Our Lindsay Lou has gone from a sweet little chubby cheeked baby to a beautiful big hearted girl. She’s been through a lot the last year and has grown so much because of it. I still get giddy when I see her running around and playing because for awhile there it seemed like she never would do that again. The saying is true, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Or in this case, almost gone. I’m so grateful she’s doing so much better.
In 4 days our little girl will be 8. This is when the kids in our church make the decision to be baptized and Lindsay has made that decision. I remember when she turned 6 and thinking, “Wow! In two years she will be getting baptized!” Well, here we are. I can’t believe it!
Lindsay has always had such a strong testimony of the gospel. She’s been bearing her testimony almost every month since she was 5. She’s such a great example to Logan and for me. I have a fear of bearing my testimony and because of it I haven’t done so in many, many years. Lindsay always asks me if I want to go with her and I always decline, but maybe someday she’ll get me up there with her. I have no doubt that she loves Jesus Christ and her Heavenly Father. She understands the repentance process and understands the covenants that she will be making with her Heavenly Father and basically cannot wait to be baptized!
Her BFF, Katie, got baptized a couple of weeks ago and her older brother gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. In his talk he told us that we can feel the spirit of the Holy Ghost better if we keep good things around us. Good books, good music and good friends. He said that if something makes us feel uncomfortable because of the way it looks or the things it says, we should avoid it. One of Lindsay’s favorite songs is Drive By, by Train. We blast it on the radio and have a dance party every time it comes on. As we were driving home from the baptism, Drive By came on and Lindsay said she didn’t want to listen to it. WHAT??? She said it was because it says a bad word and she didn’t want to hear that word. At first, Jeff and I tried to explain it away, like it was no big deal, but then we realized it wasn’t our decision. It was Lindsay’s and we needed to respect that. So, now whenever that song comes on, we either change the station or we just mute it during that word. Jeff and I were so proud of her for making that decision.
Lindsay is also inviting her friend, Dylan, to her baptism. He is a non-member and she did that all on her own, without any coaxing from Jeff and I. She’s so sweet and wants him to know the things that she does. We weren’t sure if his dad would let him come, but he was more than okay with him coming and we’re so proud of her for making that choice.
So far, the week leading up to her baptism has not been easy for her. She was sick all weekend, missed the Primary Program and now she has pink eye. Satan is working really hard to keep her from this important day, but she is strong and is kicking him down.
Lindsay is amazing. I feel so blessed to be her mommy and to get to watch her make these kinds of decisions. I know it won’t be this easy all of the time and that the older she gets the harder things will become for her. But I’m not worried about her. She’s strong and she’s going to be strong for people when they have become weak. I love her so much!
Oct 30
Ryan makes some of the cutest faces. Last night after the circus we were just sitting at the table and he was making quite a few. Here they are. Some of them are blurry because I couldn’t get the right setting on the camera. Ugh. But he’s still cute in all of them!
Sep 23
We love our tradition of going to the circus every year. The kids love it and let’s be honest, there are some crazy, fearless people out there that are really fun to watch! We had planned on going with Flavio and Niki and the girls, but they had something come up and weren’t able to join us. Lane and Kelly were still able to come with us, but we had to find someone to use those 4 other tickets. So, we invited Lindsay’s little “boyfriend” and his family to come. They were excited to come and we were excited to have them come! Lindsay and Logan sat by Dylan, and I actually really missed sitting by them, watching their expressions. They still had a great time though.
The theme this year was Dragons and we had to gain courage, strength, heart and wisdom to summon the great creature. This year wasn’t as acrobatic and years past, but there were still some cool stuff. Let me show you!
Guys flipping on and around horses while they were running around the circle.
Lions AND tigers
Hair Hanging Girls
Guys and girls flipping in the air and doing crazy cool stuff.
Elephants
And the crazy motorcycle sphere, where they had 8 motorcycles in there going in every which direction. It’s CRAZY!!!
The Dragon!
Trapeze!
Cute dogs, kitties and goats.
All of our family that was there. We love the circus!
Sep 23
My mom found this cute idea in a magazine and we decided to make them for dinner. They were a hit! And the kids had a blast making them.
Sep 22
I used to think Logan was a pretty active, non-stop kind of kid. Until Ryan came along. Logan is downright relaxed compared to Ryan. This child never slows down, and if he does, it’s just for a few minutes at a time. I can’t even read him a book. The only time he reads books is at bedtime when he’s drinking his milk. Ryan learns a new trick everyday, whether it’s something new to climb on, a new dance move, or a new word. This is such a FUN age because they really start to blossom. Here are some things about Ryan at 15 months old:
He weighs 25.4 lbs and is 32.5 inches tall.
He can climb anything he can get his knee up onto and once he figures that out, there is no stopping him.
He is getting really close to being able to go down the stairs by himself. He is so stubborn though and insists on going down on his feet. He will NOT crawl down on his tummy. He can do the stairs outside that have the rail to hold on to. I usually don’t have to worry about him on those.
He takes one nap a day, which is usually a couple of hours, and most days longer. When I lay him down, I go into his room, put his blankie on my shoulder, he snuggles up with it and me, I sing a song and lay him down. He immediately turns on his side and when I go check on him he’s always in the same position he was when I left the room.
He loves his blankie!
He has a high pitched scream he uses when someone does something he doesn’t like or doesn’t want them do. Usually when Lindsay picks him up to move him from doing something he shouldn’t be doing.
He LOVES to go downstairs with Laura. When she walks in the door, he immediately walks to the basement door and signs ‘please’.
He is starting to play with trucks and tractors and will drive them across the room.
He loves to be outside and loves to swing.
He can climb the trampoline ladder and loves to be up on there.
He is starting to talk. He can say “ba” (ball), “wuff wuff” (dog), “papa” (grandpa), “mu” (more), “da” (duck) and tonight while we were eating dinner we asked him if he could say Lindsay and Logan’s name and he did! He says “seesee” for Lindsay and “wu da” for Logan. So cute!
He can say lots of words in sign language and is absolutely adorable when he does it. He can sign more, milk, please, thank you, cracker, grapes, apple, shoes, ball, help, bye bye, hi, all done, water, bird and he can blow kisses. Signing babies are as cute as can be. I think they made the sign for please the way they did because it’s so cute to see babies rub their tummies!
I love, love, love this kid!
Sep 22
This year we have Grandma Madsen to help us can our forest of tomatoes! We did our first batch last week and Logan was home to help. He helped take the tomatoes out of the hot water and into the cold water. He did a fabulous job! Then he helped us put the tomatoes in the jars and squish them down. It was such a fun afternoon together, listening to grandma tell us stories about our great-great-great grandfather and other ancestors. You better believe we’re going to use those tomatoes for taco soup. Yum!
Sep 22
LiLoRy got two new cousins this year, born 4 days apart. Canon was born on June 18th and Kat born on June 22. Unfortunately, we don’t live close to either of them. I was able to go to Kat’s blessing the first Sunday in August, and we were all able to go to Canon’s blessing the first Sunday in September. The plans for that weekend changed dramatically the 3 days before we left. Jeff and the kids were going to drive down Friday and Ryan and I were going to fly down Friday morning. Then Noel had to have an emergency surgery Thursday and for an hour or two we didn’t know if we’d be going at all. Then Jeff was maybe going to have to work that Friday, so Digicert paid for plane tickets for him and the kids so that he could still work, but we could still go on our trip, too. So very generous of them. So, on Friday morning I flew with all 3 kids to AZ, rented a car and drove to Pete and Noel’s house without getting lost. Thank goodness for iPhones! The kids did GREAT on the flight. I am incredibly blessed with good travelers.
Noel was still in the hospital when we got there Friday afternoon, but her mom was there with cute little baby Canon. Kayli and Caiden were at the movies with their aunt so we hung out with Helen and Canon for a few hours before they got home. We then spent the next 3 days playing and playing and playing. It’s so fun to see them playing with their cousins. I didn’t have many cousins my age, and those that were my age lived in Europe most of the time so I didn’t have that so I love when I see them playing and having fun with their cousins.
My parents got there on Saturday mid morning and Noel came home Saturday afternoon. She was sore, but was such a trooper to have us all there. It was so fun to spend time with them. We went bowling Saturday night and Lindsay and Caiden both beat me. So much fun!
Ryan was so cute with Canon. He knew who the baby was, even though we still call him baby. He was sweet and would give him kisses.
Silly Caders.
Ryan dancing on a little chair.
Building a fort together.
Daddy was pretty tired from working so hard. On the other half of the couch was grandpa.
Ryan really likes other babies binkies. He’s fascinated by them! He kept trying to put it in Canon’s mouth.
We love and miss you guys!
Sep 22
I usually bathe Ryan alone, but lately Logan has been joining him and it makes for a pretty good time for both of them. They splash and play and get each other wet and there is lots of laughing and smiling.
Haha! Ryan is wondering what in the heck Logan is doing.
It’s not a complete bath unless you spit water at your brother. Love this picture!
Sep 06
I had very mixed feelings the morning we took Logan to Kindergarten. I was super excited for him, but I was really going to miss him. In a lot of ways I still think of him as my baby, even though we have Ryan now. He was my baby for so long that it’s sometimes hard for me to remember that he’s so grown up.
Whenever anybody asked him if he was excited for Kindergarten he would say no. He really loved Mrs. Ault (how could you not????) and his preschool class and it was hard for him to imagine anything being better than them. But once we met his teacher and saw his classroom he changed his tune. He was excited to FINALLY get to use his CARS backpack we bought 2 years ago, excited to go to school with Lindsay and excited to get to play on the playground every day. I, of course, was excited for him and I just kept watching him all morning.
Yay for Kindergarten!
‘M’ for Manila!
Me and my big dude and little dude.
Mrs. Milner
Haha! See ya later!
It was incredibly weird turning around to go home without Logan coming with me. He’s been my home buddy for so long, but he is loving Kindergarten and is excited to go every single day! Way to go buddy! We love you!
Sep 06
Lindsay started 2nd grade this year. She still loves school and couldn’t wait for it to start! Her best friend, Katie, isn’t in her class this year, but her “boyfriend” Dylan is and she was way excited about that. Sad about Katie, but happy about Dylan. She still plays with Katie at recess, but most of the time I think she spends with Dylan. They really are so cute together and are really great friends.
She picked out her own outfit for the day (she’s really into skirts lately) and told me how to do her hair. She’s so stinkin’ cute!
Those shoes she’s wearing in that picture she has worn to school everyday since it started. She sorta loves ‘em.
Sep 06
Only Logan decided to play soccer this year and I was more than okay with that. Lindsay just really didn’t enjoy it last year so I’m glad she didn’t feel like she had to play.
Logan is a funny soccer player. He loves to run and try to be the fastest, but when it comes to kicking the ball, he loses his concentration. He’ll kick it great, but then he thinks he has to fall down! We spend a lot of each game yelling, “Stand up Logan! Get up Logan!” Today was his 5th game and yesterday and this morning I told him to try his hardest to not fall down after he kicks the ball, to just keep running. He did so much better! He only fell three times, and one of them was because he got tripped by another boy kicking the ball. He even scored a goal!! I could tell he was trying harder and we cheered and gave him thumbs up to know just how proud of him we were. He has a great coach who also noticed and told him how great he did.
Last week Lindsay was playing with the camera taking pictures and she got some great shots of them playing. I may have a little photographer on my hands.
Ryan went from this…
…to this pretty quick when he realized that he didn’t get to kick the ball.
His team was blue, but the other team didn’t have enough players so he played on their team for awhile, hence the red jersey.
LOVE the pile-ups!
Get it!
Sep 06
The kids and I went to the zoo with our good friends Niki, Hannah, Lia and Eva. Things are always more fun with friends! It was a beautiful, hot day, but a very fun day at the zoo. The animals were all really active and the kids really enjoyed it. I told them ahead of time that I wanted them to learn something new about each animal and they really tried hard to do that. I was really proud of them. This was Ryan’s first time at the zoo, and his favorite animals were the giraffes. He stayed in the stroller a lot, but I also let him out to walk around and see the animals, too, which made it harder to get him back in the stroller, but ya know.
Don’t the babies just seem thrilled to pieces to be there???
He wouldn’t even look at me. Ha!
They were watching the polar bear here. He was so fun to watch, jumping in and out of the water and swimming around.
RyGuy looking at the map.
Learning more about polar bears.
Tigers! There were three of them and they were all awake and so beautiful!
All the munchkins.
This little kitty was so cute and boy Ryan and Eva really loved her.
He was knocking on the window trying to get in.
Being cute!
Sep 06
I was feeling guilty that Ryan didn’t h