Clayton's First Football Game!

Clayton went to his first U of I football game this fall. It was the Illinois vs. Ohio State game and it was actually a close game. Clayton was a little tired/getting sick and it rained. We had fun though! I think there had just been a bad play when I took the first picture. Go Illini!

Grants Farm (Cramming in Posts)

Well, I am cramming in as many posts before we hit 2011. We went to Grants farm this fall. The kids had a blast. Clayton loved the carousel. He may look like he enjoyed feeding the goats, but he had a huge melt down. He will tell you to this day about how the goats were eating his legs. We got to see some beautiful Clydesdale's. Oh and every adult gets a few free beers! Always a plus! :)

Flashback-Kate's 2nd Birthday

Thanksgiving weekend, on our way home from Justin's parents we got to attend Kate's 2nd Birthday. I realized I didn't get any pics of Kate. She is the one by the closet in the pic of all the kids. :) I was pretty much trying to keep up with my children. Kids birthday parties are like a workout! Both Maddie and Clayton had a ton of fun playing with everyone and Megan had a yummy activity of decorating donuts. Clayton loved that!

Santa at Cabelas!

What we learned about Santa this year:

1. Clayton is big talk and no follow through. He talked a big game about sitting on Santa's lap and then wanted nothing to do with it.

2. Even if he didn't want to sit on his lap, he had no problem giving him his list or taking a candy cane!

3. He liked the reindeer better than Santa.

4. Cabelas is the place to go. No line and free. (No Santa did not have a gun, although he was in a camo lounge chair)

Cookies Take 1 & Take 2

Clayton and Daddy made some sugar cookies a couple weekends ago. See first 2 pics. They had a few issues and ended up with more of a blob of cookies than anything else. You can see they still celebrated their baking! This last weekend we had a retake and things went much better! Clayton liked to sneak tastes of the icing and of course wanted to use yellow, his favorite color. He liked the gingerbread man cookie cutter the best.
It is so funny to watch these two together.

Eating Food Food for the First Time!

I am a stickler (ha, I am sure hard to believe) and didn't feed my kids anything but breast milk until the were 6 months. So finally in October Maddie got to have her first food, some oatmeal! Clayton wanted to participate. It was pretty funny and I think she seemed to like it better the first time than he did. The first picture is pretty classic. I think she was excited. :)

Can you say ham?!?!?

Madeline's Baptism

Back in time to September, we had Madeline baptised. It was a very nice service and our families were able to be there and we had a great lunch afterwards. Maddie wore her Super Aunt Barb's dress and looked adorable. Big brother loved having everyone around.

Christmas Traditions

I am back to blogging. Life is crazy, but trying to keep things as normal as possible for the kids. We continued our tradition this year of going to a tree farm to pick out our tree. Again we had intentions of cutting one down, but picked a pre-cut one instead. Oh well, it was fun anyway. Clayton loved running around and Maddie liked touching the trees. The decorations are up at the house, but I haven't finished the tree yet. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Justin's family and we have a ton to be thankful for. Hope everyone has a great holiday season.

My goal is to catch the blog up on the last couple of months this week. Stay tuned.

Just Another Friday Night at the Murphys

Fun With Kate and Nora

We were so excited that our friends Megan, Kate and Nora could come down for the whole day today! We had soooooo much fun. Clayton and Kate played and played. They also made their own pizza for dinner. Maddie loved watching all the action. I don't think Nora was overly impressed, but we hope she had fun too!

Um, Matt and Justin, Megan and I decided we need a moms only day next time. :)

Happy Halloween!

Fun With Daddy

When Daddy isn't away working for the cho cho train company, we are having tons of fun this fall. The weather here is unseasonably warm. It is in the mid 80s today. We came home from Galena on Friday and were able to have some nice family time and get about a million things done too. Here are some pics from one of the outdoor projects. Madeline is a good supervisor. :) I say that, but based on these pics there was a lot of fooling around going on!

Halloween Party at the Library

I took Clayton to the Halloween Party at the Galena Library today. He was soo cute as you can see. This isn't his full Cho Cho Conductor outfit, but we imprivised on the fly. He got to hear all kinds of scary stories and was super excited he got a ghost treat bag!

October in Galena

No, we have not disappeared. The kids and I have been in Galena for the past week and my camera battery died so I have been bad at not only taking pics but also updating the blog. I have about 10 posts I need to do, but don't have the pictures now to do them. I wanted to get these up though. We went out on a boat last weekend and the fall colors were amazing. The camera doesn't even begin to do it justice. We are having a blast up here and really love when daddy gets to come see us on the weekends. The fall is so gorgeous up here, hence why Justin and I choose to get married at that time. We got to celebrate our anniversary this weekend with a nice evening out. Mimi and Papa are great babysitters! Clayton and Maddie are having tons of fun. Lots of trips to the park, wagon rides, seeing the moos, playing at the farm, checking out books at the library, going to see the cho cho, and seeing (Great Mimi, Great Papa, Great Grandma, Super Aunt Barb, Super Uncle Dale, Aunt Anna and Uncle David). I even got to go in on Saturday and have coffee and do some shopping with my mom and Aunt Barb.

No new updates on the house really. We have had people come look at the house so that is a good start. I keep reminding myself that we have only been on the market for 2 weeks. It is hard though when we are not all under one roof.

I will get some more posts up one I have my camera battery back working. Hope everyone has a great week!