Making some progress

Some people have requested to see some updated pictures of our house once we moved in all our furniture and have started to decorate.  
Our house is still what I consider a mess, however, we've made some progress.  For now, I'll show you a couple pictures of Mady's room since her room is almost finished.  I need to find some bookshelves and a large mirror to hang over her dresser but other than that, we're pretty much done.  
I apologize for the picture quality on some of the pictures.  The lighting in this room is horrible.  I should definitely take a picture of that light fixture...with its hanging crystals and all.

I made this myself.  It says "you are my sunshine".  It looks way better in person.

I also made the M out of buttons.  This was probably the easiest decoration I've ever made.

Our Brave Girl

Going into the petting zoo, we weren't sure how Mady would do.  She sometimes gets nervous in new settings and it was easy to get overwhelmed with lots of animals roaming about and tons of people.  But she did better than expected!

Everything was going great until this little goat jumped up next to her.

Apparently, Jeremy said, the goat was licking her fingers until she pointed at it. Then it nibbled on her finger.  That was it.  Mady was SO upset!  She burst into tears and cried for a few minutes mainly because it scared her. Here's daddy trying to calm her down.

We stayed for about 5 minutes longer to try to get her to pet a few more animals so she would have a good experience to end on.  She was a brave girl!

Overall I think Mady was more interested in the other kids in the petting zoo rather than the animals.  She kept waving at them and at one point, grabbed another kid to get his attention.  She's definitely a social little girl!

Frontier Days

Some of you know that I am NOT a County/State/Whatever you call it Fair person.  Crazy people, yelling at their children, dressed in who-knows-what is more than I can take.  Combine that with the gross germy feeling everything you touch has and the fact that most of the "displays" (at least in Kansas and Oklahoma) are boring.  I mean who cares about the different types of grass competition?
BUT I was pleasantly surprised about Frontier Days in Cheyenne.
Yes there were the occasional person who was dressed in some "interesting attire" but for the most part, many people were dressed in full on cowboy gear which was cool for me.  Beer was served but there weren't any crazy things happening.  No yelling at children was observed and most things were decently clean for being a fair type atmosphere.  
I really enjoyed it!  
My favorite part though was watching Mady on the Carousel.  She was so excited to ride the horses she could hardly contain herself!  Normally Mady is very cautious of new things but not this time!

Before we got on the ride!

Standing in line.

Waiting for the ride to start!

She waved, giggled, and smiled every time she came by!

It was totally worth the $3 we spent!
We also indulged in some fair food.  Jeremy got some fresh kettle corn and Mady LOVED it!  She wouldn't touch Mama's favorite though, Cotton Candy.  
We had a great time and will be heading back on Saturday to do the petting zoo and check out the Indian Village.  

This Week...

Daddy had to go back to work so Miss Mady was stuck with just mom.  We tried to have lots of fun and explore our new town.
1. We went on walks in the morning.  Cheyenne has this wonderful trail system called the GreenWay which is about 1/4 mile from our house.  The GreenWay can take you all across town. 

These pictures were taken on our walk on Sunday with Daddy!

2. We read lots of books.

3. We ate our afternoon snack outside and watched an air show.  Yes, those of you from Oklahoma and Kansas, we can actually spend time outside in the afternoon.  The high temperature for today is 83.

4. We played with a flour sensory tub.

5. Mady "helped" me organize her room.  I'm finding it hard to get a lot of things organized when I have such a great "helper" around:-)

Tonight we're checking out Frontier Days, the huge Rodeo that's in town. It should be fun!

Colorado Trip

In between closing on our house and moving in, we squeezed in a Colorado trip to my parents house in Leadville, Colorado.  It's absolutely beautiful there!  I was pretty exhausted from the closing and painting Mady's room that I didn't take very many pictures.  We had such a wonderful time with family (my brother, sister-in-law, and their 2 kids plus my sister and brother-in-law and my parents were all there!).  
We went to the fish hatchery again like we did last year.  Mady enjoyed it so much more this year and even fed the fish!

We also went on several hikes.  She loves riding on Daddy's back!

We had a wonderful vacation and will be heading back to Colorado again soon! We're only 3 1/2 hours from my parents Colorado house so it will be fun to make more memories there!

We're Here!

We made it to Cheyenne!  
On Sunday we drove 11.5 hours and got to Cheyenne around 3:30 PM.  Normally the drive would take between 9 and 10 hours but when the 26ft Penske truck wouldn't go over 70 mph on the highway, it took a lot longer.  Thanks to the amazing invention of a portable DVD player, Mady was quite content watching cartoons and Sesame Street.
When we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised that a local church we visited provided 10 or so guys to help us unpack.  We had contacted the church earlier this summer to see if they could help us by sending 2-3 guys to move the big furniture since we would only have my parents and Jeremy's parents here to help. Instead they sent 10 guys and provided us with dinner too!  It was such a blessing!
Our truck was unpacked and in our house in less than 2 hours.  We spent the rest of the evening making beds and getting a few necessary things unpacked.  
Our house is beginning to slowly look like home.  Mady's room is pretty much done except for not having anything on the walls.  The basement is another story.  This is where we have all the "i-don't-know-what-to-do-with-this-or-where-to-put-it" junk and so it still needs some help.  
In the next day or so I'll post some "in progress" house pictures but until then I'll show a few of the pictures before we moved in.