Saturday, February 27, 2010

SO worth it!

I'm feeling pretty proud of myself. Yesterday I made Madison's Birthday cake from scratch. It was my first attempt at making a homemade cake and I'm so glad I didn't mess it up because I didn't have a backup plan for Madi's party. No Birthday cake on order at a store and no boxed cake mix to save me. Surprisingly (to me), it wasn't hard. Time consuming, yes. But, not hard. And, in all, I had a good time doing it. It made me feel great to know I was personally making my daughter's Birthday cake. I think my first attempt at making a cake turned out pretty good, not awesome, just pretty good. There's definitely room for improvement. I had issues with finding the right cake pans and had a stressful moment where I started to doubt my decision to make the cake, but it all worked out and Madison's reaction to the cake when it was completed made it all SO worth it! Madison's 12th Birthday cake....

~The cake was a little lopsided, but I don't think Madi noticed.

Madi's reaction! I love it!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Madison's Birthday in Pictures...

Madi turned 12 years old on Tuesday, February 23 and on that day, Central Texas, received four to five inches of snow! Oh boy! What a wonderful gift! She has been wishing for snow all winter
and was disappointed when it missed us a month or so ago when it hit some of the surrounding areas. Since I don't have much time (I promised Madi I would make the B-day cake for her party tonight and I need to get moving on it! Yikes!) I'm not going to write much today.
I've just attached tons of pictures captured on her special day.
Here's Madi's Birthday in pictures... ~getting ready for school. It has already started to snow outside, so we kinda knew that she would get out of school early.
~She's ready for school.

~Thinkin' - OK Mom, enough with the pictures this morning!

~sure enough, she got out of school early. The official school release was at 12:30, but she called to tell me that they are letting kids go if the parents came and signed them out. So, I picked Madi up at 10:30. I told her she was so lucky to get out of school on her birthday to go play in the snow! She agreed.

~When I picked her up, we drove around just for a minute looking at all the snow. I stopped at a few places to take pictures. ~the park that Jack and I jog at the most.

~The road going to our house.
~the small park in our neighborhood. We stopped here and I let Madi and Bella get out for a minute.
~She loved the snow!
~Bella and Madi racing. Before Madi got home, Bella was not happy about the
snow, but once Madi got out and started playing, Bella was happy to be in it and loved
playing with her buddy. I loved watching them.

~Madi throwing snowballs and Bella catching them.

~making a snow angel.

~our Crate Myrtle covered in snow

~this little piggy liked eating the snow.

~a very happy Madi.

~another tree covered in snow.

~Madi about to make a snowball which she will try to hit me with....
...Bella is waiting.... ~Madi throws it and Bella goes after it. Best part, it didn't hit me. :)

~gathering snow to make another snowball which misses me, again. She's really good/great at a lot of things, but hitting her intended target is not one of them! hehe!

~looking down the road to see who else was out having fun. At the time, surprisingly, no one was.

~taking snow over to her buddy...
and her buddy eats it!

~She's such a pretty girl!

~Thank you Lord for giving us this special day, this gift of snow and for this happy time with this sweet, sweet, child.

~Jack on the phone with his mom and smiling...sweet. He left work early to come play in the snow!

~I like this picture. A lot.

~red tip peeking out from the snow

~Jack and Madi working on our snowman.

~the snowman before we dressed him... ~working on his look.

~our completed snowman

~after the snowman was built we went to the neighborhood park where Madi and Jack rolled down the hill over and over again...you can imagine where the snow went once inside their clothes...not something I wanted to experience so I watched and laughed. After the park, we drove around again for a few minutes. These horses were out running around. When we drove by, it looked like they were playing together in the snow.
~a little outhouse type building. This picture was also taken while we drove by it.
~A park down the road from our house.

~at the end of the day we let Madi open a gift from her friend Micaela. Because she's having a b-day get together over the weekend with the family, we have asked her to wait to open gifts. Micaela's gift was an exception. The card was a hoot! Madi got a good laugh. Thank you Melinda, Albert, Micaela and Ashley! You guys are always so thoughtful when it comes to Madi. She loves the gift! It's really the perfect gift too because Madison just moved into her new room about a month ago and we have been looking for things to hang on the wall! What better then her own creations?! I will be sure to share pictures when we hang it. You guys are the best!

Thanks to snow, gifts from great friends, tons of phone calls, and her favorite meal (Arroz Con Pollo) made by Jack, Madison had a fantastic Birthday!

We'll do some celebrating this weekend and I'll share some pictures and events in a post later next week.

Hope you have a great weekend!