Happy Birthday Madison!

Today was Madison's 11th birthday. It's been quite an interesting evening for sure. Abby dropped by for about an hour after school and surprised her with a really nice card. That was sweet. She had her last Flames soccer practice prior to their tournament this weekend. I made cupcakes to give to her team after practice. We have had storms rolling through this area tonight so half of her team had left by the time we got there (early) to pick her up. Oh well... that means we have leftover cupcakes at home. : ) After practice we went to Hacienda for supper. Madison invited Heather to go with us this year and we met Aunt Michelle & Jade, and B & P. Madison was quite surprised to find a huge bouquet of balloons from her Uncle Archie sitting on our table. He's in Arizona now. Aunt Michelle arrived with a HUGE poster of Uncle Archie (http://flatdaddies.com/). He didn't get to join us in real life but his poster sat in a chair the whole evening and he even called Madison during supper. We attracted quite the attention! She was quite delighted with a couple of gift cards... as far away as Arizona (Thanks Stutzmans!), Heather gave her a Webkinz (all the rage), a pedicure from Aunt Michelle & Jade, a set of her collectible dishes and gift card from B&P, a black & gold basketball and knapsack from Quinn and an iPOD from Tony and I. She made a haul! We are going to have a birthday party with her friends but not until mid-November (long story).

So... there are really bad storms tonight and we've already had our kids out of bed and down to the basement once. Quinn is such a deep sleeper, he's really hard for me to wake up at this time of night. I basically had to drag him out of bed and carry him all the way to the basement. Nappanee got hit. : ( Tigger is outside and Madison is tearful about her kitty. I'm sure she's hunkered down somewhere and ignoring our calls to come in... not wanting to dash through the rain.

Well, enjoy the pictures.
Love, Leah

PS... I asked Madison what the best part of her day was... it was going to Hacienda and having Uncle Archie "sit" with us at the table and then getting to talk to him on the phone. The best part of my day?... was when my 11 year old birthday girl came downstairs this morning and climbed onto my lap to be held. Her head towers above me when she's on my lap and I can't see a thing but I'm delighted she still wants to sit on my lap and let me hug her and that I'm home in the mornings for her to do that. For now, I'm going to relish in these moments because I'm acutely aware that these moments won't be around forever.