12.08.2009

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I was wondering when we would finally get our snow. Well, ask and you shall receive. Every last 12 inches or more of it. Like my neighbor said today, if its going to snow...bring it on. None of this 2 or 3 inches. Let's take the whole 2 feet and go to town. The kids were crazy this morning already. Winn standing on 2 boxes to see out the window. Maddy asking if Dad got the sleds out from the top of the garage. Me wondering how long it would take to get them ready...answer, pretty long. Maddy is proud that she can get her snow pants and coat and boots on by herself. Winn wanting to "do it myself" and never quite accomplishing it. He now says that he is "fustrated" when he is actually frustrated, go figure. So we spent the day shoveling and making snowmen and snow angles, and had lots of fun. Hopefully we can bring on the sleds tomorrow. Hip hip hooray for snow days!!!!

11.20.2009

Dress up

The kids wanted to play dress up the other day. They apparently decided on Packers jerseys. I thought I hid the cursed #4, but Maddy somehow found it. Winn went for the authentic "30" Ehrhardt, how appropriate. This was also haircut day, notice Winn's haircut looks faintly similar to someone we know.



What you can't see, is that Winn has my heels on...good thing the jersey is so long!!
I'll keep him away from my dresses.







Winn's 2nd B-Day!!

Happy belated birthday to Winn! He finally turned 2, our little Halloween boy. Birthday party and Halloween party combined as usual. This year was much more low key than last year, although I am looking forward to a BIG Halloween party next year. Here are some pics of the boy...












10.13.2009

The Ehrhardt's had a free weekend....WHAT????? Print it in the headlines!! So, what do we do? Plan a trip up to Wisconsin Rapids to visit cousins, and Auntie Mimi and Uncle Scott too of course. We have not seen the Sig's since DW. And, honestly, I was looking forward to a relaxing weekend. We had tons of fun with everyone! The kids played great together, and we had a really nice weekend of visiting, pumpkin farming, cold football gaming, beautiful balleting, and eating and drinking:) The kids were playing in the leaves, pardon me, pine needle "leaves" and I got some funny pics of Liesl and Joe.







We got to visit one of the pumpkin farms in Rapids, no not Uncle Scott's. But for the record, we were given some beautiful and huge pumpkins, and acorn squash for Jeff. The pumpkin farm had a corn maze, spoooooky trail, and some farm animals and treats. We did a hay ride. It was a long long ride in the cold. With Maddy dropping her chocolate pretzel which transformed into a Mad-E meltdown. Pretzel # 2 was purchased and all was well!!

























Sorry for all the pictures, I just love taking them. The kids are finally getting better at letting me too! We had a nice weekend with the E family!!!!!

10.07.2009

Princess Party!!!

Maddy went to her first "Princess Party" last week for her friend Ava. She received the invitation in the mail and was ecstatic about dressing up as her favorite princess, and drinking tea...of course. What princess doesn't like tea?? My friend Kari, Ava's mom, really outdid herself. We walked in, Princess Maddy got her picture taken, then off to play in the Princess Playland (aka, the living room). There was castles, tea parties, the whole shebang. Lunch was served, adorable cut out princess sandwiches, jello in the shapes of slippers, rings, cinderella...yikes. Oh, and of course this was all served on glass tea plates and glass tea cups. Boy Kari are you brave!!! Making princess purses, and princess picture frames was a hit. Then, how could you have a 4 year old party without a pinata???? Cake and ice cream to follow (my personal favorite part:)) It was so much fun, Maddy had a great time.



















9.04.2009

First day of school

My little Maddy, starting school. SERiously, where has the time gone, and how are they growing up so fast??? Our quest for looking into preschool for Maddy brought us into Brookfield to Elmbrook Church Child Enrishment Center. Fondly called ECCEC. We looked into some places in Tosa, but they didn't seem to fit our schedule. I am very happy with our choice and Mads too! She really couldn't have been more excited about starting. For the past month she has been asking on a daily basis when school is starting, and so finally it did. She goes wed and fri from 8am-1pm. Such a long time for a little 3 year old. But she LOVES it! Today was the 2nd day, and she wanted to walk in by herself, hang up her backpack and go into class. Those were maddy's words. I cannot let her do this, however, but she did get to lead the way. MAddy was sad on the first day because she didn't get a "job" for the day. We talked about all the kids getting their turn for jobs, and she seemed a little skeptical. So today at pick-up, she told me she got the job as the weather person. She was so pleased!!!! Here are some pics of her first day! Oh yes, Winn thinks he should be going to school now too....yikes.

This is a picture of Winn getting Maddy up...yes, we sometimes have to get Maddy up in the morning, far cry from 6am....like her brother...



Maddy and Winn on the porch, ready for school.







At school and ready to go...



9.02.2009

Disneyworld, we came, we saw, it conquered us...

Our trip to DisneyWorld (dw, as we will now call it)...in a nut shell. Or else, I will be writing forever. The trip down was WWWAAAAAYYYYY better than I or Jeff ever expected. They were great in the car (great could be a stretch, but really they were that good). The last 2 hours both there and back were a little hairy, but all in all, it went fairly smooth. THIS IS IN CAPS BECAUSE ITS VERY IMPORTANT...THANK YOU NYSSE'S FOR THE DVD PLAYERS...LOVE MADDY AND WINN...AND JEFF AND JEN :)

day 1: We arrive in dw at 3pm, Disney time. Disney time means, there is no time. Time is pretty non-existent when you are there. With the exception of when to return for your fast pass. Otherwise, you just go go go. We just settled in, sent shopping for food, made dinner, and went to bed...ready for a long day ahead.

Day 2: Magic Kingdom here we come!!!! Maddy all ready to go in her Cinderella dress. There is a picture in this series, where Mads is on the carousel with her dress, first time to dw pin, and a huge sweaty smile on her face. This is classic. I just love this picture. It sums it up...we were hot as heck, seriously, but it was worth every penny!



day 3: Happy anniversary to me and Jeff! How romantic that we return to the place of our honeymoon. Nothing like we were 6 years ago...2 kids later and here we are. We went to a character breakfast at the contemporary this day. It was a lot of fun. Maddy was so excited to get all the characters autographs in her special autograph book, thanks to Auntie Mimi!!! She will cherish this forever, us too!



day 4: Off to animal kingdom and freak out at "Bug's Life". Like Scott said, they really must want you to think you are in Africa, they must blast in extra heat. Really, this place was like 120 degrees. Winn was a trooper, taking naps in the stroller EVERY day for 2+ hours. I couldn't believe it. Maddy did NOT like the bugs life 3D show. I, personally, do not like it either, but the blood curling screams were a bit much...



day 5: EPCOT (do YOU know what that stands for?????) and thank goodness for the water pad...The kids, once again, were hot hot hot. We found a water pad, and the kids splashed in there for a long time.



day 6: golf...swim...bbq. Jeff, dad and I golfed this morning. Did I mention it was HOT out???? are you kidding me?? Note to self, do not go to dw in August.
We swam at the pool in Fort Wilderness, where we stayed. THIS PLACE WAS AWESOME...GREAT PLACE TO STAY!!!! Then off to Mickey's Big BBQ. I really enjoyed this. I kind of felt like I was at a redneck hick country wedding (which by the way, I would really enjoy). There was a buffet with great food, and a country band playing great music, and free beer. Yes, I said free beer, at dw?? We had a lot of fun.



day 7: new hotel?? We wake up friday morning, ready to head to Hollywood, formerly known as MGM. And much to our surprise we find our hotel bill under the door. HHmmmmmmm, are we checking out today...no....
A little mishap with reservations, and we were packing up everything and moving to the Yacht Club for our last night! It actually worked out well, we got all packed up, which for the last day was kind of nice. We headed out to Hollywood for the afternoon and then fireworks and Tinkerbell for the night. Maddy fell asleep (10pm at night) and we had to wake her up for fireworks. She enjoyed them, amidst the chaos that is dw, in magic kindgom, at 10pm....CHAOS I TELL YOU!!! Winn like the "booms" and now everytime he sees the castle, he says...boom, loud!



All in all, it was a fun trip. The kids had a great time, they were little troopers. It wasn't a relaxing trip, but was it supposed to be?? Not in dw, right??
We will go back, not next year, but maybe the year after...not in august...please!!!

7.13.2009

4th of July!!!

Our annual 4th of July Holiday consists of this: parade 9:00am sharp Wilson park (watch out everyone, this parade gets crazy...the elephants, bands, floats...), back to the Ehrhardt's for party set up and lunch, then huge annual 4th of July party with fireworks to top it off! It is a great day, and this one was no different, with the exception of being sick :(
The kids had a fun time in the parade, to their excitement there is always ice cream at the end. Maddy asked for chocolate, which they don't have EVER, but she settled on vanilla. Winn for some odd reason this year, did not want any, so yours truly had 2.....yippee! The party was fun, its cool to see all the kids that are getting bigger each year and how many more are on the way! Little Jack K. asked Jeff if he could blow up the jumping castle. Poor little guy, maybe we'll bring it back next year, it's about due time that someone loses another tooth!
The party was great, left around 10ish, home to bed, then off to Urgent Care for me, in just enough time to be diagnosed with mono....lovely.
I am slowly recovering, realizing that it is important to get lots of rest...what is that?
Here are some pics from the 4th...













This picture below is getting easier every year. It is all of Terri's, Nicki's and our kids. They are part of the Wilson Park excitement too! It's so neat to see them all together.