Wagon Ride

We've had a spill of some bad illnesses going through our house. It's been the pits with all this beautiful warm weather! I've wanted so much to get outside and play with the kids. Shane was even home from work sick for a full week. Finally one afternoon being so depressed the weather was beautiful & we couldn't enjoy it, I just ended up closing all of our blinds so we couldn't see outside. We finally all managed to get feeling better & head out for our first wagon ride this year before the storm came in. We called a few of our friends to join us. It was great to get out & enjoy the fresh warm air finally!! Here's some pictures of the kids & their friends Brody & Emmy Thatcher.

Boys...I think they get a little crazier when they get together!! And why are they orange? They've all been eating cheetos!

Boy or Girl??

We had our ultrasound last week to find out whether we are having another boy or a girl. It's a BOY!! We are so excited. We all thought it would be a girl, so we were a little thrown off at first, not that we cared what it was. I just thought for sure this one was a girl. We are just grateful everything looked good and the little guy has all his arms, legs, & all the important stuff. We took Madelyn & Tate with us to the ultrasound (Bricker was @ school), afterwards on the way home Madelyn said, "I still think it's a girl"! She was hoping for a sister! I know how it goes... I never had a sister either. Tough Luck! She's lucky though, she'll never have to share the title Daddy's Girl and be spoiled rotten. Girls are way more fun to shop for. So don't go feeling bad for her! So that's our excited news, we are having another boy & couldn't be more excited!!

Madelyn's 5!

February flew by and I've been putting off blogging. Last time I posted I accidently removed all my custom settings & I've been dreading fixing it all. So... I finally sat down today & 3 hours later I think I've got most of them back!
On to the more important things. Madelyn turned 5! It's hard to believe.

She had a "Friends" birthday party this year. She really wanted a sleepover party, but I just wasn't sure how many parents these days are ok with sleepovers. So we opted to invite just the cousins to stay for the sleepover part. When I asked her what kind of party she wanted, she said a rainbow party. What's a rainbow party?? I have no idea. So everything was rainbow colors, she even dressed herself in rainbow striped tights! She's totally obsessed with rainbows right now. Anyways it turned out cute and everyone seemed to have fun.
For her birthday she got to move into the BIG bed to make room for the new one on the way. But to make it fun & all about her we let her pick out her new bedspread. Which was a little scary for me... If any of you know me very well, you know I'm pretty picky when it comes to what goes in my house (even my kids rooms). But she did amazing! I wasn't surprised she picked something with everycolor of the rainbow :) Here's a couple pics of her new room.

FOUR

We are excited to say kiddo #4 is on the way! I'm a little slow. I guess Shane posted it on facebook a few weeks ago, so some of you already know. I guess I just wanted to wait until things were on the safe side before making the big annoucement. I am currently 14 weeks. We will be blessed with this little bundle in July.

Christmas Projects

My biggest Christmas projects are finally done!! I'm not really sure why we decided I could do this for Christmas, but at the time it sounded really great. We decided clear back in the summer months to make the kids each a pair of chaps. Here's the finished products, 6 months later...

Bricker's are modeled after the pair I made for Shane earlier this year. Just added a little of his favorite color in to make them fun. Each pair has the kids intials stamped on the back belt.

Madelyn's are a little more "fancy" & fun. Includes rhinestones & all the pretty sparkly things girls like.

Tate's are pretty dang cute. Funny how anything small in size is cute! Even though they were very time consuming to make, I sure had a lot of fun making them. Hopefully they end up fitting the kids!! I guess we'll find out on Christmas! Now that Shane's realized I can work leather, he's got a whole list of things. But I think I'm going to take a break for a few months! :-)

California

It's been busy at our house and I haven't been very good at keeping up. Let's start with Thanksgiving... We took a family trip to California and visited 2 days at Legoland, 1 day at SeaWorld, & 3 days at Disneyland over Thanksgiving week. It was a lot of fun, but I very much missed being with the rest of the family on Thanksgiving day. Shane gave me tickets for
my birthday back in August, so it was a long time planning and seemed like it took forever to get here. Here are some fun pictures from our trip.

We started off our trip at Legoland. It was the highlight of the trip for Bricker. Can you tell by the look on his face?

Everywhere was decked out for the holidays. Here the kids are in front of a Christmas tree made out of legos.

Bricker & Madelyn

And lets not forget Tate! I wanted to retake this picture, but Shane said it was perfect :)

This was our first ride of the whole trip. I wanted to get Bricker on a rollercoaster... Here him & I are in the backseat. Lets just say he didn't want to go on anymore rollercoasters the rest of the trip! Madelyn surprised us and went on everything.

Next stop was SeaWorld. Shane's favorite of all the places we went, because it was less crowded and free for military families. By the way, Shane was a trooper. He absolutely didn't want to do this trip, but did it anyway for the kids & I.

Shane & the kids got a kick out of feeding the sea lions.

Disneyland was our last stop, and where we spent Thanksgiving day. My Aunt that lives in California was able to meet us here for this portion of our trip. Disney was the highlight of Madelyn's trip. It was the worst of Shanes! Lets just say they meet their maximum occupacy Thanksgiving weekend! We were there 3 days and didn't even have time to go on all the rides because of wait times! I've been to Disneyland lots and never seen it that busy! I decided from the begining though that we were going to make the best of it, so we tried!

This picture was a great moment... Earlier that morning while we were getting ready Madelyn colored a picture out of her Mickey Mouse coloring book and decided she was going to bring it with her to Disneyland that day and give it to Mickey. I was thinking she would forget about it as the day went on, so said ok. Well what do you know, we found Mickey that day! She ran up to Shane & I and asked for her picture then proceded to the line to wait to see Mickey. Only to find that he had to leave for a parade. She was so sad. Shane said to just give it to the guy leading Mickey around, so we went back up to the line and I explained to Mickey's helper she wanted him to give the picture to Mickey. Mickey's helper then said we could go wait in the corner where Mickey would be leaving and she could give it to him on his way out, it would be more special that way. Madelyn was thrilled! It was the cutest thing as she handed Mickey her picture, and he gave her a BIG hug. It made her day. So that made the whole crowded Disney trip worth it! We had such a blast. The kids did awesome, considering we did 6 days of amusement parks in a row. This is Madelyn on our last day at dinner.

She ate her dinner & was out. Thanks Shane for letting us go, you're the best!

So... That was our California trip. Once we got home I had 3 days to unpack and wash up all our clothes and pack again. And lets not forget little Tate turned 2 right after Thanksgiving! So we threw in a birthday party for him before we left again.

I can't believe he's 2. Was it really 2 years ago Shane left me home alone to go camping with his buddies and I went into labor...

After all the parties, laundry, and packing Shane & I headed off for our annual trip to Las Vegas for the first 3 rounds of the NFR (National Finals Rodeo). We always enjoy this trip, and I think this is what got Shane through our California trip, knowing that his trip was soon! I forgot the camera this year. I'm so mad at myself... We had a blast though. Along with the rodeo there are a bunch of convention centers at the casino's that do Cowboy Christmas. Consisting of anything you can possibly image to purchase and all things cowboy. We shopped and shopped all day then went to the rodeo at night. It was fun. So now we are finally home and getting settled back into a routine again and preparing for Christmas.

New Family Pictures

Shane & the boys

Madelyn & I

Bricker, Tate, & Madelyn

Shane's side of the family.

Grandma & Grandpa Olsen with all their grandkids.