short on time these days. Yes, I still cook, of course. But I would love to learn from a chef at some fancy schmancy culinary school.

I don't think I know anyone else that has a blog, with the exception of Jenny. So I cannot tag anyone back. But maybe I can inspire someone to start their own blog????

A low key weekend!!

This weekend was a weekend with no plans! This is highly unusual for the Ehrhardt's, but we'll take it. It was a good thing, actually, because Maddy was sick friday through sunday. I feel so bad when the kids are sick. Maddy started a fever thursday and then it continued throughout the weekend. Followed by the runny nose, stuffy nose, yadda yadda yadda... We again went through a few boxes of tissues. Maddy feels the need for a tissue approximately every 5 minutes when she is sick. This can start to drive a person nuTTy, but its beTTer than the alternative, wiping her nose on the her sleeve (mr yuk). Maddy feels compelled to wake up in the night for a "temperature check, I have a fever", and " I need for more medicine!" What a strange child, she loves the medicine. I think we are at the tail end of the cold, thank goodness. I just hope that it doesn't get passed onto Winn, or us...
Maddy, despite her feeling under the weather, was extremely excited to get her first Brewer hat! She has been wearing it non-stop for the past few days. She takes it off at night (because I make her..horrible mom) and she places it on her dresser next to her. "It can watch me while I sleep"?????? The first thing she asked when she woke up from her nap today, was can she go the brewer game today? Atta girl, obviously a spin off of her mom and dad.
Jeff and I started to decorate Winn's room, finally! Jeff hung up shelves, and I noticed tonight that there is a Dwayne Wade and Brett Favre bobble head on the shelf above his bed. There was a reason we got all those bobble heads these past years. Maddy loves them, and now her and Winn will both have their own.
Let's hope for no snow tomorrow...

Yardwork time again!!

 
This entire weekend was perfect!! Once again, the weather reports were way off. We were supposed to be getting 3+ inches of rain, and I don't even think I saw one single drop...well maybe one or two! I am glad that we didn't change any plans due to the weather. Saturday Jeff and Maddy went to the Zoo class to learn about birds. I usually go during the week, but this one was on a Saturday so Jeff got the opportunity to go. I think they had a fun time! Maddy got to see her friends Cooper and Kate too! The rest of the day was spent at the park on the swings and slides. I didn't bring my camera, but we had Winn in the swing too! He didn't seem scared, but had a funny look on his face. Maddy of course just wanted to go higher and higher.
Sunday we decided we should start on the yard work, so we spent a large part of the day cutting down old flowers, raking, cleaning out the garden, etc. We really made a good dent in the yard. Next we have to tackle the backyard, which shouldn't be too bad. Every year I make the decision to try to keep up with the weeding and gardening a little better. Once again, I say I will do that. We'll see what actually happens with that. It looks so nice in the yard when everything is cleaned up, maybe this will be the year!
Jeff and I are going to the Brewers game tonight! We're so excited, they have been playing great! I have my Brewers shirt on and Winn has his sweatshirt too. Maddy of course was wondering where hers is. We will be picking one up at the clubhouse tonight...she prefers a pink one??? We are working on the Brewers players, now she can name a few (JJ Pardy???? Ricky Weeks, the Prince and Ben Sheets. She cannot wait to go to a Brewer game!

Sad news :(

I am saddened by some news of one of my former co-workers. Rick, an RN from the cath lab at WMH has been diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, which is an extremely rare form of cancer. It literally affects 4 in 1 million people. The not-so-funny thing about this is that he voluntarily decided to try a new piece of medical equipment (64 slice CT scan of the heart) during work. They were doing some education/teaching on the scanner and were looking for someone to "try it out". Lo and behold, one of the physicians and radiologist noticed some nodules in the lungs and that was the start of this roller coaster ride. He is now is Houston, one of the few centers in the states that treat this form of cancer, starting chemo treatments. Nothing like turing your world upsidedown. Leiomyosarcoma is a resistant cancer...not very responsive to chemotherapy or radiation. The best outcome occurs when it is taken out surgically. So that will be the next step if there is no response to the chemo. The really sad part of this is that Rick and his wife have a 5 year old daughter, Madeline. It breaks my heart to hear about this, but I do realize that God has a plan for everyone. Please include him and his family in your prayers, it would mean so much!

Haircut day!

Today Miss Madeline went on an adventure to get a haircut! She claims that she really needed one, which was very true. My child's hair grows like crazy, I think this was her 7th haircut??? I wonder when Winn will get his first one, right now he is sporting the mohawk style...I think that went out of style circa 1990, but it may be making a comeback. All Maddy could talk about was getting her snip, snip, sitting in the princess chair and the bow she will get when she's done. I think the highlight of the haircut is the 10 cent hair clip that she gets to pick out. Today she was helping Annette blow dry her hair. She is such a girl, and loves to look in the mirror, I wonder where she got that from (surely not me???)
Maddy was a bit under the weather today, I think she still has a little spring cold that has been lingering for the past week. Hopefully that will clear up pretty soon. Wednesday was such a gorgeous day, we must have taken 3 or 4 walks, not including our trip to the zoo. It is so great to live so close to the zoo. We have already been there 3 times and spring just started. Thank goodness for the zoo pass! Maddy really enjoyed the zoo last year, but this year was even better. Now that she knows most of the animals, I needed some more things to teach her. So now, I have to actually read the info signs by the animals so I can figure out what they eat, where they live, etc. I guess I could make up things, but it's fun to re-learn too!
This weekend, Maddy has another zoo class, she'll be learning about birds! Maybe Nana would like to take Maddy to her bird class, she loves birds!!!! Saturday night is our last night of couples bowling. Hooray! I love bowling, but Jeff always says that it ends at the perfect time. 33 or so weeks is plenty long enough. Off for the summer and them we'll start up again in August. I think the Ehrhardt's will be getting new bowling balls this summer. That should be interesting...

No more vacations for a while...

We're back from the Dell's this past weekend! I feel as though we haven't been home much, always on the go. But I guess that is how we Ehrhardt's are. Sometimes I complain about how busy we are, but then when we don't have any plans, we are itching at throwing something together...who knows why??? This past weekend at the Wilderness was a lot of fun. We went with Tracy and Adam and the boys for Friday and Saturday night. Spent lots of time in the pool, which the kids loved! Cooper is a bit more adventurous then Maddy is in the water, but I think they both had a great time. Coop and Maddy were just the cutest things ever. They just played and played the entire time together, it was pretty cute. Tracy and I get together often, but usually it ends up where Cooper wants to play with me (I don't mind of course) and Maddy with Tracy. This weekend was a bit different, they seemed like they were 2 six year old chasing each other around. The kids all went to bed great both nights, so we got to have some R & R at nightime. Tracy and Adam beat Jeff and I in cribbage both nights (I blame Jeff for the loss....) I'll get some pictures on a bit later, still getting my pictures downloaded.
I am working on putting all of Maddy's clothes on e-bay. It really is a pain to take all the pictures, list them, and write about them all. A friend of mine from work gave me all of her daughters clothes for Maddy, they were born a year apart. So between what I have and she had, we are working together to get some money for them. Probably to buy more clothes, go figure.

Winn's Baptism

Yesterday we celebrated Winn's Baptism at St. Hedwig's. It was such a wonderful day, Winn looked so cute in his little white big boy outfit. He is such a sweetheart, and getting so big. Father Tim baptized him yesterday afternoon with all the family there. His godparents are Mary Jo and Scott. We are so happy and honored to have them as Winn's godparents! He is truly blessed to have such a wonderful family and friends.
We had a whirlwind of a weekend, getting ready for the baptism. That entails cleaning the house, preparing food for the party, and going crazy getting everything ready! The day turned out wonderful with the weather cooperating as well.
We're getting ready this week for our weekend at the Dell's with Tracy and Adam and the kids. We are staying at the Wilderness Friday and Saturday night, and are looking forward to having some fun with the kids!

Vacation's over...

It's been a while since I've posted, but that's because we've been in Vegas. No time for blogging there! I cannot write about all we did when we were in Vegas because it would take way too long. But I'll try to touch on a few fun happenings that we had. We arrived in Friday morning at 9:30 vegas time, which is 2 hours earlier than WI. So right there, I knew we were in for a long day. We checked our bags and met up with the Iggy's for some lunch at the ESPN zone. We played a lot of blackjack that day and seemed to do alright at the tables. Then time for some basketball watching at Monte Carlo Brew Pub (note the large beer tap on our table). Would you believe we finished that at halftime of the WI game??? The game pretty much sucked, but we had a lot of fun none-the-less. I made reservations at VooDoo Steak for dinner Fri night, which is a swanky restaurant on the 55th floor of the Rio. (if anyone cares, that is where the World Series of Poker took place!!!) We went to dinner there later that night. It was such an awesome time. The view of the city and strip was so beautiful. Of course, I didn't bring my camera that night, so no pictures, but the view was priceless. The VooDoo Lounge was located outside the restaurant, on the 56th floor. I was a little nervous being outside on an extremely windy evening 56 floors up...nothing a few glasses of wine couldn't cure! It was fun to see some new sights in Vegas, it was worth the pricey, but delicious meal!!
We were up by 7am Saturday, ready for some sportbook betting, and more blackjack. We were up a little bit by the afternoon so we decided to take a little break and try our luck (or skill) on poker. Ig, Anne, Jeff and I entered a poker tournament at the good ol' Excalibur. There was about 45 people signed up for the 1:00pm tournament. I think we were all a bit nervous to play, we all are used to our Cream City Poker League where we know everyone we are playing with. Once we started, we realized it was just a glorified home game, and a lot of the players were really bad!!! I was first out, followed by Jeff and Iggy. Anne cashed for 5th or 6th place! The odds were pretty good for one of us to cash. I guess Jeff and I were feeling lucky, because we entered the same tournament the following day, and did much better. We both made the final table, and I placed 2nd! I was very excited to play in a tourney in Vegas and cash. Next time, we'll be on the lookout for more poker.
On Sunday night, Jeff and I saw a one of the Cirque du Soleil shows at TI. Mystère is classic Cirque du Soleil, combining the powerful athleticism, high-energy acrobatics and inspiring imagery that has become the company's hallmark. Jeff ended up being part of the show, not by choice, but it was pretty funny. We had front row seats, which was the place for lots of audience participation.
Monday we flew home, excited to see the kids! We missed them, but still had a great vacation. Maddy was so cute when we got to Papa and Nana's house. Lots of hugs and kisses. We received excellent reports on Maddy and Winn. Maddy had so much fun with her cousins and aunt mimi and uncle scott, and papa and nana of course! Back to reality. We really had a nice time, not much relaxing in Las Vegas, but we're not really the relaxing type.