The land is almost ours!!! It's taking a little longer than we expected, but by Monday the land should be ours!!! I included some pics. It is an irregular shaped lot. It is almost split in half but parallel to the road. So everything in the back half of the field is ours including all the trees and the pond. It is so peaceful and quiet out there. Chris went riding four wheelers with his parents on Saturday out at the land. Hopefully next time he will plan better and I will get to go!

We had two graduations on Sunday. We didn't make it to the ceremonies, well we tried but there was only standing room left at the Cathedral and with little ones it wasn't going to work. But we made it to both parties. It was nice to see family again and it was fun hanging out with Andrea, Ella and Phyllis all afternoon.

Last night Chris and I went out for a couple of hours while my mom watched Madi. Chris has been involved with a Leadership of Salina class through the Chamber of Commerce this last year. They had their graduation ceremony last night at the Country Club. They fed us a nice dinner and had a speaker and then everyone received an award. It was very nice and a nice evening out.

I think we can officially say Madi is walking. She wants to walk everywhere all the time. She also stood up on her own last night without holding on to anything. We spend most of the day walking around the house together. Even though she can do it on her own, she still wants me to walk with her. She will come find me and grab my finger and off we go. One more week and she will be one...(sob!!) It has gone so fast. I have spent the last week working on birthday party and invitations and all that fun stuff. I am kind of glad it's on a holiday weekend, I still have Sunday and Monday to recoup (hopefully at the lake!!)

Better get busy!! Have a great weekend and hope to see you all on the 26th!!

Love, Amy

I said last week that I liked the rain, this week we have had way to much. Yesterday morning I found more water damage in our livingroom. The chimney is leaking and we knew this, we have been waiting 2 months on the roofer to get our roof done. With all the heavy rain this weekend it really leaked and then followed a board to the middle of the livingroom ceiling. It created a crack in between two pieces of wallboard and leaked onto the floor. Not a lot of water but enough to get us concerned. Chris climbed into the attic yesterday morning and found the leak and then sealed around the fireplace. Hopefully it will help, at least until the roofer can get here (whenever that may be).

We went out driving around the west and north parts of town Sunday night taking pics of all the water damage. St. John's Military School had a lot of problems in the basements of their buildings. Thomas Park was completely under water and by yesterday they had 9th St. closed from about the Military School to the Interstate. And the exit ramps off I-70 to 9th St. were closed. Hopefully it is better today. We didn't get much rain yesterday, I hope that helped.

Madi is walking really well now. She has no fear of letting go. She gets to the end of the couch and just keeps on going. She has been trying to stand up in the middle of the floor with nothing to hold onto but not quite there yet. She should be walking really well by her birthday. Still waiting on getting some new teeth. She just has the two in front on the bottom. Which means we haven't been able to do a lot of table foods yet. I am just too afraid of her choking without any teeth to help her break the food up. So it's still baby food for her. She should do really well though with her birthday cake, don't need teeth to make that mess!!

We have a busy Sunday coming up. Mother's Day, two graduations and two parties!!! Both of my cousins Neil and Kirsten are graduating high school, Congratulations!!! We might try to go to one graduation ceremony but I don't know how well Madi will be wanting to sit. We barely get through the hour at church, we will have to see.

I think I can safely announce the exciting news without jinxing us anymore. Tomorrow we close on some land we are buying Northwest of town!!! We are so excited. We have been wanting to move out to the country for the last four years and we finally found what we have been looking for at an awesome price. I don't have any pictures yet but hopefully this week we will be going back out and I will pass them along. It is 24 acres and has a pond and a nice established tree row in the back of the property. We have already seen turkeys and have heard there are deer that come out in the evening. It is on Burma Road off of Stimmel Road and is only one mile from Ell-Saline Elementary School. Which is just off of I-70 on Halstead Road. It will be really easy to find and really easy to get into town. We will have neighbors close by, we are sharing the 40 acre section with. Very nice people that we have started to become friends with, Chris has known them for awhile and has done some work at their house. We have already started looking at house plans and designing our new house!!! Hopefully we will start building by next summer, if Chris can hold out that long (he is pretty excited). We will officially have possession on the 15th of this month, can't wait!!

I better get busy, I wasn't able to get anything done yesterday. Take care and have a great week. I am looking forward to seeing my dad's family this weekend.

Love, Amy

About a mile south of Bosselman's off of 9th St.
Just past Bosselman's.
Across 9th St. from Bosselman's.

I sure love all of this wonderful rain!!! It makes everything clean again and the grass green, it's beautiful. I also like seeing the lake with water in it again. Mom and dad took some vacation this week. Chris, Madi and I went out Sunday and spent the day and then Madi and I went back out on Tuesday. Dad got the boat out of storage for the first time in two years. We got it all cleaned up, it needs some work with the engine before they can put it in the water, because of being stored that long.

Madi loves being outside and she was able to play almost all day out on the deck. She also got to play in the boat. It will be interesting to see what she thinks about being on the water. Not sure how that's going to go over. We also invited Jack over to play for awhile. His parents run the Marina. He is almost 18 months and he spends most of the day in the store. So I am sure it was a treat for him also to be outside and playing. Jack and Madi are so cute together. I didn't bring my camera but Jack's mom took some pics and hopefully I can share those soon.

Not much changing with Madi lately. Still waiting on more teeth to come in and she is getting bravier all the time with walking. She takes about 3-4 steps on her own every once in awhile, especially if she has something in her hands and she isn't paying attention to what she is doing. She is now 11 months, yesterday. It has gone so fast and sure doesn't seem like it's been almost a year!

It looks like we are finally going to have a dry weekend. We are hoping to get our front steps poured this weekend and get that all done. We had Total Turfcare come up with a plan for plants in the front yard. They should be here sometime in May to get it finished. It will be so nice to get that done. Next step is to replace the roof, paint the house, finish rocking around the shed and do some work on the deck. Then the outside will be done. Wow, when you write it down like that, that's alot of work!!! Oh well, it has to be done if we want to sell this house someday. Then on to the inside!!

Need to get some work done. Have a great weekend, it's almost here!!

Love, Amy

I have been watching the coverage of the shootings that took place on Monday at VT. What a very sad time for all of those involved. Does it make anyone else nervous that someone can enter into a public place and start shooting people for no reason? Of course part of the coverage is also on gun control. A professor in Missouri said that if this had happend anywhere else in the country, not on a college campus, that this man would not have been able to kill as many people as he did. His reason, because with concealed carry laws, there would be people pulling there own guns and defending themselves. Okay, now that makes me even more nervous. I could be shopping at the local Wal-Mart, some mad man could walk in and start shooting everyone and then somebody else starts shooting (who isn't trained like a police officer in these situations) and what happens to the people standing between these two people? They also get shot. I know a lot of people are for the concealed gun carry, including my husband, but I am on the fence on this one. That's a lot of guns walking around the world.



On a lighter note, Madi has started playing pat-a-cake and blowing kisses when we say goodbye. She is so sweet. If everyone could stop a moment and see these happy things around them, the world would be a better place. I know I am a much happier person just being around Madi. You have a bad day or situation and then she looks at you and gives you that big toothy grin and the bad thoughts are gone and everything is good again. It's a great feeling!!!



I hope and pray that everyone is happy, healthy and loved. Have a wonderful weekend.



Love, Amy

We had a wonderful Easter. Service at church was nice and then we headed to Chris' parents for lunch. We then went to my mom and dad's while Jason and Tabatha were still in town. Madi looked so cute in her new dress. Not much else going on. It is cold and rainy today. I am ready to have the nice spring weather back. Enjoy the pics!!

Love, Amy

What a week!!!

I watched a 5 year old and almost 2 year old boys this past week and man they were a handful. They are brothers and they just pick at each other and feed off of each other getting into all sorts of trouble. And non stop movement. Madi liked to sit and watch them but she was awful clingy this week. She ended up getting bumped and toys taken away if she was on the floor, so she stayed in my lap or right beside me. Poor thing, she isn't used to all the commotion or movement (neither was Oliver, our dog).

Wednesday night I started a four week class at our church called Conscious Discipline. This is very interesting. It is discipline that is positive and talking to children to produce what you want and not focusing or pointing out the negatives in what children do. It really is a life-style change in the way you think and speak to your children. It is so natural, I think to most people, to automatically say don't or no to a child. But for self esteem and building a child's personality and the way they see themselves they need to be taught what to do instead of being told what they aren't supposed to do. Check out the website, they have some really good ideas on talking to children and even the use of time out. http://www.beckybailey.com/

Madi is up from her nap!! Have a great Easter.

Love, Amy

Tear out Weekend #2...

Yard work again this weekend. First we put down new metal edging around the house and shed and mailbox. It looks really nice. Then we dug out the stumps and roots to all the bushes and evergreen tree that we removed last weekend. That job went much easier with the rental of a backhoe. But the roots were so big and deep on the evergreen tree that it took at least 45 minutes of digging to finally get it loose. But it looks great and we don't have to worry about any of it growing back.

We had decided last weekend that we were going to do all of the landscaping ourselves instead of paying someone to do it. Well, that might have worked IF we knew what we were doing. The plants are a mystery. So many to choose from and we drive around looking at other peoples yards and we were more confused than when we started. Then, we started looking at what we have. We have a ton of rock still in the old landscaping that we wish we could use but we know the plastic underneath needs to be replaced because there are weeds growing up through it everywhere. But who wants to shovel all the old rock out just to shovel it all back in and risk still having some weeds in it. So...we decided yesterday that maybe we should hire someone who knows what they are doing. Plus, we were able to get two small beds done on the north side of the house and they took 33 bags of new rock to fill. It would probably take 200+ more bags of rock to finish. That doesn't sound like fun to me!! Hopefully I can keep Chris convinced to hire someone...wish me luck!!! All this yard work has also been really hard with Madi. She isn't mobile enough to follow us around and keep content and she is just too young to stay outside all day long. If it wasn't for my parents and Chris' parents to help out with her, we definetly would not have gotten as much done as we have. THANK YOU!!!

Madi is now 10 months old!!! And I am already starting to think about her 1st birthday party coming up in 2 months! It is planned for May 26, it's a Saturday. Don't have anything else planned yet though...keep the date open!!! I also talked to our pastor Sunday and today and we have her baptism scheduled for May 27th.

It's raining here!!! Have a great week.

Love, Amy

Madi and dad playing on the machinery!!
Evergreen roots.
Front step being destroyed.

Sunday was tear out day. We removed all of the bushes around our house and all of the plastic lawn edging. It looks 100x better already. It took about 15 minutes to cut down the big evergreen bushes and tree in the front and about 2 hours to get it all cleaned up and moved to the driveway. Chris, my dad and I worked outside and my mom kept Madi content inside. Thank you, Thank you for your help.
We had a friend of Chris' who owns a tree service come over yesterday and shred the limbs, so now we don't have a huge pile in front of the house. And just in time, today the rain is washing whatever was left of the mess away.

Last night Jason and Tabatha were in town. Everybody came over and we had supper and cake for Jason's 25th Birthday on Friday. Happy Birthday!!!! It was a very nice evening.

Madi is still cruising around. We practice standing on her own but she is still afraid to let go. No new teeth yet but still drooling like crazy. Last week she started to point at things. Now she points all the time. Sees something she wants and points. It's cute. And she is getting into everything. I have been letting her play in the kitchen when I am in there working and she would play with her letters on the fridge or she had her own drawer with stuff she could play with. But now she is wanting to get into everything. So, next trip to Wal-Mart I am purchasing a gate and she will be locked out of the kitchen. I don't think she is going to like it very much, but it is for her own safety. She'll get used to it.

Take care and have a great week. Bring on the rain!!!

Love, Amy


Before
After
Chris' truck is parked on the other side of the pile, you just can't see it!!

Last night Madi took her first bath in the big tub!!! She had a lot of fun. She was able to move around more, which meant more slipping. Need to get grippy pads for the tub and more toys!!

Daylight savings time did a nice job of messing with not only Madi's schedule, but I have had trouble getting out of bed in the morning. We both did better this morning so hopefully I have her back on schedule. It's been rough this week. Madi also has a terrible runny nose and drooling like crazy. We are ready for some new teeth to come in!

I have the renovating bug right now. I am so ready to get started in fixing up our house. I have a list of things we need to do a mile long. Chris has been talking more and more about it so hopefully he is getting ready also. We had a local lawn care business come by yesterday and tell us what we need to do to get our yard looking better. They are supposed to be here today to fertilize. But our main goal, hopefully soon, is to get those ugly bushes and evergreen tree pulled out in front of the house. The plan is to get rid of all the bushes around the house and start over. And then of course there is plenty to do on the inside, but I have to wait until Chris is ready. (The fun stuff is coming up...TAXES, ugh)

Enjoy the new pics!!

Love, Amy

Yesterday was Chris' birthday. We had our parents over for supper and cake. It was a very nice evening. I had planned this on Monday and thought that the weather was supposed to be much nicer than it was. So, we made hamburgers on the grill and it was so cold outside. Thanks dad for cooking for us!! Madi had so much fun playing on the floor with the wrapping paper. She is a hoot to watch!! She also got to practice for her birthday cake with her dad's cake. She had no problem diving into the icing. But her cake will be much messier!!! I think chocolate all around would be great (can't wait).

I have spring fever bad. Last weeks nice weather didn't help a bit either. We were able to go outside a couple of days and play in the swing and went to the park on Monday. I am ready to go to the lake, too bad there isn't any water in the lake. No boating again this summer, unless we get some serious rain.

Take care and enjoy the new pics!!!

Love, Amy