Wow, look what blogger can do now. I know this is really old but it's the only video I have on my computer. I had wanted to add this to my blog, oh, in October when we took it, but didn't have the capabilities then. So here it is, the video we took of Tom and Betty coming home and seeing there new kitchen for the first time. Yes, this was taken on Halloween evening and Madi was already dressed in her costume. (We will see how this works)

On another note, we are a baby step closer to our new home. Chris went to the bank yesterday with our preliminary idea of what the new house is going to cost. They will appraise the drawing and take into account our figures and we should know by next week if we get the loan. Which then we can take another baby step and start the dirt work and basement/foundation. Maybe that's a big step? I don't know, but we might have a basement next month!!!!!

I hate it when Madi gets shots. Every time she, gets sick, something happens, and it takes a week to re coop from going to the doctors. After Madi woke up from her nap on Monday after the visit to the dr., she had a runny nose. It kept getting worse and worse. By evening, the poor girl can't breath, she has snot pouring out of her nose, and she can't get comfortable to sleep. Finally at about 2:00 am we both crash on the couch (very awkwardly and not comfortable at all), just to wake again at 4:00 am and get another 2 hours of sleep before being up and ready to go for the day. Madi was ready to go, not me. We had a very lazy morning Tuesday. Madi played and I put a movie on for her while I laid on the couch and dozed off and on. (Yes, I am a bad mother and sleep while my child runs wild...no, she sat on the floor and watched Cars for the 1000th time.) I could not keep my eyes open!!! After an hour and a half, I was better and ready to go. She is still snotty but at least she is able to sleep. Thank goodness, I couldn't do another night awake in a row. I am already dreading her next appointment in 3 months with another shot. I think I will reschedule it for a Friday so Chris can have night watch too. Haha.

Still no new pics, unless you want a pic of Madi with snot running out her nose!! Take care and have a great long weekend!

Love, Amy

Today was Madi's 15 month checkup and shots. She does not like the shots, but who does? Plus she also was tested for lead, which was a finger prick but then the tech had to squeeze and squeeze to get all the blood she needed. Very traumatic day for Madi.

The doctor said she is doing great. Very impressed with her developmentally, she is at 20 months. She hasn't gained alot of weight. She is now 21lbs 7oz, up 1.5lbs from 3 months ago. But she is getting tall! 31.8 in, up 3 in. in 3 months!! Wonder where she gets her height? I am very pleased with the visit today. She put my mind at ease on a couple of questions I had, which is always nice.

We had a somewhat lazy weekend at home. Chris didn't have any work that had to be done this weekend, that doesn't happen very often anymore. So, he made deer jerky and sausage all weekend long. He must have defrosted at least 40 pounds of meat. If you don't know Chris, he does things in mass quantities and often goes way overboard. This would be one of those times. I should have taken pictures, my kitchen was a complete disaster. Well, it still is, I get the wonderful task of cleaning it. But at least this time he realized that what he did was a mistake, and hopefully we won't be making that much again. But his solution now is to make a huge smoker and to be able to cook it all at once. He never learns.

I have included some pics of our finally finished bathroom. It looks so wonderful!! It is much brighter and easier to clean and actually get it clean. Whoever thought of putting carpeting in a bathroom, should be shot. That is the most disgusting thing ever!! I don't have any before pics, it was so ugly, that I didn't want reminders.
Here is the list of things we did:
1. Remove wallpaper.
2. Remove (nasty) carpet.
3. New paint on walls and ceiling.
4. New flooring.
5. New sink top.
6. New lights, faucet and accessories.
7. Framed the mirror.

This weekend we are starting on the master bathroom. Hopefully with the long weekend we can get it done.





Take care and have a wonderful week!!
Love, Amy

I got an email today with the best ebay auction (see it here). It was hilarious. If you have the time, you'll have to read it. Makes me double think about having a large family. This woman also has a blog. I have just read her recent blog and it too was pretty funny. Because I Said So. I thought I would post this on my blog instead of sending an email to my whole address book. That way my loyal blog readers can see it. She said she is now getting over 500 hits to her blog everyday!! Wouldn't that be cool!

Jason and Tabatha were in town this last weekend. Tabatha invited me to go to the Craig Morgan concert with her Friday night. It was a lot of fun. It has been a very long time since I have been to a concert.

Madi popped another molar through yesterday. She had a horrible time sleeping. We put her in bed with us, what a mistake. Then all three of us didn't sleep well. We won't be doing that again.

Short blog, no pics. Have a great rest of the week. Happy Birthday to Tabatha yesterday!!! Congrats to Chantelle and Doug on their wedding this weekend! Sorry we can't make it, but I hope Hurricane Dean doesn't cause alot of problems for you. I'm sure it will be beautiful no matter what!

Love, Amy

My Uncle John restored this old truck. It's made to resemble an old truck that you might find on the movie "Cars". He put Chris' business info on it and made it look like it had been on there for a long time. He said the phone number is from the days when you called an operator and gave them the number to dial. In Salina you would say Taylor 5-9999. Which is pretty cool!! Great job JW and thanks for the pics. I told him we should use it in the parade next year...Great advertising!!



Stay cool and have a great weekend.
Love, Amy

Wednesday kicked off the Tri-Rivers Fair here in town. We took Madi downtown to watch the parade. I almost didn't take her because I didn't think she would sit in her stroller through the whole thing. But she did awesome. We sat in the parking lot at mom and dad's work which is right at the beginning of the parade. We had shade from the van and didn't have to wait long for it to start. She loved the horses and the tractors. We didn't make it to the petting zoo during the weekend though, it was way too hot!!



Happy 25th Anniversary to John and Tammy Taylor!! They had a big surprise party and dance on Saturday night. There were a lot of family and friends and a very nice evening.



Saturday we finally finished our bathroom. What a relief to get that done. It looks so nice and is so much brighter. I have some touch up on the paint to do and install the towel bar and toilet paper holder and it will be done. I painted Friday and then took all day Saturday to get the sink installed and flooring down and everything else put back together. Now it is time to start the other bathroom. I don't know when though, it is going to take a bit more work. I also need to finish taking the wallpaper down in the kitchen and get it painted and all that is left is the wallpaper in the living room and paint. That will probably take another couple of months to get all of that done.

Madi has two new teeth. She has a new tooth in front coming through and her first molar is coming in. She skipped her I teeth though. I don't know when the molar popped through. I have been looking for the I teeth and just happened to feel the molar. It was already in a ways when I found it. She is also starting to say more words. Saturday she started saying snack at mom and dad's when mom was asking her is she wanted a snack. It is so cute. She also likes to watch the movie Cars and last week she started yelling Mack during the movie.

Hope everyone has a great week. Also happy 27th Anniversary this week to Dan and Jane.

Love, Amy

We have had another nice week visting with Beth and Marybeth. We went shopping Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Even dragged Dan and Chris shopping with us on Friday. Chris took Friday off so the three of us and Marybeth went to the Rolling Hills Zoo in the morning. Madi enjoyed some of the animals; monkeys, ducks, and the farm animals. But she had more fun just running everywhere. She pet the cows and fed the sheep and goats and prairie dogs. It was so hot outside though and Madi walked almost the entire park. She had a really nice nap that afternoon!





I have worked a little bit on the bathroom this week. I have two small sections of walls to finish scraping glue. We went out one night this week and bought all the new stuff to finish both bathrooms and replace some of the out dated lighting fixtures in the house. It will be so nice to at least get the bathrooms done. Hopefully by next weekend we will have one of them done.

Have a great week. Safe travels to Beth and Marybeth tomorrow.

Love, Amy

More pics of my outside water baby. Madi really doesn't like to get into her swimming pool, but she loves playing in the water outside of it. She is too funny. She loves taking baths though. All I have to say is "Does Madi want to take a bath?" and she is off running for the bathroom. She stands at the door and pushes on it trying to open it until I get there to let her in. I thought she would have so much fun in her little pool. But she loves being outside. I wish we had more trees and shade in our yard. It would be so much nicer to be outside during the day if the sun wasn't beating down on us so much.

Last weekend Jason and Tabatha picked up a Little Tykes picnic table for Madi for me. She absolutely loves it. She eats her breakfast and lunch there everyday and snacks. She likes to sit and color and play with toys and read books. Thanks Aunt Beth for convincing me to get one!!

Madi is growing so fast. Just in the last couple of weeks she has changed so much. Earlier in the month we were battling sleep at naps and bedtime. Now we have our routine down and she goes to sleep the same time everyday and she no longer cries when I lay her down. Maybe two minutes at the most occasionally, otherwise she curls up and goes right to sleep. She is now feeding herself with a spoon. She just started that this last week and she doesn't get alot of food from the plate to her mouth, but she is getting there. It is so much fun seeing all the little changes.

I have started pulling wall paper down this last week. I have the front bathroom almost done and have started in the kitchen. I still have to scrape the glue off the walls but it isn't taking as long as I thought it would and it is coming off so much easier than before. I am going to start helping Chris in the office doing his paperwork on Mondays. I hope it will only take a couple of hours in the morning and then I can come home and get some more work done on the house, while Jane is watching Madi. This way I can get more done and Madi gets a change of pace.

Happy Birthday to Mom tomorrow. Also Happy Birthday to Darci, Jeremy, Uncle Paul, and Uncle Mike and Chris' Uncle David. Hope you all have a great week.

Love, Amy

There has been a lot going on the past couple of weeks.

Grandma Betty is at home and seems to be doing much better. She was moving around well yesterday. She has now had all 6 of her kids in town taking turns taking care of her. Tommy from NH is here for the week. We had a nice time visiting with Joye and Linda and Beth last week and look forward to seeing Beth and Marybeth again next week.

Madi is cutting teeth again. No new teeth poking through yet, but she ran a temp for several days last week and her gums are really white for her I teeth. And she has been so spoiled with all these people around the last couple of weeks. She gets really cranky and fussy being home alone with me all day.

We finally drew up a design for the house that has everything we want and we are both totally in love with it. We are so excited. Saturday we spent all morning at Lowe's pricing everything and picking out and designing the kitchen cabinets. We are going to meet with a couple more cabinet places in town and see what they can come up with for a price. We want to have everything picked out and budgeted before we get started so there aren't any surprises half way through building. Now I need to get busy on getting our house fixed up to sell. I wouldn't be dragging my feet so bad if there wasn't so much wallpaper to take down. It is such a chore and there is no easy way of doing it.

We drove out to the land Saturday evening to see what Chris' dad mowed earlier in the day. We were sitting on the back side of the trees on the west side of the dry creek and pond and a huge buck came running through the trees followed by six smaller deer. That was the first time we had seen deer out there. The neighbors have seen them, so we knew they were out there, but it was cool to see them ourselves and that close. Now Chris won't have to go to deer camp for a week. He can shoot one off the back deck!!! I don't think he will give up deer camp.

Enjoy the new pics, I have more in my photo albums!

Love, Amy

Chris' grandma Betty had triple by-pass surgery yesterday. It all started Tuesday night when they took her to the emergency room with chest pains. Doctors said she didn't have a heartattack but if she hadn't come in when she did it could have been much worse. So, we have been at the hospital for most of the week. Chris and I drove to KC on Wednesday to pick two of his aunts up that flew in.

Grandma Betty is doing better. They removed the ventilator this morning and had her sitting up in a chair. She is very tired, obviously, so everyone went in and saw her this morning and then we went out to eat for breakfast. We can go back after 1:00 and see her again. Yesterday was such a draining day. Surgery started at 10:00, everyone was there by 8:00 or 9:00 and the doctor didn't come in to talk to us until 4:30. Chris and I took off right away to get Madi and finish supper for everyone. Tonight Bob and Patty are making supper for us. It will be nice to sit and visit this evening. And hopefully a bit more relaxed for everyone, knowing that things are a little better.

Take care...
Love, Amy

We are back from the lake! We had a great time but it was nice to sleep in our own beds last night. We went boating, fishing, swimming, played on the beach, played in the yard, and Madi had a great time with her Uncle Jason and Aunt Tabatha.

Madi had a big day last Sunday. She went boating and fishing, came back and got in her swimming pool for the first time, passed out in Aunt Tabatha's arms from all the action, and then woke up and had ice cream with Papa. (All pictured below!) She wasn't too sure about the swimming pool at first. It was a little cold with just hose water. So, we filled it up with warm water from the house and it felt more like a bath and she had a better time.



Chris had to work Monday and Tuesday. But came back out early Tuesday afternoon and surprised us with the rest of the week off. We went down to the swimming beach and tried putting her in the lake. She didn't like it (it was too cold). But she loved playing in the sand. We didn't stay too long because it was so hot and sunny and she didn't want to stay in the shade of the umbrella. She fell asleep on the drive back to the trailer. We layed her down in her swimming suit. When she woke up, Chris went to change her and she had a pile of sand fall out of her swimming suit and swim diaper. It was pretty funny! She also had a play date that evening with Jack. His parents own the marina. They are so cute together. Jack wasn't too sure about her this time, but she also kept running in to her with the toys, could have been part of the reason! But they gave each other kisses and it was so adorable!

Fourth of July Chris, Madi and I took off for a day trip of our own. We went to Mushroom State Park, which is just a couple miles from the lake. We took some neat pics of Madi on the rocks. But we started seeing toads and lizards and they kept getting bigger and closer and we decided to leave before we saw snakes. We drove over to the big town of Kanopolis to visit the Civil War Fort Harker. There are only a couple of buildings left. Then drove to Ellsworth and cruised around that town for a bit. We then drove out to Lake Wilson and visited Bob and Patty and Bobby Helm. They had been camping out there all week. It was hot, hot, hot. And of course Madi was non stop the whole time, in the sun. We loaded up and she was asleep within five minutes of leaving, she was worn out.

Thursday, we just hung out at the trailer and played games most of the day. It was so hot outside, you just couldn't be out for very long periods. Towards evening we got out the game of washers and played in the shade. It was a lot of fun. Madi tried to join us so we had to take breaks and let her get her running around in.

I have new pics in my photo albums. Some great pictures of her on the beach and in her swimming pool...please check them out.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July. Happy Birthday to Tyler, Raymond and Trenten this last week!!

Love, Amy