Lipping a fish!

I know most of you clicked over thinking you were going to see a picture of me kissing a fish right?  Ha ha!  Apparantely holding a fish with your thumb in its mouth is called lipping a fish and both Madi and I lipped our first fish this memorial day!  Yeah, we were pretty proud of ourselves and I think Eric was pretty proud of us too! :)  We each caught a blue gill (my first catch since I was 6!  I also caught a bass, but it was too little to keep)

Although we were excited with our catches, Eric walked away the "champion" as Taylor titled him, with his 19 inch bass and a blue gill.  We caught enough for a fish fry that night!  Yum!

This is a picture of Madi's big catch from last weekend when we went camping. 

Weekend storm

The Lord was definitely gracious to us in the storms that swept the midwest this weekend and my heart goes out to the people who endured tornadoes and suffered real damage and injury.  (We were in a tornado warning and turns out an EF1 tornado touched down about 6 or so miles from our house and caused damage to several homes and farms, including the barn of Eric's cousin and other people we know from the community).  But I thought I would share a couple pictures of what did happen in our yard.  A pretty large branch fell our of out tree and branches and sticks are scattered all the way from this large branch to the other end of our house.  Im so thankful that these all flew along side our house instead of into our house!

 Madi made this discovery.  These are branches that were lodged into the ground from the force of the wind!

The girls helped me haul branches back to the garden/burn area for 45 min and we still didnt finish, but they were tired and worked SO hard, so we decided we would finish tommorrow.

Happy Easter

 I introduced the girls to "Robin Egg Lipgloss"! :)  Anyone else into that 'sweet' fashion trend? :)  

Sinterklaas Day

We celebrated Sinterklaas day very simply and quiet this year. We enjoyed a lazy morning of making speculaas cookies, drinking hot apple cider and building the new puzzles the girls had to hunt for.

Madi's Birthday

 Madi turned 5 on Sunday!  She wanted a guitar cake and to dress up like a rockstar.

On Saturday afternoon we had some family over for cake and ice cream.

First Snow

We woke up to our first snow this morning.  The girls were SO excited!  It wasnt much and was pretty much gone by noon but there was enough for a couple of tiny snow men.  You can see the cute little guy the girls worked hard on in between them.  When Eric left for work in the morning he stopped to make a tiny one in the front yard without us knowing about it.  Then when he left he called the girls and told them to look out  the window.  They loved it, except i dont think they were convinced Eric made it- not so sure who they thought did it if he didnt! :)  Crazy girls!

Halloween

This past Saturday the girls went to Papa and Gogo's for a fall/costume party.  Madi chose to go as a ladybug and Taylor chose a pirate.  They had a fun night.  They went for dinner, played some games and even did a craft.

 On Sunday afternoon I decided to set up some carnival type games.  The girls had SO much fun.  We bobbed for apples (the kind of bobbing that did not soak the girls!)  Madi thought it was funny to chase around the apple but Taylor very quickly got mad because she couldnt do it!  Even Eric and I got in on the action- yeah, we couldnt catch our apples either!  (Madi thought she better dress up as a flapper for the day- gotta love after Halloween clearance to help fill their dress up box)

 We played a handful of other simple games, but the girls favorite was the toilet paper dress up! 

 Eric did a much better job of wrapping Taylor than I did on Madi.  The girls thought it was pretty funny to be able to wrap up Eric and I too.

After the games Eric helped the girls carve their pumpkin.  What a fun afternoon!