This one's for you, dad!

Madigan loves her Papa Randy. LOOOVES him.

The feeling is mutual, naturally.

If you listen closely during this video, you can actually hear him get wrapped a little tighter around her tiny finger. That's where she keeps her Papa Randy....

I'm anxious to see if she actually will say it for him or not when she sees him next week. I'll keep you posted on that...

Shoebox Head

Let me set the scene for you:

It was the late 80's, October... Halloween, actually. According to my parents we were not rich folks back then, although we (my 2 brothers and I) had no idea that we couldn't afford any old costume that we wanted. More years than not we had homemade outfits, ones that my creative mother usually orchestrated herself.

So take a moment to soak up this little visual nugget:

Zac, my oldest brother, was a tube of toothpaste. It's obvious that lots of time and creative energy were put forth into his bedsheet-turned-toothpaste tube. Besides the color scheme, it even had the "with fluoride (c)" printed on the front. Creative indeed. Ben, my next oldest brother, apparently wanted to be a ghost... Easy! another bed sheet, a little magic marker and voila!

I'm not sure how things took such a terrible turn south for my costume. Several questions have entered my mind: Did I want to be a toothbrush? No, not likely. Did they forget they had a 3rd child to outfit? Highly doubtful. Did my mothers creativity run out? Again, unlikely. Did my parents think that a shoebox on my head, fringed with construction paper "bristles", was just too funny to pass up? We might be on to something here....

If body language means anything, it's obvious that I knew I had failed on the toothbrush front even at that tender age. I won't even face the camera, my brother has to hold my hand to keep me in the picture. I've also learned from studying this picture that apparently we had siding on the inside of our kitchen, and we must have eaten hamburgers for dinner. But I digress...

Now, as a parent, I have come to realize that there are only precious few years where you can talk your children into dressing as you'd like them to dress. All too soon they develop their own opinions and desires for costumes. Last year, at only 3 months old, Madigan had no choice in being a banana:

Will she someday wonder why I picked such a fruit for her first halloween? Probably. The answer is simple: it was cheap, it was warm-looking, and it was easy to get on and off. Oh, and I think there is a law somewhere that states that your firstborn must dress as a fruit or vegetable for their first halloween. Seriously.

So when looking at costumes for this halloween, we realized that the years that WE get to pick are limited. Especially considering that she screamed bloody murder when we tried on a "Candy Corn" outfit this year. Does she KNOW that being a candy corn would be dorky? Hmm... Don't think for a second that we didn't try a few of the outfits that would surely cause her to groan and roll her eyes when she sees the pictures as an adult: a garden gnome probably topping that list. I reserve the right to put my kid in a sweat suit and put a shoebox on her head if I want to. Because it's funny, because I'm her mom and it's my job to dork-her-out on a few occasions in my life. And also because I guarantee that little Sarah Shoebox Head was the only toothbrush on the block that year. So, truth be told I may have been embarrassed at the time to be a shoebox headed-toothbrush that year, but as an adult I really appreciate my mom's effort and creativity, not to mention her ability to recycle a shoebox into headwear.

So soak it up, people:

Because you might just see me sporting a shoebox head this year, for old time's sake!

Pipers & Pipsqueaks

What a wonderfully busy weekend we had! We went to McPherson, Kansas to their annual Scottish Festival on Saturday and enjoyed the beautiful fall weather while listening to some bagpipers play. Madigan enjoyed a little taste of the festival food in the way of the homemade ice cream made by a John Deere engine...
She obviously loved it, and wanted MORE! I think between her dad, her grandpa and her great-grandpa, she got MORE than her mama was wanting her to have... but what's a fall festival without some homemade ice cream?
If you find yourself with goosebumps listening to a lone piper play, imagine what it was like to hear this entire collection of bagpipers gather around and play "Amazing Grace". It was definitely a fantastic festival!
Another big highlight of the weekend was stopping in P-burg to see Zac! Fresh off his tour in Iraq, it was good to see him home, safe and sound, where he belongs...

Madigan sure does love her uncle Zac!

Wordless Wednesday

A letter to my mother...

Dear Mom,

Remember all those times when I was a teenager and in sheer frustration with me you would utter "I can't wait until you have one just like you..."

Well, pull up a chair. It's your turn.

I would like to title this photo-montage "I fed my dinner to the dog, didn't I?" and I hope you truly enjoy it. Consider it payback for the chili incident of years past...

In the very least, I hope you appreciate that I am able to appreciate what's coming to me...

Love, Sarah

Thanks so much for cooking me a delightful dinner that is not only nutritionally balanced, but delicious....

I, however, would prefer to be silly instead of eat.

Look at me, I'm Charlie Chaplain!

Do you like seafood?

SEE... FOOD!

Ha ha ha ha ha....

Mom's not looking...

GUS, eat this, quick!

Did you get it, boy?

Eat it all!

Let me pretend to eat what's left in my bowl,

Mom will be none the wiser....

See, Mom, I finished it ALL GONE!

Tricked you, didn't I!?!

(Editors Note: The hair-style is what we call "toddler-naps-in-pigtails" and we expect it to be a big hit on the runway next season!)

Things I've Meant to Blog About...

I have a photo-file on my computer that holds pictures that I mean to post here and blog about. It needs cleaned out, so you're going to get to see all the photo-file housecleaning that I have to offer.

Whatever.

It's my blog, so if you don't like it you can bug off.

Get it? Bug off... ha. 

Guess what? My camera has a macro setting that is great for taking pictures of bugs.

Even though I think the praying mantis would believe it's much better than the other insects you've seen here today.

We also recently had a garage sale and got rid of a bunch of stuff... 

We tagged everything:

Even though she was marked "Make Offer" we didn't ever get an offer that we thought was good enough. So we kept her... The rest of the junk we didn't sell went right to Goodwill and didn't even come back in the house. 

Madigan did get to come back in the house, however, and after a nap she was much less sassy. 

I also debated on an entire post on these pictures, but I didn't know whether to name it "Why Geese are Creepy and Satanic"  or  "The Day Madigan Should Have Contracted Bird Flu". Either way, I figured both titles were too long. 

But I would say that it's obvious that I'm right about the geese....

Oh, and the Bird Flu: 

We found a piece of bread laying on the ground at a nature barn here in Kearney. So we dug it out of the animal pen and Brett fed most of it to a llama...

Or is that an alpaca? I don't know. 

Either way, we were intently watching the critter chew the bread up. And we were also debating on if it was an alpaca or a llama. 

We never came to an agreement.

Anyway, like I said, he fed part of the bread to the llam-paca. 

The other part... 

well...

Madigan had bit it out of his hand while we were debating.

Brett attempted to dig it out of her mouth but he didn't have much success. 

 Lets face it... she was already exposed to whatever sort of bird flu virus that was all over that germ crusted bun we found on the ground. 

But just to be safe, I waited 10 days from when it happened to post these pictures.

You know, just in case she really would have gotten bird flu or something.

Then, of course, I never would have told you that she ate that bun to begin with.

Did you miss us?

Because we missed you!

Really we did. 

We have been very busy here in Kearney, but all work and no play makes Jack (and Brett) a dull boy. 

The basement is officially re-done, and the house is on the market. This first week we had 6 showings, so that was reassuring that there are still lookers in this market. 

We also took the pets down to Kansas for a stay at "Grandma & Grandpa Gibbs" house so that the house would be easier to show without wrestling dogs and cats. 

Madigan got to see her cousins! She really loves those boys, and they are so good with her. 

In fact, she missed her nap entirely and was content to just kick-it back on daddy's lap and watch them run and play around her. 

And what a ball of energy those boys are! Will ran around all afternoon. His cheeks were so red, and he wore Brett out too playing golf and badminton and other games that he made up on the spur of the moment to amuse his uncle. I still can't believe how big Will is getting, he's more of a boy than the baby I remember him being- (If I think he's growing up fast, I wonder how his mom feels?!)

Then of course there's Max. He's a sweet heart if ever there was one. 

He was fighting his afternoon nap too, but he did manage to lay down and let me take a few pictures of him while he was chillaxin' as well. 

I'm having fun with my new camera as well as a couple new programs for editing, as you can tell. I am glad that Max was a willing participant for me!

And of course Madigan has no choice but to be a willing participant to my photo-obsession. As you can tell, she's practicing her hoop-and-bat performance for when she's going to move to Las Vegas. 

Because, you know.... she's a show girl if ever there was one!

And not to toot my own horn.....*toot*toot*..... but if you want to see more pictures I've been taking, head on over to my Free Range Photography site and look at the new pictures in the gallery.

Hope you have a great weekend!