Collin playing hockey

Collin is almost done with his first season of WBL hockey clinic.  In two weeks, they have their final practice which will be a big game.  They make a HUGE deal about it, with a smoke machine, lights out, etc.  Sounds like it will be lots of fun.  He is getting so good at skating now.  He can easily skate fast.  And he is already starting to learn how to do a hockey stop, and skate on his "edges" - whatever that means :).  That is what they are practicing in the video below.  It has been so much fun to watch how quickly he has improved over the last few months - but especially fun for us to watch how much fun he is having.  As soon as we get there he can't wait to get on the ice and he skates hard for the whole hour!!  In the video, Collin is #77 - he starts right in front of the green cone, and has two stripes of white tape around his shins - if that helps to find him.

All the kids lining up to do drills.  This week they even had them doing a drill where they had to lay on their belly, then the coach shot a puck out and they had to get up quick and go after the puck.  It was pretty cute - and actually pretty amazing how quickly they can move in all that gear!

Collin is even starting to get good at puck handling.

video of Collin playing hockey

Wisconsin Dells

Last weekend, for our friends Xan and Henry's birthday, we made a trip to the WI Dells.  The kids had a blast.  They went down all the big slides and even some of the adult slides.  Madelyn went crazy splashing in the water, and dunking her face under again and again.

Their favorite thing aside from the water park was playing in the empty hot tub in our condo.

This is what some of the bigger slides looked like that the kids were going down all by themselves - over and over and over!!

These pictures speak for themselves.  They were not having any fun at all.

More water park pictures

Even Madelyn went on some big slides!

We all went on the big family tube ride.  Collin loved it, Madelyn hated it, and Ella didn't want to get water in her eyes....yeah right!!

Madelyn walking for real now!

Madelyn's favorite thing to do in the WI Dells was to play in the empty hot tub.  Here she is taking her first real "walk".  She all of a sudden was able to walk all the way across the room - and all to get to the empty hot tub.

video of all four kids going down slide together

video of Collin and Ella going down on their belly

Madelyn playing in the pool.

Ella is crazy!

Watch Ella at the very end of the video - coming down head first and going completely underwater!

Madelyn's helping herself

I guess by the time you have your third baby - you let them fend for themselves for dinner!

Madelyn's first "trick"

Madelyn's first signs of real intelligence...when you tell her to say "hi", she puts her hand to her ear and pretends to talk on the phone. What's funny is that nobody taught her, she just picked it up on her own! Apparently mommy talks on the phone too much. Collin and Ella think it's hilarious. She's also starting to learn to say "bye-bye". What a big girl!

What you're missing!

For all of you enjoying above zero temperatures - here's what you are missing! Collin, Ella and Torin built a snowfort in the front yard.

Just one of the Boys!

Ella clearly needs to get herself some friends that are girls - and quick!! The kids were all playing in the basement and they came up to show us their muscles.

Ella "Cinderella" tries on flower girl dresses

Sherry and Scott are getting married in Mexico in April. When it was time to get Ella's flower girl dress I thought she might get through 2 or 3 dresses and then get bored with it. I was certainly mistaken. Ella is not much of a "girly girl" (not my fault Kim) but I tell you what put a big, white poofy dress on her and it was like watching Cinderella right before my eyes. She was instantly transformed into a natural - like she had been playing "Cinderella" all her life. She had the walking, posing, looking in the mirror and especially the spinning down pat in under 5 minutes! And she wasn't afraid to fight the "big girls" for the box to stand on in front of the mirrors. As you can see from the photos - she didn't have any fun at all. After about a dozen dresses and 3 shops, Ella was still going strong. She loved every minute of it - and I have to admit so did I. I think I had more fun picking out her "wedding dress" than I did my own! So thanks Sherry and Scott for some of my most treasured memories with Ella :)

This is seriously what Ella did every time she put on a big poofy dress!!

Ella "Cinderella" continued

Sorry, I know it's a lot of pictures - but she was so darn cute! And she really was just like the energizer bunny, she just kept going and going and spinning and spinning....

Finally hit a wall!

By 6:00 that night, Ella did finally hit a wall. I managed to get her out of the car, down the block in the freezing cold, into the store - where I lay her on the ground while I bought her dress, and back out to the car, without her ever waking up. That's what you call one tired 3 year old! She literally shopped 'til she dropped~

PB & J

We were at Target the other day, and as usual Collin wanted to bring home junk. This time it was one of the pamphlets about how much money gets donated to schools when you shop at Target - of course he wanted one for himself and one for Ella. He looked at it the whole way home. By the time we got home we were running very late and had to cram lunch in before heading off to school. I was trying to get the groceries in quickly and so I was leaving the back door open. I asked Collin to put down his pamphlet and watch Madelyn to make sure she wan't falling into the garage. Before long Madelyn was precariously perched at the top of the garage steps and Collin was standing in the hallway reading his beloved Target pamphlet - paying no attention. I came in, put his pamphlet in the trash and sent him up to his room. Five minutes later I called up to him "lunch is ready". Now keep in mind that independence is NOT one of Collin's strong suits - he would still have me spoon feeding him if it was up to him. When he got to the kitchen, Ella was sitting at the island with her plate of lunch and Collin's plate was sitting in his spot totally empty. "But I thought lunch was ready"? I explained that if he couldn't help me, that maybe I wouldn't help him. Today he would have to make his own lunch. You should have seen the look on his face - totally priceless!! He started to freak out, and I sat back to watch my briliant plan play out. But before I could pat myself on the back, he walked over and started trying to climb up on the island where I had made Ella's sandwich. I told him to get down, so he calmly walked to the dining room and dragged a chair over, and proceded to make his own PB & J. It was the worst looking thing I had ever seen - starting with the butt end of the bread and ended with about a pound of butter, a tiny amount of PB and an even less amount of jelly (apparently getting jelly out of the jar with a knife is a difficult task for a 5 year old). He put the sandwich - if you can call it that, on his plate and got out a stick of cheese and some grapes. Then he carried his plate to his spot and sat down to eat. I couldn't decide if I should be mad that my plan had failed, laugh at the ridiculousness of his sandwich, or be proud that he had actual made his own lunch! When I asked how his sandwich tasted he simply said, "pretty good". It was pretty funny, and he actually may have learned a lesson, because he was overly helpful the rest of the day. The best part was I also learned a lesson: From now on Collin's making lunch!!

We got the kids passports to go to Mexico for Scott and Sherry's wedding. After weeks of waiting....the passports are finally here. Collin and Ella have already spent hours making up stories about each page, and practicing how they will get stamps in Mexico. They have gone as far as putting on their swimsuits, hats, sunglasses and flip flops to play "going to Mexico". Collin actually wants to sleep with his. Who knew passports could entertain a couple of toddlers for hours!


Here's some video...as you can see Collin has got the stamping thing down solid!!

This is the conversation I had with Ella (3 1/2 years old) before bed the night after we bought our new van-
Mom: "Why don't we say an extra prayer to Jesus tonight for giving us enough money to buy our new van?"
Ella: "Well, where is Jesus?"
Mom: "In your heart."
Ella: "Then how did Jesus get us that money?"
Mom: "He helped daddy to work very hard to get that money."
Ella: "So, did Jesus and Santa follow daddy....??"
Where do you go from there?......it's so fun how a 3 year old's mind works!

Madelyn is taking her first steps

Madelyn started taking some small steps right around Christmas time. Against their better efforts, my sisters were not able to get her to walk while they were home. Just this week she hit the mile marker of actually taking steps instead of moving her feet while falling forward. Not even quite 11 months old - she's a month ahead of her brother and sister. Hopefully she'll have it down in time to go with me for my morning jog on the beach in Mexico!!

FINALLY!!!

What some of you are thinking is FINALLY Suzie has joined the 21st century and started a blog....but also FINALLY we got our minivan. After 5 years, 3 kids, and whole lot of patience; we finally purchased our long overdue minivan. All that waiting sure paid off!!