Tired & Crazy

So we just got Madison back to sleeping at night and then all of a sudden Wednesday night she was up for hours and ended up in bed with us because we needed sleep so we could drive 5 hours to Michigan for Thanksgiving with Dan's family.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because the whole family gets together. We have always had Thanksgiving with my family. This was the first year we did not see my family. My parents had gone to Bama to see my dad's family and well this was the first year Dan's brother hosted Thanksgiving plus the first year Dan was not in Chicago for work. We got to see Dan's brother's new house and see his whole family. We had a big slumber party at their house. It was fun. We took the dogs and they played with and hung out with their dogs. I'm not sure who had more fun and enjoyed it more the dogs or us.

Friday morning we figured out why Madison wasn't sleeping well. She popped another tooth through! Yep more teeth. We drove home on Friday and didn't do much after we got there. Madison still wasn't sleeping well.

Dan got up and went to hunt Saturday morning & Madison and I just lounged around as we didn't get much sleep plus it seems as though Madison had caught a cold. We did go out to lunch when he got home and we just started making the house look a little like Christmas. Madison enjoys that there is a light up Santa on the front porch.  She didn't sleep very well  Saturday night either and because we didn't have the guest bed put together, I slept on the couch because my shoulder, neck & back could not take having her all over me again, so Dan slept with her and skipped hunting. I still barely got any sleep because its not a comfy sofa to sleep on plus I can hear the dogs in their crates! Then Maggie decided that at 5:30 am she needed to go out and eat.

Finally Sunday night I got Madison to sleep in her bed. She woke once in the night and I had to soothe her and sit by her crib. Then the last 2 nights She woke up crying and once each but within 5 mins I got her calmed and asleep again. Now if I can just get her nose to stop running we would be doing great.

Well, we have lots to do between now and Christmas and then even more to do after Christmas. This is going to be interesting. I have to finish making it Christmas in the house, we have a few more presents to get and everything still needs to be wrapped. Plus there is packing to go to my mom's and Cookies to be made for Cookie Day! OH, we still need to take Madison to see Santa! Can't wait for that! Many, many adventures to be had over this Christmas season!

Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Random Things

There isn't too much to report. Madison and I spent 5 days at my parents while the hubby did his yearly fishing trip to MN. We had a blast. We hung out with them and I got to see a couple of friends back home. It was really nice.

Halloween snuck up on us pretty quickly. We took Madison to 8 houses- 6 in our neighborhood and then a friend's house and then to my SIL's house. Madison was a cute little Zebra. A nice warm costume for a semi-chilly night. She didn't understand what was going on at first but after our first neighbor dropped some candy in her bucket, I guess a light went on her head. Since she can't say trick or treat yet, she held the bucket out and said "agh, agh" I tell you every time she did it the person would drop more candy in her bucket. So she made out and probably got about 3 or 4 pieces per house! She did always say "thank you" as I turned her around to walk her away. Our friends & my SIL had a "goody" bag ready for her with gold fish & animal crackers instead of candy. This is nice since I try not to give her a lot of sweets.

We are still waiting to hear about our plans for the house. The real estate agent is coming here next week to look at our place and make suggestions as to what we should do to get the house ready for sale. I really want to get it on the market in Feb. I'd rather sell it and have to find temporary living arrangements than to try to carry 2 mortgages.

Its hunting season now, so I am a hunting widow on the weekends. Kind of sucks, but without it hubby would not be a happy guy. Plus lets face it, he works hard for us, so he deserves to play hard too.

I will be putting my Christmas tree up in about a week. I know, I know, way too early! I usually don't do it until the weekend after Thanksgiving, but I want to get Madison's picture in front of the tree this year for our Christmas cards & I am going to attempt to do this all on my own, so I need extra time in case I screw it up and need to do it again.Of course since the tree is going up, I'm sure I'll get the bug to put it all up. Oh, well!

I need to get going and finish my cleaning as my parents are coming to visit!

Starting to feel it already!

I'm so excited! We are going to build our house this spring! I cannot wait! There will be so much to do. We have our builder and our basic floor plan, but there are some tweeks that the builder is making for us on the plan so we are waiting now for him to get the plan itself re-done so we can approve that and move forward.

So I have to start looking at flooring, tile, appliances, stone, cabinets, lighting, etc. to figure out what I want and of course what we can do in our price range. This is very exciting but also very nerve wrecking. We will also need to get our house ready to go up on the market. We will be listing in February, if I have anything to say about it.

We have a long road ahead of us to get to the ground breaking point but we will be there this Spring! So by this time next year I will be sitting in my new home!

Things are coming together

Since my last blog, Madison has decided to sleep through the night again. Although for a few days she was getting up at 6:30 instead of her normal 7:00 am, but we are now back at 7am! Woohoo! Dan is settling into his new job and coming home every night. Its starting to not feel so weird having him home all the time too.

We've had a pretty busy week this week. We spent Tuesday morning with my friend Jill, her daughter and the 2 boys that she watches. Madison had a blast playing with the kids. She is usually very standoff-ish with kids, but she just dove right in a played. I had a good time catching up with Jill and playing with the kids as well.

Wednesday, we went to the dealership to get an oil change done on my truck. Come to find out they need to drop the gas tank in my truck to look at the fuel sensor again as my gas gauge isn't reading full when it is. So I get to go sit at the dealership for 3 hours on Saturday!

Today I went to spend some time at the bank, while Madison played with her Aunt. We have been talking about building a house forever well, we are moving forward and have an estimate and no a pre-approval! Woohoo! We need to discuss our next steps and then fill in our builder and our realtor. So things look like they are going to get pretty busy around here for me with picking out stuff for the new place and getting this one ready for market. I can't wait!

Madison seemed to have had a blast with her Aunt today as I came home to almost every toy out of her toy box and the 2 of them sitting on the floor playing with all of them!

We are also ready for Halloween! Madison has her costume. She is going to be a Zebra!

We are also working on a new routine/schedule for Madison as she keeps trying to skip her afternoon nap. So I'm trying to ditch the morning nap and keep the afternoon one. So far so good.

How are things?

Things are going pretty good here. Better than I imagined they would since Dan is now home. I really pictured us bickering and fighting for the first few weeks or so of him being home every night as we got use to being around each other all the time again. Its really been quite the obvious. He doesn't mind coming home to find the house with toys strewn all over from a good day of playing with Madison! He actually has told me that I don't have to cook as often as I have been and said I could make easier meals (boxed/mac n cheese type instead of the stew/soup/roasts I have been making). I have, honestly, enjoyed being able to cook big meals!

Madison has really been the problem, well more like Madison's sleeping has been our problem. She's been waking at least once a night lately. We can't really find the problem to make it better, so we are just hoping it stops soon. It actually started the night before Dan started his new job. I had hoped that she would realize Daddy was home every night and that would end it. Oh well, She is at least falling back asleep sooner and easier than she really was.

The Air Smells of Change

I guess my blog title could really stand for two things. The first being the fact that today is the last day of Summer and tomorrow brings on Fall! My favorite time of the year. However, I am more eluding to the fact that things are changing for my little family and for the better.

My husband gave notice at work last week and today is his last day there. This is huge for us! With his job he traveled Monday through Friday, so we only saw him on the weekends and I pretty much became a single mom during the week. Now, he is starting a new job on Monday. The job is 20 mins from home and he will be home everyday!

There is going to be a huge adjustment for us all. For us to have him home and for him to be home. I'm sure there will be lots of tripping over each other and him trying to figure out where everything goes now. Plus there will be lots more time for us all to spend time with each other. OOOO... and I get some me time too! The fun part here is that since my husband bought our townhouse (before we met) I don't think he has spent more than a week there at a time!

I wonder if he will get the itch to go places since he won't be traveling like he was.

Well, stay tuned for more fun things!

State Fair

Oh my! I never posted about the State Fair! We had so much fun with Madison there! We went on a Monday and stayed over at a hotel so we could go back on Tuesday. It was a blast.

We went to the fair and upon getting there we went into the DNR building to see what they had. They had a bunch of fish tanks set up for the different fish in different types of water. Madison kept pointing and saying "that" She loved the fish. Then outside they had a little pond with some ducks, geese and what looked like swans (I'm not sure if they really were). Madison just loves to see animals.

We were walking over to the animal barns and there was a big crowd gathered because someone was stuck on a ride. A ride that you had to pay an extra $25 to ride. I sure hope they got their money back! Seeing how they had to be put in harness and brought down by a lift after being up there for 2 hours!

We stopped to see somethings along the way, but we eventually got to the sheep barn where Madison laughed as she watched one being shaved. She squealed when the "baaahhed" From there we went into the cow barn where she was very interested in the cows and calfs, but what really got her attention was the Moose they had in there. I swear Dan was itching to get a Bow in his hand and shoot it! They also had the biggest pigs in there too plus a few horses. We then went into the Horse Barn. Madison found the mini horses very funny. I was holding her and she would grab onto the bars of the stall to look in and laugh and squeal at the little horses. She really squealled when one of them lifted there nose up at her and tried to lick her through the bars. It was just a ton of funny watching her.

We had dinner after the horse barn. Some really good food. I had a steak sandwich, Dan had a porkchop sandwich & Madison had pork on a stick. All really good!

We then walked  around a little while and stopped into the building that they show all the animals in. We watched as the 4-H kids showed cows. Madison was having a good ol' time. As everyone was leaving she said hi to them as they walked by. She laughed at a little boy (about 9ish) jumped from the top of the stairs down into the dirt and slide. He enjoyed entertaining her enough that he did it at least 3 more times! Everyone who walked by told me how cute she was.

After that we walked down to see the Butter Cow. Its interesting what you can do with butter. There was a ton of detail in it too!

We left the fair at about 7 or so to go check into the hotel. Madison decided to stay up late and play in her pack and play. We woke up early thinking we would head to the fair early since we had to drive back that afternoon, well that was ruined because when we woke up it was storming! So we took our time getting ready and having breakfast at the hotel. We probably made it back to the fair around 10 am. We went straight to get a caricature of Madison. I sat and held her while it was done. It turned out really cute!

We went down to the Little Hands on the Farm Exhibit. It was really cute. Its for kids 2-10 and simulates what you would do on a farm. They get a hat which they get to keep and they wear an apron, walk around with a basket and "pick veggies" (fake from baskets), harvest corn & soybeans, milk a cow after feeding it the corn that was harvested, use a tractor (pedal tractor) after fueling it with soybeans, get eggs from chickens, pick apples, & sell everything at the farmers market. At the point they sell everything they gave the kids a fake dollar which they got to use to buy something at the general store. Madison picked out a bag of mini chocolate chip muffins. A snack for the baby!

We then walked into the Born Barn. It was really animals pregnant or just had babies. Some actually had their babies throughout the fair in this barn. If you waited around long enough you could see piglets, calfs, baby goats being born & chicks hatching. Madison loved watching all the little chicks running around chasing each other. We even petted a calf. It licked me too!

The highlight of Madison's day was meeting Clifford the Big Red Dog! Oh my the excitement that she had at seeing him was like a dog welcoming you home after 12 hours! I put her down so she could walk up to him. She walked about 1/2 way and then stopped because he stood up and it scared her how big he was. So he crouched back down and she walked the rest of the way to him and gave him a high five. This was pretty much the end of the day for her. She fell asleep and we left shortly after.